When do you change postures?

[NotOneStepBack]

Seeing that it results in a loss of a turn or two for your PZgruppes, is it best to change postures after the initial breakthrough, or do you keep it going ? I'm finding myself switching postures before Minsk is even captured due to fuel concerns.

[zakblood]

that depends on you're skill and difficulty level set and what side tbh,

for me, but others do it differently, as some have got to the gates of Moscow and never altered stance, where as i do a couple of turns then go to sustained until i need to fully rest and recover my units then go on defensive and defend once i find a good place to do it, as don't leave in the open in line either as on the first turn of a stance change they are very very weak so can get slaughtered if not in a good area to change stance in, found that out the hard way.

but you will see and adapt once the hours have been put in, best to start imo on normal with FOW off, so you can see how the AI plays, makes little difference in the real game as it will adapt and play different each time anyway so having a sneak peak with it off for a odd game while your learning imo helps with stance changing until you learn when and when not to do it[&o]

[Panzeh]

For what it's worth, I think heavily investing in trying to get early stance changes with Stalin is a mistake because the units on offensive posture are screwed anyway, they're not going to live no matter what. The defensive posture is good, but you can get it later.

[demyansk]

I am taking a very cautious approach while playing, I just changed the 3rd Romanian HQ out of Blitzkrieg to offensive.

A good time is to check the small icon on the unit, I tried to find a screen shot but cant find it. Okay, I found it, I knew I did it once before with the paint program. I circled the items to look at

How do you place the screen shot right inside the post instead of an attachment?

[zakblood]

1

[demyansk]

Thanks Zakk now I can do it that way

[ChuckBerger]

For the Germans, in my first game I left the PG on blitzkrieg for the full game, which I won in mid-October. I switched the infantry over to sustained offensive on a rolling basis, whenever it seemed safe to do so, after the initial battles, so around turns 10-15. I never had to use the defensive posture.

In general, it seems to me that the best thing would be to time posture change, FSB movement, and rest & refit all at the same time. PZG will need to rest and refit at some point between your first blitzkrieg, and your "final lunge" forward before the winter. Probably late September to mid-October. So that's a reasonable time to change posture, if you need to. But I think there's enough fuel to stay on Blitz until winter.

For the Russians, posture change is easier. Don't bother for the front armies, and otherwise do it whenever you have a turn of breathing room and some spare PPs. I prioritise it on turn one or two for the big second-line armies (27th, Baltic, Western, Southwestern, and Southern, and others in the south if you can get away with it.) Really helps make them more effective as speedbumps.

For the frontier armies, I actually try to take advantage of their offensive posture by counterattacking whenever I can. If you get an activation, you can actually inflict some punishing losses on a panzer division - the Germans are in blitz, so you get a huge offensive bonus against their defensive malus! I'm just playing my first game as the Russians, and in the north I shattered one panzer division on turn one, and another on turn two, with concentric attacks by an activated 11th army. Sure they're get killed, but might as well go down in fights where they have a huge + rather than a huge -!