Payin the Price for Ignorance

[robot]

My long campaign with the British has shown me I am not that good with stratagy. Having played the Germans for years with all there massive equipment and there Intelligence in battle has weakened me. I did not fear any thing i went up against with them.

Now since i have played Russia, Japan and now the British i find I dont really know much. With Germany I very seldom got any thing but a deciseive maybe a marginal when I got to moving too fast or reckless.

With the British with out all the fancy toys Germany has i find myself in some very tough going. No longer do most of the shots bounce off my armor now it slices right thru. I have played 3 battles as the British 1 against Germany in Europe and 2 in Africa against the Italians. I got a draw vs Germany and 1 draw and a marginal against the Ities. I am losing too much armor and men to repair or upgrade after the battles.

I will be in a hole when i go up against the Ities again. At least half my tanks need repair. The last battle i was short a whole company of men. I opted to repair the troops this time in the hope i can get some tanks with support points. I could have started the whole campaign over after the first battle vs Germany. Might have been better that way. But I dont play that way. I will stick it out with what i have till the end or i can no longer field a force at all. Hip Hip Hooray for the British may they fare better in this next battle.

[KG Erwin]

Robot, I'd have to agree that playing as the Brits in a long campaign would have to be the toughest slog to go through. Haven't tried it myself, and frankly I have no desire to do so.
I'd think that a bulldog spirit and "keep your chin up, mate" attitude would be necessary to do it. Good luck.

[Vathailos]

A change in force composition?

The UK has IMO a few decent "specialty" tanks (Crocodile and AVRE specifically), and they do nice things with Sherman and Wolverine upgrades (like adding 17lb'ers to them), but aside from that (again IMO) the UK strength is NOT in its tanks.

With the OOB upgrades, the troops are now much more valiant, as I found to my chagrin in a recent JA vs. UK long campaign. And they (Britts) have some of the best (if not THE best) armored cars in the game. Speed and maneuverability, get beside, behind, or bypass alltogether heavy GE armor if you're having trouble with it. Use smoke from CS tanks (or carried mortars) to screen. Supress those tanks first with small, hard to spot units (2-man MG teams for example).

And don't be too conservative with AT guns either. Remember the smaller the gun, the less likely the chance to spot. The 2lb'er has very good accuracy (4 fire control and range finder) for as early in the campaign as you get them, and they'll pierce the sides of most GE armor (and any side of most IT armor) you encounter. An AT gun just over the crest of a small hill can fire one round, and move back to its transport unspotted the next if handled correctly.

Brits also have the largest capacity gliders in the game (albeit only a specialty use item) which means you can drop tanks in the enemy's rear.

If you want to trade a few more tips, just say so or give me a PM.

GL and good gaming!

~Vath

[robot]

The biggest problem i had was my first battle against the germans in europe. They chewed me up bad. I had lost a whole company of troops from India. Plus i lost a bout 10 tanks to boot. This gave me a draw with Germany. In the repair and upgrade screen there was a shortage of buy points for the next battle. I opted to go with out the company of men and repair as many of my tanks as i could.

Thus i started the next battle against Italy in africa with one comapany of men and at least 14 tanks short. In that battle i again lost some where around 5 tanks maybe 7. After this battle i opted to get replacements for the comapany and not repair the tanks. by the way that batttle was a marginal. The next battle was a delay at which i never seem to get much in the way of casualties or loss of armor.

After this battle i got a deciseive and now have full strength and also some upgrades in my tanks plus all but one repaired. Maybe my tatics werent all that bad just the german armor was too dam good. What the heck its just a game but some time I make it too dern hard on myself.

Oh Lord the next battle is the Brits vs Germany in North Africa 1941. They didnt really get the tigers until 42 did they.[:D][:D][:D][:D]

[KG Erwin]

Robot, once you get to July 1943, you'll find that the Brit infantry gets better armed. One thing that hurts the UK is the relatively low base experience levels. The Germans get a boost in this regard, esp. in 1941-42.

Compare the Brit base exp level with say the USMC. My starting core force average exp in 1942 is 79. These base levels were set early in SPWaW's development, so don't blame my predilection for the Gyrenes on this. I had nothing to do with that part of it. [;)]

This info can be found in the WW2 Stat text file located in the Chlanda folder. This shows the low to high exp, morale and other ratings for generated battles/campaigns for all nations. However, I don't think this can be altered. This data is hardcoded into the mech.exe, AFAIK. The OOB teams never asked about these ratings, as they are subjective and there's no way to determine actual levels. They are relative to each other, and changing them would skew overall historical results. This is exactly why the old boardgames consistently gave higher "combat factors" to some German units.

[KNomad]

ORIGINAL: robot

The biggest problem i had was my first battle against the germans in europe. They chewed me up bad. I had lost a whole company of troops from India. Plus i lost a bout 10 tanks to boot.

Doesn't the AI pick it's forces relative to the point strength of your fielded army?
Seems to me that the fewer units you bring to the batle, the fewer units you'd face ....

[&:]

Speaking from the perspective of randomly generated battles in a non-structured campaign.