El Amamein. Zovs (Axis) vs Tyronec (Commn)

[tyronec]

My first game of TOAW, just got the game a week ago so appreciate Zovs giving me a training run.
Think my Dad was at Alamein though not sure what unit. Not sure all the guys on our side would have wanted to be called Commonwealth !

So T1, the plan is to move up to contact without any combats and then hopefully on T2 to grab a few fortified hexes and get some units across the minefield without taking a hit. The minefield slows down movement by about 14 MPs and has a readiness hit.

So just bombard some Axis artillery and get my guys into position.

Not really sure what do do with the air force, so just put them all on interdiction and AS. To my surprise on the second action segment they went and bombed the Axis airfields. So now I know to set the off the PO.

Any advice and suggestions welcome, the AR is running one turn behind the action.

Question - when you get a cooperation penalty for a combat, does that apply to all units or just the specific ones it is listed for ?
In other words, can you make an attack worse by adding in some foreigners or do you always get at least some small advantage ?

Am guessing it is good not to overuse artillery during a turn. If you say make 3 attacks with them will they be less powerful during the opponents/your next turn ?
I can see they get weaker for progressive attacks.

Can you save part way through a move, if so how ?

[Zovs]

I forgot (again!) to take a screen shot from my side.

We are now at turn Two.

At first I thought that Tyrone should have pushed harder on turn 1, but his attack seems slow and steady. I know when I soloed I'd attack like a madman, but would burn out my units.

Here is a couple of screen shots:

The battle area overview Turn 2.


Same but just a strip of it:


The main attacks took place in the far north:


And the central north:


All the cross-swords are hexes that Tyrone strategically pushed me out of.

I need to grind him down and slow his advance.

[Zovs]

Tyrone,

Can you save part way through a move, if so how ?

In PBEM++ games you can't save part way through. It will then switch us over to regular PBEM.

No biggy if you do, but we will need to then exchange turns via email.

Question - when you get a cooperation penalty for a combat, does that apply to all units or just the specific ones it is listed for ?
In other words, can you make an attack worse by adding in some foreigners or do you always get at least some small advantage ?

Read up on 8.6.1. Formation Characteristics and Effects and 18.9.2. Support Levels in the manual, you'll have to weigh that against the Formation Support Scope.

The manual says this:


The scaling due to Limited or No Cooperation
applies to both attackers and defenders. The scaling
is applied to the entire attack or defense regardless of
how few or how inconsequential the uncooperative
units in the combat are, or whether they are ground assaulters
or ranged-supporters. Note that players
can determine the cooperation level of an attack by
viewing the Attack Planner Flags. But the Attack
Planner does not show the reduced combat strengths
– players have to figure that themselves.


And later (18.9.2)

The penalty for using Non-Cooperative or
Limited Cooperative units varies. The strongest
effect is in combat. Non-Cooperative units are
more likely to pull out of Attacks early, and increase
the chance that combats will take longer to resolve.

So the general rule of thumb is try not to mix up your formations and units, i.e., gold flags (100%), steel flags (83%), and black flags (67%). Look over the Unit Cooperation section. Note that the scaling effects the entire attack or defense. Also check out that table on page 152 in the manual.

Hope this helps.

[tyronec]

Thanks for the feedback.
Looks like a big part of this scenario is going to be about keeping the Allied formations in order, which given the condensed battlefield for the early turns could be difficult.

T2.
Things didn't go quite as planned, my first round of attacks mostly failed and so was unable to swarm over the minefield as intended. In retrospect should probably have attacked full out on T1.

North. Take two fort hexes, eventually, and get a few units across with the help of the road.

Center. Axis are a bit weaker here and get 6 hexes, though still a lot left in the minefield.

South. Total bodge up, have ended up with not enough to even make a good attack next turn. Should have held back until I had all my guys ready to go together.

Far south. There is a gap in the minefield here so the French should be ready to gave a go next turn.

Overall losses not too bad so far, was expecting worse.
Is there any way to see how many aircraft the opposition have lost ?

[tyronec]

T3.
North. Total failure on the road, manage to get a couple of hexes lower down.

Center. Two divisions making progress, the third one is stuck on the minefield doing nothing.

South. Beaten off by the Italians again, not looking good.

Far south. The Free French get totally creamed by an Italian infantry unit. That's what they get for not being in the commonwealth, Churchill probably sent them dud ammo.

[tyronec]

Start of T6 (forgot to do screen saves on previous turn).

Axis have not done too many attacks, I had cut off the green bunch of units last turn and they have re-established contact.
Surprised they didn’t take out that engineer up north, I send him forward two turns ago and tried to make contact last turn but none of my attacks did anything.

So am finding this game very complex. In the North the allies are just too cramped. I only have 1 row of hexes past the minefield so cannot really rotate units. Attacks at reasonable odds (4 or 5 to 1) nearly always fail, I think because of Axis Reserves coming in. Will try and take the swamp hex on the shore, no chance of getting the next one down.

Next group down is the 51st Infantry (white) with the 1st Arm (brown) joining in. Will try and take out that 3-4 unit with 1st Arm to widen my base in the first round.

The next area is where am doing better. 2nd NZ (green) hold the North. Will target the Italian MG and the 2-4 Engineer in the first round and hope to bring the armour down to get at the German 3-3 unit later in the turn. Am not optimistic ! 1SA (Red) are expanding West and 7th & 10th Arm (brown ) working their way across.

Next are 4th Ind (blue), 50 Inf (white) and the Greeks (lt blue) , none of which are in much of a state to do anything, plus several units stuck on the minefield.

Far south are the French, no chance of going forwards unless Axis pull back. At least they are pinning down a few units.

[tyronec]

So first pic is the situation after the 1st attacks. Amazingly they all won and just took 10%.

In the North have got contact with the Engineers, will just beef up my line.


51st Inf will attack one hex, for some reason they can use the Corp artillery without penalty. !st Arm rush over more units and have a go at the 2nd hex.

2nd NZ do one attack.
10th Arm just have enough MPs to attack the German 3-3 Panzers. And the Indians have a go at the Recon unit.

So the attacks go in and I get a proficiency check.
Maybe because the units attacking the German Panzers and Recon were with low MPs and there was not enough time to get them completed ?
Both those attacks failed though some of the others won.
Not great to finish on the Proficiency check, was hoping to have some of my move left and be able to tidy up the lines.

Second pic is final position.
However all in all am happy with the turn, at least some more space for my guys to work with and a couple more divisions in action.

[tyronec]

T07.
Start of turn, nothing dramatic from Axis. The main event is the South Africans are on strike.
First objective is to seal the pocket again.

That works and have got another hex by the road up North.
A couple of heavy losses attacking Panzer units, am thinking that in this game I need to attack them with tanks or AT. Am too used from attacking tanks with infantry in other games and that working fine.
Only one pip of the turn used so for the rest of the turn will try and seal off the pocket better.

[tyronec]

T07 Final position.

Have got a couple of pockets. The Northern one is weak and expect it will be broken.

Southern one is stronger, will see what Axis can do.

On the negative side have a SA unit isolated and expect to lose it, that Italian HQ fought off two attacks. For the second one my tanks sat around for 8 pips before moving to attack - perhaps they had Horrocks in charge !
Yes, on inspection they did have Horrocks in charge...



Question for Zovs, why is that German infantry unit on the minefield ?

[Edwire]

Exciting AAR! Looks like the Allied almost got the breakthrough but not quite there yet. Does the Axis still has reserve to counter attack?
Keep it coming guys! [:)]

[tyronec]

Thanks, I have 4 games on the go and this one is definitely the most fun.

Start of T8.
So the northern pocket held and the southern one was broken.
Axis did a lot of attacks and attrition building up on both sides.

I really don’t know what to do here; try and eliminate the surrounded units, advance all out or a more balanced approach.
On reflection what I will try is to continue a moderate advance, rest some units and leave the pockets as they are. If Axis keep attacking to recover them then hopefully that will cost them more than me.
What I don’t have any feel for is what effect being pocketed or partially cut off is having.


First round and won 4 of the 8 attacks. 40% used.


Second pic is after the first round.
Hoping to take this stack out and seal the southern pocket.


Final pic and the important attack failed, probably because they sat around for 2 pips doing nothing. At least got a lot of free kills.
Am guessing the guys in the pocket will not get to move far so maybe next turn.
Another couple of stacks cut off in the north. That was unexpected, one lot retreated without fighting.

[EwaldvonKleist]

I didn't know area denial by nuclear contamination was a thing in WW2. One learns something new every day.

Good AAR and you are a real wargaming machine Tyrone.

[Zovs]

When McBride made this scenario back in 1999ish (it has been updated in 2003 and I think for III) and to this day this is no minefields, so McBride choose to use the contamination areas to represent minefields. It works pretty good.

[tyronec]

T9 is a disaster, 8th Army has gone on strike.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Zovs
Tyrone,

Can you save part way through a move, if so how ?

In PBEM++ games you can't save part way through. It will then switch us over to regular PBEM.

No biggy if you do, but we will need to then exchange turns via email.

It's been my habit when playing a PBEM++ game and I need to take a break I select "close" from the FILE menu and then a little popup box opens to ask me if I want to "save & close", or "cancel" and I choose the save & close choice and then the game engine thinks about things for about 10 seconds and then TOAW closes to desktop. It looks like it crashed because you don't end up in the TOAW lobby but you're looking at your desktop instead. But never fear, the system has saved your game just fine. The next time you go online and load it up it will be right where you left off. I've done this myself and I know it works. Good hunting, the both of you.

[Zovs]

Thanks Larry your a gem!

[tyronec]

The 8th Army are still frozen and Axis have several moves to trash them, so game over.

There was a theater option at the beginning of the game to eliminate PO effects, one of which was 8th Army frozen for 4 turns from T9, and looks like I clicked the wrong button.

[John B.]

That is too bad, this was a good game and an interesting AAR!

[tyronec]

Second attempt, hopefully have got the options right.

Attacking all out from, one of the problems I was having last game was 8th Army too compressed even when they were across the minefield, so will ignore the losses and try and create more space.

Did a PO run through when I was trying to work out what went wrong last time and noticed Axis supplies are much worse than Commonwealth in the South so will try and attack more there this time.

[tyronec]

Much better progress this time, 8 fort hexes captured though heavier losses.
No wins in the South, maybe next turn.