Matrix Games Forums

I just finished my first 43-45 Italy campaign with an Allied minor victory 1.5 to 1 and of course, I made a lot of mistakes along the way but had a good time doing it.

Lessons learned:

1. Always try and attack were the enemy is weak then either encircle or force a retreat. Much better than taking losses head on.

2. The fortification overlay is your friend. Didn't figure that out soon enough and made some attacks based on CV calculations without taking into account enemy entrenchment levels. Is a good rule of thumb CV * fort level for actual CV (a 3 level fort means take CV * 3?)

3. Keep a close eye on the withdrawal schedule...didn't know that the toggle unit mode (shift-r) also showed units scheduled for WD...a lot easier than clicking on units to look.

4. The commander's report is invaluable, especially if you want to sort and keep air unit morale up. Didn't know until later you could also replace pilots there. Also good for tracking units whose TOE is getting low and need refit.

I did have a question or two I hope one of you can answer.

1. Is it cost/time effective to try and attack routed units? If I understand correctly, a routed unit can be rallied depending on command morale checks, but I'm not sure if that check goes on indefinitely and all units get rallied at some point, or is it smart to try and attack them before they can rally and thereby destroy them?

2. I think I know the answer to this one, but air support missions never show up on my Air Directives summary has having flown any sorties. I think the way it works is it's just factored into your ground attacks, but not 100% sure on that. Also, when assigning these missions, do you just assign it to the highest Air HQ possible just to make sure all units under it get support (like I did in Italy), or is that a bad thing in the grand campaign as you'd spread yourself out too thin? For that matter, how can I tell how may aircraft are being used for ground support and thereby not available for other air missions? The whole ground support thing is a bit confusing even after reading the manual over and over.

3. Support units. I know how to assign them from corps to div/brigade. I currently assign engineer/anti tank/armored units to my infantry divisions and leave the armored units alone unless I'm just filthy rich in support units. Is that smart? Also, I noticed that AFHQ will get SUs. If I assign these to my corps, can they then assign them to my divisions or are they stuck with them for themselves? If so, I left a lot of SU's in North Africa lol.

Had a great time and this is my new favorite war strategy game. Can't wait for WiTE2! I have a notion to perhaps try Italy 43-45 again, but thought maybe I'd be better off doing some scenarios first. Any recommendations on good scenarios, especially those that may help me learn more? Not ready for the GC yet, that's for sure.

ORIGINAL: actrade

..

I did have a question or two I hope one of you can answer.

1. Is it cost/time effective to try and attack routed units? If I understand correctly, a routed unit can be rallied depending on command morale checks, but I'm not sure if that check goes on indefinitely and all units get rallied at some point, or is it smart to try and attack them before they can rally and thereby destroy them?

2. I think I know the answer to this one, but air support missions never show up on my Air Directives summary has having flown any sorties. I think the way it works is it's just factored into your ground attacks, but not 100% sure on that. Also, when assigning these missions, do you just assign it to the highest Air HQ possible just to make sure all units under it get support (like I did in Italy), or is that a bad thing in the grand campaign as you'd spread yourself out too thin? For that matter, how can I tell how may aircraft are being used for ground support and thereby not available for other air missions? The whole ground support thing is a bit confusing even after reading the manual over and over.

3. Support units. I know how to assign them from corps to div/brigade. I currently assign engineer/anti tank/armored units to my infantry divisions and leave the armored units alone unless I'm just filthy rich in support units. Is that smart? Also, I noticed that AFHQ will get SUs. If I assign these to my corps, can they then assign them to my divisions or are they stuck with them for themselves? If so, I left a lot of SU's in North Africa lol.

Had a great time and this is my new favorite war strategy game. Can't wait for WiTE2! I have a notion to perhaps try Italy 43-45 again, but thought maybe I'd be better off doing some scenarios first. Any recommendations on good scenarios, especially those that may help me learn more? Not ready for the GC yet, that's for sure.

1) Routed units that are not stacked with a non-routed combat unit will do a retreat as you move adjacent, they pick up a steady stream of losses this way (you need to flip to the casualty screen to see this), if they are stacked with a non-routed combat unit they will retreat/rout if you win that battle. Certainly the end game in Germany 1945 sees flocks of these units falling back as the Allies advance (if I recall the chance to rally involves unit morale and TOE% as well as leadership competence)

2) aye, they fly in the ground phase on demand, so its not shown in the air phase report. You can see what air units are available by opening a unit tab (the third tab shows GS and you can see a list of the valid units). If you are doing manual air war, if you create an AD but don't assign air directly those air groups can move to all the feasible ADs.

So say you have a GA AD and an GS AD, in theory the same planes can be used in both (if they have the air miles). If you want to reserve air units for the GS (& I often do as its really a mission for your tac bombers and some FBs) then manually assign - those air groups will not do anything else but that AD

3) You can leave construction/eng assets at the higher level HQs but get everything else at least down to the corps HQs so it can be called on for combat.

Which SU fits which Combat Unit is a bit feng shui to be honest. In the main don't put non-mot SU directly to a mot CU (they pick up a surprising number of trucks that you might have better uses for). The game indirectly rewards combined arms in that certain elements are better in certain situations. So if your tanks are likely to get mixed up in rough terrain, infantry style SUs are good, if they are going to stay in the clear there is no reason not to make it tank heavy.

The allies don't really have the Soviet style breakthrough tanks, so in the main I personally wouldn't put armour into the Infantry divisions (unless they are motorised) but its all very situational as to what works well in what combination.

ok thanks. on point 3, so you are saying that I can move SU from the AFHQ down to the corp level, THEN move them from the corp to the divisions, right? i was fearful that the SU would just stick with the corps and I couldn't move to div/brigade levels. if i read the manual correctly, the advantage of moving SU from corp to div/brig is you get guaranteed support vs. leaving them in the corps, where there is a roll for support, right?

ORIGINAL: actrade

ok thanks. on point 3, so you are saying that I can move SU from the AFHQ down to the corp level, THEN move them from the corp to the divisions, right? i was fearful that the SU would just stick with the corps and I couldn't move to div/brigade levels. if i read the manual correctly, the advantage of moving SU from corp to div/brig is you get guaranteed support vs. leaving them in the corps, where there is a roll for support, right?

If you land an Army or Army Group HQ on Sicily or Italy you can transfer SU's directly from AFHQ to that HHQ. It's also a good thing to put AFHQ on Oran, which is a level 4 depot, and then transfer weak SU's back to AFHQ to recover faster than they will on any other HQ/depot in the Med theater.

Some people like to assign the SU's to corps HQ and let the AI assign to on-map combat units as needed. I personally prefer manually assigning SU's to on-map units so I get exactly what I want where I want it. It's a matter of how much micromanaging you want to do. Because of that, I keep SU's at the Army or Army HQ level so I can transfer them to a broader group of on-map units.

On your lesson learned #2, Loki would know for sure, but I believe the CV displayed on the map incorporates the value of the fortification, so you shouldn't need to also multiply by the CV level.

Note that the game rewards using engineers to attack fortifications, and punishes not using them. If I'm attacking a fortified hex (which is almost all the time in Italy) I always assign an engineer battalion to one of the attacking divisions, even if the divisions have organic engineer battalions. For whatever reason the combat results often don't show an engineer presence effect if I don't have the engineer SU assigned.

If I have the luxury of having Commonwealth units being able to attack a strongly fortified hex from three sides, I'll do the following:


1. The turn before the attack, assign an armored or tank brigade to at least one of the divisions in the middle hex
2. Fly a heavy GA AD against the German hex you're about to attack
3. Assign armor, SP artillery, and engineers to the divisions in the left and right hexes
4. Attack with the left and right hexes but leave out the units in the middle hex
5. Advance TWO (not three!) of the divisions in the middle into the now-empty hex (assuming you won)
6. Attack into what is probably now a weak unit with the advanced divisions
7. Convert the armored or tank brigade to on-map and advance it into the now empty hex. If you assigned brigades to both divisions, you can then convert and advance the second brigade
8. If you left one division behind, you can advance that forward into the first cleared hex
9. Assign SU's the brigade(s) that are farthest forward

If you do all this successfully, you can drive two hexes deep through a German line and unhinge it.

Cary

Holy cow that made my head spin regarding your breakthrough advice! I'm going to have to study as I've never converted units before but that sounds very interesting. Regarding fortifications, I thought I read that those didn't count regarding CV calculations, but I can say that in practice, if a unit is say at fort 3, I never take the hex unless I have a 2-3 times advantage in CV.

I never knew about the army/army group being able to transfer AFHQ support units...good tip. I like your idea of leaving the SU's with the Army HQ until needed, if nothing else I know where they are when I start looking to assign them vs. clickfesting in my corps/divisions looking for them.

To follow up on what I wrote:

1. You only can convert an attached brigade or regiment if it was already assign at the beginning of the turn, hence my point #1 above to assign it the turn before.
2. You can always move a converted unit one hex, even though it says it only has 1 MP, and no matter the terrain you're moving into.
3. Given the way I use support units, the only SU's I assign to corps HQ's are artillery battalions.

Cary

From the manual: Multi-Role units are units that can change during the game from an “on map” combat Unit to a support
unit. In order to convert from a combat unit to a support unit, the unit must be stacked with the HQ
unit to which it is attached. ‘Convert’ then becomes a selectable option on the unit’s detail window. Once
the unit is a support Unit it may be attached directly to another combat unit.

You are talking about MRU, right? If so, it must be stacked with its attached HQ unit, right?

You are talking about MRU, right? If so, it must be stacked with its attached HQ unit, right?

That's if you want to convert it from on-map to a support unit assigned to an HQ (which is the only way to convert it from on-map to support.

But once it's assign to a ground unit (combat or HQ), it can be converted back to on-map if 1)it starts the turn assigned to a unit; 2) there are two or fewer units in the hex, so there's stacking limits room for it to appear on map. That last part is why I said only advance two units into the empty hex. If you advance three, there's no place for the SU to be converted to on-map.

Cary