Europe 1939 turns 3-7

[tweber]

Finally, here is my assault. It is not successful. My attack was well prepared but I was not able to use my tank. The West's tank survived and the terrain favors armor. This is my first stalled attack of the war.

Overall, my progress in the first 5 turns has been decent but I have taken some casualties assaulting the maginot line. It will be interesting to see if the West puts up more of a fight for France.

[seille]

Ok, now the western part.
 
Tom already explained all his attacks and his estimates of my defensive plans.
 
My flak did not kill too many planes, but they prevented the enemy planes from hitting my units too hard.
That way they repulsed the following ground attack.
Even i´m happy with the losses my troops caused it´s very hard to see the german troops nearly thru the Maginot line in January 1940.
 
I don´t think i can stop them, but maybe delay. That´s why i let two fresh light tank units arrive
on the western battlefield and sent them direct to the Maginot line.
 
 

[tweber]

Turn 6, Feb 1940.

Focus will be on the last Maginot line hex. I strike with 2 artillery corps and my entire airforce. I lose some planes to the flak concentrations but I get both of the tanks in the hex. This is a good result.

[tweber]

I now assault the hex. The battle is costly for both sides. I get lucky in that the defenders retreat to the SW towards the headquarters. The road to the NW is open. I left a mechanized engineering corps out of the battle. It can now exploit. The West has a thin line and I am able to penetrate deeply to the north. The road on the South is also open. I am able to surround the Western Army. He might break my encirclement but the troops should have low readiness due to lack of supply. See the picture after the encirclement below.

[tweber]

Meanwhile at sea, my uboat fleet made contact with the West near Gibraltar. They did not attack so they may not have seen me. I will have to move again to hide.

[seille]

The west had some problems this turn since the encirclement really cutted my readiness a lot
especially due to the bad weather.
However several light tank units arrived and reopened the road from Luxembourg to Paris.
And they caused high losses among the enemy troops there. Even unexperienced the high concentric bonus worked
well. Attacked there from up to 4 directions.
 
We´ll see how long we can defend there.
 
While this my engineers constructed a first fortification near Manchester which is the most important hex on my side.
Loosing this means i would lose the ability to let troops arrive in England (after Paris is under german control).
 
Next time i´ll make my own screenshots here i promise [:)]
We forgot to activate the screenshot funtion so we have to make the shots manually....

[Mightfox]

What exactly is the casualty ratio? It seems a little unrealistic that the Germans could smash through the Maginot line like that...though, that may be one of the advantages of attacking early; the West is not yet prepared for fighting.

[seille]

Loss ratio in the Maginot fight is close to 1:1 especially for infantry with advantages for the germans.
Western troops are less experienced and prepared and the west decided not to use the planes at this point.
So don´t expect that scenario will follow the historical way !!
It is not 100% realistic (you´ll find many things which are correct like
the capture of Oslo and Kopenhagen by Germany), but it´s well balanced and a lot of fun to play.
And that´s what it was made for [;)]
 
Btw, Tweber is not a nobody. He created the scenario and knows all possibilities very good.
In addition he didn´t do that attack the first time. I think he broke that line a half dozen times now
Maybe other players would be less successful here [:)]
 

[tweber]

Turn 7, March 1940

The French army has decided to fight and reinforcements from Paris re-establish communications with the surrounded Maginot garrison. Here is the picture at the start of the turn.

[tweber]

I will focus my efforts on the HQ.

I start the battle off with an artillery barrage of the HQ unit. I want to reduce the readiness of the flak batteries before I come in with my airstrikes. I then launch my entire airforce on the HQ and underlying units. This is effective in destroying some takes and significantly reducing the readiness of the defending units.

I now prep for my concentric attack. There are 2 weak tank corps to the S and SE. I attack these concentrically. These units are weak and are eliminated in the first round of combat. I have enough action points to advance and attack the HQ from 3 sides (50% concentric bonus). My attack is devastating and the remnants of the Maginot garrison is elimated.

I also have enough AP to attack one of the new tank corps on the SW flank of the front. It is new with low experience. My veterans handle it nicely and gain additional ground.

My casualties are very light this turn. This is because I am attacking with armor on good terrain against units that have been reduced from retreating, air and artillery attacks, and low supply. This is much different from the previous turns when I was making assaults on well entrenched positions.

The reason that I was able to have success in the earlier assaults in that the West has conserved there air force. Overwhelming air superiority over the Maginot line has allowed for a breakthrough.

Next turn, I will get an action card that will allow me to occupy Norway, Denmark, and attack the Low Countries. I have purchased some units and have them in position to the North. I hope to have France wrapped up by June.

[seille]

Wow, before my turn the map looked really bad indeed.
The losses has been incredible, but Tom already pointed out why i had so high losses and he´s absolutely right
with his analysis.

I´ll now post a couple of screens showing my attacks. For the first action i unfortunately did not make any screenshots.
I realized that there was a armored unit (german 48th corps) in range of my divebombers. and OUTSIDE the range of own fightercover.
That´s the moment i waited for. I sent my planes in and they destroyed all german tanks (we talk about the 100 XP monsters here...)
A following ground attack fought back the remaining infantry even i took some losses here.

Then i prepared my attacks (fresh armored units) on a elite infantry unit on the road from Luxemburg to Paris.
My green troops attacked from 4 directions (100% concentric bonus).

[seille]

Attack was very bloody for me.....
Good example for the impact of XP.

Even my HQ did not the best support here i had 100% concentric bonus in that attack !

[seille]

But since i was not pleased with that outcome i started a second attack.
High losses again, but this time i finished off that german unit. It lost all trucks and most of the mortars.

[seille]

This pic shows the turn totals. Unfortunately only the kills/losses of my turn.
Together with the damage Tom caused the picture would be much darker......
I lost 8 tanks in his attacks alone.....

But i´m pleased with the result overall so far.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: seille

This pic shows the turn totals. Unfortunately only the kills/losses of my turn.
Together with the damage Tom caused the picture would be much darker......
I lost 8 tanks in his attacks alone.....

But i´m pleased with the result overall so far.

seille,

What do the numbers in this screen refer to? is it 3 trucks or 4 light tanks, or 3 truck units? 4 Tnk Bns. I see that most of the counter here look like corp units,but still not sure what the units in table are.

Rick

[tweber]

A unit at this scale is a corps.  It is a counter that holds other types like rifle, tanks, trucks and planes.  Most corps have about 50 strength points at full strength (to put in more makes it difficult to cover the entire front).  However, the units come in different sizes.  Roughly, 20 rifle/ smg = 1 tank = 1 fighter / dive bomber = 1 artillery
 
In the editor, you do have full flexibility to change these ratios.

[Erik Rutins]

Rick,

ORIGINAL: Rick
What do the numbers in this screen refer to? is it 3 trucks or 4 light tanks, or 3 truck units? 4 Tnk Bns. I see that most of the counter here look like corp units,but still not sure what the units in table are.

It's totally relative to the scale. So for the default units the important thing is their relative performance to each other. In other words and put in terms that still don't precisely apply, if 200 infantry can beat 5 tanks, then 2000 infantry can beat 50 tanks, etc. The designer also has control over this.

Regards,

- Erik

[tweber]

Turns 8-12 continue here

[PDiFolco]

2 questions :
- Why choosing an assault on the Maginot Line, rather than the historical Belgium/Ardennes attack ? Obviously it'll be less easy than in reality, but assaulting forts is a bad idea when you can just turn around . [8D]
- I saw a screen titled "Supply Prognosis" [&:] ...Shouldn't it be rather titled "Forecast" more simply ? [;)]

[seille]

I´ll answer the first question.
 
The german player decided to attack fast as possible (before the historical date)
At the time he started in November 1939 the Maginot line is his only option to attack.
Benelux countries "sleep" at this time. He cannot move into these hexes before they become active
in April 1940.
He can activate them himself by playing the western offensive card, which is available in april 1940.
That card will occupy Kopenhagen and Oslo for the germans. It will also capture Fort Eben Emael in Belgium
and reduce the readiness of the western defenders by 50% for this turn.
 
In case you still wonder...If Tom would have waited until April 1940 my forces would have been very ready
in the Maginot and in front of Paris. XP of 10 or 40 makes a big difference in the fights and that´s what he wanted to avoid.