By practicing well, one can only get better and even better.
bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 11, 2021 3:01 pm
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20OperationNordwind:
This one looks really excellent too, but we
need to rework something: the
amount of turns at disposal… now we have really TOO MUCH turns available!
Look: we’ve 50 turns to hold, but I’ve had the possibility to end the scenario earlier (
that’s cool!)… but during the
10th turn!
Of course, I’ve said “no”, to see a little more about it, but…
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How I’ve started?
1. Our frontline start entrenched? Ok, so first let them stay like this… first turn, only artillery taking good shots against visible enemy units.
2. Reserve division? Where would it be most needed? No time to waiste – the time to figure out exactly and it may be too late to send fast enough reinforcements. So, immediately split in three groups:
A) One infantry regiment (3 inf units), one tank unit, some artillery sent to the North in close support of the American;
B) Same formation sent to the South in close support of the French 1re DFL;
C) All the rest, namely the third infantry regiment and 1 scout car unit staying in the center, near roads…
3. Sent some troops of the 2e DB outside of Strasbourg, moving South… the recon unit on the road, even covered by an AT-unit, facing strong German tanks… and all this near forts that need to be protected… I thought, well, I’ll have to replace this scout car on the frontline with something much stronger, like a Sherman!
Anyway, it was a digression… 
(
)
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First things first:
And first,
the enemy is very too weak in the South now…
=> At t5, ‘almost entirely whipped out, with 3 French units 1 hex away of the W flag & 2 French units already 2 hexes away of the E flag.
During the 7th turn, the very last land German unit there being destroyed!
There I stayed defensive (
at first) but took benefit from opportunities and used the help of the guys of the 3e DIA and some of Leclerc’s guys.
Anyway, we
shouldn’t allow that. Therefore, I suggest:
1)
1
heavy infantry as
garrison in each one of these two southern towns (this won’t unbalance our defensive fight anyway)
2)
more punch at disposal, let’s say why not 1
NebelWerfer unit for the 198th division, then 1
Wurfrahmen & duplicate the
Grenadier unit for the Brigade…
=> So, with more power (including a few rocket-launchers
), these units are more likely to make better progress. And, in case, with heavies in support (even perhaps with mortar), this sector won’t be captured as quickly anymore, it won’t be possible anylonger!
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For the N and NE battle, I would suggest:
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1. About the
6th SS:
(
When I played, I’ve sent, after few turns of bombarding and shooting, the Americans up-mountains and, well, they’ve pretty much cleared all this sector…
)
a) “Jäger 'Norge ' / 6th SS Gebirgs” => Excellent, to have involved these guys explicitly!
Very little detail… you can safely remove one space just after “Norge”.
b) The division has
lost its
artillery on the way now…
(
)
In 1943, it should have (according to this German wiki OoB
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/6._SS-Geb ... d%E2%80%9C ): “SS Assault Gun Battery 6”, “SS Mountain Artillery Regiment 6” and “SS Launcher Division 6”… and in 1942 (according to this English equivalent wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_SS_Mo ... ision_Nord ): “Gebirgs Artillery Regiment 6 with three artillery groups” and “SS-Werfer Battalion 6 (Rocket artillery)”
=> I suggest deploying in these mountains
at least 1 (SS) Nebelwerfer & 1 (SS) (mountain gun) 7.5 cm IeIG 18…
At least, because, well, perhaps
1 Nebelwerfer plus 2 mountain guns units? It would feel better (for them) compared to the artillery of the other divisions in the North.
c) They had
Aufklärungs (mot) as well and some AT-unit too… now, according to the Portuguese equivalent (
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/6.%C2%AA_ ... tanha_Nord ) this AT-unit looks like some “old”
Marder I unit…
Now, these two can’t start on mountain hexes, obviously… but just NE of the mountains, you’ve
two free hexes inside forest:
so 1 for their recon unit and 1 for this old TD unit (both SS, full XP of course).
(I didn’t thought that a mountain division would have had AT units as well, but as a complete combat group, well, they actually have…
My bad!
)
d) One could add as well some
light AA capability for them, if one (really) wishes too, covering their newly acquired artillery units…
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2. We’ve some good American heavies on the field, named “Machine Gun / etc.”. But German don’t have
heavies, except as garrisons… So, we should add some for them. Now, let’s see: PzG are known to be stronger (or of better overall “quality”) than VGD…
Thus, perhaps adding one German heavy infantry per PzG division?
So, it’s one for the 25th PzG AND later one for the 17th SS PzG (full XP for this one)…
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2b. Speaking of which –
sorry for the digression:
I’ll already suggest two adaptations related to the apparition of these divisions…
A)
Change the
supply output 1 hex NW of Loudrefing from +50 to +100… a safety, and we’ve this in the eastern part, so, and because…
B)
Add some
garrisons units there, called “Back Safety”, or “Garrison” or even “Ost Battalion” or whatever… 3 units (that could be simply regular infantry instead of really heavies) on their actual spawning area… 1 at the +50 supply output (the not-modified one, that is) and 1 in each one of the two towns they’ll directly capture…
Two reasons: otherwise the AI will keep units back to defend these hexes and, well, as it’s damn tempting anyway to go up there from the “SW” to try outsupplying them, well…
And the Chaffee is excellent to move throughout forests!
(I’ll really like this “106th Cavalry Reg”, and I understand better why you’ve put it in the first scenario – perfectly coherent, thus excellent!
)
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3. At t15, when now… (you know!) there was almost no single German unit left in the N and NE parts of the battlefield… well, only TWO units remaining and, trust me, not for long!
It will be time to use
our tactical reserve (it’s perfectly plausible, according to
http://www.lignemaginot.com/ligne/esch/combats/nord.htm as already written):
ColonelY wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 6:32 pm
[...] 3. We may even let another division appear, as reinforcement, around the middle of the battle or something, well once the German offensive begin to lack some power, some steam, that is…. See just below: one could consider the
245th VgD as a candidate for this purpose![/color] [...]
The French wiki gives us (
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/245e_divi ... Allemagne) ) this OoB for 1945:
• Grenadier-Regiment 935
• Grenadier-Regiment 936
• Grenadier-Regiment 937
• Füsilier-Bataillon 245
• Artillerie-Regiment 245
• Pionier-Bataillon 245
• Panzerjäger-Abteilung 245
• (Nachrichten-Abteilung 245)
• Feldersatz-Bataillon 245
The German wiki equivalent agrees with this OoB, althouth without giving any year... Whereas its (translated) Polish equivalent (
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/245_Dywiz ... II_Rzesza) ) has this one, for in July 1944: 935th, 936th and 937th Grenadier Regiment, 245th Artillery Regiment, 245th Pioneer Battalion, 245th Anti-Tank Detachment, (245th Communications Detachment), 245th Field Reserve Battalion.
Now that we have an idea about the OoB, when and how to make them join the fray?
How?
So, we have:
11 Regular Infantry units: “935th Reg / 245th VGD” (3x), “936th Reg / 245th VGD” (3x), “937th Reg / 245th VGD” (3x), “Füsilier / 245th VGD” (1x), “Feldersatz / 245th VGD" (1x)
1 Engineer unit: “Pionier / 245th VGD”
=> Up north (NE), we’ve 3 paved road entry points and 2 dirt road entry points… that may be considered as 4 “big” entry points… for a total of 12 infantry units, that’s 3 each!
About artillery, as we have already many non-armored units in this sector and as these reinforcements may have to move before coming into range, then, what about some (light) armored artillery?
You’ve gone with 4 artillery units per division right now, so, let’s do the same – and it’s perfect as we’ve 4 “big” entry points, so 1 per each… as potential unit models, I count the SdKfz. 135/1, the sIG 38(t) Grille H, the Wespe and the Hummel… umm, that’s precisely 4…
As AA unit, we may choose some mobile unit as well, like a SdKzf 7/1 perhaps. All this with one AT unit and this will look like something!
When?
We’ve many options. We could choose some specific turn (but it may depend on how the player plays… if he struggles already, no need to finish him off with this!), we could choose when there is no longer more than a given amount of German unit in a given area (but it may depend on whether the German do make a striking advance, thus somehow quit this given area… again, no need to finish the player off with this!), OR we could simply choose to spawn this division when the German have lost a given amount of units… and that may be the easiest way. It doesn’t matter exactly whether the Germans have left a sector by moving away, nor when it is exactly, nor in which sector exactly the Germans have taken the most casualties.
Okay, but when? Well,
I would say perhaps when they’ve lost between 50 to 60 units?
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I’ve stopped playing during the 21st turn, with the entire map under control, except of course the NW area, but there the Germans have lost their first units too and most of my units where moving against them… they would have simply no chance at all, they were sentenced!
I saved, then reloaded the file to have a look at the counter: already
175 enemy units destroyed out of 100 (100 reached during the 10th turn!)…
Obviously,
we don’t want the battle to end without having encountered and defeated the groups spawning now at t15…
but it’s nice to have an early victory possibility.
But as it shouldn’t come too early, this threshold should be increased… let’s see… 175 + the remaining units, that should be almost 200, plus the extra 20 of the 245th VGD, that’s about 220 enemy land units… So,
I suggest that this threshold is increased up to 150 enemy units!
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Anyway, 50 turns, that’s definitely too much… I hope this won’t be too shocking
(
) but I suggest to reduce it already to
36 turns (
but in my mind, and even with these modifications, 30 turns should already be largely enough – we’ll see, I’ll test it again later ).
(
Of course, seeing too whether this imply changes in terms of German air resources or something.)
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Same consideration,
what happens in the NW should be moved from t15 to t12 (
or even perhaps t10, again we’ll see later)…
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Now, a little of more little elements, maybe:
-> Turn on the “
off-map air supply source” for the German. They may lose their two airfields and then it’s very difficult for them…
-> When our planes do spawn, we may find nice to have as well
one or two (US) recon planes… they may be very useful in the North to help spotting enemy artillery in order to do some more efficient counter-battery firings! (Two: yes, so potentially one in the North and one in the East… or, if one is down, well…)
-> By the way, I really like the mix of artillery within the 2e DB. And the Jackson is an awesome touch too!
-> Briefing 4/5: “la Troisième Algérienne
s” (singular not plural) -> “la Troisième Algérienne”
-> About our
Cathedral… In the previous scenario, we’ve had the event “Cathedral Off-Limits”, with its texts starting with “Attention! We will not justify the enemy's barbarous decision to fortify Strasbourg Cathedral […]” So, well, now let’s NOT fortify it ourselves.
We aren’t supposed to be barbarians too, so:
Remove all XP, all entrenchment & put it to “Impassable Area” (as the Ex-Concentration Camp).
EDIT: Well, about the Cathedral, one could still do a little better than this (first) suggestion - see one of the next posts about it, please.
-> Speaking of which adding these three caracters on map as well?
“Ex-“, for “Natzweiler Concentration Camp” or, if it becomes too long, simply “Ex-Concentration Camp”?
-> “37e Grp Antiaérien / 3e DIA”, being a 57mm Gun M1 (AT) should be called “37e Grp
Antichar / 3e DIA”.
-> Text of event “Status Report 3/3”: “Merci b
oucoup!” -> “Merci b
eaucoup!”
-> Names in US 103rd Inf Div… in Saverne itself, you’ve a regular infantry called “Machine Gun / 103rd Infantry” (as the heavy unit more in the West)… as a regular infantry, it should be called “410th Reg / 103rd Infantry” (you’ve only 2 of them right now), and perhaps change its place with the “409th Reg / 103rd Infantry” over the river hex, to keep the organization you usually have in formations.
And, well, I think that’s it! 
( 
(same map, so same for both scenarios)
