Slitherine

if you sit back and play defense, will the Poles keep Attacking? or do you try a flanking move? i seem in control then the Poles overwhelm my forces?

overwhelm when i go on offense not when i'm by the river.

with what?

I've split my forces into 3 groups: one (inf + arty + tank) went north east on my side of the river and blocked the two crossings there, the rest were split roughly in half to form two more groups that defended the two southern crossings. After repelling the attack, western group pushed towards Kutno while central group pushed NE on the Polish side of the river to encircle those two NE crossings. After all 4 crossings were in my hands, central group joined with the small blockade group and pushed west towards Kutno too.

scorehouse wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:55 pm if you sit back and play defense, will the Poles keep Attacking? or do you try a flanking move? i seem in control then the Poles overwhelm my forces?

Except for Ebro, the strategy that usually works in defensive scenarios is to defend first. Let the AI wear themselves out and then counterattack to finish them off afterwards.

For this particular map, I want the high ground right behind the Polish starting positions. So I do go on the offensive right away, seize the towns/bridge/hills on the other side of the river and THEN set up my defenses. Beat them up while your troops have AT and/or ART support behind them. Then counterattack again and clear the map. I found this map easier than its counterpart in PC1, even when played for the first time.

However, my first attempt I didn't notice until several turns into the battle those two Polish flags behind me. They don't require a large force to capture but you get some "goodies" if you do, so worth it.

do u use only Pioneers? overstrengthed? what Tanks do u use for Defense?

scorehouse wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:57 pm do u use only Pioneers? overstrengthed? what Tanks do u use for Defense?

Whether dumb of me or not, I like my core to represent something akin to reality. What formations (divisions) were made of only pioneers? None. So I understand why some players only buy pioniere infantry units, but I am not one of them. They cost more; they have slower movement, lower attack and defense ratings (except for CD). The right heroes can make them BETTER than a pioniere too.

Anyway...back to your question...I always take a combined arms approach. Since the Poles are in mostly close defense tiles, I use a combination of air attack, artillery support, and then infantry attack. It doesn';t have to be pioniere if you've softened them up first with air and artillery. It takes me two or three turns I think to take the area over. Have your inf occupy the hills, move your ART and AT support units behind them. A AA too if you have it or can't protect it all with a fighter.

I didn't get much from the briefing, so I didn't alter my core force or approach much. My materiel was almost totally foreign at this point - I had a core from an SCW run that had Denied Artillery and Denied Airforce, and my first 3 SCW scenarios each gave me a hero with Scavenger, so I at this point had adapted my play to be all about capturing enemy gear. That led to me having a mobile-heavy force with just a couple of cavalry, the Azul Infanterie, and two Pionieres for infantry. My approach was like adiekmann's: I wanted those tasty defensive positions on the Polish side of the river, but I also wanted encirclements, so I massed my mobile forces on the bridges without victory points. I sent my Verdeja 2 prototype to block any Polish offensive from the two northernmost VPs and planned to handle them after I had taken the southern crossings and had completed the bonus objective. No offensive came from those VPs, so the Verdeja spent most of the scenario idle. I sent my second best tank, a BT-5 with some strong heroes (segmented movement, superior maneuver), to take the two southeastern Polish villages.

My infantry and artillery seized the VP crossings. My mobile forces crossed their bridges with no resistance. I started my encirclements of the first wave of Polish forces at the two southern VPs, but of course got caught by the second wave before my encirclements were even comprehensive, which in turn resulted in Polish encirclements of elements of my forward units. This was a dire situation, and what saved me from losing any units entirely was superior air power and sending my infantry on the offensive instead of letting them continue to play the anvil role. The Azul Infanterie here were the MVP at this point: I had them staffed with an Unyielding hero (can't be suppressed by enemy fire) and the Oleh Dir hero (+2 Initiative, +2 move, +20% accuracy), so they were able to cripple or eliminate entire gun or infantry units, and any vehicle that wandered into close terrain was also in for a great deal of pain. I really missed having my two best tanks in this action.

After this I sent my mobile forces north in two parallel prongs. The eastern one encountered a strongly held village on the way and got tied up, while the western group made it to the bonus objective and proceeded to grind it down. They got lucky and never saw enemy reinforcements, while the group fighting to the east encountered two waves of reinforcements while clearing that village and the forests around it and so never made it to the bonus objective. Clearing that village was the last meaningful contest for me in the scenario. I actually fortified that village as a rearguard and absorbed all the subsequent reinforcements there - they all headed straight for it and were crushed easily once I had fortified the forests. Once the Western force finished with the bonus objective, I sent it to work with the Verdeja 2 to encircle the two northern Bzura VPs - without the rearguard intercepting reinforcements, this could have been hard, but it turned out to be simple and quick. Once they held the VPs, they headed back west to join with my rearguard to ride out the remaining turns mopping up the Polish reinforcements.

You asked about armor composition. I have a house rule not to double up on tank types and I play with the Slow Modernization trait. So I had a BT-5, a T-26, the Verdeja 2, a Char B1 (total rockstar for defensive actions due to 18 armor), the gift Somua (a rockstar all around), and a Czech Pz 38(t). I was also running with two of the Pz I Breda armored AT guns. The weak Polish air power also allowed me use my AA guns as AT, which is particularly valuable against the large amounts of light armor & armored cars I saw in the first couple of Polish reinforcements.

i'm playing 39 without doing th Spanish campaign