GC '44 East

[BiteNibbleChomp]

What opinions do you have on this campaign? What are the hard scenarios? Is 55k prestige enough (for this and '45) ?

Someone answer these before I go and kill myself at the campaign.

Force includes about 13 modern tanks (particulalry Tiger Is) and a few elefants - nothing has any decent experience however.

- BNC

[antoniocapo]

This was very helpful:

"by Resolute » 30 Mar 2014 23:14

These are my prestige numbers for 44/45 the last time I did the GC on Rommel:
Start of 44 East including replacements ~22k
Start of 45 East including replacements ~3.5k

So this might give you some idea.

45 East is actually a lot easier then 44 so I just managed to overstrength most of my units to 11 and get by. I highly recommend to upgrade your SE Units to Tiger II's when they become available."
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Also some wise guy said once: "Tigers kill all!"

GC 44 should be a piece of cake compared to WW1

[MartyWard]

This was very helpful:

"by Resolute » 30 Mar 2014 23:14

These are my prestige numbers for 44/45 the last time I did the GC on Rommel:
Start of 44 East including replacements ~22k
Start of 45 East including replacements ~3.5k

So this might give you some idea.

45 East is actually a lot easier then 44 so I just managed to overstrength most of my units to 11 and get by. I highly recommend to upgrade your SE Units to Tiger II's when they become available."
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Also some wise guy said once: "Tigers kill all!"

GC 44 should be a piece of cake compared to WW1

That works great if you get SE tanks. I have 4 SE INF and only 1 SE tank so far in my new campaign

[Resolute]

It's true that SE units are pretty random. Just disband your infantry and wait until you'll get a tank allocated. In case I get an infantry I usually reload the campaign and continue playing until I have some more luck in the upcoming scenarios. There are so many good infantry units you get for free later in the campaign so haveing them as SE units is a bit of waste, especially since SE units do not count towards the prestige soft cap, i.e you really want tanks for that.

[MartyWard]

It's true that SE units are pretty random. Just disband your infantry and wait until you'll get a tank allocated. In case I get an infantry I usually reload the campaign and continue playing until I have some more luck in the upcoming scenarios. There are so many good infantry units you get for free later in the campaign so haveing them as SE units is a bit of waste, especially since SE units do not count towards the prestige soft cap, i.e you really want tanks for that.

Unfortunately I needed them at the time and now they are kick ass units with good heroes.

[wargovichr]

For '44 (and '45) the biggest challenge is the *drop in core units.*
Upgrade to Tigers obviously, though I like to keep a stable of two to three experienced Panthers because of their high mobility.
Naturally the must do first strategy is air superiority so adding in Fw190s (as able) is important. Keeping **ONE** large kampgruppe covered by a generous number of fighters and two or more seasoned 88AA is key. Rather than troops spread out all over trying to defend everything or capture everything, this one large tight kampfgruppe covered by fighters/AA and artillery can systematically storm over the map though the enemy has captured some of it. Patience!
I stopped buying anti-tank because of the discontinuous upgrade problem and 88AA do that job nicely as duel AA/anti-tank! Elefant are fun but too slow.
I will convert the occasional single experienced core infantry to bruckenpionere to deftly bridge a river where the AI does not expect it to allow a kampfgruppe of mobile Panthers and artillery to come in behind that Russian city with the artillery and two AAs!
Though one can never have enough heavy hitters I think one battle-hardened recon is key to spot those heavily defended cities (artillery/AA!) without taking undue losses to precious fighters doing recon.
A heavily defended city can be taken out by first spotting with recon, carefully coordinating a raid with the panther/bruckenpionere group combined with the other pincer coming at the city (frontally) with Tigers, *long-range* artillery, infantry etc.,. These two and a *well timed* strat bomber hit or two on the enemy artillery/AA can do the trick.
It is nice to have that Ju87G or Hs 129 available to weaken that lurking armor next to the city....

A typical '44/'45 scenario is having to blunt one maybe two (!) strong Russian offensives then stage an aggressive mobile counterattack to achieve objectives for a DV in the last few turns.

[captainjack]

Having recently run out of prestige in 44 East I am now working my way through 43 East hoping to manage my prestige better next time. From what I recall, there are a lot of defensive Scenarios in 44 East, so you have to think about where to defend and allow opportunities to rotate troops in and out of combat - infantry with move heroes can be very handy. Plus the best combat troops (4* Elefant and Tiger 2) are often too slow, so you need a mobile reserve - Panthers or Tiger 1 with movement heroes and some mobile arty worked OK for me.

Wargovicher's raiding party sounds very effective, but I had some of my worst prestige losses when trying my version of this a while ago, so I obviously have something to learn.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Just killed an IS-1 with a Grenadier in Kiev43, inside the city (said 4/1 odds against me, actually got 3/6 (kill) ). Wondering though, how do you kill these in more than the odd chances, and how many are going to appear before Minsk 44 and those others that you can get Tiger IIs in?

Core has changed a bit:

Good units -

1 x 1* Elefant
1-2 x 1* Grenadier43
1 x 1* Fw190

and a bunch of other units on 0* including 5 Tiger Is, a bunch (or more a ton) of 8,8 Pak 43/41s and a lot of 21cm Artillery (invaluable in Kiev43)

Why am I playing Kiev43? I found an old (I mean really old - it was made when 1.14 rules were still the only ones) savegame which was on the difficulty I've been using for the latter half of 1943. My old Korsun ('44) save had it on a higher difficulty (Colonel instead of Leut. with enemys -2 str.) and I was finding that impossible. Kiev43 isn't too hard so I was happy to play it again.

- BNC

[wargovichr]

Yes, well entrenched infantry defending city/rough/forest behind a river...is invaluable in breaking wave after wave of Russian tanks. Well supported with artillery behind, 88AA to deflect enemy bombers and provide anti-tank defense, a Fw190 overhead and a Tiger or two to beat back/finish off penetrators/flankers.

[iceFlame]

Yes, well entrenched infantry defending city/rough/forest behind a river...is invaluable in breaking wave after wave of Russian tanks. Well supported with artillery behind, 88AA to deflect enemy bombers and provide anti-tank defense, a Fw190 overhead and a Tiger or two to beat back/finish off penetrators/flankers.

Sounds like a textbook defense. Let the waves come and watch them break up on the rocks.

[ThorHa]

There are other ways to defend than textbook ?

Regards,
Thorsten

[iceFlame]

There are other ways to defend than textbook ?

Regards,
Thorsten

Why certainly. For example a 'mobile defense' would hardly have been 'textbook' in 1939.

[ThorHa]

I was talking of experienced players, not real troops .

Regards,
Thorsten