Tips/Suggestions for Heroes of the Motherland?

[Wuotan]

Salute, warriors.

Actually i give the campaign "Heroes of the motherland" another (the 3rd) try. I was
very happy when i saw the huge amount of building points at the start of this slaughter.
But, the germans are a real tough nut, a well-armed and well-consisted force asssaulted,
and the terrain is difficult to defend... i thought it would be clever to build some forts
and take gain of theyr 122 mm-firepower... ha, they couldn´t view the important hexes!
Then i tryed it with mines, mines over mines, lot of (weak) infantry and a bunch of
45 mm ATG and BT-Tanks.No more "money" for artillery. He sent his Stukas, no (big) trouble. But his tanks... tanks over tanks and halftracks. I can´t see light at the end of
the tunnel. My ATGs are low on ammunition (and not very precise!). And i have no ammo-
trucks. And even if, it would be suicide to sent them in front of the germans. So, what is
your best combination of weapons/the best tactic for this (i am sure!) great and atmosphe
ric scenario?

Greetings!

[plloyd]

Firstly, I think you got the wrong force. Doesn't the introduction say to get an armoured group. When I played, I got 2 T-34 companies with a T-35 trailer (which I upgraded to a KV-1). Use the support points for the infantry. Off-board artillery should be an after thought as the Russians can't hit anything anyway.

Your battle philosophy starts with DON'T FIGHT THE GERMANS IN THE OPEN!. You won't be able to stick to it, but keep the idea in mind. Use reverse slope military crests to the utmost. The Germans are mostly mobile fighters, so let them move, they will get strung out. Then move against their attack.

[Poopyhead]

Core force-One T-34 company (10 AFV), 2 KV-1's, nine 107 mm mortars, three scout teams and an FO.

Aux-four KV-2's (way better than forts), an ammo carrier, some light flak and cheap transport for the AA and the rest was mines.

Put a KV-2 in each of the three western VH's and give them a double crescent of mines to the west of their positions. Put the extra KV-2 slightly to the northeast of the northern VH, so that it can support the KV-2 there. The core tanks and the flak go on top of the hill where the last VH's are. This allows the flak to chase off the Stukas and the T-34's to attack the German center from a position of defilade. Put the scouts so that their view overlaps and you can see as much of the German advance as possible, but they are still concealed. If you spot along the line of "No man's land" during the deployment phase, you'll see some of the German starting locations and you can target them with your mortars. Smoke the KV-2 positions so that the German cannot mass fires against them from long range. The German attacks first in the north, then moves up some 88's in the center (destroy their transport and castrate them with smoke) and finally moves through the swamp and attacks in the south. This will allow your artillery to rout/destroy them in detail. If you need to, the tanks can counter-attack. When I played this, by turn ten, the German morale collapsed for a decisive victory and I only lost one T-34 from my core force. This formula pretty much works in all of the assaults on Moskva (sorry Guderian!). I finished the HotM with 3 marginal victories and 4 decisive victories.

[Wuotan]

Thanks for your replies, gentlemen.

You are right, Plloyd, armor would do it. But i made the worsest experiences with those
cheap BT- or T26-Tanks in my core-force... i wanted sheer numbers to reequip those units later with T34s or even KVs... but for this they had to survive the first battle! And,
as i saw, those little, fast russian tanks weren´t able to hit a german vehice, even at
low range. I could not imagine that i would win the battle with just a handful T34 and
some PAK. But, I DID IT! My core-force consisted of 8 76,2 mm-ATG, some 7,62 mm-
Maxims, lots of infantry, Trucks and light flak. Then i bought 6 T34, 6 45 mm-ATGs and
mines, mines, mines. AND IT WORKED! A hard battle, for both sides.

Yep, Poopyhead, i saw some the german tanks before they attacked. But i don´t used
KV-2s (i don´t trust them). I prefered mines, no artillery. These two 88s are a plague,
but i moved my T34s slowly behind the 2nd line (behind the hills). They shooted at my
PAK, but it was too late for him. And i started a counterstrike with the T34 that were left
(3! He gave me hard minutes with his 47 mm-PzJgs). And suddenly... i had won.

It´s an entertaining scenario! Now i hold the roadcrossing to Tula... and after the first
battle i see light at the end of the tunnel... i can beat them!


Greetings!

[Poopyhead]

Great work! Yes, artillery really makes it too easy. Good luck with the rest of the scenario.

[serg3d]

BT-7 could be used vs german armor effectivly (T-26 complete junk though IMO). Substitute armor and guns with speed and concentration. BT-7 are very fast. Gang up around 10 BT on a single enemy tank, kill it or suppress enough for infantry assault while the rest of infantry hold front elsewhere. After that move to the next target. 76mm ATG are not very effective IMO, better to use expendable 45 mm
And KV-2 are great. Especially then they get expirince and don't immobilize so easyly. In the real history a single KV-2 stopped whole panzer division for two day near the Rossienie town in the Lithinia on the third day of the Barbarossa.
It took 50 PzKfw-35(t)as diversion and 88 FLAK to kill it at the end.

[plloyd]

Congadulations! But I think you got the core and support forces backwards. You will see what I mean in the 4th scenario. Good luck! Long live the mother, father, uncle, aunt, cousin, or whatever land!

[Wuotan]

To serg3d:

Yes, i have read something (long time ago) about the BT-series. The source claimed that
theyr 45 mm-tanks had surprising good power against early PzIII and IV... maybe, but
in the game the green BTs are not very accurate... it is a "lack" of the game that it is
not able to show the advantages of very fast tanks in it´s narrow view (of course, a map
of 5x5 km is too small/a battle of an hour is too short. Would be more important in
large-scale operations). But those types have the smell of the apocalyptic summer-battles in 1941... GREAT! You can´t have everything.

Plloyd, "einstehe für Pflichterfüllung bis zum äußersten!"[:D] I hope that the battles will
rage on till Stalingrad or even further... great fun! I would like to battle many of yours; maybe i will have a playable internet-connection soon. None of my buddys gives SPWAW a try over LAN ([:@] till now, i am working on this!). They stopped at Panzer General 3D. Pah!

Greetings!

[plloyd]

Do you have Battle HQ installed. You can get it at the Wargamer (http://www.wargamer.com/battleHQ/). I will be online next Saturday morning, probably with PetrB and anyone else in the room.

[EricDerKönig (HMB)]

When I last played the scenario, I had my tanks hidden in the trees along the ridges to the west of the big hill, plus some AT guns as support units, infantry+consripts around the tanks. With 120mm mortars, 150mm art. and nice pre-planned bombardment targets, my artillery managed to take out several tanks (it seems to me artilelry is deadlier in 8.2 than in 7.1), then I moved my KV-1s and T-28Es once the germans got closer, so that my tanks were, for the most part, still in trees, but able to fire back. Soviet tanks aren't that great at long ranges, but close up they can take out early german tanks easily, while the germans still have some difficulty penetrating their armor. I think I lost about 5 or so tanks, total, at least 2 to the bloody stukas (which AA cant hit [:@] ).
I've only played this campaign so far to the 4th or 5th scenario, but I've found that the toughest opposition is usually the German's captured KV-1s. Taste of my own medicine, indeed. [X(]

[arras]

As core force I took some T34's among few KV's. Infantry to suport them (can be transported on tanks), few tank destroyers (with theyr exelent Zis guns), some HMG's, 6 120 mm mortars with ammo truck and scouts.
As suport units I took fort, 3 platoons of 45 mm ATG's some more mortars and lot of mines.

Since 3 front victory locations are too close to deployment line I mined them havily and concentrated all defence to big hill with two remaining VP's.

Far in front of my defence lines I placed 6 scouts with weapon range set to 0. They acted as forward observers and served well. They were placed at hexes with trees and Germans did not spot them whole the battle even they went across them.

Main defence line consisted of infantry then HMG's with 45mm AT guns, then T34's and last my Zis 30 TD's. I placed fort at central position in defence.

Mortars I placed behind the hill around ammo truck.

Result was that I have lost only
1 T34's to 88 fire
1 45 mm ATG to air strike
1 HMG to air strike
1 Zis 30 to tank counter fire
2 scouts when I unvisely counter atacked with them fleing enemy

Enemy firsth lost lot of his wehicles at minefields.
120 mm mortars proved to be valid and their fire destroied even few tanks and halfrtacs.

What worked like wonder were 45mm AT guns. With their 3-5 shots per turn destroyed lot of softher targets in distance and managed to kill even tanks when they got close. They drove no enemy fire who concentrated at fort and my tanks. Seems like AI have something like target priority and it concentrate on most dangerous targets. 45's were even not counterfired. (I have experience with using 75mm AA guns against tanks and AI is going imediately afther them when it finds them)

HMG's were useful in buttoning wehicles and keeping infantry at distance.

Finaly my Zis 30 TD's took only few kills since I used them extremly carefuly keeping them back and covered. Their unexperienced crews were unable to score hit enough ofthen at long ranges while moving in to and back from firing positions. On the other side when they hit, they mostly killed.

The bigest danger were 2 88's droped from halftracks. I concentrated on them imediately but newer the less lost one tank.

I regreted to not have few AA guns with me when two Ju 87 apeared over my tanks.

Finaly result was drowe since I did not counteratacked soon enought and did not get to victory objectives ocupied by enemy in turn limit.

[Poopyhead]

I found the 107 mm mortar to be just as good and you can get more of them. I only lost one T-34 from my core focrce and a truck, a flak and a KV-2 from the support force with a decisive victory. I found the KV-2 to be a very good defender. Assault troops can take the VH away from a routed fort. The KV-2 can rally and take it back, which the fort cannot. Actually, the mortars pretty much whacked the Germans in every one of the Campaign's battles.

[Wild Bill]

A miz of forces is good. I remember when I designed it that you must have a good strong force of T-34s to combat these Germans. I'm not sure how the changes in 8.3 affect this but I do know that it is a most bloody campaign and even though I designed it, I had a hard time winning it.

An article on this series of battles and the Russian tank force is now up for reading at the Wargamer, in the articles section. YOu might want to read it too.

http://www.wargamer.com/articles/gaming ... istory_11/

There are actually a number of articles that I and others have written that you may find helpful and with some decent historical insight.

Wild Bill

[Alexandra]

Heroes was the first SP:WaW campaign I played, and I have to admit I metagamed it a little.

What I would do is mass my armor, and move to one of the VH clusters - but I would not take them!

I would then use Infantry to take the center most VH cluster. I would wait for the German armor to come and take my unoccuipied VHs, and, then, even though they were engaged by my armor, they would turn and move towards the held VHs. At that point, I got flank and rear shots, mopping up the armor, and could move my own armor to whereever I needed to finish them.

[Wuotan]

...wow! Lots of replys. It seems to me that there are many ways to Berlin. AMAZING GAME!


Greetings!

[Wild Bill]

Let us know how you do this time around, please?

WB

[buckyhaight]

I lost out at during the depot scenario......silly me: partisans can't be used like engineers.....first post here, BTW......this is the only game I play now.....

[Captain Cruft]

I just played the first scenario last night (in version 7.1). Since the opening blurb said "get a battalion of tanks" that's what I did. 1300 points bought exactly 2 companies of T.28 m.38s + 1 company of T.28 m.34s. Support points went on 3 companies of Conscripts, 6 x Maxim HMGs, 6 x 45mm m.32 AT guns and 3 x 82mm mortars.

Well, it was hard work but nevertheless great fun. The end result was a draw, with the Soviets having 5,000+ points to the Germans 3,000+. Three of the six VH locations remained in Soviet hands.

I lost about a third of my tanks, too many to replace immediately. Many more German AFVs were destroyed though, a lot by the under-rated 45mm AT guns.

Next up is the "advance back over the same territory" scenario. I am actually much more hopeful about this one since a) the scenario gives me some heavy arty and planes and b) I have bought genuine SO Rifle Squads with the support points rather than Conscripts. Plus, there should be lots of defending German infantry for my not very good tanks to beat up


I hadn't played SPWaW for ages before this. The AI never floated my boat and PBEM just got too gamey after a while. However, the idea of playing a campaign with weak forces really seems to be working for me.

[Wild Bill]

You've picked a tough campaign, Captain, but it is winnable. It does require some careful tactics to achieve your goal of holding off the German onslaught towards Moscow. It can be done.

Not only fun, but a great learning tool. Thanks guys for letting me know of your interest in this campaign. I just might come up with a new campaign soon. I'm starting to get the "itch."

WB