Slitherine

jaggy wrote:@El Condoro - Appreciate the insights, it really helps to know all these stuff especially when playing at FM level.

@ Molve - I don't know, the AI naval fleet in Norway are pounding my ships in the North to pieces! I'm not sure whether my Heavy Cruiser can survive up there before help arrives. One escort destroyer got sunk and the other badly damaged and this is all in Turn 1!

Have you guys ever lost all your ships up North in Norway at FM level? I know those 3 ground units are going to be in big trouble if the Royal Navy turns those guns on them. I've rushed up 2 Ju88s, 2 Stukas, 2 Bf109s but they will only get into action in Turn 3. I tried moving up a small naval task force just below the extreme northern force but they got intercepted and burned badly. So have to wait for reinforcements from the south to catch up.

On Colonel elvel I managed to keep the Heavy cruiser pretty much intact...on field Marshal it took one hell of a beating!

jaggy wrote:One escort destroyer got sunk and the other badly damaged and this is all in Turn 1!

Thats the all idea.
If the allied fleet is busy shooting at your auxiliary fleet, it will leave your core army disembark and do its business.

Horseman wrote:On Colonel elvel I managed to keep the Heavy cruiser pretty much intact...on field Marshal it took one hell of a beating!

@Horseman - I know, I read the Diary of Herr Pferdmann. But did your Heavy Cruiser survived the Norway scenario at FM level? Its like the Royal Navy Heavy Cruisers Parking Lot up north.

@impar - True, but if my Heavy Cruiser doesn't survive Turn 2, I don't know whether the 3 ground units in the northern group will be able to occupy Trondheim if they are getting pounded by these enemy ships. The rest of my fleet is just too far south to get there in time.

I've rushed my entire Luftwaffe at the very start towards the North from the very first turn but realised that the Bf109s would run out of fuel. Is it possible to occupy the Trondheim airfield by the 3rd Turn at FM level? If not, then there's no point sending the Luftwaffe up north as they will be unable to refuel. The rose-coloured glasses of Sergeant level have definitely dropped off now!

jaggy wrote:True, but if my Heavy Cruiser doesn't survive Turn 2, I don't know whether the 3 ground units in the northern group will be able to occupy Trondheim if they are getting pounded by these enemy ships. The rest of my fleet is just too far south to get there in time.

My experience says that The AI will keep around three ships in the north (including a carrier), all other ships will go south to face your fleet.

More, you get more prestige from Norway if you only win in the last turn, you dont need a decisive victory.

The AI has an attention span of a two-year old. What it can't see, does not exist.

Meaning that if you make your units disappear (retreating into the hills out of sight from both enemy ships and the city defenders) enemy ships should lose interest immediately, steaming south to find something else to kill.

Also, if you play the MP scenario "French Uprising" (I think it's called) you will quickly realize that the best way to help land units under naval bombardment is to kill the enemy fleet - without it shooting back at your fleet.

To do this: move your ships away from the coast. You can see his ships but he can't see yours. And the AI cannot understand it must do active recon (with destroyers or airplanes) if it wants to shoot at your ships.

His ships will lick the coastline and move toward visible units - make sure this is Tank units in clear terrain and not artillery or infantry or ships, and you will weather his naval artillery just fine.

This creates a sequence of events where he shoots at your armor for little to no effect. And your ships shoot at his ships (making sure to shoot at cruisers with battleships and bombers before your own cruisers).

This will quickly lead to the destruction of the AI fleet with your own fleet remaining relatively intact. At this point, your fleet can help out the struggle on land MUCH MUCH more effectively than if you tried to help out during the turns when the enemy fleet still existed.

This lesson can be applied at Norway too, even though there are factors that make things less clear-cut:
1) your northern-most ships are effectively trapped. There is nowhere to go to escape detection.
2) the western avenues are very narrow; there is no space to move away from the coast outside of sighting range

This means that the northern ships need to sell themselves dearly. While they do so, you move away all ground troops from the coast (and away from detection), leading the enemy flotilla southwards. Once the enemy ships have passed Trondheim/Bergen you will have enough space to maneuver.

Place a single Panzer where the enemy ships will find it. When they are busy (not) destroying it, you can kill the enemy navy "from behind".

(To be clear: enemy ships still shoot back when attacked. That makes the longer range of your BB invaluable. But the crucial difference is that they will expend their own active turns shooting at something they can see, so make sure they can't see your cruisers, battleship, or any 'soft' land units)



PS. A less gamey and more historical version of this tactic is to sacrifice your destroyers and Schnellboote. Move them ahead, and use capital ships (and bombers) to avenge anything that kills the screening units.

jaggy wrote:

Horseman wrote:On Colonel elvel I managed to keep the Heavy cruiser pretty much intact...on field Marshal it took one hell of a beating!

@Horseman - I know, I read the Diary of Herr Pferdmann. But did your Heavy Cruiser survived the Norway scenario at FM level? Its like the Royal Navy Heavy Cruisers Parking Lot up north.

@impar - True, but if my Heavy Cruiser doesn't survive Turn 2, I don't know whether the 3 ground units in the northern group will be able to occupy Trondheim if they are getting pounded by these enemy ships. The rest of my fleet is just too far south to get there in time.

I've rushed my entire Luftwaffe at the very start towards the North from the very first turn but realised that the Bf109s would run out of fuel. Is it possible to occupy the Trondheim airfield by the 3rd Turn at FM level? If not, then there's no point sending the Luftwaffe up north as they will be unable to refuel. The rose-coloured glasses of Sergeant level have definitely dropped off now!

On field Marshall the heavy cruiser was eventually sunk but it took out more strength points of the enemy than it lost!

impar wrote:you get more prestige from Norway if you only win in the last turn, you dont need a decisive victory.

Thanks, I will take a Marginal Victory then, I really need those Prestige Points!

Molve wrote:This means that the northern ships need to sell themselves dearly. While they do so, you move away all ground troops from the coast (and away from detection), leading the enemy flotilla southwards. Once the enemy ships have passed Trondheim/Bergen you will have enough space to maneuver.

Wow, Molve, great in-depth advice as usual! My worry was the survivability of the northern ground force unit but with the above tip, at least they won't be destroyed. There is no way the Luftwaffe can support them early on as there are no friendly airfield to refuel them. I know the ground units sight range is 2 in good weather. So for enemy ships, their sight range will be the same as their firing range, ie Heavy Cruisers at 4 hexes?

@Horseman - I hope I don't let down Herr Pferdmann in this scenario!

Another tip is to move the German paratroopers north to support the landing force there.
If you keep the transport planes out of sight (at least 2 hexes from any city) you can ferry them north without being spotted by the British Fighter planes.

Also I prefer to leave the two heavy ships down south to bombard the forces surrounding Oslo and purchase two Strategic Bombers to take care of the Allied navy. The experience is invaluable and 3-4 Star Strategic Bombers are incredibly useful for Sealion.

Thanks, Fimconte. I've been wrestling with whether to utilise Fallschirmjager/Gebirgsjager as core units. Are they really worth it because they are a lot weaker offensive/defensively than Wehrmacht Inf/Grenadier/Pioniere? In my earlier campaign (Sgt level) I could leave them out but at FM level, Fallschirmjager might prove useful if very brittle. As for Gebirgsjager, I don't know, combat-wise its always suffering high casualties.

jaggy wrote:I know the ground units sight range is 2 in good weather. So for enemy ships, their sight range will be the same as their firing range, ie Heavy Cruisers at 4 hexes?

Look at the unit details screen for the values of each unit. That is right-click a unit and look for the 'binoculars' (spotting range) and 'cross-hairs targeting circle' (firing range) icons.

You will find that capital ships can fire a lot farther away than they can spot.

It bears to mention that this does not stop them from returning fire when attacked. That is, a ship can return fire even if it can't see its attacker (think of it as the attacker momentarily appears out of the fog).

However, and this is the clincher: it can only return fire if its range supports it. This is why a Battleship or a Battlecruiser devastates Light and Heavy Cruisers (since you make sure to fire at a distance of exactly 5 hexes). It is the same with cruisers and destroyers (just avoid firing at a destroyer when adjacent and the cruiser will not be harmed).

The strategy to defeat AI ships with minimal losses is thus:
* if possible, shoot in ways that mean no return fire (BBs on CRs; CRs on DDs; strat bombers against everything)
* if not possible, shoot at weakened ships first; and shoot with bigger ships against smaller ships.
* of course, subs need destroyers and/or tac bombers (unlike anything else on the seas, which battleships and strat bombers are best for)
* avoid being seen and you will not be actively attacked on the opponent's turn
* make sure you throw a bone to the AI that it can chew on without breaking. Meaning you present a hard target (a tank, for instance) to weather its naval artillery. If you don't do this, those ships will either find a soft target that the AI might actually kill, or it will send the ships away (to a coastal area where it does spot enemy units). And this is bad because it just might mean that your own navy will be spotted, which means taking those casualties you wanted to avoid.

Thanks Molve, appreciate the insights. FM is turning out to be much tougher than I anticipated. I'll be implementing the excellent advice you gave. I need to observe more closely on the mechanics of AI movement and combat.

Field Marshal difficulty seems to be amazingly well tuned. I know some people eat it for breakfast and complain that it's to easy but for me it seems exactly right. It was possible for me to win all scenarios until the invasion of the USA(except Moscow 41, which i wasn't aiming for anyway as i wanted the longest path to USA) with a decisive victory. Yes on some maps i had to restart them a few times and try different approaches as strategies that seemed to be working on colonel suddenly failed and it was almost always only possible just within the last turn. That's what i call perfect fine tuning of difficulty.

So do not get disappointed if you keep losing initially FM it is meant to be a challenge and it really is. If you lose analyze why you lost, where you need to be faster and try again. On the positive side beating a scenario will now feel really rewarding. But expect another step up in difficulty when you reach the USA. This bloody invasion is still driving me crazy but one day ... one day i will hoist my flag above the capitol.

Agree with you 100% Tarrak. What normally works at lower levels are unlikely to work at FM. I'm looking hard at Norway now and may change my force composition. After reading the veteran posts around here, I'm beginning to re-evaluate units that I didnt' use much like the Fallschirmjager, Gebirgsjager, Recon (especially like the way they occupy multiple hexes in a turn) and Self-Propelled Artillery. I liked the Wurfrahmen tremendously but their 2-hex range is a real liability. You really need to look out for these units as they are vulnerable to AI counter-attack. Now, I have to refrain from unrestrained rushing to the objectives and move the units more tactically.

jaggy wrote:Thanks, Fimconte. I've been wrestling with whether to utilise Fallschirmjager/Gebirgsjager as core units. Are they really worth it because they are a lot weaker offensive/defensively than Wehrmacht Inf/Grenadier/Pioniere? In my earlier campaign (Sgt level) I could leave them out but at FM level, Fallschirmjager might prove useful if very brittle. As for Gebirgsjager, I don't know, combat-wise its always suffering high casualties.

I find Gebirgs fairly useless since if you equip them with transports their Mountaineer trait becomes useless (since the trucks slow them down to 1 move in hard terrain).
If you don't equip them with transports they are only useful for initial pushes on some maps since they can't keep up with the offensive after that first push.

As for Fallschirms, I usually purchase 2 in Norway to get them some experience in preparation for Sea Lion.
They are useful in a few other scenarios for DV purposes.
(In Low Countries, they can take and hold Calais, in Sealion - Bristol, in Barbarossa, they can support a rush to Polotsk, etc).
In general they are useful on any map that has a very distant VP that's hard to reach otherwise within the constraints of a DV time limit.

The higher Initiative and SA makes them viable as a replacement for Wehrmacht Inf, at least until 43', but I tend to exclusively use Pioniere for my ground units due to their higher HA and the ability to ignore Entrenchment.
And anyway my armies tend to be light on Infantry, with a 1:2:1½ infantry:armour:artillery ratio.

Fimconte, what is your infantry breakdown like? I mean how many Wehrmacht Infantry, Grenadiers, Fallschirmjager, Pioneers that make up your core units? Do you upgrade your Wehrmacht Infantry to Grenadiers for the extra firepower despite the movement reduction? I've just finished Norway and have gained a real appreciation for the Fallschirmjager. There was no way I could get any infantry to Namsos in time without the paratroopers. I found the Gebirgsjager useful in the mountainous terrain here but its as you say they tend to get left behind in the other scenarios if they are not motorised.

0 Wehrmacht Infantry, 0-3 Grenadiers (Only if they are SE).
While the 3 move mobility is useful, it's not crucial. You should be flanking with Armour units and only use your Pioneers for taking Cities and breaking through fortified lines.
I disbanded the inferior units from Poland at the start of Norway in most of my campaigns.
In the last one I finished I used my modified start where you can fully customize your army in Poland (2nd post).

I just replayed Poland and ended with a Turn 10 DV, going into Norway I'm looking at:

5 Pioneers (1 landing in Far-North, 2 in West, 1 in South-West, 1 in South-East).
1 Fallschirms (I pick up the 2nd in the Low Countries, although it's your choice).
6 10.5cm Artillery (2 Far-North, 1 West, 1 South-West, 1-2 South-East).
3 PIII (Upgraded from Pz '38s, 1 South-West, 2 South-East Landing. / Alternatively disband the Pz I/II and buy them).
1 BF109 (Usually I pick up 2, but...)
2 Ju 87B (...I decided to experiment with 2 JU87B's instead of a BF109, I was surprised at their effectiveness in Poland, but I don't plan to keep them for long, because you will want to pick up 2-3 BF109's in the Low Countries and since there's only 1 British Fighter in Norway usually, you don't lose out on much exp).
2 Ju 88A (Invaluable, the earlier you get them, the better).

Although I haven't played the vanilla Campaign from the beginning since the patch that nerfed Pioneers from 5 HA to 3 HA, which makes them stat wise inferior to Grenadiers (who have +1 Initiative).
However for me the core strength of the Pioneers is their ability to ignore Entrenchment, it's simply invaluable and I can take a small initiative hit for that.

Very interesting force composition, Fimconte. Just 5 Pioneers and 1 Fallschirmjager to clear the whole of Norway? Wow, I don't think I would have the nerve with just 6 infantry. Yes, it was sad when they de-rated the Pioneers. Maybe a better solution would have been to increase the cost to purchase it.

When you finish your Norway scenario, could you tell me the force composition of that also? I'm planning for the France scenario now and look forward to any suggestions/advice regarding the force composition. I noticed reading through the forums that quite a few gamers use the Sturmpanzer. Do you use this unit? I'm keen on Wurfrahmens as they have excellent SA against enemy infantry but have realised they are very vulnerable to counter-attacks as they need to get within 2 hexes of their targets. So when I get the "Range+1" for these units, its a godsend.

Do you upgrade your tanks to the Panzer IV D when in France or do you settle for various Panzer III models?

jaggy wrote:Very interesting force composition, Fimconte. Just 5 Pioneers and 1 Fallschirmjager to clear the whole of Norway? Wow, I don't think I would have the nerve with just 6 infantry. Yes, it was sad when they de-rated the Pioneers. Maybe a better solution would have been to increase the cost to purchase it.

When you finish your Norway scenario, could you tell me the force composition of that also? I'm planning for the France scenario now and look forward to any suggestions/advice regarding the force composition. I noticed reading through the forums that quite a few gamers use the Sturmpanzer. Do you use this unit? I'm keen on Wurfrahmens as they have excellent SA against enemy infantry but have realised they are very vulnerable to counter-attacks as they need to get within 2 hexes of their targets. So when I get the "Range+1" for these units, its a godsend.

Do you upgrade your tanks to the Panzer IV D when in France or do you settle for various Panzer III models?

You have to consider, you also have 3 Aux Fallschirmjagers and a Aux PzIVD.


Wurfrahmen 40's are excellent, but I prefer towed artillery for the most part due to the 2 range of the W40's.
Most self-propelled artillery has inferior attack values and too low ammo values.

So I tend to go full towed artillery, until I get a +1 range hero, then that unit gets upgraded to a Wurfrahmen.


As for the PzIVD, the core issue is that the PzIII has a limited lifespan, it's only situationally better than the PzIV until Barbarossa, after which the PzIV lasts you until (late)Stalingrad.

So in essence you're trading either 278 prestige points (per tank) or 3 scenarios worth of Experience for a marginal advantage in scenarios where you don't really need heavy anti-armour capability.
Only the Matilda II could be considered a a real obstacle in Sealion, but an extra 2 HA isn't gamebreaking there and you can bypass that location anyway.

Short Answer: I disband or upgrade all my tanks to PzIV's in the Low Countries.

Your force setup for Norway seems to be extremely expensive Fimconte.

I just made some brief calculations and your core force got a value 5199 prestige and that assuming you only gave your infantry and artillery trucks as transport. The total costs of your starting core force in Poland is 2260 prestige and your starting prestige is 969. There are 3 victory flags which gives you 300 prestige and 11 normal flags which gives you 550 prestige so overall 850 prestige from conquer. Per day you gain 5 prestige which considering you need to finish the campaign in 12 turns to get decisive victory gives you maximal 60 prestige. Finally for a decisive victory in Poland you are rewarded with 720 prestige. So your maximal prestige gained is: 2260 + 969 + 850 + 60 + 720 = 4859. This is the case under perfect conditions: You need to conquer every single flag, use exactly 12 turns and do not have to replenish any single unit in the field.

Either i make some mistakes in the calculations, which is well possible as i just did them on the fly, or something seems to be wrong. Even if i am off and you can gain a bit more prestige so your setup is actually affordable at all it still requite a nearly perfect execution.

Fimconte wrote:Short Answer: I disband or upgrade all my tanks to PzIV's in the Low Countries.

I would like to do that too but unfortunately for the S.E. Panzer IIIFs' that I have, though the Upgrade button is available, there is no other panzer model to upgrade to. I like your idea of upgrading Towed Arty to Wurfrahmen only after they get Range+1.