Battlefield: Europe MOD v2.5.1

[PeteMitchell]

Baku by turn 42?

[JimmyC]

I think General Werner paired two Wurfrahmen once to drive towards Moscow...

I think he had 3 of them together that he used in conjunction with each other.
In this play through I upgraded 1 of the smaller artillery to Wurframen as I noticed it’s cheaper now compared to v2.4. But I’m struggling to find good use of it with only 1 range and in hindsight think a nebelwerfer would have been better. The 21cm nebelwerfer is the best compromise between damage capability and ammo IMO, however i don’t have any free slots yet to purchase.

[JimmyC]

We have seen through the winter of '42/43 with great success, having beaten back the Russian drive on Kursk. We caused devasting casualties to the Russians whilst preserving our forces and captured a large number of prisoners. However, this success came at a cost. By drawing in our reserves to Kursk from other sectors, it significantly slowed our advance on Moscow. And it is only June of '43 that we are going to be able to capture the Russian capital.

Army Group South meanwhile held off the enemies attacks and mostly defeated their armor. Now we are eliminating the still sizeable enemy infantry forces between the Donets and the Don Rivers, before making a drive on Stalingrad.

The plucky Finns, together with German artillery and fallschirmjager, managed to take Archangelsk after bitter and costly fighting. We will now send them South to occupy enemy held cities in the direction of Moscow.

In North Africa we succeeded in beating back the counterattacks from the Suez, fully broke through the line at El Alamein and captured Alexandria, giving the honor of capturing the city to the Italians as revenge for their defeats in this theater earlier in the war. We are over a year behind schedule, however and the oilfields still seem like a distant dream.

It is a bleak situation facing our forces in Tunisia. Whilst we were mostly able to destroy the enemy navy with the Regia Marina, the appearance of the Battleships HMS Nelson & HMS Rodney, together with the local air superiority of the enemy, has significantly turned the tide. We were forced back from the Kasserine Pass and are only just holding open a tenuous link between Tripoli and Tunis. Our forces defending the hills west of Tunis have also been forced back and are steadily seeding ground to the stronger enemy forces. We desperately need reinforcements in this theatre, however it is questionable whether they will arrive in time.

[McGuba]

Thanks for the reply. In my kind, respectful opinion, I think that 6-8 turns would be more optimal. From multiple playthroughs, it just seems to me that 12 turns is much too long for the sake of the scenario. I've captured them by the end of 42 and spent a long time waiting to the point that the fleets become pretty much pointless. I believe it would spice things up a bit, as well as give incentive for quicker capture. Thanks!

I think around 1 year / 24 turns or so would be more realistic. 6 months / 12 turns is probably still a bit too optimistic.

What we know for sure is that historically the Germans could only capture the smaller Maykop oil field, and even though they held it for 5 months, they were unable to repair it before the Soviet recapture.


AI answer:

August 8, 1942, elements of Army Group A took Maikop after a specialized German commando unit (the Brandenburgers) disguised as NKVD troops caused confusion and expedited the city's evacuation.

Scorched Earth:
Recognizing the threat, the Soviets utilized a highly effective scorched-earth strategy. Soviet units destroyed the oil storage tanks, set the facilities ablaze, and poured cement down the wellbores before retreating.

Soviet Recapture:
The Germans held the ruined fields for only five months. As the tide of the war turned, the Red Army launched a massive counter-offensive, recapturing the Maikop region in January 1943.

Why the Capture Yielded Zero Oil

Devastated Infrastructure:
The sabotage was so thorough that the Germans were unable to extract any usable crude before being pushed out. Rebuilding the destroyed facilities required entirely new wells and specialized equipment.

So I guess it definitely needs to be more than 5 months / 10 turns. Hence the current 12 turns waiting time. That's the absolute minimum in the hardest, "realistic +" version, in my opinion.