Life is a Beach

[Q-Ball]

It's entirely possible to take Allied beachheads that are undefended; SS Panzer units have such high morale, they can drive through a gap, and make it to a beach many hexes away

A good practice for the Allied player, IMO, is to build fort zones on the beaches, let them fill to 100%, and maybe attach some extra flak units. You may not need it, but that's a low-cost way to prevent a cheapo incursion wiping out all your beaches. This is basically free, since US has plenty of APs and manpower in the pool.

[loki100]

don't want to hijack your AAR but that is a fascinating post and one reason why reporting AARs really helps understand the game dynamics.

One problem is we played most of 1943 before QBall's brilliant analysis of how to get the most out of the early strategic airwar, so that has some bearing on my lower rate of return.

I also think that Dave won quite a few rounds of the air cat and mouse game that is standard in 1943. On the other hand, at a pinch, I'm quite prepared to use the allied airforce as a means to cause attrition.

Another difference is that in 1943 I went hunting the Luftwaffe on the ground, I know that destroyed planes as such is not the long term problem for the Germans but it does mean those squadrons can't operate for a few turns. I'm not sure of the merit of this apart from for particular situations - ie you want the luftwaffe off your back for a couple of turns while you do a 1943 naval invasion.

You're right about the tactical air war. I do use a lot of 'unit' missions (and indeed have quite a few FB squadrons assigned to GS), so there is a trade off in return for damaged and destroyed planes due to unit flak levels. I'll even set up a special mission just to wreck a particular Pzr division, some that have been treated to this personal attention have never been seen near the front lines since ... think he sent them to the eastern front for an easier life [8D].

I reckon our game will end in a well deserved marginal victory for Dave. I've made enough mistakes that this seems fair. I didn't push hard in Italy, I've been very careless with the paras, the Danish debacle etc. I've also resorted to attritional combat tactics on a few turns. So my feeling is that the VP model is now pretty well calibrated. Strip out the obvious mistakes, add in a better 1943 bombing campaign and the game is in the range for a draw - which given we both know our way around the basic game engine from WiTE sounds right?

[LiquidSky]

Actually I am finding that this is my biggest weakness in the game so far....I am not a big veteran of WiTE. I played it a lot when it came out but for various reasons decided it was not the game for me.

WiTW is a much better game for me, and I love the planning with the air, the long term strategic effects of bombing...the invasion and defence against invasion..

I am beginning to think that all the hiding/misdirection is a waste of time for the allies.

They should pick an area to invade...bomb the crap out of it for with interdiction for a month or so before you invade....includeing hitting every Railyard in range. Maybe even hit it all spring. Make the Germans lose manpower everytime they want to adjust their defences in the area... You don't have to be subtle with the allies...they cant put divisions on the coast for defence anyways, and I am not going to invade a port.

In my game against Pelton I built up some fortifications...I even stuffed artillery in them. They were awesome in stopping his full strength panzer divisions from breaking my line to reach the beach. I also moved a lot of AA into the ports as he was fond of bombing them...and I have a lot of AA/admin points.

I believe the number one priority in 1943 is to bomb the Ruhr. The victory points are just too high to try other things with it..except the number two priority of bombing the Luftwaffe.

The number of bombing points available in the Ruhr area (about a 4-5 hex box around Wuppertal) is a wopping 22 VP's in 1943. It drops to 7 in the first half of 1944 and down to 5 in the last half of 1944.

Even assuming half damage to all the factories, that's still 11 per turn, without bombing any other lucrative targets. (Like Hamburg and area)

I look forward to playing the allies again. I have so many ideas now that I have played the Germans a couple of times.

[Seminole]

They should pick an area to invade...bomb the crap out of it for with interdiction for a month or so before you invade....includeing hitting every Railyard in range. Maybe even hit it all spring. Make the Germans lose manpower everytime they want to adjust their defences in the area... You don't have to be subtle with the allies...they cant put divisions on the coast for defence anyways, and I am not going to invade a port.

I have only played the Allies in the Husky and BGI scenarios. In the BGI scenario I thought I had good results with the release version in creating German supply problems in Italy by focusing my strategic assets on reducing ports and particularly railyards.
In my games as the Axis I've seen Allied commanders focusing on rail interdiction in lieu of going for the railyards themselves.
Now with the change to supply delivery predicated on railyard damage I think Allied commanders need to at least adopt the historical ratio of 1/3rd of bombs going to reducing the supply network. You have to stick with it over time so that supplies in place get consumed while you minimize restocking to see its effects.

I believe the number one priority in 1943 is to bomb the Ruhr. The victory points are just too high to try other things with it..except the number two priority of bombing the Luftwaffe.

This is why I'm happy to see Allied Strategic bombers pounding the ports in Sardinia or Corsica week after week in '43. Whenever I'm diverting assets from their 'best use' from the enemy perspective I think I'm on the right track.

If you have any more details on his advance from the beaches to the near encirclement of Paris I'd be interested to see it. Did he push you, or did you try to retreat in advance of being pushed?

[LiquidSky]

His invasion was on the eastern side of the Seine...which meant that sooner or later he would be able to push his way south behind Paris. I parked most of my mechanized corps on that front to slow/stop him.

After a while, he managed to push his way south on the other side of the river, and was too strong to stop from making his way east south of the city. When there where too many holes in the dyke, and not enough fingers (panzer divs), I had to pull back.

He also has been consistently bombing my railyards, and the railines, as well as interdicting the ground behind my front. My mechanized corps would usually end up at about 50% ammo after a resupply turn for the ones that where used in combat. I could top up a few of them with my Air transports though.

Here is the beginning of the Sept 9th turn:

[Devonport]

loki100 referred to Q-Ball's strategic bombing analysis, but I can't find it anywhere. Could someone point me in the right direction please?

By the way thanks LiquidSky for the AAR. Entertaining and informative.

[Q-Ball]

It wasn't me, I don't think. I've made some comments, but I don't think it rises to the level of analysis by any means. Must be someone else, maybe Meklore, whom I played.

[LiquidSky]

At work I have plenty of time to think about the game and come up with ideas.

Some of my more evil imaginings:

1) Recently I flew an isolated FJ regiment out of Lille to save it from destruction. Even though there was plenty of enemy interceptions, I managed to save most of the unit. I previously noticed that when an airfield fell on Sardinia, I lost all the aircraft using it...along with support etc.

Which brings me to evil idea number 1....I have lots of paratroopers. Why not do a late summer '44 landing in England to destroy aircraft? With luck, there might not even be any ground units around to stop you from running amok...if there are, at least you got the fields you landed on.. Might be good for a lot of dead long range fighters.

2) The german's actually have a lot of aircraft with rockets. I didn't notice at first since they have the name WGr 210.

Bf109G's....FW 190's.....

Which brings me to evil idea number 2. The bombing modifier in late '44 makes bombing fairly low on VP's...and you cant really stop the allies from picking and choosing important factories to obliterate. So why not convert all these planes (and I can fly like 3000 of them) to bombers and go after the allied front line. The number of vp's I would gain (from casualty points) would probably easily out weight the loss to the bombing campaign.

3) The Germans have 5 motorized brigades when the allies invade in summer of '44. They gain a bunch of panzer brigades by the end of the summer (I have 7 at the moment). When you retreat from the invasion towards Germany, the allies are usually stuck with trying to flip all the French hexes over to their control. And they don't have a lot of free units for this.

Use these brigades to roam around like guerrillas. Keep Italy to your back and use that for supply. The allies are probably not wasting actual divisions to liberate all those internal cities....you can smuck them about with your stronger brigades. (Panthers for the win!) You can tell where they are by using the Toggle Enemy Hexes button.

[LiquidSky]

ORIGINAL: Devonport

loki100 referred to Q-Ball's strategic bombing analysis, but I can't find it anywhere. Could someone point me in the right direction please?

By the way thanks LiquidSky for the AAR. Entertaining and informative.

I think I know what you are referring to. It was NotOneStepBack I believe, and he was the one who noticed that if you concentrate in hitting HI and MAN you get lots of vps. I think he was up to 15vps a turn or so. Meklore took what he preached and put it into practice in a game.

[loki100]

ah sorry, yes you are right, the QBall discussion was about the relative ease of destroying AFV factories and the impact that had on the German war effort, still a lot of good stuff in the thread I was thinking about

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



At work I have plenty of time to think about the game and come up with ideas.

Some of my more evil imaginings:

1) Recently I flew an isolated FJ regiment out of Lille to save it from destruction. Even though there was plenty of enemy interceptions, I managed to save most of the unit. I previously noticed that when an airfield fell on Sardinia, I lost all the aircraft using it...along with support etc.

Which brings me to evil idea number 1....I have lots of paratroopers. Why not do a late summer '44 landing in England to destroy aircraft? With luck, there might not even be any ground units around to stop you from running amok...if there are, at least you got the fields you landed on.. Might be good for a lot of dead long range fighters.

2) The german's actually have a lot of aircraft with rockets. I didn't notice at first since they have the name WGr 210.

Bf109G's....FW 190's.....

Which brings me to evil idea number 2. The bombing modifier in late '44 makes bombing fairly low on VP's...and you cant really stop the allies from picking and choosing important factories to obliterate. So why not convert all these planes (and I can fly like 3000 of them) to bombers and go after the allied front line. The number of vp's I would gain (from casualty points) would probably easily out weight the loss to the bombing campaign.

3) The Germans have 5 motorized brigades when the allies invade in summer of '44. They gain a bunch of panzer brigades by the end of the summer (I have 7 at the moment). When you retreat from the invasion towards Germany, the allies are usually stuck with trying to flip all the French hexes over to their control. And they don't have a lot of free units for this.

Use these brigades to roam around like guerrillas. Keep Italy to your back and use that for supply. The allies are probably not wasting actual divisions to liberate all those internal cities....you can smuck them about with your stronger brigades. (Panthers for the win!) You can tell where they are by using the Toggle Enemy Hexes button.

I'd say #1 is unrealistic, the game doesn't model the large army the British retained in the UK, nor all the ad-hoc units (signals/logistics etc) that could have been mustered

#2 would at least force allied players not to mass convert fighters to fighter bombers, but it could be an easy way to wreck the Luftwaffe if you picked the wrong target. May also incline allied players to make more use of the AA units they have

#3 I like this one, it always worries me that there is something nasty lurking in the south once the main front becomes west/east orientated. I've started using those arm cav regiments to convert below the Loire and that might force a more substantial dispersal of effort. But it would be risky, an Allied landing in the south of France would leave you dependent on the Rhone corridor for supply and that is relatively easy to close.

[LiquidSky]

I would never do the parachute one...unless I was playing Pelton, of course [:D] I agree that there are a lot of units lying about in England that aren't modeled (since they would only be disbanded for manpower anyways)

I have been using my bombers lately to bomb the allied front, and usually I send them in unescorted.

Well..putting my money where my mouth is I bombed 3 Allied tank divisions on my front line. I hit them with 1000 bombers and 400 fighter bombers armed with rockets.

Allied Losses: 5475 Men, 27 Guns, 176 AFV's.
German Losses: 121 Fighter-Bombers, 214 Bombers. Only around a dozen to Air Combat. Most were due to Operational Losses.

It left an interdiction level of 2 in the hex as well...

As for the roaming mot brigades...I set it up a few turns ago so that I would have a corp of them in the north by Brussels/Lille. They spectacularly raced around and cut off a rather large number of allied divisions.....only to be easily pushed aside to reopen the way into Belgium. They are far to weak to be used where the allies have divisions. So I now have them poised in the south for harassment missions.

I agree that the best defence would be to take out South of France pronto. Like they did historically. Or even make up your own band of roaming brigades....since you out number the axis in that department as well.

[LiquidSky]

Well, I took a chance and loaded up my poor tired infantry divisions on the front with support units (Tigers, Jagpanzers...) and attacked his bombed armour divisions.

Here is the result:

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky




Well, I took a chance and loaded up my poor tired infantry divisions on the front with support units (Tigers, Jagpanzers...) and attacked his bombed armour divisions.

Here is the result:

that makes sense, the real impact of massed air attack is not outright losses (those are a bonus) but disruptions. Key is that disrupted units can't recover to the end of turn routine and can't fight. So you see these radical collapses from notional cv (what you see on the map) to real cv once the combat is resolved.

For the allies, I'm coming to think that both setting this up and having the confidence to trust the (hidden) impact of bombing is the key to good tactical play as you *can* get away with marginal attacks (not much over 1-1) if you have really worked over the defenders. Its akin to learning to trust mass/quantity over quality with the Soviets.

[LiquidSky]

Well I had a very distressing message on my turn (Sept 23, 1944). I decided to build a fortification near my front line, and received the message that I didn't have the 9 manpower required. So it wouldn't let me.

Time to disband some stuff. I already got rid of all the Russian Ost battalions....guess I can work on some flak. I also got rid of my Garrison army HQ's already.

Might have to start in on the most beat up infantry divisions. That would suck as I only have enough to cover the front 2 divs per hex with very few left over.

[Seminole]

Well I had a very distressing message on my turn (Sept 23, 1944). I decided to build a fortification near my front line, and received the message that I didn't have the 9 manpower required. So it wouldn't let me.

Can you post the OoB comparison screen?
Manpower and ready manpower would be interesting too.

[LiquidSky]

dang it... I just sent the turn so it will have to wait until after the weekend.

My roaming mech brigades have bagged a couple of allied lone brigades forcing a surrender, so this plan is working okay. I've started to disband the forts I built in Italy which is ironic considering the allies have finally shown up near my front line by Naples. But they did there job getting me to level 3.

For the first time in a while my bombers have taken air combat casualties, so I have diverted his fighters from spreading interdiction to acting as fighters at least. And I lost less bombers since most of the kids are no longer flying and I restricted the squadrons from getting any pilots.

Weather is rain leaving light mud. It seems to be spreading south, so I hope it turns into heavy rain.

[Q-Ball]

RE: Manpower, instead of disbanding Infantry units, you can also consider MERGE with another depleted unit. That allows you to keep those men on the map, and not have to cycle through the pool. But if you need replacements for the Panzers, I guess you have to disband.

I think the Germans shouldn't be able to disband a ton of flak in the homeland. I'm OK with it in France, but I think IRL the Germans weren't disbanding flak units for Panzer replacements, and at any rate flak crews tended to be men who were not suitable for front-line duty. There are a number of Flak Regiments along the Baltic that yield 4000 men each and aren't very useful where they are, but it doesn't seem 100% kosher to do that. I assume those units are there to protect naval bases which aren't really in the game. The other thing is that with EF Box off, the West Front gets all those replacements, which wouldn't happen IRL either. Not sure what's right there.

Once you start disbanding infantry divisions, you'll also find you have spare Corps HQ, so those are another source of manpower

That's also the problem with leaving an infantry division or two to die in those ports; I can see the benefit, because it forces the Allies to detach a Corps to take care of it, but you also lose several thousand men that way.

[LiquidSky]

I don't disband FlaK regiments...I move them to cities being bombed. A damaged/disrupted bomber doesn't drop bombs.

I discovered something interesting...it only costs 10 admin points to remove a marine/foreign FlaK regiment from a city. The LW ones cost 50. I thought it might be a bug but nope..its in the rules.

My brigades running around in southern france seem to be working out. So far they have captured two allied brigades, and have surrounded a third. The panzer brigades seem to be too tough for a single allied division to take on and the terrain definitely favours me.

He is working his way down to try and cut them off from Italy, but that will take a few more turns.

As well...bombing is working well...no Air Combat to stop my bombers this time. My follow up combat failed though...only 1.7 - 1

[LiquidSky]

Here is the OOB numbers. Not sure what to make of them other then the allies have more stuff then me.

Why cant I have stuff. I want stuff. I'm stuffless.

[LiquidSky]

Current Victory points for Turn 67: Oct 7 1944: