US Corps advice

[deafknight]

Hi,

I've done the GC (both east and west), i'm playing on general.

i started US corps, and althougtht the first scenarios are easy, i'm having my ass handed back to me after a few ones.
Namely, you have to capture a town and exterminate all german units, i barely manage to capture the town at the last turn...

Any advice? seems we can't rely on tanks like german or russian corps, the A3 are expensive and outmatched
i end up repairing them and losing xp because it's to expensive to overstrength.

Maybe my setup is not right, what units do you use for core? how do you spend prestige?

Thanks!

on a side note, the second scenario has several "dollar" hexes. I didn't notice any difference between occupying all of them or only one, they disappear the next turn. Normal?

[funat]

In US corps for tank battles you have to use tank hunters - Wolverine and later Hellcat. Tanks are good only for soft targets and weakened enemy armor.

[robman]

Tank destroyers, Rangers, mobile AA, and strategic bombers.

TDs: As funat noted, US tanks cannot go toe-to-toe with their German counterparts. This remains the case until the Pershing makes its appearance in the final act. So you must rely on TDs.

The problem is that green TDs usually die very quickly, even against Panzer IIIs and IVs, and stand no chance against Panthers or Tigers. The solution is buy M3s and field them as artillery until they have two or three stars. This does not take long. Then upgrade them to TDs. If you play with reform units on, then do the reverse when a TD gets killed: downgrade it to an M3 and field it as artillery until it has a couple of stars.

Rangers: It may be historically inaccurate, but the Rangers are your best infantry bang for the buck, with a few Engineers along for mines. As soon as the Rangers become available, begin upgrading all regular infantry.

Mobile AA: US fighters are no match for the Germans; if the Germans are undamaged, leave them alone. But if you knock three or four strength points off a German fighter with AA, a pair of your fighters can usually finish it off.

Strategic bombers: Playing as the Germans, I relied more heavily on tac bombers than on strategic bombers. Playing as the US, I have found the tactical bombers to be almost more trouble than they are worth, but the strategic bombers to be superb. They deal deadly suppression (including to heavy tanks), take few losses against ground units, and can usually survive a fighter attack.

All that being said, you DO have to field tanks, otherwise you will have nothing to upgrade once the Pershing becomes available and (gulp) you face the Soviets.

[captainjack]

I use a similar approach to what Robman describes, but I hadn't thought of downgrading reformed tank destroyers to get experience back faster. There's always at least one more thing to learn.

One of the things that helped me after my first disastrous play of US Corps (followed by a pretty bad one) was taking a little more time to organise the forces - you don't have many units, experience matters a lot and you don't have much prestige, so you need to make sure you know what you are facing and attack on your terms. Its difficult to justify a recon unit until the Chaffee becomes available (it does a good job on exposed or suppressed soft targets and for finishing off units), but you need to avoid ambushes and getting surrounded by superior numbers, so you have to be methodical.

[verstaubtgesicht]

Purposefully designed traps of all sorts are the key:

1) fighter traps (expose a unit, but have an invisible fighter and/or AA behind it)
2) tank and even infantry traps (hidden heavy artillery behind an exposed unit)
3) lure the tanks into rough terrain and finish them off with infantry

Also, pay special attention to visibility (not just for trap purposes above) - in some scenarios I would go undetected for several turns until I get a chance to position all the forces just right (whether it's for trapping or blitz suppression/surround-and-surrender combo).

Just playing a "normal" game will not do it.

[deafknight]

thanks for the help, my second try went a lot better!
note that i tested only '42 for the moment.

since the germans have both air and tank superiority, you have to set up traps. Putting any unit alone will award it a quick death

- Get a mobile AA asap
- Don't get too much fighters : they are useless in at least two scenarios. But i got two strategic B-24, they are awesome.
- dont get any tac bombers. You got a special one which is more than enough. Overall, planes are VERY costly, you don't want losses!
- As Robman says, the key against armor is the M10. start with the M3 and upgrade it later, great tip!
- you capture a good recon that i kept for fun, but i'm sure another unit would be more helpful
- have at least 3 arties, you need them. I found no interest in buying towed arty, the 155 is nearly the same price and has the same stats.
- the panzerIIIN is "healed" every scenario, so don't hesitate to take some losses (and don't repair it)
- finally, infantry is squishy. I have only two rangers and one engineer, and that looks enough.

[Longasc]

Hehe, gotta buy US Corps or "Gold" soon... this sounds promising.

[wargovichr]

The key to US Corps is artillery and air power plus patience and good recon. I use the **self-propelled 105 and 155s to stay up front covering advances**, critical to protect weaker vanguard US tanks from frequent German counterattacks. I do use some long Tom's because of hitting power great for defense. Use arty to hit bunker then tanks takes it out without loss. Arty experience leads to a 4-hex range critical to weaken AA which then gets hit by tac air or strat bomber. No loss.
Armored car recon critical, spot, pull back. Ship arty very helpful, same as before, suppress AA or backing enemy arty. Captured Italian unit or heroed Ranger 4-hex rapid movers key. Slowly add in fighters. Get experience with adding newbie fighters, use on battered enemy fighters, lone bombers or non-AA infantry even mine hexes. Protect newbie fighters, AI loves to kill.
Right, spend time on what enemy can spot, set up fighters traps, AA traps, infantry with arty backup traps, Hellcat/Wolverine traps.
Many unexpected enemy moves, from totally unexpected directions, counterattacks, so use heroed spotting units, recon, etc. where you expect all clear, may have to garrison captured objective or two. Love heroed spotting +1 or+2(!) on fighters. Strat bomber on enemy naval, tac bomber on submarine.
Protect against devastating enemy air hits by **focusing on where you've been spotted**, then set up fighter traps.

[deafknight]

i advance well and i'm now nearly at anzio. I find this DLC rather dull and easy compared to the others, tbh.
Once you understand you're better at being passive than aggressive, there is little challenge

[Scholomancer]

Yes, I can only reiterate some of the above but make the following observations. Each playable country has it's own playing style, based on the strengths and weaknesses of it's unit sheets.

With the Germans, Russians, and even English, they have decent to great tanks and you have tremendous flexibility in that regard. The English and Germans also have great aircraft, while the Russians have amazing "2nd line armour" such as the SU-122 and SU-152 that can double as artillery - again amazing flexibility.

The Americans were very different for me, and due to their weaknesses I found myself using unit branches I never used extensively before, such as mobile anti-tank units and mobile AA units. I'd say that if I were Germans or English, I'd have 33% of my units tanks, but with Americans I was down to 20%.

Also, with the Americans I deployed a LOT more infantry and artillery than I'm previously used to. It could be the terrain you're in (US Corps doesn't have a lot of open terrain\blitz scenarios) but mostly it's because US tank and aircraft are just so weak at first. Yes, I also went with Rangers, with a few Airborne and Engineers to give the battle line a leg up against some tough German and French units in the 42-43 campaign.

I don't know about anyone else, but my histories show American air power having a bigger offensive impact, but I used my tactical bombers as a fire brigade to jump on German armour attacking my units, and not so much to aggressively reduce defences or fixed locations. US artillery had a bigger role in that capacity, at least with my gaming style.

In terms of tactics, I would also try to keep US armour and AT backed up by artillery, even when they range ahead of the main body, to help blunt German AT and tank attacks. On that, they took a less direct role in destroying the enemy.
With German and English tanks, I would use them as independent pincers to work around the edges of a defensive formation to get at the artillery and AA. But with the weaker US armour, I usually used them to "pin" and screen the wings of a target, so my artillery can blast and suppress everything before my infantry moved in.

And yes, I can only second deafknight that once you get the hang of using US units, it gets a little boring. Probably because it turns a methodical game into being even more conservative and methodical.

Also: I shamelessly used a list of US Corps capturables to make sure I got every German unit! Worth their weight in gold, and even all the recon units you pick up are simply amazing. Once you get a cadre of German tanks, you actually can stand up to the German armour with their own gear hahaha.