Smokindave vs. Pz501

[smokindave34]

Pz501 decided to take on some smaller scenarios together while we work our way up to a full campaign. This is my first outing with WITW so I'm hoping for some help from the community to get my arms around this game.

After getting some help from other forum threads I decided to set my air doctrine up as follows:

1) Ground attack/interdiction will be the priority. I set my targets for 2nd RAF, 8th USAF, and 9th USAF as follows:
Interdiction - High
Units - Normal (or low)
All others - None

I set friendly hex interdiction to "No" since I don't expect the axis to be pushing through my lines any time soon
I didn't change the altitude settings. If anyone has any suggestions on altitude settings (or anything else for that matter) please let me know

2) No changes were made to the ground support stock setup for this mission
3) I widened the area for recon from the stock setup. Not sure if this is wise or not but I'm used to seeing a good portion of the enemies positioning from WITE (this may be another welcome change)
4) Air superiority priority was set from high to normal since I want to prioritize the interdiction.

I noticed a few of my airbases in France where "orange" and had a max TOE of 1. I set them to auto to try and get them up to full working condition. This seemed appropriate but maybe I'm now stealing supplies from the infantry/armor?

Please point out anything I messed up!

Here are some screenshots starting with the ground attack setups:

[smokindave34]

And the 8th USAF:

[smokindave34]

Here is the air superiority setup for 2nd RAF

[smokindave34]

Air losses after the air execution phase:

Not sure if these numbers are good or bad but they seem fairly consistent with other AAR's I've read.

Another setup I did not change was the schedule for my missions. Has anyone experimented with this? I considered having my planes fly 5 to 7 days in the week but was afraid they'd be burned out if I had done that.

[smokindave34]

Turn 1 ground phase:

Two of the U.S. corps were overloaded to start so I transferred 4th and 90th infantry divisions to XIX corps. No admin points were required for this transfer - is this a change from WITE? I don't remember seeing that one in the manual but I skimmed over a good bit of it.

I also moved the 5th U.S. armored division to XV corps since the original parent HQ of 5th armored was still in England. I also changed out it's leader for a leader with a better mech rating.

Lastly I set the supply priority for the 1st U.S. army to '4'. This was easy enough to do in the commanders report.

My first battle saw all 3 regiments from the 2nd panzer division join in as defensive reserves. I barely won this battle but the huge showing by the USAF probably put me over the top. The Luftwaffe took some pretty nasty losses in this battle.

[smokindave34]

Turn 1 ended with the 5th U.S. armored division in Avranches. I moved 2 rail repair units to the mainland in preparation for an eventual breakout (I hope!) and started moving armor in England to the ports. This scenario should be a good introduction to logistics if I'm able to get the front moving east.

[Nico165b165]

That's a good pocket to start with.

Will you try to get some paratroopers behind the german lines ? This strategy has been described in the other Breakout AAR here -> http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=3760415

[smokindave34]

I had not considered using my airborne forces. I haven't really had a chance to read up on airborne operations but I know the tutorial described that you need to pre-plan your drop point. I'm not sure yet where I would land them? I'll have to see how the game unfolds. I'd like to try it - more practice for the future full campaign.

[Baelfiin]

No AP cost for changing HQ in WitW