Transport largest HQ's?

[brockdp]

I've been playing WITW for about a year and have lots of questions but I'll start with something simple. In playing the full 43-45 scenario I find the largest HQ's [SHAEF in ETO for example] are too big to ship from any port in UK to France [same problem with largest HQ in North Africa]. Is there a trick to being able to ship these HQ's from UK to France or North Africa to Italy? Any advice appreciated.

[kentkroeckel]

Hello to you Mr. Brock. Your question has many aspects to it so I will try to take a piece of it at a time until I get to the main point. To start with, HQ's along with units go by size. Some are II-company~ III-regiment~ X-Brigade~ XX-Division for ground units. HQ's for ground are XXX-Corp XXXX-Army XXXXX-Army Group. High Command still has XXXXX but has nothing above it. On page 78 in manual it talks about HQ's. Germany has more but that does not relate to your Question. Mediterranean HQ, AFHQ can be moved but I think there is not much need to do so. It takes much in supply so placing it on unlimited supply port in Mediterranean is good. The same holds true for UK Home Forces HQ. Keep it on an unlimited supply hex in England. All unlimited supply sources should have your main air and land HQ's on them. Your Army Corps are the ones to move once a substantial supply network has been established.

No HQ should be beyond naval moving size. To accomplish this, make sure every ground unit has maximum assigned support. One and two for units less than division. Three can be assigned to division. This is why I play with locked HQ support. As the manual says, anti armor to a division along with combat engineer. If Germany is attacking with air then all units should have AA. If not, fill with more Engineers and what ever is left.

Let say you messed up. find an HQ on Italy and put your AFHQ on Orion. Now just transfer all support units from AFHQ to say 8th Army. Once you get to the naval capacity low enough you can transfer AFHQ to Italy or SHAEF to France. Either action though I think would be detrimental.

I am guessing you have only played the AI, which does not really use the naval resources effectively; or for that matter the air. For example, if Germany places all of its patrol, Torpedo, and level bombers to the Boot of Italy and Sardinia, the Allies will have a costly experience. That is even if they deal with this challenge correctly. by the way, the order of weaponry for naval load is Mine, torpedo, rockets, and then as many little bombs as possible. This is just a general thought and there would be many exceptions to this doctrine, depending on which turn phase, target, altitude, and resources. Like I said, many aspects to this game, similar to an onion. Just depends on how complicated you want the endeavor to become.

Sincerely, Kent Kroeckel

[kentkroeckel]

One item I did not mention because I assumed you were doing this, is assigning regular artillery batteries to your Corps HQ. This is In the manual of course but in a sentence, American Corps HQ's need twelve and all other nationality's can use 10. Be sure chemical / smoke screen battalions have been assigned to HQ Corps too.

Sincerely, Kent Kroeckel

[brockdp]

Thanks for the reply. Very much appreciate it.