Weather giving me a hard time in Korsun

[gokkel]

I play on the historical path this playthrough and am currently in the Korsun mission. In that mission you have to help free your auxiliary forces from an encirclement. These forces are positioned mostly in a way to protect river crossings at the bridges, which normally should be sufficient to buy some time after some minor positional adjustments. The problem is that the mission starts with the river being frozen, which seems to be RNG because in a Youtube video I saw someone play the scenario with rivers unfrozen.

Here a picture of the starting situation

Without the river protecting me, my forces are very ill prepared to take on the massive Soviet forces attacking (which consist of plenty of artillery, airforce, infantry and soon also tanks).

The only way I see is to pull together all forces to the airport/supply hex and somehow pray they don't get overrun immediately. At least 3 auxiliary units have to survive the mission. Sadly it will take me several turns just to reach the position, deploying from the southern border of the map.

Did someone do this scenario and if so, how did weather treat you?

[MickMannock]

When I played the scenario, my rivers were not frozen. And yeah, it'd be a lot trickier with the rivers frozen, for sure.

[Hexaboo]

In my playthrough, the rivers hadn't been frozen over at first, but froze very quickly, like turn 2–4, which is a big boon for the German player, actually, because it becomes easier to bypass or flank enemy defences with your relief force. Plus, it takes the Soviets some time to send their top stuff into battle, so you will have a little bit of breathing space to reposition your units.

Your strategy for the guys in the pocket is spot on. Bunch up around the airfields, use the towns and the forests, and any bottlenecks between them. Sending throwaway units as decoys can also work, since you don't have to save them all anyway.

[gokkel]

Ok, I just managed to beat it and it was actually easier than expected, especially once I figured you can also deploy your airforce on that airport in that encirclement, so 3 FW109A and 2 He129B2 helped out somewhat (although half the time they couldn't fly because of weather anyway).

Pulling most of the units to the airport helped while the infantry remained where they were or were moved into nearby close terrain. The enemy was actually a lot more passive than I thought he would be; they didn't attack a lot even into heavily suppressed infantry, and the tanks were actually not that powerful, so that even the auxiliary Panzer IIIs could hold their ground, especially once the StuG III G was helping out. I only lost few units and at the end I had a lot more than the required 2 units left.

I also changed the deployment of my own forces to just keep a small defensive force (3 Infantry, 1 Elefant, 2 Panthers, 1 Puma, one 88 Flak, one 17cm artillery) in the west, as the opponent attacks you from that side. The forces were more than sufficient and didn't have to move out a lot. Meanwhile I deployed a larger ground force in the east which was able to advance more quickly that way. I even flanked out from the map border east with a small force to claim the airports from the opponent there which was probably not necessary and caused heavy losses on one of my Panthers, but it wasn't bad - it first delayed three enemy planes by a turn and then later made them all crash when I captured the second airport during snowy weather.

In general my formations were a bit questionable this mission thanks to the bad sight and terrain while splitting my forces a little bit too much maybe, with some holes in the flanks exploited by the AI a few times (especially on my 88s), but you actually get a ton of prestige per turn on this mission, and I have a large reserve anyway so it wasn't a big deal.

[MickMannock]

Ok, I just managed to beat it and it was actually easier than expected, especially once I figured you can also deploy your airforce on that airport in that encirclement, so 3 FW109A and 2 He129B2 helped out somewhat (although half the time they couldn't fly because of weather anyway).

Pulling most of the units to the airport helped while the infantry remained where they were or were moved into nearby close terrain. The enemy was actually a lot more passive than I thought he would be; they didn't attack a lot even into heavily suppressed infantry, and the tanks were actually not that powerful, so that even the auxiliary Panzer IIIs could hold their ground, especially once the StuG III G was helping out. I only lost few units and at the end I had a lot more than the required 2 units left.

I also changed the deployment of my own forces to just keep a small defensive force (3 Infantry, 1 Elefant, 2 Panthers, 1 Puma, one 88 Flak, one 17cm artillery) in the west, as the opponent attacks you from that side. The forces were more than sufficient and didn't have to move out a lot. Meanwhile I deployed a larger ground force in the east which was able to advance more quickly that way. I even flanked out from the map border east with a small force to claim the airports from the opponent there which was probably not necessary and caused heavy losses on one of my Panthers, but it wasn't bad - it first delayed three enemy planes by a turn and then later made them all crash when I captured the second airport during snowy weather.

In general my formations were a bit questionable this mission thanks to the bad sight and terrain while splitting my forces a little bit too much maybe, with some holes in the flanks exploited by the AI a few times (especially on my 88s), but you actually get a ton of prestige per turn on this mission, and I have a large reserve anyway so it wasn't a big deal.

Glad it worked out well for you!