Revanchism in Europe (PBEM gwgardner vs Chocolino)

[gwgardner]

And does Poland really need an airforce? Disband that and feed the replacements into your ground troops.

I never do things like that. Gamey.

I actually never took Poland seriously, until I realized my opponent had stripped all the armor out to the west. By then only Lodz was still in my hands.

I'm not really a very good player. If I can't do quasi-historical things without delving into the underbelly of a game system, I just won't do it.

[Flaviusx]

Why is it gamey? This is how you got luftwaffe field divisions in real life.

I just wish you could also disband naval units. (Which is how you get Soviet naval rifle brigades.)

[shri]

I am a total NOOB and i struggled with the 2 Panzers to knock Poland in a month. I took Poznan and Lodz easily but Krakow is a tough nut (the river and supply issues) and Warsaw saw my 2 northern corps get cut off by Poles and i wasted 1 turn. Anyway thanks to intense Luftwaffe bombing, Warsaw fell in early October.

Q: How do you guys approach Poland?

P.S.: I was simultaneously attacking Denmark and Netherlands (both from late September), Denmark was a success and Netherlands was a WW1 grind.

[tyronec]

Read some of the AARs, it can be done in 2 turns well enough using 1 Panzer corps.

[Chocolino]

Thanks for the many good comments.

Here is what I learned so far from the current approach (basically as stated already by several of you above).

- you don't need 2 Panzerkorps for Poland, but one is essential (you can do it reasonably quickly without tanks but you need more dice rolling luck than I have had in this game, and who wants to rely on luck only).

- yes, I noticed the hard way that Belgium V1.3 is a bit tougher now. Also once a reasonable unit sits as defender in Brussels it is almost impossible to take the city from across the river from just 3 hexes - regardless of how much oil you let the Luftwaffe burn. This early in the game you don't have access to many engineers/infiltrators yet. I needed to take Brussels on the first attempt - which I failed at - and from there things went downhill.

- Weather is the main deciding factor how fast you can reach the French border. With a kind autumn much can happen. When it is heavy rain or even just regular rain you may often save your gasfuel and shoe leather as losses mount quickly.

[Chocolino]

11-24-39

The French violate the national integrity of Luxembourg and invade the helpless country using only a thinly veiled pretext.

Rumors have it that France and Great Britain have offered assistance to Luxembourg, in defending that small nation's sovereignty against the kind of brutality that Germany has shown to the world, in Poland, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

But their attempt to connect to and free the "Rhineland Rapers" cavalry fails so far. Only a thin screen of German infantry is standing between the poilus and the Fatherland. We hope the "RR" fail to forage for fodder and run out of steam soon.

[Chocolino]

11-24-39

Lodz falls and Poland surrenders - it took a very long time even considering the voluntary deployment changes. The last Polish marauders will vanish as well. Now we have some more troops to work with - but it is too late in the year for that to be particularly helpful. I will not use this opening gambit any more in future games - only with some significant upgrades.

But then I don't think it did any lasting harm to the German cause either.

[Chocolino]

12-8-39

The French have taken over much of the lines in Belgium. (Like in WW2 - but unfortunately Guderian is not crossing the Meuse at Sedan right now to cut them off).

The French are a bit tougher to beat than the Belgians. But on the flip side - once and if Brussels falls all Belgians will vanish without me having to fight them.

The Rhineland Raiders have been eliminated.

[Chocolino]

12-22-39

Heavy rain again - the Germans need to take a much needed rest day anyways - especially the tanks were exhausted. We redeploy some units and will take it a bit easier from now on.

The British strategic bombing campaign continues unabated - fairly severe production losses actually. To counter this I have built quite a lot of AA and hope it will be online soon.

[Flaviusx]

There is a certain opportunity cost in a delayed Polish contest. From what I can tell, once you annex Poland, this raises German production by about 20 points, or a 10% increase. It's not a lot, but it adds up. That's a flak point right there.

If it was possible to force a quickie Belgian surrender, that opportunity cost would be well worth paying. But...not likely. So the orthodox 2 turn Polish conquest ends up being the best bet, with perhaps a Danish and Dutch sidedish to round it out.

[tyronec]

Having tried and seen some different approaches it is looking to me like the early years are looking like:
39 - Poland, Denmark and Netherlands.
40 - Belgium and France. Just maybe Yugoslavia and a possible Greece if France falls quickly.
41 - Russia
Any deviation from this by Axis is likely to be disadvantageous, unless the Allies make some mistakes.
There is little prospect of Axis doing much in the Africa or the Middle East if the Allies protect their position carefully.

[Flaviusx]

I would agree with that assessment.

[Chocolino]

ORIGINAL: tyronec

Having tried and seen some different approaches it is looking to me like the early years are looking like:
39 - Poland, Denmark and Netherlands.
40 - Belgium and France. Just maybe Yugoslavia and a possible Greece if France falls quickly.
41 - Russia
Any deviation from this by Axis is likely to be disadvantageous, unless the Allies make some mistakes.
There is little prospect of Axis doing much in the Africa or the Middle East if the Allies protect their position carefully.

I agree as well. But one has to find those things out by own experimentation - it deepens the educational experience....

Also a little bit sad that there are not too many strategic options open to the Axis early in the game. It seems all to come down to tactical execution of the above time table and some external random effects such as weather.

[Chocolino]

1-5-40

Instead of continuing to bang their head unsuccessfully at Brussels (which would get rid of the Belgium troops the quickest) the Axis pursues a slower but safer approach and crosses the Meuse at one hex east of Brussels to get a foothold on the other side.

[Chocolino]

1-5-40

The French use their navy to hunt down innocent German merchantmen in the Skagerrak. Losses have been mounting and soon Germany will not be able to ship Swedish iron ore any more. I am wondering if it is worth to build more at a cost of 100PP for 10 merchantmen each if the Allies can sink 6 a turn? German U-Boats in comparison sink 2-4 convoys per turn and suffer occasional losses from escorts (all those numbers are from memory).

As much as I loath to use German resources on the French navy the Kriegsmarine could not sit by and watch this any longer. German heavy and light units sailed out in force with mixed results and losses on both sides (see box in below pic).

This is also a good time to talk about the British success with strat. bombing. They have costed Germany an estimated 200PP so far. The disappointing fact is that AA appear to be completely ineffective. Hit rates are around 1 hit per 8-10 attacks on sites with AA guns.

[Michael T]

The early war strat bombing by allies has been nerfed in 1.04.

But considering the disadvantage the Soviet will face with his weakened Mech and Armour in 42 then it's a counter balance to that.

Just for interest, in my last game I played (1.03.02) the poor German had suffered 1089 productions losses by Oct 1940 just from Strategic Bombing.

Effectively 3 Armoured Corp removed from German OOB.

[Flaviusx]

I found flak to be brutally effective in 1.03. But only if you put 6 points everywhere, and I doubt Germany can do that so early in the game.

Flak was hitting for 2 points minimum on each strike with 6 flak points on the target.

[Michael T]

Flak seems to do pretty good in 1.04 from what I saw with all the extra flak in Germany in 1939. It made the idea of a 39 strategic bombing campaign 'idiotic'. A big change from being a 'no brainer' in earlier version.

[Chocolino]

Since we started using V1.03, the extra Flak is not available in Germany. Also my opponent reports very few AA hits - so it is not a reporting error. Could be a statistical aberration of course.

[Chocolino]

1-19-40

While the German navy fights for its Swedish iron ore supply, the Allied navies accost our ships in force. Luckily we can ambush the British and cause some losses during the Allied turn. On our own turn we attack a British group with fatal outcome for the Battlecruiser Scharnhorst. (It was also the first German ship sunk in our previous game. The Germans actually classified it as an armored cruiser back then).

Since the Kriegsmarine is no match for the joined Allied fleets we withdraw to Kiel with operations point #2.