Axis players guide.

[tyronec]

Axis players guide – WITE2.
This guide has been written primarily based on my own experience of play, so take it as an indicator rather than necessarily accurate. It is written primarily for MP play and with TB closed.
Last updated, patch 3.07.

The priorities for Axis in the early war are:
Pocket/destroy enemy units.
Extend the rail lines.
Take Victory objectives.
Without eliminating a lot of Soviet units throughout the first summer the advance will soon grind to a halt.

Air war (manual operations, have not used the auto system).
T1 bombing.
There are two general approaches:
1. Bomb the Soviets fighters within range of Luftwaffe fighter cover, then take out their bombers using GS during the land phase. You should be able to get around 3k kills for 100 or so losses during the air phase and another 1k or so during the ground phase..
2. As above but also use your LBs to bomb beyond Luftwaffe air cover, can easily get another 1-2k kills during the air phase at the cost of a few hundreds of LBs.
Delete all the pre-set GA and recon directives. There is no need for recon on T1. All aircraft should be used to inflict maximum damage to the VVS. Ground support is unnecessary.
Short range bombers should be used to take out the close bases. Use fighter escort where possible. AS is not helpful to support your airbase bombing.
The directives to set up are:
Ground attack by TACs and 110’s against close airbases (target priority airfield).
Ground attack by LBs against further away airfields.
The Hungarian LBs need to be moved to air bases nearer the border, you also need to move forward the Luftwaffe fighters in Romania and could reinforce with more LBs.
Other aircraft can be moved forwards to get better targets (for example some JU87’s could be moved to attack the airbases around L’Vov).
There are diminishing returns for bombing throughout the week, Bomb on D1.
Will get a few more kills if you reduce the altitude (just for T1) to 5k.
Airbase bombing is not productive for Axis after T1.
Also see this AAR: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 2&t=397041
During the ground phase delete all of the GA directives. Set GA ON so that more fighters will intercept the now largely unescorted Soviet bombers (you can set it OFF for some attacks if no Soviets are turning up). Move fighters forwards to captured airbases and resupply them as required to keep them within range.

Air bases.
As I understand it ‘Ops’ losses are related to miles flown. So air groups operating from a long way behind the front line will suffer heavier Ops losses. Further, there are multipliers for miles flown during bad weather. Thus there is a benefit in locating air groups as far forwards as possible. If there is a shortage of front line airbases you can switch AOGs around during the ground phase to bring more into action.
Consider building or expanding air bases where they are needed, the AI will usually assign an SU for each one. It does take supplies. You also need to consider that forward air bases will draw supplies away from the ground troops so there is no simple calculation here.
However see the section on Supply, there is a conundrum for Axis as to when to use the Luftwaffe to support the ground war and when to rest it so that more supplies go to the Panzers.

Ground support.
The most effective use for Axis bombers. Have your AOGs set to GS and you can switch it on and off accordingly as air support is needed for important attacks. You can lose a lot of aircraft doing GS so use it only for the important attacks, heavy GS makes quite a difference. Also consider what Soviet AA they are going to fly over, I would not use GS against cities with good AA or where the flight path takes them over a lot of Soviet equipped with AA. You can check AA levels in game even for units that are not showing as visible.
Be mindful that TACs and LBs absorb a lot of supplies, so only start moving them forwards and using aggressively when your supply situation is good enough to support them.

Ground attack.
Use GA-unit to concentrate massive air power against an individual unit, this has been nerfed somewhat in recent patches and some gets converted to interdiction. The disruption doesn’t carry forwards into combat like with GS, however this mission may be useful if you have just one or two critical attacks. I would not be using GA-Unit in ‘41, however it may have some value late war to help break a pocket.
I have not used the other GA target options as Axis.

Naval Interdiction.
There are 4 patrol air groups and Kgr806 with Ju88s. Other LBs are moderate for naval interdiction. Stukas are hopeless. Do equip them with mines if the load out is available.
If the Soviets garrison the likes of Odessa or Sevastapol with a strong City Fort they will be hard to capture without Isolating first.
If you expect to cut off a Soviet port this turn then set up a Naval Interdiction directive to isolate it by sea. Best to do a single strike with 50+ aircraft for maybe 2-4 days, that way you can sustain it for several turns. Note that the interdiction covers hexes in the flight path so you only need to interdict the one hex as long as the flight path is set up correctly. You can set the directive to interdict a couple of hexes offshore (like in a semicircle), that way there will be less AA from the port. It takes 3 phases to Isolate: Friendly, Enemy, Friendly.
When Leningrad is cut off by land it can be isolated in a similar way by interdicting Osinovets (bombing ports is not too effective). However this can cost a lot of aircraft from AA and the VVS are well located to intervene.
If soviet aircraft are around can either set up an air superiority AD OR include them in the Patrol AD.
You can usually isolate ports against the AI, more difficult against a human opponent who is reacting with fighters and counter Naval Patrols.
The BV138Cs will not survive a lot of interdiction missions because of the attrition of ops losses.
Plan to isolate any ports during clear or snow turns, interdiction effectiveness is greatly reduced during bad weather and you could throw away a lot of aircraft and accomplish nothing.
Naval Interdiction by LBs does use up a lot of supply so consider if you need it or if the job could be done just using ground troops.

Recon.
I generally set up AOGs with around 3-4 Recon air groups each. A radius of 1-2 on 1 day only will do a reasonable job of the whole front line, run it for more days if you need more accurate information.
Recon works along their path as well as the destination area.
As you advance move the AOG forwards and reset the AD.
You can afford to lose a lot of recon aircraft in ’41 when recon is most important.

Fighter cover.
AS is essential to protect against Soviet GA. You must have your fighter airbases covered and in general the front line protected. During the air phase move your fighters forwards, resupply the airbase if need be (right click if it is showing short), and set up or shift your AS directives. If you can’t get supplies there it will have to wait till next turn. Air supply with transports may allow for airbase resupply if was not otherwise available. You can do the AS with just one air group, other fighters within range will join in if there are interceptions. It is possible to split off individual air groups to cover more of the front.
Fighter cover is important, you may want to plan your advance around the capture of airbases so as not to leave yourself exposed to the VVS.

Transports.
Use to fly supplies to your lead units. Consider where you want them to operate from, closer to the front and they will get more missions but will be drawing from supply that could be used directly. They need to be based on airbases that are within 3 hexes of a depot that has good supply. Supplying to an airbase is twice as effective, so you may want to do air supply to the lead Panzer/Mot units during the turn rather than at the end of it. If supplying to a hex without a depot a temporary depot will be created. Supplies can go to units within one hex of the supply target or to a permanent/temp depot. Preserve your transports, so avoid flying them over or adjacent to heavy Soviet AA.
Give your JU52s drop tanks.
Do not fly air supply with LBs, it uses up APs.

Admin.
Set all air groups to Auto upgrade, except the two F-4s. Keep these on manual and use in the most contested area of the front until the F-4 replacements become available (new air types in the pool are not available to upgrade for several turns).
Note that drop tanks are only available on T1/2.
At the start of each turn set any air groups on low morale (<50) to rest.
Aircraft, and in particular bombers, use lots of supply. Consider carefully before moving them up to the front if they are going to draw supply away from your Panzers, so leave them where they are if you are not going to use them. I would generally keep the LBs behind the start line if they can operate within range from there. You could also wait until there is a surplus of supply showing at the depots before moving anything but single engine FBs and Recon up the line. This is a complicated area of the game so am really suggesting what to look at rather than having come to any conclusions.

Don’t send air groups to the RESERVE that you intend to use later in the game, they will lose their good pilots.

Don’t overload your airbases unless you have to, will cause you more ops losses. Two engine aircraft take up twice the space as single engine.
Keep AOGs sorted by aircraft type as far as possible, especially for Recon which have very different ranges.

Pilots.
Put fighters on TPI.

Load-Outs.
Use many small bombs against unentrenched targets and larger bombs against targets in fortifications. The AI generally manages this OK.
For naval patrol use mines. Some LBs can carry two. The Naval aircraft (Kgr 806 plus the He 114s) are best.

Manage your air force so that it maintains a suitable strength. If the Luftwaffe is getting run down you are over using it.


Supply
Supply is fundamental to WITE2. Read the manual well and there is much advice on the Forum.
Axis have a significant freight penalty until April ’42 and further penalties during the first winter.
Have a plan for your rail network, this is the first step before start doing anything !
Initially you don’t need rail lines joined up, what is wanted is as many double and single rail lines as possible and leading East - so a like a tree growing East rather than a network, at least for the early game. However there are some places where it is helpful to have extra lines feeding into a depot, for example Minsk or Brest-Litovsk.

Obvious doubles include:
Vilnius – Vitebsk – Smolensk – Vyazma – Moscow
Minsk – Gomel –Kursk/Orel OR Minsk – Smolensk…
L’Vov – Vinnitsa – Fastov – D’town – Stalino
If you are going to take another one or two lines East then design them so there is not a bottleneck.
A typical set up would be to have one FBD on each of these 3 lines, possibly one heading towards Leningrad and the Romanians working their way along the coast.
The capacity of a double is 30k (which equates to around 6k of supplies forwards per turn) and a single 12k but in practice the singles can provide something around 60% of the supplies of a double. Rail yards with a capacity > 1 are important to your network, make sure any available get linked in.
These help even if they are not on your main track going forwards, so for example on the L’Vov to D’town line it helps to link up with Cherkassy and Kirovograd. Supply seems to work better if your E/W rail lines are not linked up, at least in the early game. Linked networks can cause bottlenecks during the logistics phase and less supply gets through.

As well at the 5 FBDs (the Rumanian one withdraws T14) there are 7 RAD SUs that will repair rail lines. You can put them with a Corps HQ to manage where they do their repairs. You get a lot of captured rail, T1-4, in the Baltics and a few SUs can do a great job linking up any gaps. It is possible to get supply to Lenningrad if you make sure you capture all the useful Baltic rail in the first 4 turns and use the RAD SUs (assigned to Corps HQs) to repair the gaps. Note that if there is combat in a hex it will always be damaged, also if it is recaptured. Once the Romanian FBD disbands you will get 4 more rail SUs from that.

Depot priority.
Set all depots West of Berlin to 0. If they become damaged by Allied bombing then increase to 1 and get them repaired or it can effect production.
Set all depots East of Berlin to 1-4.

Front line depots.
Build new depots as you advance every 3-5 hexes along the rail line, if you can build them ahead of the railhead all the better. Hexes that already have railyards are better because they start with a partial damage as against 100% damage for new railyards. The turn after they are built assign a construction SU (yes, this costs a lot of APs). In general maybe the lead 5 depots will be on Priority 4 and receiving 1-2k of supplies each.

Pulsing.
This is a method by which you fill up depots behind the front line and then push the supplies forwards by lowering the priority.
On T1 set depots near the front line to 4. Then on T2 set them down to 1 which will push the supplies forwards towards the front line. Then next turn they are set up so that they fill up again.

Axis will need a good network of depots behind the front line for the first winter, and for the autumn mud turns. You need to plan for this when you are looking at how far to advance, there is not much point in capturing a lot of terrain that is so far away from where you can get a working depot that any units there during the winter will not be able to be supplied. So you really want most of your front line to be within 3 hexes of a working depot, and then structure the blizzard defense to defend any critical parts of the rail network.

Set supply priorities for HQs. A high priority will pull more supplies to that HQ. However if it is a long way from a good supply source that will burn a lot of trucks. A general base would be 3 for Panzer Corps, 2 for German Infantry Corps and 1 for Allies. If you have good supply and are near to a depot then increase it. Also consider keeping allied troops back so that they are not using valuable supply capacity at the end of a long supply line. So the Romanians can be used for mopping up pockets and protecting against kamikaze incursions well behind the front line. If you have too high a supply priority then you may actually get less MPs because some trucks are trying to ship supplies long distances.

Use all the tools that are available to monitor your supply network – the Logistics report (Shift-E), Depots (N), Supply tracks (8), Rail network (R). With the Depots visible you can also see track usage and spot bottlenecks, multiply the display number by 6 to compare with rail capacity, yellow means they are getting full.

Check where the rail yards are (industry toggle key) before building depots, it is better to start with a depot on damaged rail yard than with a new one. Also look for rail yards of level 2 or higher, these are the ones that have the best capacity and also are critical to moving supplies up the chain. Your rail nets should be designed around where the large rail yards are. It is worth linking in level 2 or greater rail yards to your network even if they on not on the main line of advance. There are maps available where people have plotted their locations.

If a German FBD sits for the whole turn on a Depot you will get greatly increased delivery next turn, generally referred to as a Super Depot. This seems to work just as well for small or damaged rail yards as for big ones. Just make sure all other depots on the same line are on 3’s or lower.
HQs also increase capacity for damaged Depots, particularly useful for the smaller depots when they are being repaired.
RAD SUs will deploy to within 5 hexes of a Corps HQ if they are assigned to it, which is the best way to manage them. They will deploy to repair hexes that are next to an undamaged rail hex (it doesn’t need to be linked up) which makes them particularly useful in the Baltics. They will not deploy next to an enemy unit or within 2 hexes of one unless it is friendly occupied. They prioritise double track rail.

Naval supply.
The Baltic and Black sea have supply ships than can be used to ship supplies forwards. Right click on the sea zone to see how many ships you have.
Only use one supply route in each sea for any turn.
Baltic – use one port West of Berlin to be your Export port (maybe Kiel or Rostock). Once they are captured use one of the Baltic states as your Import port. Set the other ports so that they are not used. So you might have Kiel on 2, Riga on 3 and Pskov on 4 to get naval supply routed to Pskov. It works better if the supply through the Baltics is not linked up to the Smolensk line, that way you can put your lead depots on 4 without drawing away from supplies towards Moscow.
Black Sea – use Constanta as your Export port and Odessa, Nikolaev,… as your Import port. Put Constanta on 4 on T1 and reduce it when you start using Naval supply. Put the target port on 4 but keep other depots in the area on 3 so they won’t draw supplies away from Constanta.
Captured ports will begin to work two turns after capture.

I would normally put all my combat units on 50% TOE during '41 and just set them back to 100% TOE when they are being refitted on Depots. Otherwise they will draw a lot of your rail capacity away with weekly replacements for losses. As the campaign advances have just a few units on REFIT on Depots with an HQ on each of your main rail lines.

SUs.
It uses no rail capacity to transfer SUs around. Some SUs can be assigned directly to Divisions, consider these as your super-mobile troops that can be refitted with ease and used to boost your shock troops. Convert all the Multi-role units to SUs. Move OKH on Berlin to facilitate SU refits, you will miss out on some leader rolls because of the range.
Only attach motorised SUs to motorised units. Note that only some pioneers are motorised.

Artillery - 6 per infantry corps.
Assorted infantry/AT/Pioneers - can be assigned to combat divisions. If used with mot/Pz divisions will give you more combat power but with a fuel overhead.
Stug/Flamm Pz – as above, however there is a limited number of AFVs available so they will get worn down.
AA – Some can be assigned to combat divisions. They only fight in defence but if they have 88's in particular they can be quite powerful. Some AA can be detached from city defence at an AP cost and attached to units.
If the VVS is active then AA will help to protect your combat units and airfields. Can have them attached to combat units or with HQs, they cover their own hex and adjacent hexes. They do not get activated against air attack the way SU’s do for ground combat. AA SUs will do damage to the VVS if the Soviets are being aggressive but will not stop a heavy attack.

Pioneers, Flamen Panzers and the heaviest guns help to reduce fort levels.

First winter.
Two general approaches to help units survive the Soviet offensive are 1. Get well entrenched or 2. Retreat two hexes a turn to avoid deliberate attacks by enemy infantry. Probably you will want to use a mix of these on different areas of the front. What you don’t want is units pushed back and then heavily attacked again in the same turn.
Supply is critical, have the whole front line within 3 hexes of a depot, super depots may help to keep them stocked. But try and build up supply stocks early.
You can build 18 forts. They will not start functioning until they are at 10% TOE so have them on REFIT till they reach that and Max TOE a little higher. Attach construction/pioneers while they are fortifying. Once they reach Level 3 you can disband and build somewhere else, just keep a weak unit there so that the fortification doesn’t degrade. Disband before combat or you may lose the manpower.
Panzers take hellish losses during the winter, use them for fortifying or defending cities and avoid moving them around.
Motorised infantry on the other hand are useful for counter attacks.

Trucks.
If units are short of trucks their combat power will drop, also supply delivery will deteriorate.
You can monitor your vehicle situation on the production screen.
To preserve your truck stock:
Pocket and kill Soviet armor/mech units, which captures trucks.
Do not attach non-motorised SUs to Panzer/Mot units.
Keep your units within moderate MPs range of their supply depots, and if they are within 3 hexes they will use no trucks for supply at all.
If units are a long way from depots then drop their supply priority.
Limit TOE of infantry divisions to 50%.
Don’t make strong advances over really bad terrain without supporting depots very close.

Administration Points.
The prime use if for building Depots. Build them before your FBDs get there so they can be being repaired. Also assign construction SU’s to critical depots for faster repair (not the turn they are captured).
Replace leaders as the APs become available. The cost of leader replacement is dependent on the political rating of the next leader up the command chain.
As winter ’41 approaches you can have up to 18 Forts deployed (cost 4 AP each) so save up some APs.

Administration.
Start of turn:
Reset all combat units to Normal (if you had any on Refit or Reserve)

End of turn.
Build new Depots.
Prioritise Depots.
Pulsing.
Move HQ’s onto primary supply Depots.
Check any combat troops on Depots are on Refit mode.
On Commanders report check HQs are within command limits.
Air supply.
Spend any surplus APs on upgrading leaders.
Any SU movement.
Check if any Reinforcements are newly arrived or unfrozen (shift-r)
Check if any new air units have arrived.
Put SUs at OKH on Refit.
Check all the FBDs have been used and HQs are positioned for rail SU deployment.

Display CVs.
Are very different from actual CV, read the manual to see what the Display CV includes.
Any unit with a Morale below 50 will have an inflated Display CV (early war Soviets typically by 3x). Likewise Axis Panzer units will have a deflated display CV because of their high morale and tanks (which are under rated).
Units defending cities often get their CVs increased in combat.
Isolated units have their Display CV halved, but in practice their CV only drops slowly. So the first turn of Isolation their actual CV will be higher than suggested, while after a few turns or it will begin to drop.
Sometimes you can guesstimate an enemy CV better by looking at the unit type and the terrain/fortification level that by looking at the display value, so if you see an early Soviet Infantry Division in open terrain with a CV of 5 or so it is likely bogus. Display Attack CV and Defensive CV are calculated separately, so if they are more different than is justified by the terrain then one or other (or both) is bogus.
Units heavily fatigued or low on supplies will have overrated CVs. So a Panzer division could push back an Infantry division in two sequential attacks but fail in a third one because the attacker has lost more combat power than the defender (this can feel quite different to WITE1).

Also numbers count, so a Brigade in Fortified Heavy Woods will often lose if attacked by several infantry divisions, even if the CVs suggest otherwise.


T1 attack.
It is essential to pocket as much as possible on T1.
Note that there is no Combat Delay for 10:1 hasty attack even if they have an adjacent unit except in the South.
AGN should take the two easy ports. Assault Riga (you can usually take with it one Divisions). Clear the rail lines for T2. It is not necessary to attack most of the Soviets, just make a way through and at least some infantry should advance as far as possible. Use a stack of 2+ infantry divisions to make hasty attacks on the critical hexes to make a hole with no Combat Delay.
AGC. Clear out Brest-Litovsk so the FBD can get moving. Be prepared to break down motorised divisions to force Soviets to retreat in the direction you want. There is merit in moving a few units from PG2 to AGS where the terrain is more open. Try and take out as many of the pocketed Soviet depots as possible to reduce their supplies. Pocketed units still take a couple of months to degrade on their own but everything helps.
AGS. Note that any Soviets East of Romania are frozen T1. If you don't want to activate the Southern Front then keep clear of the activation zone. There are two strategic choices; push down to Romania on T1 to make a pocket South of L’Vor OR push as far East as possible to Tarnapol and Proskorov without activating the Southern Front and make the pocket on T2. Also beware that movement can be a bit strange around the boundary between AGC and AGS because the ‘no ZOC’ rule doesn’t apply in the South. The attack is difficult, lots of Soviets are on Reserve and ZOCs are active. Try to break through the front line and advance adjacent to the 2nd line units so they don’t activate. The aim should be to clear the rail line and advance East/SE. Just remember, the 1st objective is to pocket as much as possible, in particular Tank/Mech divisions to capture their trucks.

There is much detailed advice on the Forum as to how to play T1 and to manipulate combats so that more Soviet will end up in pockets.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=389766
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=400262
and many AARs that cover it.

Don’t be concerned about over running airbases, a few extra aircraft kills is of little importance.

T2-3. It is important to advance as fast and grab a lot of terrain while the Soviets are very weak. This is particularly important for AGC and to some extent AGN. So it may be better to rout scattered Soviet units out of the way rather than trying to pocket them which will slow things up. Also it is difficult to make good pockets until your infantry catch up.

T4 onwards. Priorities are a combination of clearing the rail lines for the FBDs, making pockets, trashing Soviet units, protecting converted rail and keeping your army up to strength.

Consider that you have three parts to the army.
Panzer armies are making the pockets and clearing the way forwards.
Some infantry are following the Panzers at full speed and should maintain their PPs, ready for combat as required.
The rest are there to mop up the pockets, keep the soviets trapped and protect flanks and the rail lines.

Ground combat.
Only do attacks that are useful; pocketing units is critical for Axis. You can also do a lot of damage by overrunning moderate unstacked units in particular early game. The art of WITE2 is getting the balance between these two approaches. Deliberate attacks do more damage for less losses than Hasties at the same odds.

Once the front lines have settled down, around T4 or so, you will be faced with a solid Soviet front line. One approach is to break through with the infantry and create a pocket with the Panzers. Another is to push Soviet units to retreat (to open terrain if possible) and then hit the same units with Panzers – this can cause exceptionally heavy losses, also referred to as ‘Grinding’.

The heavy fighting needs to be done by the infantry. Aim to be attacking with some units while others are resting and building up CPPs. Typically you might have 1/3 Infantry attacking, 1/3 Infantry advancing and guarding flanks and 1/3 Infantry static and building up CPPs. Have your best infantry under Assault HQs, the Panzer Armies can take on an extra Corps or two of Infantry.

As units get worn down REFIT a few each turn. Have them on a depot, with an HQ, and for the REFIT turn set their TOE back up to 100%. You can check the Active Pool on the Production screen to see what equipment is available.

Use Reserve activations to help break a strong front line.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=400460

Take care of your Panzers, losses are likely to outstrip replacements while Motorised units can rebuild from the general pool. You can get heavy tank losses from:
Fighting Soviet tanks.
Heavy combats at mediocre odds.
VVS action.
So if you can do the attacking with the Mot. units (and in particular SS) and seal the pockets with the Panzers.

Once you have a gap send motorised units through to control where the Soviets retreat to and limit reserve activations.
Cities and in particular Urban are strong defensive points, for example Smolensk could hold up the whole advance for a couple of turns or more. It is far better to pocket it before the FBD gets there than to be faced with a heavy frontal assault. A close pocket of Panzer regiments (or even Mot divisions) is unlikely to hold as the Soviets will usually have the strength to counter attack.
Guard your flanks, Soviet cavalry can easily move through a defensive screen without interlocking ZOCs. If they get to your active rail line it can break up the whole offensive. Use weaker units to form a second line with ZOCs if there are gaps or potential gaps in the front line.
Avoid exposed weak units on the front line. A good Soviet player will be trying to build up WINS to boost morale and create Guards units, so limit their chances of easy attacks. Regimenting divisions may be OK for the first few turns but soon they will become targets for counter attack.

Urban hexes are heavy going to assault frontally, if the Soviets stack three good divisions you would want at least two hexes to attack from and fresh units with many pioneers and arty support.
If it as a port you can only make one deliberate attack per turn.

Combat delay
Critical to playing the game, high odds battles mean less combat delay and less CPP loss for your units.
Sometimes it is possible to get a 10:1 hasty on a weak detached enemy unit so that there is no combat delay.

CPP gain.
Units out of contact get double gain.
Assault HQs give you double gain.
And make sure the command chain up to Army Group is not overloaded and within range, otherwise you lose the bonuses.

Soviet manpower evacuations.
Attacking a Soviet hex with manpower from turn 3 onwards causes manpower evacuations, so avoid or limit it where you can. If you have to attack a city then aim to take it with one assault.

Allies.
Allied units are truly rubbish, this is not WITE1. There may be a case for using the elite units for combat, if you do then transfer them to German HQs (there is some spare capacity after the first few turns). The rest use for flipping hexes, a second line of defense to stop Tank/Cavalry incursions or possibly to defend strong positions like cities/swamps/major rivers (but only under German HQs). You can also use them to screen pockets once they have been bypassed, works well against the AI. Do not use them to reduce pockets until the defenders are down to a CV or 0.1 or so. Using Allied using for combat expends supplies that would better go to German units and replacing any casualties will use up valuable rail capacity.
You can assign allied SUs to German units, this may work OK and if they get trashed they can easily be sent home to Refit.

Grand Strategy.
It is hard work to take Leningrad against a skilled Soviet player, much dense terrain.
Moscow is also challenging with a good defensive position around Smolensk and more terrain as you approach the capital.
The South is where it is easiest to attack because of the open terrain however a skilled Soviet player will retreat fast enough to deny you the chance of doing much damage.
You also need to spread your forces, concentrating on just one or even two directions will strain the supply capacity.
Port hop along the two coasts to get extra supplies in by sea. If the Soviets strongly garrison the ports then make them pay for it by Isolating with Naval Patrols and forcing the Surrender.

Axis will only win in ‘41 if the Soviet player makes major mistakes.
There are prospects for a win in ‘42 if you can take Moscow in ‘41 or ‘42. Failing that it may be possible to get the VPs by taking Lenningrad or Stalingrad plus enough other objectives.
Moscow has some very difficult terrain to fight through. To take it in ‘41 you will have to pocket it before the mud turns, this is a big ask.
AGS should be able to get to Rostov and even beyond in ‘41. Take Sevastapol before the mud if possible, or if not during the snow turns. You are probably not going to be able to cross Kerch against strong opposition. Unlike WITE1 it is possible to take large areas of the map between Rostov and Moscow in ‘41 because the supply systems are so different, but to keep all the FBDs moving requires you to make progress against the Kiev area in good time.

Playing the AI.
This is primarily written about playing Axis in the Campaign with the Soviets on 110. Playing at NORMAL will be a lot easier; good luck to anyone who can take on the AI at 120 !
First you need to understand how the AI plays. Units that are not pocketed or ZOC’d have unlimited movement (except on NORMAL setting), so the AI will attempt to rebalance it’s whole front line every turn. It likes to have two solid lines of units but will go with one if that is all that the troops it has available. All of them will be on Reserve so you can expect lots of Activations.
So you don’t need to be winning across the whole front, keep pocketing larger numbers of units in the South and the whole line will begin to thin out, or at least get weaker.
Activations are a real problem. To counter this first ZOC everything within range on the front line before making any attacks. Broken down units are good for this. Then when you have a gap in the first line send motorised units through to ZOC the 2nd line. This also helps to steer units retreating from subsequent attacks. Be willing to use up MPs of your mobile units to make a few focused attacks more effective; fuel can be resupplied a lot quicker than Fuel + Ammo + PPs can be built up.
Other tactics you can use are attacking at huge odds (defenders will not activate if the odds are too bad) OR doing less critical attacks first to absorb some of the activations (but this will not work if the Soviets have a several of units available).
The AI will not do many attacks up to T4 so use this period to advance into contact with your Panzers every turn (broken down units will do) so that the infantry can follow up quicker. Pockets can be sealed with weak units (this was with an earlier patch, not sure if it still applies).
Later the AI will start doing some attrition attacks and attempting to break pockets so your pockets need to be stronger. AI attacks can be used to work in your favour, if your front line is strong the AI can really weaken itself. However if you have a lot of regiments in the front line the AI will have them for dinner.
Be patient, the AI will make mistakes. So don’t attack all out with your Panzers every turn, let them build up PPs and Supply ready for the critical strike. But you need to provoke mistakes. So break up the front line, a typical probing attack might have infantry fighting their way 3 hexes forwards on a very narrow front and then advance another hex or two with Panzers (which need to be strong enough to withstand counters). Now you have a 5 hex incursion into the Soviet front line, if they stand you may have a chance to make a pocket next turn. If they retreat you have got a 5 hex advance without having any Panzer combat. It is far more effective to make one big incursion than to grind forwards a little every turn. Once the front is broken up the AI will start making mistakes and giving you opportunities to pocket units.
The AI does not defend river lines, so manoeuvre your way past them.
It doesn’t look at what is opposing it, so you can concentrate your strike force while stretching the defenders by extending the front line.

Have a secure front line, any gaps and the AI will advance through and flip a lot of hexes. Generally this would be an infantry division on alternate hexes. It will also target rail lines, so you need to push it away from critical rail so you have at least 2-3 hexes of buffer.
The AI has unlimited movement so can redeploy faster than you can. It can also concentrate units to do attacks and then redeploy them to make a good front line. This mitigates towards having a shorter front line than you might against a human player, having large bulges for long periods benefits the AI.

You want to play well every turn. For a while it may seem like you are not making progress and the AI continues to rebuild it’s front line every turn, but if you can keep making pockets eventually it will run low on units and the game will open up. However if you fail to do this and the Soviets are building up over 4M manpower during Summer ‘41 then you have probably lost.

Scenarios.
As with most wargames the AI is better at defending than attacking. Here are my suggestions as to which sides play best for the various scenarios:

Velike Luki. Soviet.
Road to Minsk. Axis.
Road to Leningrad. Axis or HvH. Good starter scenario.
Destruction of the SW Front. Axis or HvH. Best of the small scenarios.
Typhoon. Axis or maybe HvH. Good for learning the Blizzard. Most of the action is on the first few turns.
Red god of war - have not played it.
Red Army resurgent - have not played it.

These are the three Campaigns,the later start ones are both well worth having a go at. VtB in particular makes a good ‘shorter’ game.
1941 Campaign. Axis or HvH. Possibly as Soviets.
Stalingrad to Berlin. Soviet, HvH.
Vistula to Berlin. Soviet, HvH.

The only Steel Inferno scenarios I am familiar with are:
Case Blue. Axis or HvH.
Race to the Caucasus. Axis or HvH.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Can a Moderator have these pinned on main page for all to see? Thank you in advance

[Bamilus]

Thanks for these guides

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: Bamilus

Thanks for these guides

looking

+1 very helpful

[pensfanvw]

Excellent well written guide. Thank you!

Alan

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: pensfanvw

Excellent well written guide. Thank you!

Alan

Ya, Tyronec is the "MAN"

[ranknfile]

I will certainly make these part of the learning process. Thanks for sharing your knowledge of this game with us all.

[Farfarer61]

Interesting - has the Air Logistics changed that much? I stopped all T1 air base bombing as Axis long ago - an exploit to be sure - as all the surviving junk destroyed the Soviet logistics and pilots while mooning my air experience in T2 plus. My ground campaign was average but I had players quit before T10 because I did this.

[tyronec]

Interesting - has the Air Logistics changed that much? I stopped all T1 air base bombing as Axis long ago - an exploit to be sure - as all the surviving junk destroyed the Soviet logistics and pilots while mooning my air experience in T2 plus. My ground campaign was average but I had players quit before T10 because I did this.

As a Soviet player I would be very happy if Axis did no T1 airbase bombing, but it does require the Soviet player to make good use of the VVS. If it is misused it can indeed be worse than useless.
The air war has changed since this guide was written, am not sure if the air logistics has had significant change.

[Bamilus]

Hi Tyrone,

This was a great guide. Wondering if you had any advice on when to send combat units to and from the National Reserve?

[dudefan]

"Supply seems to work better if your E/W rail lines are not linked up, at least in the early game. Linked networks can cause bottlenecks during the logistics phase and less supply gets through."


Interesting. Why?

[Bamilus]

ORIGINAL: dudefan

"Supply seems to work better if your E/W rail lines are not linked up, at least in the early game. Linked networks can cause bottlenecks during the logistics phase and less supply gets through."


Interesting. Why?

Probably congestion from the rail capacity, which to my understanding is basically throughput. Try to squeeze too much through a central connected line and it will struggle to get through with higher SMP costs.

[carlkay58]

Except now you find yourself in the fact that logistics is an art not a science.

My experience is that the more intertwined your supply net is, the better it is. Rail usage is slightly random, you have the enemy bombing your railway/railyards, the Axis have Soviet Partisans generating random interdictions, etc. All of these means that if there are two or more ways to get from A to B with supplies, the system will choose the least cost which gives you the most supplies. Even if one path is longer in hexes, sometimes it is the best route.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

Except now you find yourself in the fact that logistics is an art not a science.

My experience is that the more intertwined your supply net is, the better it is. Rail usage is slightly random, you have the enemy bombing your railway/railyards, the Axis have Soviet Partisans generating random interdictions, etc. All of these means that if there are two or more ways to get from A to B with supplies, the system will choose the least cost which gives you the most supplies. Even if one path is longer in hexes, sometimes it is the best route.

I'd agree with Carlkay on this one. Tyrone's guide reflects both his particular play style (which is admittedly very good) and also the situation quite a few pre-release patches ago

multiple links make a huge difference in creating the capacity to avoid bottlenecks, esp if you are bringing up large combat units by rail

[tyronec]

This was a great guide. Wondering if you had any advice on when to send combat units to and from the National Reserve?

I am not 100% sure as to how REFIT works on map as against in the RESERVE.
It all depends on the tactical situation, I would tend towards having just a moderate number of units on map that are very weak and that are on REFIT on depots. That way they will fill up quicker. If you have large numbers of trashed units early war, as the Soviets are inclined to get, then consider merging some of them.
Maybe Loki can make some comment on this as I feel my response has probably not fully answered your question.

"Supply seems to work better if your E/W rail lines are not linked up, at least in the early game. Linked networks can cause bottlenecks during the logistics phase and less supply gets through."

I stand by my opinion on this, at least for Axis in '41.
If you network up your rail lines early war then some of the limited rail capacity will be used by the AI transferring supplies North-South rather than East. You may also not get best use of the naval capacity.
But getting the best out of the supply system is a dark art and no doubt we all have more to learn.

[dudefan]

@ttronec. What a great guide. I know it is a lot to ask buy I just go ahead and ask if you plan to do an axis perspective AAR where you give directions to less experienced players.

[dudefan]

"Recon.
Set up several AOGs with around 3-4 Recon air groups each. A radius of 5-7 on 1 day only will do a reasonable job of the whole front line. As you advance move the AOG forwards and reset the AD."

I did some testing and found i have the least amount of operational losses with recon AD with daily single strike (custom) compared to one day multistrike.

[tyronec]

@ttronec. What a great guide. I know it is a lot to ask buy I just go ahead and ask if you plan to do an axis perspective AAR where you give directions to less experienced players.

Thanks for your comments.
I am really played out with games vs AI, quite a few during the testing period and as with any game over time playing the AI gets less fun. I do think the AI in this game is outstanding, a lot of work went into it.
HvH was thinking to wait until there are more players with some experience and then will start playing again.

[AlbertN]

Thanks for the guide.

But it worries me loads the statement "If Axis does not win in '42, Soviets crush them in '43 or '44". There is the implication the game is screwed by 1-2 years of warfare in there, it's not a matter of 'We'll be dining in Berlin 3 months earlier'. But one or two years!

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Cohen_slith

Thanks for the guide.

But it worries me loads the statement "If Axis does not win in '42, Soviets crush them in '43 or '44". There is the implication the game is screwed by 1-2 years of warfare in there, it's not a matter of 'We'll be dining in Berlin 3 months earlier'. But one or two years!

not the evidence we have, either from AI-AI tests or the few HvsAI games that have run to the end. Most go into 1945. Equally not what happens from the Stal-Berlin start

its true that the Soviets get increasingly strong and well supplied/rested their 1944+ army is formidable. But those 2 preconditions don't always apply.