DLC 42 #05 Sevastopol Assault

[El_Condoro]

Sevastopol Assault

[nikivdd]

Sevastopol assault. General difficulty.

I could chose between the siege and the assault. I went for the assault. It was one of my favorite maps of the original PG. Why go for a siege if you can go for the assault .

Did a few upgrades: inf to pioniere and bought a brandnew AT gun. I like them also in a mixed core.

Sevastopol assault is definitely an assault. Karl and Gustav came along and i am glad they did. They were doing an outstanding job in giving those fortresses a knock on the head and to give a first pound on those enemy AA units. My airforce had the time of their life. Slowly, patiently the troops advanced properly and backed up by artillery units and logically one hex after the other fell.
Those extra aux pioniere units were nice but on this level not necessary. Ofcourse the Black Sea fleet was present but only had a few turns to do some firing, my level bombers took care of them.
The enemy resisted as good as it could and managed to decimate several units but this time i managed to keep my core intact. This is a really nice scenario and my favorite up till now.

Finished in 16/18 turns and 1271PP.

[monkspider]

Sevastopol Assault

Starting prestige 6800
After upgrades, reinforcements and applicable surcharges 4600
Ending prestige 4100
DV 17/18
Losses 1 Pionere (I should add, one that I have had since 1939, waaaah)

Manstein's Crimean campaign was one of his most underrated and brilliant, He had to use the utmost cunning to dislodge the Soviets from their ancient forts of Sebastopol. Even still, the Russians fought nearly to the last man. I considered doing the easier branch, but I figured I would try my hand at playing the role of Manstein. The Leningrad siege never really worked out too well for the Germans anyway.

First off, I have to say that this new branching system is a success. I think it is a nice addition to the game to allow the player to choose what he is in the mood for. On the 1939 campaign, I sometimes intentionally get marginal victories at Poznan/Piatek to be able to play the easier scenarios both for variety and to nurse my prestige better if I feel I am below where I should be. This system allows me to not have to hold back and can still get decisive victories and then go for the easier path if I feel like it. Of course, it should also benefit the novice players as well as the Deducters of the world that need the utmost challenge
possible.

Now that said, this scenario VERY much lived up to it's "hard mode" hype. It was really the slog to end all slogs, worthy of Sevastapol's reputation. Those naval guns were a major pain in the butt and the large amount of artillery and anti-left me with a force that was absolutely beat all to hell. I am really dreading my repair bill when I start the next scenario. I was really starting to have my doubts that I would be able to get a decisive victory in time but I made one more big push and won on turn 17. Great scenario! Another very memorable one.

[deadtorius]

I am really glad you get the two big guns for this one as they are about the only thing short of captured KV that can even dent those fortifications. Level bombers, stukas, pioneers (useless for the most part) and even the good old FJ's could not even scratch the communist propaganda off the walls and it was suicide run if they still had ammo left. I took almost all my infantry for this one, left the bridge engineers out as they would be useless I think. I even bought another FJ for the bunker busting ability but as I said even they can't harm those bloody forts.

I made good time at first coming down from the north along the coast, and then the first of the big guns let loose on me. OK so now I knew where one of them was. I made a nice slow advance so the pioneers could get up there on foot and not get ambushed in their 251's. The PZ IV's led the way clearing out most of the resistance until I hit the first of the entrenchments, keeping the Stug III's close behind. The pioneers following up to assault those positions with long range artillery close behind.

over on the East side of the map my Panzers kept moving south taking every airfield they saw and eventually swinging into the southern side of Sebestapol. Unfortunately most of the long range artillery was still about halfway down the city so I had to limber some up and get it down south to help fire into the russian artillery and AA. The rail gun eventually ended up down here too while the moser stayed up north firing across the small channel into one of the last forts and the KV that was there.

for the most part it was a Pioneer, Heavy Weapons and FJ advance into the city, but if there was a tank in a hex then the PZ IV's moved in to clear them out. I did however get sucked into taking a shot at an entrenched conscript outside the city early on with a PZ IV, as the combat prediction showed a win in my favour but in the end it cost me half my strength and I barely managed to scurry way back with 2 steps left.

I managed to clear the northern part of the city completely except for one fort along the water which even though it ran out of ammo 3 times my pioneers and FJ just could not do anything to it. Even the 21cm guns were useless against it. In the end I had to bring back my captured KV and use a PZ IV to finally eliminate it.

Down south it was an even bloodier mess. As I said above I had accidently ended up with most of my ranged arty up north so down south it was just Stug III's supporting tanks and infantry. the only upside was that I had captured every airfield and city out there so I only had to keep looking at Sevestopol to see what was going to attack me. As I have previously said the Stug III's dont seem to be holding up well to infantry assaults. I lost 2 of them in this scenario. I am thinking it might be time to switch to the werfenhammers perhaps but I really don't want to go with the low ammo thing again. Anyway I started my southern assault with about 5 or 6 turns left so it was getting pretty tight. Once I got some artillery down there though it started to move a lot faster as the Russian artillery and then the second last AA gun were destroyed so that the Luftwaffe could have free reign over the city. It really helped to clear the defenders but once again the Stugs took some pretty nasty hits and that one fort would not die. I had to use the rail gun and the moser exclusively against it and it still took forever to finally eliminate it. The Pioneers were better used to attack city hexes and leave the forts alone.

The Black Sea Fleet did make its appearance, shooting from range and then disappearing on me so that it was hard to track them down, however once I spotted them my level bombers hit the surface ships for 8 step losses on the first attack. Unfortunately it also brought me in range of their land based AA guns so they also took step losses but if you don't sink them they will shoot at your artillery or pioneers so their elimination is a priority. They are just good at hiding.

I managed to make a DV on this one in the last turn and out of spite I made sure that the last enemy unit, an AA gun was also destroyed just to make me feel better. I think I lost one PZ IV and 2 Stug III's in this one. Only one stuka ended the scenario still at 14 strength, not sure how he did it every other unit was pretty badly battered so it will be a big repair bill for the next one. I am glad the devs are not skimping on the prestige in this DLC. A hard fight in the city, it was a lot easier taking everything else outside the city but still a great scenario. Now I think I have some inkling of what Stalingrad will be like. I did manage to save the end turn of the previous game so perhaps I will try the siege version next and see how they differ.

[Longasc]

Sevastopol Assault: DV 16/18
Start PP: 4390
End PP: 207
Losses: KV-1B, 2 aux Pioniere
Acquired: Sturmpanzer I, Ju87D

Summary: The first city siege/assault lesson of the DLC. Sevastopol is a lot more cramped than Moscow, so NOT blocking the retreat path of your units and backing them up with artillery all the time at the same time is very important. All losses occurred due to enemy artillery fire suppression and enemy attacks while having no way to retreat. So that's something we learn in this scenario.

Some pointers:
- The Panzer IIIN is golden for city fighting. High SA and high CD, 4, don't seem much compared to 2-3 of other tanks. But against low 1-2 HA Infantry going for the tank's CD in city hexes it makes ALL the difference. They were my most valuable unit in this scenario.
- Strategic Bombers - I still use Ju88 due to lack of Prestige - are very nice to have, both to suppress AA and to deal with battleships who serve as floating artillery. They were almost useless against the Forts/Bunkers, but so were most other units.
- Only Karl and Gustav were able to crack the forts reliably. What are they made of, even Pioniere and StuG IIIB could often not even cause one point of damage, Stukas and Ju88 failed as well. KV-1B and Panzer IVG worked somewhat, due to high GD while having high HA.
- fear Soviet Marines & SMG Infantry!

Very nice how the city gets surrounded and then it gets dirty. Each Infantry unit needs 1-2 artilleries as backup and a corridor to retreat. The massive amount of enemy artillery can destroy your units due to suppression IF they manage to focus on one-two targets, but thankfully they spread their fire most of the time. Take your time, no point in advancing without a Sturmpanzer or StuG IIIB behind. I wished I had more 15 sFH 18, the low ammo of the Sturmpanzers might become a problem later on.
Reserved my StuG IIIF's for Voronezh. You need no tanks for Sevastopol, even your force to sweep the area around Sevastopol is better served with anti-Infantry units.

14 strength Ju87, Bf109 and Luftwaffe in general worked very well in combo with artillery: Level bombers or a Gustav-salvo on enemy AA, and voila, bomb it with Stukas and kill the surrounding units with artillery and aerial bombardments. As I said, I kept my Infantry save and gave my Grenadiere elite reinforcements nonstop. Unfortunately I still have only 5 Infantries, one of them Pioniere. The value of Pioniere units is avoiding entrenchment, but with my heavy artillery barrage tactics it's almost superfluous. They failed to deal with the monster bunkers of Sevastopol.

Odd: Another KV-5?
Suggest placing a KV-1C there, with a highly experienced crew. But well, that's a bit nitpicking, just be careful with the numbers of those prototypes!
Suggestion: Let us capture a KV-2! Those captured and used by the German Army were known as (Sturm)Panzerkampfwagen KV-II 754(r). Just read that on Wikipedia.

Verdict: Well done! I will for sure take the Siege path with my non-beta core. I would not change anything, better AD would probably have cost me the victory and it was costly enough: While I lost only one tank and aux units, heavy losses in PP and/or unit XP are to be expected when assaulting Sevastopol.

To put it bluntly, well done, nice scenarios. Found some typos this time, see text errors.

[raykruse]

Another great scenario with good balance.

Playability: Excellent, no bugs/issues.
DV turn 15 with 2609 PP

As mentioned above, I'd also like to capture a KV-2 as the KV1's were the only unit I had (other than Karl and the Rail Gun) that could make a dent in the forts. Otherwise a very well engineered defense of Sevastopol. The SMG and Guards units were a nice defensive touch in the end.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to play-balance, but a small counter-attack from the East??? would greatly add to the playability as there is no concern of defending your attackers flank or rear. Either way, this slug-fest assault scenario is quite good.

[deducter]

Sevastopol Assault:

This is meant to be a hard scenario, so I hope this means that there will be no mercy on the player. At first glance, this scenario does look very hard. There are so many Russian infantry in Sevastopol, including a good amount of artillery, the four super-tough naval batteries, four capital ships, and a smattering of tanks and AA. In theory this should be hard, but...

The problem is it won’t really matter if the AI is given +5 strength to all units. Why? Their units are so packed together that I’ll just bring extra artillery and force surrenders without taking much damage in return. Here on Rommel I didn’t really care about the composition of my forces, and I still destroyed the AI fairly handily. The naval batteries might cause some losses at Manstein, but a round of strategic bombardment and they will be out of ammo and not present much of a future threat.

I hope the point of a scenario like this one is to cater to the expert player crowd like myself. I know most of the other players think this scenario is plenty challenging, but I must voice my concern that this scenario is too easy to be a “hard mode.”

First, the outer defenses need a slight buff, a few strongpoints should be sufficient.

Second, strongpoints should be added throughout the city. Not only will this create more of a “fortress-city” feel (Like Warsaw had!) but strongpoints cannot be forced to surrender. The player is given two extra aux pioneers after all. In fact, consider changing some of the city tiles inside Sevastopol to fortress tiles too, to represent an in-depth defense.

Third, the area in the southeast is nearly completely devoid of Russian troops. Wouldn’t it be interesting to add a significant Russian armor corps in those port cities? I’m thinking a few T34-41s, a few KV1 tanks, a few more artillery, infantry, recon cars, maybe 15-20 units. Or maybe 4 groups of 5-6 units each. Have these units periodically activate and counterattack. Hence, the player will need to divert significant armored forces to that area to deal with these Russian units. This is better too, since for most of the scenario my panzers weren’t doing much anyway.

Fourth, the Soviet ships could use some overstrength.

Fifth, nice touch with the “Soviet Marines” (renamed SMG infantry). Can we buff a few of the Red Guards in the city to be 3 stars and have 15-base strength?

Please make this scenario harder. I actually think surviving all the waves of Vitebsk to be more challenging.

Lost a pioneer and a KV1 tank. The AI’s attack on the KV1 tank was human-like: bombard with naval battery, attack to force into city hex, attack again with conscripts to kill it.

DV 15/18.

[produit]

Sevastopol Assault:

This is meant to be a hard scenario, so I hope this means that there will be no mercy on the player. At first glance, this scenario does look very hard. There are so many Russian infantry in Sevastopol, including a good amount of artillery, the four super-tough naval batteries, four capital ships, and a smattering of tanks and AA. In theory this should be hard, but...

The problem is it won’t really matter if the AI is given +5 strength to all units. Why? Their units are so packed together that I’ll just bring extra artillery and force surrenders without taking much damage in return. Here on Rommel I didn’t really care about the composition of my forces, and I still destroyed the AI fairly handily. The naval batteries might cause some losses at Manstein, but a round of strategic bombardment and they will be out of ammo and not present much of a future threat.

I hope the point of a scenario like this one is to cater to the expert player crowd like myself. I know most of the other players think this scenario is plenty challenging, but I must voice my concern that this scenario is too easy to be a “hard mode.”

First, the outer defenses need a slight buff, a few strongpoints should be sufficient.

Second, strongpoints should be added throughout the city. Not only will this create more of a “fortress-city” feel (Like Warsaw had!) but strongpoints cannot be forced to surrender. The player is given two extra aux pioneers after all. In fact, consider changing some of the city tiles inside Sevastopol to fortress tiles too, to represent an in-depth defense.

Third, the area in the southeast is nearly completely devoid of Russian troops. Wouldn’t it be interesting to add a significant Russian armor corps in those port cities? I’m thinking a few T34-41s, a few KV1 tanks, a few more artillery, infantry, recon cars, maybe 15-20 units. Or maybe 4 groups of 5-6 units each. Have these units periodically activate and counterattack. Hence, the player will need to divert significant armored forces to that area to deal with these Russian units. This is better too, since for most of the scenario my panzers weren’t doing much anyway.

Fourth, the Soviet ships could use some overstrength.

Fifth, nice touch with the “Soviet Marines” (renamed SMG infantry). Can we buff a few of the Red Guards in the city to be 3 stars and have 15-base strength?

Please make this scenario harder. I actually think surviving all the waves of Vitebsk to be more challenging.

Lost a pioneer and a KV1 tank. The AI’s attack on the KV1 tank was human-like: bombard with naval battery, attack to force into city hex, attack again with conscripts to kill it.

DV 15/18.

Compare to the others scenario, it is still one requiring a lot of planning to keep all your units alive. But I agree that it is clearly doable without losses, even with the highest level of difficulty. A small attacking force from the south east would really be a plus...

[HeinzG]

Sevastopol Assault
Level: FM
Starting/ending prestige: 8746 / 7557
Uprades: SE Pz IVD >> IVG
Purchase: -
Reinforcement core/aux: Elite/Normal
Result; after n-turn: DV; 14/18
Losses core/aux: 1/- (1 engineer)

Either my playing is getting better or this map lacks some opposition. Truly I lost a hard loved engineer unit, but looking ath the prestige I got this isn't even a scratch. I think Sevastopol was a real drain to th egerman forces but not to mine.

First of all, one could replace some conscripts with overstrength guards.

Seccond, a little bit more air power for the red army could come in handy. Why not give them two more fighters.

Third, Sevastopol was a fortification from one edge to the other. But besides the forts, there are no bunkers. Two or three of them in the outskirts would be ok.

And last: the KV-5 in the city should stay on a clear hex, backed by two artillery and those backed by some air defence.

But the map was fun to play.

Conclusion: either my core is too good by now, or the Sovjets could need a push in exp and strength.

[Kerensky]

First off, I have to say that this new branching system is a success. I think it is a nice addition to the game to allow the player to choose what he is in the mood for. On the 1939 campaign, I sometimes intentionally get marginal victories at Poznan/Piatek to be able to play the easier scenarios both for variety and to nurse my prestige better if I feel I am below where I should be. This system allows me to not have to hold back and can still get decisive victories and then go for the easier path if I feel like it. Of course, it should also benefit the novice players as well as the Deducters of the world that need the utmost challenge possible.

I really like this quote.

Reading all of the feedback for this scenario:

Sounds like there are no serious issues with it, and that people are enjoying it as the 'harder' alternative to scenario #4.

Based on feedback, the points here that need addressing are:
Should be more difficult. Higher quality Soviet units, possibly more of them spread out as well.

If there's anything else important you feel I missed, let us know!

[kashor73]

Still playing on Colonel difficulty.

Prestige after reinforcement 16,798

DV 17/18
1 experienced Pioneer killed during the assault.

This was more of a challenge since your typical tank heavy force can't just blitz there way round to the artillery and air defence units in the usual manner. Forts seemed impervious to practically anything other than the siege guns.

A lot of my tanks did mill around outside the city once the the city fighting, should definitely have purchased some more infantry for this map.

Another enjoyable scenario all in all.

[OmegaMan1]

Sevastopol Assault. MV in 18 turns.
Start prestige: 237. End prestige: 21.
New units purchased: Recon, pioniere (both at deployment).
Units lost: Core – Ju-87, Stug, recon, Panzer IIIG, T-34, bruckpioniere, pioniere.
Medals: 7. Heroes: 0.

Well, there’s no question about it: Sevastopol assault is definitely much harder than Sevastopol siege! This was a much tougher fight for my forces, and my casualty list is proof. At first the battle didn’t seem too bad; I took Viline on turn 1 and moved the bulk of my armor over to the eastern coast while my infantry and artillery headed south along the west coast. My forces took Bakhchysarai on turn 5, and began the assault on the northern Sevastopol district. My trusty Gustav pounded the northernmost fort into submission, but alas that was the only heavy defensive position that went down so “easily.”

My forces occupied their first Sevastopol flag hex (9,15) on turn 8, and I started making slow progress through the city. However, between the forts in the central area of the city, and the arrival of the Russian navy, my forces started taking a beating that really never let up. I managed to sink the cruisers on turns 8 and 9, but it was absolutely brutal clearing out the central portion of the city – the fort at 6,18 was almost impossible to destroy, and it hung on at 1 strength point for two turns before I finally knocked it out on turn 12. By this point my forces were in tatters, and by the time I took out the last two forts – hex 11,19 fell on turn 14, and hex 8,21 on turn 15 – the bulk of my forces were severely depleted. Then, the Russians pulled out a lovely surprise, a KV-5 that proceeded to blow through my exhausted troops. I managed to corner the KV until it ran out of ammo, but could not actually destroy it. I managed to take my fifth VP hex (7,24) on the final turn of the mission, and thus eked out a minor victory.

Considering the damage done to my forces, I’ll be happily going back to pick up the campaign from my “siege” core. Suffice to say, this mission is a tough challenge, one that I think requires a multi-campaign core to successfully tackle (or just someone who plays better than me LOL!). I can only hope that after this scenario (which definitely proves the old saying, “another victory like this and we are lost”) that the German high command realizes the folly of assaulting well-entrenched Russian defenders in a heavily built-up urban zone…

[deadtorius]

The only question I have regarding this one is why Pioneers are useless vs the forts? In every other scenario Pioneers and FJ's are the fot busters, here they are useless. Perhaps Der Fuhrer should have tried to capture some of those fort builders for Normandy and the allies would still be trying to break into fortress Europa.

I also agree some bunkers in the city are probably needed.

Also my 21cm guns need better sights or something so they can actually hit something

[BriteLite]

Just started this mission and am shocked to see: After deployment, movement phase a single Matilda II(e) appear as a German aux unit at hex 11,5. Actually I had this same thing happen in this mission several days ago while doing my first playthru.

Wondering if this is intentional???

[pickle]

Great scenario...had to go for the assualt; as stated before, one of Manstein's best earning him the rank of Field Marshal.

Got a real taste of city fighting in this one. Ended up having far too little infantry to get the job done easily. Also got the scare of my life when the Soviet marine unit came rushing out of nowhere and nearly killed my age old, two medal, two leader pioneer on the next to last turn. It took a little bit to figure out how to finally end things, but managed to do so on the last turn. Found I took a little too long getting my flanking force around to the SE corner of Sevastopol to really impact things until late. Fell to the blunt force of the 'hammer' which took quite a few chips.

Again, great scenario. Thoroughly enjoyable and challenging (general level).

[fginfo]

On Colonel again and not necessarily very complicated. By being systematic, it is easy to advance on the western side to the city hexes slowly while a fast smaller force pushes down in the East. Perhaps having some more resistance on the Eastern side of the map might complicate things a bit more.

[pickle]

Second time through with the new build...did not miss the aux Matilda. However, I did convert my captured Matilda and a Char 1B to PzIIIN (I did learn a little going through the first time ) for the city fighting. Overall, I found the scenario to be challenging much like the first time through. I was a little more methodical this time because I was aware of how infantry poor I was. Ended with a DV on turn 20 with a loss of a para infantry that was just coming into its own...

[muftugil]

Just started this mission and am shocked to see: After deployment, movement phase a single Matilda II(e) appear as a German aux unit at hex 11,5. Actually I had this same thing happen in this mission several days ago while doing my first playthru.

Wondering if this is intentional???

I've played this level a few times already. First time I wondered why there is a Matilda there predeployed. Looks like I am not the only one who has wondered. Are the designers trying to tell us something?

[bondjamesbond]

Just started this mission and am shocked to see: After deployment, movement phase a single Matilda II(e) appear as a German aux unit at hex 11,5. Actually I had this same thing happen in this mission several days ago while doing my first playthru.

Wondering if this is intentional???

I've played this level a few times already. First time I wondered why there is a Matilda there predeployed. Looks like I am not the only one who has wondered. Are the designers trying to tell us something?

Only that 14 years after the game's release it is still relevant and the Germans used trophies en masse )
https://en.topwar.ru/28545-trofeynaya-b ... aniya.html