AO 1939 Warsaw

[mdh_slith]

I have gotten up to Warsaw in my AO 1939 DLC playthrough and was wondering the deployment strategies people have found successful. I have reviewed Tassador's AR and other ARs and could only surmise two strategies.

The first is to send a force from the NW and another from the SE and take the west side of the river then train to the east side.

The second is to swamp the Northeast and East sectors as more bite sized. Then either bridge engineer across the river or circle around using trains to take the west side of the river.

Both seem to work and you have 50 turns to play the scenario but I have seem some mention of roaming Polish forces and wonder if I should attack them out first. Any advice would be welcome.

[Vorskl]

imagine a clock; you first deploy your forces at 12-3 hours area and only focus there; polish troops wont harass you; then you move to 3-6 area and so forth - moving clock-wise cleaning the 3-hour zone at a time.

[VirgilInTheSKY]

I tend to go NW and have my army seperated into two by the river, one goes south from the nothern deploy zone, another goes east from the western deploy zone, clear out scattered outline defenders, then encircle the defenders seperated by river to take a batch of them out one by one, while also gives my aircrafts more flexibility since both can cover each other when needed. A flipped tactic of going from SE and push north/west along the river also works well as they are basically the same. Personally I don't think one NW and one SE is a good idea because you cannot help each other if you find yourself lack of some units that was deployed to the other side, and the only airfield inside Warsaw lies in the center of the map. Bridge units is not needed, since the railway and highway network are quite good here.

[milliethedog]

This game is actually very easy, i have done it about 8 times in a number of play throughs. I mentally split the city into 4 quarters and think of the city as a clock face. I deploy my forces in the top Left quarter (9 to 12 on the clock face). i clear everything out of that quarter, no enemies move from the other quarters to attack me. although they can attack my bunkers in other areas. I then move down to clear the bottom left corner(6 to 9) . be careful off the odd arty firing over the river running North to south through the middle of the city. its light stuff so no major problem. After clearing there i move around the bottom of the map to start on the bottom right quarter , clear it and then take the last one. I have used bridging engineers in the past but found that you just open yourself to casualties and risks that you did not need too. you should be able to win in 30 + turns. I take arty and infantry to do most of the dirty work with armour to back them up.

it is easy but a slogg.

Martin

[milliethedog]

I see Vorksi posted quicker then me!

[adiekmann]

I have always deployed all of my forces E and NE like Vorski. Two separate main bodies of my army attack. The much larger main force takes the entire NE section and drives all the way to the river opposite the core of the Polish defense and city center. The other smaller one pushes through directly from the East to the River. I use a bridging engineer to force a hard fought crossing right at the heart of the Polish center from the North. But you have to be careful and plan it right and make sure your initial bridgehead doesn't get destroyed.

There's a couple of ways to make sure that doesn't happen. One, you need to support it with lots of artillery and soften up the spot, just north of the twin airfields. Choose a inf unit with the right strength and heroes to withstand the counterassault, because the AI will try hard to push you back. Also, leave at least one empty hex behind the bridging engineer on the north side of the river so your unit can retreat back to safety if necessary. Then I push back with another strong inf unit and keep pounding with my artillery. Soon, my artillery from the East side of the river can participate in support too once I have finished clearing that 3:00 o'clock section out. My main objective is to seize the airfield on the right that has the hanger. Then I drive one of my tanks onto it. Once that's done, the battle is mine. I immediately rebase all of my aircraft there and along with my artillery the Poles are doomed. Once I have secured that core center of the city, It is all just a mopping up operation from there on out. My bridging engineer then helps my force in the Eastern section cross and they take out the 5:00 section of the map. Admittedly, it helps a lot if you have Perimeter Control as one of your traits, but I have done it without it too.

I checked and unfortunately (and surprisingly) I don't have a save file that captures any of those turns where I am forcing my crossing over the river. But I do have one from a earlier core/play through that is shortly before I began my crossing operation so you have some idea of how I have my army set up and you can also trace the path they fought to get there. The Polish inf that's at 9 strength is the hex that I target for my crossing. It offers some cover because one of the surrounding hexes is the hanger which doesn't attack, and the one to the left has a AT/AA gun which doesn't pose much of a threat to your inf either. It's really just enemy artillery and that OS cavalry unit. So don't take it out until you are ready to drive a tank onto it, preferably one with Mr. Kerscher so he can better withstand the counterattacks. It is challenging but I have been able to successfully pull it off each play through since my first. (Though a couple of times I had to reload because I got overconfident and wasn't careful enough.)

BTW, I play on Field Marshal difficulty, or whatever the second hardest is called.

[adiekmann]

Oops! Forgot the sav file so you can check it out.

Warsaw (Turn 18).zip

(381.34 KiB) Downloaded 104 times

[Scrapulous]

imagine a clock; you first deploy your forces at 12-3 hours area and only focus there; polish troops wont harass you; then you move to 3-6 area and so forth - moving clock-wise cleaning the 3-hour zone at a time.

This is exactly how I have done it each time I played the map. The key is that the bridges inside the city are destroyed, so the Poles are isolated in different pockets by the river. Each pocket has a supply hex, but if you can seize it, then you probably already have the Polish units in the sector surrounded just because it's hard to approach the supply hex without also cutting off the only outlet from the pocket. The pockets can support one another in limited ways, so destroying one and then moving on to the other is valuable. In my experience, the Poles don't try to relieve other pockets unless you provoke them by prodding at the pocket they're in.

I also use bridging engineers, but I don't go for the high-stakes decapitation attempt on the city airfields that adiekmann describes. It's a strong play if it works; those airfields are beautifully placed. But I usually have a lot of artillery and so enjoy the long, slow dismantling of entrenched defenses. I use my bridge engineers just so I don't have to take the long way around over the intact bridges on the enemy outskirts. There are a couple of places where you can establish a bridgehead without fighting; this saves you 2-3 turns of just moving your entire core, which I find tedious.

[Tassadar]

I'd recommend Edmon's video in his current GC playthrough as well. It offers some good perspective on how an approach can be made. I usually prefer to split my force and attack from two sides, but having one larger push form one direction is certainly not a bad idea if bridge engineers are used.

[DarkBlueInk]

I usually start in the southeast section with a single force and move counter clockwise around the map. Use the railroads to move troops from the east side to the west side via the northern route and there is no need for bridge engineers. The Polish air force is dead long before you get to the airfields in the center (west side) so it is not critical to capture those earlier in the battle. The whole point of this battle is to capture the supply hex in each of the eastern sections of the city and put "the surround" on them. After that it is simple to just create a wall of units and push south through the western half of the city.

[mdh_slith]

UPDATE: I appreciate all the advice given. My initial start was 11, 9 and 6 on the clock with some gap filling units in between. Restarted with tighter 11, 9 and 8 approach and doing better due to ability to provide air cover to whittle down the western Polish Air Force. The waves of tanks and tankettes have cost me some prestige but not threatened any of my three battle groups or outliers, which are much fewer than in the first attempt. Will try East then NE then NW approach next time for variety.

[Panzer73]

50 turns is very generous for the Warsaw scenario, so you can take your time to minimize your losses. I prefer to clear the eastern side first, half of my force attacking the NE quadrant and half of my force attacking the SE quadrant. Then they'll train or drive around the edge to the top and bottom of the western half and close the pincer. Depending on my unit and hero mix I'll do a variation on how I deploy the units and if I use bridge engineers (to shorten the travel distance), but following Wagner's advice works. Take out the supply hexes while setting up a siege and its over for the defenders. Having Ignores Entrenchment, Entrenchment Killer 3X / 4X heroes helps - along with Vigilant ones of course.

[nexusno2000]

I have gotten up to Warsaw in my AO 1939 DLC playthrough and was wondering the deployment strategies people have found successful. I have reviewed Tassador's AR and other ARs and could only surmise two strategies.

The first is to send a force from the NW and another from the SE and take the west side of the river then train to the east side.

The second is to swamp the Northeast and East sectors as more bite sized. Then either bridge engineer across the river or circle around using trains to take the west side of the river.

Both seem to work and you have 50 turns to play the scenario but I have seem some mention of roaming Polish forces and wonder if I should attack them out first. Any advice would be welcome.

50 turns is practically forever.

Just keep your forces together. For example, clear the east side of the map first. Then cross the river and clear the left side.

AI isn't terribly active so there is no point rushing or spreading out.

If you have trouble stripping entrenchment, use strat bombers, hvy artillery, and SPLITTING. Should have them down to the base so you can force retreat and surrenders.

[adiekmann]

Without pushing to end the game as quickly as possible, I still am basically done around Turn 30. I spend those last 20+ or so turns harvesting xp for my artillery. I arrange them all around the last enclave of Polish troops, making sure that they have a path to reinforcements, and then blast away until Turn 50 rolls around.

[mdh_slith]

I have to restart. Got to turn 20 and realized I didn't get the tac bomber. Went back through my saves and tried partial restart and didn't work. Need to go back to previous scenario and try again.

[mdh_slith]

Restarted Turn 18 previous scenario and picked up 28 parts for the Katyusha. Then play through Turn 9 of Warsaw attacking the NE and E parts this time and got the IL-2. Thanks for the advice.

[Edmon]

This mission was pretty brutal for me with Slow Reaction on, but it was still not too difficult to push clockwise around the map in a largish ball.

You have plenty of time, just be sure to use it all and slowly crush your way around the map.

You can rebase fighters or scout planes from one side of the map to the other to do long recon flights over most of the enemy, use this information to plan your attacks.