In defense of Germany

[alexvand]

I'm curious how others would defend this situation. Check out the map below. It's J/A 1944. I'm wondering if its better to try and hold the allies where they are or to give up a couple of hexes to get behind the river line. The allies have significant air superiority, the german units are not all high quality. The western allies each have one o-chit, which I suspect will be used for super-combineds on their first impulse.

How would you defend this?

[davidachamberlain]

ORIGINAL: alexvand

I'm curious how others would defend this situation. Check out the map below. It's J/A 1944. I'm wondering if its better to try and hold the allies where they are or to give up a couple of hexes to get behind the river line. The allies have significant air superiority, the german units are not all high quality. The western allies each have one o-chit, which I suspect will be used for super-combineds on their first impulse.

How would you defend this?

Definitely not a pretty sight.

This is really a reverse of the defence of France, Belgium, and Netherlands. You need to use the river lines on the French border, in Belgium, the German border. Double stack everything you can.

To thwart to o-chits, so something similar to what USSR will do. Set up your river line and put a few low cost units (MIL, GAR) on cities and forest that are spread out to simply slow them down while you keep rebuilding those units and moving them on to the front. I can't see what is happening in Italy, but the fact that there are no units in the Alps is a good sign.

Also move all of your artillery close to your front. That AA unit in Munich should be at/behind your front in France.

Avoid situations where the Allies can get 3 hexes on one of yours. A straight line, where possible using the mountains in the South as an anchor.

Pull back your 7-1 Garrison to beside Lille and use them in an attack on Boulogne or the Mech beside Lille. They are going to die where they are. They might as well go down fighting in a fair odds attack.

Also keep in mind that one of your goals is to give up fewer units than you can build.

Pay attention to the coast since you can count on shore bombardment.

Dave

[brian brian]

no, don't launch any attacks. when you are on the defense that is how the offense makes the greatest progress. the Germans would maybe, maybe not lose a unit and the advanced American spearhead would just retreat at best - unless the Panzers were committed to create an Assault, and then the Allied rocket-FTRs would appear en masse and shut that down completely. the most likely result would just be a bunch of flipped German units the Allies would gobble up easily. it's more fun gaming to attack but it's smarter not to do so.

in this situation, move the black print unit out of Bolougne to re-restablish supply and then move the GARR out second. that will buy Lille an impulse, but keep it stacked temporarily with 3 units. after that reduce it to one "trade-in" unit.

for the coming Axis impulse, concentrate available Panzers, including the SS Mech division, in the hex south-east of Brussels. with a 2 hex front, the Allies probably won't be able to attack a stack of tanks in a clear hex. if they try and Ground Strike it, defend it hard with the Luftwaffe. ignore all other Allied Ground Strikes, as those will just be on cities you have no choice but to trade for time anyway. after one impulse, withdraw the Panzers from the Brussels front and just stack up infantry in the factory cities of Belgium and use the Panzers to hold clear hexes behind the rivers.

in the south, attempt to trade in each of the 4 linear hexes in front of the WestWall for one impulse each. MAYBE you can get away with trading in just one unit in each. this might require trading in a unit in the hex in front of the Rhine on the Swiss border. everything here depends on the new German reinforcements in their cities, but overall they have little choice but to try and re-build a line on the Rhine and hope it rains in September while the Allies gobble up speed bumps.

late in the turn, just hope the Allies have a little reluctance to create the first German production boost, depending on where the Russians are.

[michaelbaldur]

dont think it look that bad ..

the allies need to take many in supply city hexes. it is a pain to take them.

yes Germany is going down, but Berlin is a long way away

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I agree with Brian, no attacks. What difference will it make if you kill off 3 Allied units? What difference would it make it all the attacking units became disorganized? I think the risk far exceeds the reward.

As Michael said, hold the cities with at least 1 unit. The Allied player won't like having to make assaults. If his attacking units become disorganized they will be idle the rest of the turn, or an HQ somewhere will become idle (disorganized).

Clear hexes are death for the Germans unless they are behind a river. Double stacking in clear hexes (even behind rivers and in cities) is risky too. The Allied tactical bombers would love to ground strike a hex with 3 units in it.

The armor and mechanized and HQ have to find forest hexes to avoid ground strikes.

The line Antwerp p Brussels - Liege -> Saarbrucken - Karlsruhe - Stuttgart - Rhine river looks best. I don't know if there are enough Germans to hold that though.

===

So the 4-1 goes to Lille to die, The units in Lille go to Antwerp, the unit in Belgian clear hexes go east. I'd move the 4-3 Inf to the forest and have the 8-5 armor adjacent in the other forest hex. Let the 3-3 militia die in Metz. Pull the 6-1 garrison back 1 hex, and get as many other units into the aforementioned line as possible (especially the Rhine river line.

Leave the heavy AA where they are. Defending the oil and factories is still important.

[alexvand]

The heavy AA isn't going anywhere. That's where the Synth plants are hiding. Now that the allies have almost total air superiority and have STR in Italy that can reach there's a real threat to that supply of oil. Have to keep the oil flowing!

[alexvand]

So, here's what I did. No attacks, I don't way any face down units to get easily wiped out. I just couldn't abandon all those hexes without at least contesting them. It felt wrong to run away to the river lines so soon. It may cost me in those clear hexes, we'll see if what's left of the Luftwaffe can keep the ground strikes away.

The garrison and the 4-3 a left to buy an impulse.

[paulderynck]

With a land o-chit the 4-3 is likely overrun and vaporized as a prelude to an attack on one of the hexes behind it.

[alexvand]

True enough, but my opponent likes to use his ochits for super-combineds in order to get all his air into action. He's only got one.

[AlbertN]

Why Munich is fully fortified? That's a helluva of BPs wasted that could have been useful in other ways.

[alexvand]

ORIGINAL: Cohen

Why Munich is fully fortified? That's a helluva of BPs wasted that could have been useful in other ways.

An experiment.

Gearing limits earlier meant BPs that couldn't be spent easily, so decided to try building Hitler's final bunker.

Maybe it'll let Germany hold on for one more impulse late in the game.

Or maybe it's a waste.

One reason I like MWiF. It's pretty easy to setup a game and try new stuff. Much more so than when setting up the game over the table.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

You had a lot more units available than I thought you had.

But still, Axis units in clear terrain are vulnerable. The Allies will get at least 3 impulses this turn, more likely 4 or 5.

[AlbertN]

I personally think these forts are a big waste. Better to have more planes and troops when you have more ground and more production in general.
And when the Allies will arrive around there ... it won't be forts stopping them - they won't be stopped (unless by rolling 2s!)

I've seen a Gibraltar fortified.
Leningrad to an extent. Dneprcity to "extent" the Dnepr line with forts. Even the forest hex between Smolensk and the swamp north west being fortified. Alexandria (from only 2 hexesides) getting forts too.
These are the kind of forts that have a meaning.

[AlbertN]

Additional note - unasked for - but I suggest you play your next game without the unlimited divisions. Divisions are cheap "losses", the INF / MOT ones. And with a finite amount they cannot be anywhere and always ready.