Infantry Engagements

[RCHarmon]

I am giving this game another go and have been spending a lot of time learning the air war and logistics.

My concern is that the infantry fighting seems like WW1. As the Allies I am grouping up artillery and using combat engineers, but the slog is hard. I suffer way more than the Axis.

My biggest concern is with replacements. You cannot wear down the enemy. After losses, the casualties are immediately replaced. For myself and the other side. I had the 1st Br Airborne division completely destroyed during an invasion drop and the next turn they were back in England all filled up with replacements and ready for action again. So how can divisions be immediately replaced like that?

[loki100]

not sure about your second point. Open up the unit and check the ToE, you'll probably find it has gaps, depending on what assets you had to hand and also low experience. It will take a few turns to fill out and train up.

Key to your first part is not to engage in a fair fight. You don't have the raw combat power (and manpower) of the Red Army, so attrition should be your last resort not your first (you'll need to do it sometimes but not till you have run out of other options).

How to make it an unfair fight?

Airpower. Set up interdiction missions, this will hit any German reinforcements and resupply, so they will struggle to replace any losses. This also stops/hurts any reserve activations. Then there are two ways to bomb your target, ground attack-unit missions will hit the units directly (interdiction overall is better but they both have a use) and then airpower allocated to ground support.

Key to all this is that disrupted elements don't fight that turn, so all this bombing has removed a lot of Axis combat power from the equation, so when you do attack they are already weakened.

Finally look over your support units. Artillery is good as it too disrupts before close combat (it also kills but its the disruptions that really make the difference). Then think about terrain. Combat engineers are almost always good to have, armour in open terrain, mtn units in hilly terrain etc etc.

With the Allies, at least till late 1944, you are facing a problem that the better German units are still very good.

In France, a combination of massive airpower and clear terrain means you can really use your airpower across a relatively large area. In Italy 1943, it has to be more focussed.

Another useful source of shells is your naval TFs. These can move in the turn so they are adjacent to a combat (if its a coastal hex), they will then shell your target and you can move them back to prepping etc for the end of the turn.