Campaign For North Africa 40D-43

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: budd

Always appreciate your going in cold AAR's, thanks for the effort.

warspite1

Thank-you [:)]

[warspite1]

Right so let's stick with the reports. The next one is (moving left to right) brings up the Weather Briefing. Hazy, warm no precipitation - but also says precipitation and cloud cover should clear next turn. That seems a bit contradictory. I search weather in the manual but cannot see anything that need concern me at this stage.

Next up its the Air Briefing. Not sure why there are losses showing as I am starting the scenario, but we'll ignore that for the moment. I will look up what the manual has to say about Air Superiority and Interdiction Levels.

Theater Air Superiority
The program keeps track of Air Superiority units and calculates a Theater Air Superiority Level for each Force. Theater Air Superiority is a general indicator of Air Superiority in the theater. It is presented solely for your information, and isn’t used by the game.

Okay so not much for me to do here.

Interdiction
Units assigned Interdiction Missions will attempt to intercept enemy Land units when those Land units move and also impair your opponent’s ability to supply his Force. Units performing Interdiction Missions are subject to Interdiction by enemy Air units with Air Superiority missions and are protected by friendly units with Air Superiority missions.
Interdiction is less effective in poor weather and on night Turns.

So no advantage to either side it seems at the moment.

[warspite1]

The next report is the News Summary.

There is a bit of historical background about who's in charge, but then some detail about penalties - including an 'air shock' penalty. Don't know why that is not in the air briefing but that's one of the things on this report I will need to look up. At the end of the report there is some technical mumbo jumbo - graphics sub-folders and files and ... yeah whatever. No idea what that is about so will assume its all okay...

Anyway the things to check:

Axis Shock Penalty - 60%

The manual states: Force 1 or Force 2 Shock Level: This is typically used to model surprise. Shock levels can range from one to 200, but should in most cases be limited to the 50-150 range. The default is 100. Unit strengths are multiplied by the Shock Level (as a percentage). Movement costs for moving near enemy forces may be decreased if the moving Force has a Shock Level greater than the non-moving Force, and costs may be increased if the moving Force has a Shock Level less than the non-moving Force. Time expended in combat may be reduced if the Attacker has a Shock Level above 100 and may be increased if the Attacker has a handicap level below 100. At levels below 100, Formations may arbitrarily reorganize (becoming unavailable for your orders). At Shock Levels below 70%, Air units will not defend their Airbases if attacked.

Okay so the Commonwealth get a surprise bonus, which seems reasonable given what happened in real life.

Axis Air Shock Penalty - 50%

The manual states this is similar to Troop Shock. It also states If the Shock Level is less than 70%, Air units will not rise to defend their air bases (interception) when under attack.

As the penalty here is less than 70% it sounds like the RAF should be attacking the airfields and catching the Regia Aeronautica on the ground.

Rule reminder - All supply units must end all movement on improved roads.

I've searched Improved Road in the manual but there doesn't seem to be a definition so I'll park that one for now....

[warspite1]

The next report is the Inventory and Replacements. I am not sure what 'Rate of Appearance' means. The turns column is the beginning turn and end turn. I am struggling to understand this.

So to take the Heavy MG as an example, there are 229 'on hand' which is defined as available for immediate distribution. There are 662 'assigned' to units in the theatre - so presumably on map, but does this mean all 23 are available from turn 1 but have to leave the theatre on turn 216? What is the rate?

[Olorin]

It means 23 heavy MG squads will be added to the pool (=on hand) each turn, until turn 216.

[Templer_12]

ORIGINAL: budd

Always appreciate your going in cold AAR's, ...

And I add: your cold AAR’s in collaboration with the community brings as a result easy to read, relaxed lessons. [:)]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Olorin

It means 23 heavy MG squads will be added to the pool (=on hand) each turn, until turn 216.

warspite1

Right thank-you. So these are the items that make up the divisions, squadrons etc and are used to replace losses subject to the under-strength unit meeting the criteria.

The next report is the expected reinforcements and withdrawals at a unit level - brigades, squadrons etc. The first event is not until turn 3 so I can ignore that for the moment. I see the 4th Indian are being withdrawn so that all looks historically promising [:)]

[RufusTFirefly]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Interdiction
Units assigned Interdiction Missions will attempt to intercept enemy Land units when those Land units move and also impair your opponent’s ability to supply his Force. Units performing Interdiction Missions are subject to Interdiction by enemy Air units with Air Superiority missions and are protected by friendly units with Air Superiority missions.
Interdiction is less effective in poor weather and on night Turns.

Played some turns of Kasserine scenario. When enmy units move there are some explosions being displayed along their path. Think these are air raid against the moving land units when my bomber patrols spotted some columns and attacked.

[warspite1]

That finishes the reports for the moment. Let's move to the Map tab.

Supply, weather, objectives, airfields, ports, HQ Units, hex grid, place names, hex ownership, planned battles can be accessed via this tab.

The most important I guess is the supply button so I will spend a little time looking that up in the manual.

Well I've got to be honest. Having read that I am not sure I really understood what the manual is trying to explain. I think I will park that for the moment and then perhaps look in detail at a unit when I start to move and fight - and see what happens to the supply.

[Franciscus]

I add my voice to thank you warspite for your AAR 👍

[warspite1]

The fun bit. The units. The first two buttons allow one to scroll through the units - which is good.

The 3rd button brings up the Unit Report. Lets have a look at a tank unit first.

So here we have the 3rd King's Own Hussars, a tank regiment of the 7th Armoured Division (this unit was part of the 7th Armoured Brigade but I can't see that this game uses the brigade).

Even at this level there seems to be a wealth of information to drill down into.

[Curtis Lemay]

One thing you're going to want to address: You have possession turned off. On the Button Panel, Map Tab, third row, third column, click till possession is shown with borders.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

One thing you're going to want to address: You have possession turned off. On the Button Panel, Map Tab, third row, third column, click till possession is shown with borders.

warspite1

Ah yes. I think I had this originally as it was a default setting, but then I lost it when trying out the buttons. Thank-you.

[warspite1]

Back to the units: I click on the third button from the right "Display Current Force" and get the units of the 7th Armoured Division. So how does this game measure up historically?

So there is the Divisional HQ
The HQ of the two Armoured Brigades - 4th and 7th + the Support Group
The regiments and battalions are all there. The only thing is, the 6th RTR is showing as part of the 2nd Armoured Division - not sure why that is. But the main units are all here [:)]

[warspite1]

Right so lets see if I can make sense of the big picture so I can actually get the game started.

The Italian units look reasonably historically accurate [:)]. The British Army units less so, and the Royal Navy units are in some cases, disappointingly silly [:(]. Never mind.

So, how to attack?

[warspite1]

I've no real idea what I'm doing so this will just be a case of trial and error. I think the example of DC:Barbarossa should be the benchmark for providing quick, punchy, bite-sized tutorials for getting players into the game straightaway. But it is what it is and a look at the manual doesn't help overly so lets just get stuck in.

[warspite1]

Turn 1
11th December 1940

I want to deal with the Libyan units at the two Camps - Tummar West and East.

[warspite1]

Okay I appear to be struggling with this. Can anyone assist please?

I just ordered - and executed - two bombardments from the RN against one of the Italian camps (and that is all I have done). In so doing I just lost 30% of my turn?

Also what is the best way to approach an attack? I have used half a dozen units (including tanks) against an Italian Brigade and am being told I have only a fair chance of success- that's a lot of units for not a lot in return!

[RufusTFirefly]

Good morning, Warspite1,
(in Germany I am nearly at same time zone)

had already been curious to see how you manage the combat time stamp. Have to admit that I did not fully understand how it works. Same with supply level indicators. I am a chemist holding a PhD (is "holding" the correct term?). So I think I might be able to understand even some more complex things. But time stamps of movement and combat seem to be difficult to understand.

Can only provide some ideas. The air attack you have launched has taken some time. Obviously 30% of the total time of this turn. Not moving units before the attack means, these units are waiting/resting til the air stirke is done.

Have started the first African campaign in the list: the Rommel offensive. First I moved my units and planned attacks. It is important not to move units too far. Their movement takes time. So just like your air strike it would use up a lot of available time stamps wand any combat ordered to perform would start late and have not much time left for performance.

But still some details are confusing. I moved all units using about a third of their movement points and planned some battles. Then I ordered the battles to be performed. Battle reports then show when battle started and how long they took. Some started at time stamp 4 lasted 2 time stamps and therefore ended at time stamp 5. All movements now continue at time stamp 5 as far as I understood. But: One battle started at time stamp 7 lasting for 4 time stamps. So it should end at time stamp 10 of 10 time stamps available. Turn should be over then and all left movement points of my units should be lost. Maybe I can continue at time stamp 5 but this single battle is still running?

Can you add a screenshot of the battle report of your bomb raid, please?

[warspite1]

Hi RTF

It was a naval bombardment not airborne. Here are the results. The ships did not move closer to the coast (or anywhere else). The first three dots on the unit box are now greyed out.

I looked at the tutorials and all I can say is that, whilst I appreciate the effort, these are just so frustrating. To newcomers of the game these things - timestamps and the like - are really baffling. There is NO point making a tutorial to explain something so complicated, if you are then going to speak at 100 miles an hour and speed through it.

So now I've undertaken these bombardments first. Does this mean that any attack now begins from round 4?

To try and get a handle on this I looked at the AI doing the British first turn. The AI was moving units all over the place i.e. long distances - but still was able to complete 20 or so? attacks during the turn.