Decisively Beating the AI

[Harrybanana]

Turn 52: June 24, 1944

The Before picture is below. The German line appears to be weak in the North, particularly the 3 Security regiments circled in red. My tanks are gassed up, so I planned to take advantage of this. The South was a different story, with several strong German units.

[Harrybanana]

My attack in the North was a success as I almost, but not quite, isolated Antwerp and all hexes West of it. The key here was punching a 3 hex wide hole in the German lines so that my exploiting armour did not have to move from ZOC to ZOC. In the Centre of my lines I moved South, liberated Paris and joined up with some of my units coming from the South. The red arrows show my intended attacks next turn, if only the Germans will stay put.

[Harrybanana]

Turn 53: July 1 ,1944

The big picture before my moves. As you can see by joining up my forces I have converted a good chunk of France to my control. I do not intend to liberate the Western ports. Why bother: these ports are a long way from my Front lines, would require a commitment of several divisions to capture and would still be useless unless I repaired the rail hexes. South of this map the Germans withdrew out of my trap, leaving me just a few stragglers. What you can't see (due to the scale of the map) is that the Germans have some of their better units back North. That is too bad.

[Harrybanana]

The map after my turn. I complete the isolation of the units in the North and manage to isolate a few more in the South, but not nearly as many as I was hoping.

[Harrybanana]

You may, or may not, have noticed that I have not been giving very many hints the last few turns. This is because I really don't have any left to give. I do however, have a correction. Earlier in the game I advised that my strategic bombing strategy was to concentrate primarily on HI and Manpower. However, I would now advise you to first concentrate on the fuel and oil facilities (thank you QBall for giving me this tip). The reason is that these facilities repair slower than HI and Manpower and with 1.00.44 beta are now easier to damage as well. There are some good sized ones near Hamburg. I still use BC to bomb the Ruhr; but now 8th doesn't start bombing HI until the larger fuel and oil factories in range of fighter cover are pretty much destroyed. Though, of course, u-boats (in 43) and V-Wpn (in 44 and 45) sites are still the number one priority.
In any event, from now on I will just be showing you the maps of what I did without too much explanation of how I did it. Having said this, if anyone would like a fuller explanation of how or why I did something please don't hesitate to ask. I am still hoping to end the war before Christmas, but whether or not I can do that remains to be seen.

[Harrybanana]

Turn 54: July 8, 1944

The map prior to my moves is below. In the North I had the options of trying to liberate Antwerp and the Schelt estuary, continuing my advance against weak forces towards Eindhoven, or going for both. In the South the Germans were able to restore supply to the pockets; I was determined to do something about this.

[Harrybanana]

The map after my moves is below. As you can see in the North I decided liberating Antwerp was the most important objective. This meant that if I wanted to continue my offensive towards the Rhine I would have to use my armour alone. I decide to wait a turn. In the South I again cut off some Axis units.

[Harrybanana]

Turn 55: July 15, 1944

With Light Rain in the North and the supply situation poor I decided to limit my offensive to isolating a panzer division. Meanwhile, in the South the Germans again restored supply to the pocketed units. This time I had a more ambitious plan.

[Harrybanana]

The results of my planning are below. In the North things did not go as planned as a few held results (one caused by a reaction move) stymied my assaults. Things went much better in the South where I isolated 11 German divisions.

[Harrybanana]

Turn 56: July 22, 1944

Light Rain (bringing light mud) again, but this time it spreads to the Southern Front as well. So far of the 11 supposedly clear weather "summer" turns I have had 5 turns of light rain in the Northern part of France and the Low countries. I am pretty sure it was not anywhere near this bad in my first game. Since this is only my 2nd Campaign game perhaps an experienced player can tell me if this is normal? Did I just get lucky in my first game, or am I getting unlucky now? I would not mind if this was balanced by getting some clear weather turns in the "rainy" season; but again my experience from my first game is this does not happen in Northern Europe (though it does in Italy). But bad weather or not we must muddle through as best we can. Chin Up. Stay Calm and Carry On and all that.

The Americans are ordered to breakthrough the relatively weak German units circled in red; while the British are tasked with mopping up the isolated German units.

[Harrybanana]

Both the Americans and British achieve only limited success in fulfilling their objectives.

[Harrybanana]

Turn 57: July 29, 1944

The return of clear skies, just in time for the invasion of the Netherlands, restores our confidence. The Americans are sure that this time they will cross the Maas river in force. the plan here is for them to first retreat the 2 divisions flanking the stack of units circled in red and then surround the red stacked units before attacking them. The purpose of this is to cause these units to rout. If I don't do this they will keep retreating and I will not be able to cross the river.

Meanwhile the British are asked to simply destroy the trapped German divisions, while their armour gasses up a bit.

[Harrybanana]

Success. I was lucky in the North in that the units flanking the stack of units retreated into the exact hexes I wanted them to so that I could attack them again and gain control of the hexes around the stack of 3 units. Still no massive breakthroughs, but I keep hoping that I am wearing the Germans down and stretching their lines enough that soon they will have a lot of weak spots.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

Turn 56: July 22, 1944

Light Rain (bringing light mud) again, but this time it spreads to the Southern Front as well. So far of the 11 supposedly clear weather "summer" turns I have had 5 turns of light rain in the Northern part of France and the Low countries. I am pretty sure it was not anywhere near this bad in my first game. Since this is only my 2nd Campaign game perhaps an experienced player can tell me if this is normal? Did I just get lucky in my first game, or am I getting unlucky now? I would not mind if this was balanced by getting some clear weather turns in the "rainy" season; but again my experience from my first game is this does not happen in Northern Europe (though it does in Italy). But bad weather or not we must muddle through as best we can. Chin Up. Stay Calm and Carry On and all that.

...

I'd say I've seen pretty much what you are, in that 40-50% of the 'summer' in N France is light rain. Now of course living on the west coast of Scotland my immediate response is why are people complaining ... for us that would be the advent of desertification [8D].


more seriously for the game, I think I've come to the view that light rain and some mud is the normal baseline and clear is a bonus. At least in France/Low Countries, it doesn't make all that difference.

I have seen more variation in the autumn and wonder if this was luck or patch. My AI game, I had about 4-5 turns of heavy rain etc and more or less suspended operations till winter arrived. In my game vs smokindave, I only lost a couple of turns for this (& both fell in a period where we were redeploying after a German pull back). The PBEM is using .44. In a way that makes more difference than light rain/clear over the summer period.

[Q-Ball]

As far as the Western Ports in France, I would agree that many of them are a waste of time to clear, particularly the Atlantic coast ones. However, Cherbourg is a must, if for no other reason than you wipe out the V-Launch site, which alleviates the need to bomb it. And the port capacity doesn't hurt either.

I think it's a good idea to clear all Channel ports, including Brest if you need the capacity

[bairdlander2]

I am unable to change the Hq of any groups in RAF Coastal Command[&:]

[carlkay58]

bairdlander - many of the aircraft in the RAF Coastal Command are assigned as Naval Only. These air groups are not easily re-assigned to any air command. If you really want to re-assign them, then change the HQ for the airbase and then change them to match the airbase HQ.

[Devonport]

Another option is to use F10 to transfer them to an airfield that is controlled by the HQ you want the planes to go to, say Coastal Air Force, then simply open the airfield and select 'Set Air Group HQ' at the bottom.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: loki100


I'd say I've seen pretty much what you are, in that 40-50% of the 'summer' in N France is light rain. Now of course living on the west coast of Scotland my immediate response is why are people complaining ... for us that would be the advent of desertification [8D].


more seriously for the game, I think I've come to the view that light rain and some mud is the normal baseline and clear is a bonus. At least in France/Low Countries, it doesn't make all that difference.

I have seen more variation in the autumn and wonder if this was luck or patch. My AI game, I had about 4-5 turns of heavy rain etc and more or less suspended operations till winter arrived. In my game vs smokindave, I only lost a couple of turns for this (& both fell in a period where we were redeploying after a German pull back). The PBEM is using .44. In a way that makes more difference than light rain/clear over the summer period.

I agree with you that the difference between light rain and heavy rain is more severe than the difference between clear and light rain. But I disagree that there is not much difference between clear and light rain. If we say that the Allies "Attack Rating" (for want of a better word) in Clear weather is a 10, I would say that their Attack Rating in Light Rain/Light Mud is a 6 and their Attack Rating in Heavy Rain/Heavy Mud is a 1. If you compare the interdiction numbers you get in Clear weather with the interdiction numbers you get with Light Rain you will see what I am talking about.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

As far as the Western Ports in France, I would agree that many of them are a waste of time to clear, particularly the Atlantic coast ones. However, Cherbourg is a must, if for no other reason than you wipe out the V-Launch site, which alleviates the need to bomb it. And the port capacity doesn't hurt either.

I think it's a good idea to clear all Channel ports, including Brest if you need the capacity

If Cherbourg were closer I would agree with you, but as is I don't think it is worth the effort just to shut down the vwpn launch. I will just task a 100 bombers to shut it down every 5 or 6 turns. Antwerp (almost fully repaired), Marseille and all the ports in Italy should be sufficient to give me enough supply. I think the main limit on my supply at the moment is railyards. But to be honest I am really not sure about this.