SCW: Ebro Advice

[mdh_slith]

I am in Turn 4 of SCW: Ebro and could use some advice. I have three main efforts going. First I took the advice in the old Ebro thread and sent an overstrength tank plus recon and mobile AA to seize the 10th victory hex in Turn 1 and then retreated this group back across the river and north towards the central airstrip.

Second, I have sent my main force across the river to destroy the artillery threatening the north-central victory hex on the east side of the river and have cleared out the artillery.

Third, I have deployed artillery and a tank north to hold the north bridge and victory hex the captain suggests form part of a defensive triangle, but can't take out the artillery on the heights overlooking the river without help.

Questions:
1. Do I use the first group to delay the horde crossing the southern bridges from moving north or have them join the second group across the river?

2. Do I take the second group and attack north to defend the town being threated early with tanks and recon or do I go south to try for a grand encirclement on the east side of the river?

3. Or do I take the first group and have it cross the river and take out artillery threatening the center victory points?

I am thinking of using the first group to delay, the second group to clear the north and then reinforce the NW triangle. Any advice? Thanks.

[Tassadar]

It all depends greatly on where the enemy spawns reinforcement waves. What I always do is I send some northern forces to sweep south on the other side of the Ebro and continue taking out artillery, but the enemy is very likely to attack from camps east of Benisanet. That unfortunately delays the advance and does not also man that a wave or two cannot appear from the northeastern corner of the map in which case part of the force is sometimes needed back and has to retreat and reinforce north.

In general, if you are rather good on prestige points you do not have to prioritize two artillery pieces on hills northwest of Flix. They will be an annoyance and drain prestige each turn, sure, but are not as critical to the whole plan as the heavy fighting that happens south. Trying to secure that position along with Benisanet seems the more important task, at least to me.

[mdh_slith]

Thanks. I have played various options from T4 on and the best seems to be destroy the artillery then retreat back across the river and reposition for the northern sweep. Will update if that works.

[adiekmann]

What I have done for a while that works is that I base three tac bombers at that southern most airfield on the map. I support the bottom most crossing with one Italian Inf and let my tac bombers pummel the Republicans as they try to force a crossing there. Those tac bombers are also in range of the two busy crossings just north of it as well. Can be used to take out, or at least severely damage, all of that supporting artillery that the enemy has. Now, if you keep them in that bottom corner crossing area, they usually are out of range and won't be bothered by enemy fighters and therefore do not require any fighter escort. If you do venture their attacks farther north, then it becomes risky. At any rate, I have been able to basically block the enemy from crossing at the bottom of the map just with three tac bombers and 1 Italian inf. And if you're wondering, 2/3 of them are still the original biplanes and one of them a Stuka.

I also have one Stuka (my 4th tac bomber) supporting farther north and I deploy no strat bombers, AT guns, nor Recon. Instead, all my artillery (usually 4 or 5, but can't remember), AA guns (3 including one 8.8cm flak), fighters (3 x 109s), and all my tanks. This is the one map were I constantly make full use of all my Italian auxiliaries in the form of infantry.

Hope that helps.

[mdh_slith]

Thanks. I am trying a new strategy based on the fact that I can overstrength my zero-slot hero heavy artillery for just prestige and didn't think of it until now. The strategy is:

1. Group 1 of three tanks with support via bridging italian infantry to go across the north map edge to clear the starting wave in that area then link up wit group 2.
2. Group 2 of overstrength captured tanks and PzIIa with Italian Cav across the bridge to clear out the artillery facing the two top victory hexes on the east side then link with group 1 to hold the north.
3. Group 3 of 1 super Vendaja, recon and AA mobile to seize the 10th victory hex and get the bonus objective turn one then retreat north to help defend the north. Main air force with Galland in a Stuka with Double Attack, second Tac Bomber and 2 Me109 to support this attack then to hunt Artillery and Tanks threatening the center.
4. Group 4 of an Italian tank, artillery and At gun to support the center thrust of Group 2 then link up with group 3.
5. Group 5 of Italian artilley and AT gun to support SW victory hex.

The above leaves me with 3 Italian fighters but I will review my allocation of Italians to see if I can free up more fighters and a tac bomber or three. My goal is to weed out deployed artillery and then fall back to the NW triangle of victory hexes recommended by the scenario. If I can pull off the grand encirclement before reinforcement waves arrive in the North I will, otherwise will retreat and support river crossings.

[mdh_slith]

UPDATE:

I finished it. The northern blitzkrieg push worked very well along with the link up with the northern river crossing. Two spawns occured in the north and in the center. The center spawn piled up on a defended town with artillery support and occasionally threatened other areas to the north and south of the center. The two northern spawns were more of a hassle as my core was past their spawn point both times. There was some sort of southern spawn but I don't recall it being threatening that much. The combo of Galland in a ME109 and a double attack hero, over-strengthened Stuka was quashing units all over the place. Thanks for the advice.