Slitherine

I have played this scenario twice (note: NOT as part of the campaign, just the stand alone scenario) and lost both times. First time, I didn't realise how poor the Bulgarian and Italian Infantry are and spent far too long taking Salonika and wasting important units helping out around Tirana. Tirana isn't even a victory objective but its hard to stop yourself trying to hold every town on the map!

Second time I got rid of the entrenched Greek forces outside of Salonika much quicker using Artillery and TAC Bombing to seriously weaken the units first before letting the Bulgarians mop up. I also let the Italians lose Tirana in order to concentrate on the central advance towards Athens, even so by turn 20 I had only just begun assaulting Kalamata and lost again.

Because there is no prospect of submarine attack or transports being lost to warships after you wipe out the Greek Navy, the winning strategy must involve a combination of transporting units around the coast beyond Athens and using the two paratrooper units you have to bypass all the heavy action in the centre of the map, but I haven't formulated an exact strategy in my mind.

Bearing in mind this is only the Scenario and not the campaign game so you don't start with any experienced Core units, has anyone got a general strategy which they find works?

You're onto the right track: focus on victory hexes and ignore any regular flag that you don't need. (Often this focus will still allow you to pick up these flags anyway, since there will always be units not part of the spearhead that can be used for this purpose.)

The Italians and Bulgarians have their uses. Spearheading assaults isn't one of them. As mopping-up units that slowly clean out left-over enemy units they work fine.

Indeed you've already figured out that the lower-most victory hex is too far away for a regular conquest. As long as you provide naval artillery support your paratroopers should be able to take that hex effortlessly. Don't forget to act quickly, in order to have them assist in taking Athens - their timely appearance from the south can be crucial in getting that DV. Remember you need to put a unit adjacent to enemy flags in order to stop reinforcements. Do this quickly enough and the computer won't buy the units that could otherwise slow your conquest (units in Athens and the south, that is; buying units in the north is what you want the Allies to do - since there you can eat them for lunch).

What that means specifically includes not giving in to the temptation to have the Italian fleet help out the Italian Army. If you can move to get off a shot or two while you sail along the coast, fine, but steam directly south to make it easy for the Fallschirmsjager to take their objectives. You want to take out any enemy naval units ASAP, and you want any casualties to be taken by the navy - not the paratroopers. The navy is always expendable (in this game )

Don't bother with loading units onto transport ships. Going to another land mass is about the only reason for using those (and that's not the case here). Your land speed will do fine (even accounting for all the opposition).

Other than this, use ordinary good tactics; softening up targets before you attack them, maneuvering to trigger as many surrenders as possible (instead of retreats; the cramped conditions on this map helps with that), maneuvering to make it harder for the enemy to reinforce weakened units, being careful about bringing your tanks into close terrain, etc etc

good luck

SteveV wrote:The naval questions came up because in Marita you actually get the Italian Fleet to play with - 1 Sub, 3 Destroyers 2 Light Cruisers, 1 Heavy Cruiser and a Battleship. The Greek navy has 3 Destroyers and 3 Light Cruisers but they never come out of port so its pretty easy to destroy them.

I never realised Strat bombers were anti-shipping units, guess I need to read the manual more thoroughly!

Marita is an interesting scenario because as the Axis you get stuck with inferior Italian and Bulgarian infantry which take huge losses in combat even with the mass attack principle. Maybe a gamey way to get round this is to deliberately lose a few of them in suicide attacks early on and replace them with decent German units? You also need to use the rail network to get the pitfully slow artillery into useful positions later on. As far as I can see it the only way to get a decisive victory is to capture Salonika as quickly as possible to ferry troops down to Athens and Kalimari because the Italians and Bulgars get bogged down everywhere else.

I believe if you check the nationality flag of the "greek fleet" you will realize they're actually British (just like the Allied airforce in that scenario)

Yes, they're easy to destroy. You can kill them from across the southern peninsula, in fact - the AI might never even see what killed its ships! (Though even if you play MP the Italian fleet is so superior to the British squadron you should easily win, making sure to take losses on Destroyers and the Sub, trying to preserve your heavier ships as much as possible)

I never considered myself "stuck" with Italians and Bulgarians. I guess you're right in that the ratio of non-german land units is high in this scenario, but as long as you let the Wehrmacht do the heavy lifting you should be okay. Actually, that's not entirely true since any infantry unit will do well as long as it's adequately backed-up by artillery. (And not moved out in the open by itself, of course) It's not the quality of infantry that's the weakness of the Italians and Bulgarians in this scenario - it's that they don't have enough artillery, and of course, that there's no armor and/or airforce.

The "mass attack principle" is NOT something that can replace suppressive fire in this game. Just surrounding Greek infantry with three Italians will not tip the scales into your favor, as you seem to be realizing. You need to soften up enemy units beforehand: artillery, artillery, artillery - then naval artillery and aircraft. And remember suppression only lasts for ONE ground attack, so make the most of it. (Suppressing a unit only to make the first attack with a weak attacker, including tanks entering close terrain, is almost always counter-productive: the enemy will be better off even though it lost a point of entrenchment and perhaps a strength point or two; since all suppressed strength points will have "returned to duty")

Suiciding units is almost never a good idea. Using the rail network will not work in this scenario (it is MUCH slower than it looks): it is much better to buy trucks for slow artillery if that's what you need. Don't ferry units either, that only means you're taking your units out of combat when they should be killing enemies!

But I think you've chosen a great scenario to work on your PC skills on. It's small, it's contained, and it rewards good play.

Again: good luck

Thanks for the great advice, the rail network is as you say not very effective, despite looking as if it covers a continuous loop through the central portion of the map trains only run in straight lines it seems...I had a an Artillery unit entrained in Salonika that would only go backwards and forwards along a very short portion of the track, I don't know if this is supposed to represent damage or sabotage to the lines but it is VERY misleading.

One problem with the fallschirmjager is that if the British airforce guesses where they are going they get wiped out before they have a chance to land, I don't know how to get round this as it just appears to be luck - or maybe the Hurricanes are scripted to patrol a certain area of the Map?

I think the Yugoslav infantry in this scenario is too highly rated, in reality they were only partially mobilised when Marita began and the Germans just cut straight through them, despite the favourable defensive terrain. In the scenario it takes a lot of force to evict them from their initial positions. I wanted to start with this scenario because I have always thought List's handling of this campaign is a masterpiece of modern warfare - 24 days to conquer 2 countries where the terrain was mostly unsuitable for Panzers with minimal casualties taken. He is one of the most underrated commanders of World War 11 in my book.

I loaded up Greece to see what rail problems you were talking about, and then I saw it: you have road and rail mixed up! The only rail line in this scenario goes from Salonica northwards, and the only other town connected to it is Strumica a mere four hexes above it. Conclusion: forget about rail in this scenario entirely!

Generally though: trains will run along the entire network BUT they're affected by ZOC (Zone of Control) like everything else. Put simply: trains will stop when moving into a hex adjacent to the enemy (even if the enemy isn't actually blocking the tracks)

The Yugoslav infantry isn't especially highly rated. Compare it to Greek or Commonwealth infantry and see for yourself. It's only compared to Italian infantry they look good... The "secret" is that ANY infantry will perform pretty much the same when entrenched in close terrain, meaning you will not get good results unless you bomb it out of its hiding place.

Let me spell that out for you: do not attack (with any unit) a full-strength entrenched unsuppressed Infantry unit directly.

And of these three variables, suppressing (part of) the unit is the most important. Then comes removing its entrenchment value. Then comes surrounding it to cut off any retreat. Then comes surrounding it for mass-attack bonuses. Note how I haven't even begun talking about its strength yet!

Because when you have done that, the unit is good as dead, even though it might still be at Strength 10, and whether it's Soviet Conscripts, British HW Infantry or US Rangers... (Of course, making sure the unit aren't getting defensive support fire from an arty is the most important variable... if you're attacking with a soft unit like infantry anyway...)

Let us know how it goes...

M

PS. A hint regarding paras - begin by moving them out of the way (completely, to the southwest far out into the ocean where they can't be spotted). Only when the British airforce (actually only one unit, but I guess that's inside information) is fully committed in the north, you "sneak in" those paras in such a way that one turn there's nothing, the next there are two units of fallschirm ready to drop. Feel free to wait until perhaps turn three if you like.

This also allows the Italian fleet to catch up. Against a human player this would provide the insurance that your ships can weaken enemy AA so your precious paras can land unscathed. Besides, you need the artillery support anyway.

(Since the hexes have Greek flags, the Allied player can't just buy British armor - which would be resistant to your naval guns and make for a very tough nut for light infantry to crack. That would be a major pain in the rear...)

Oh, good grief, you are right about the railway - I saw the track from Strumica going north off the map and somehow thought that the road that it crosses was a rail line too

Yes, I knew there was only one british air unit, first time I played I thought there were two but its just that I didn't finish it off the first chance I had.

That ploy of sending the Paras out to sea is a bit gamey but I didn't realise they don't have to land on the turn after you move them or I might have thought of it. Another gameplay issue that you only get to know about by playing, rather than actually having a manual that explains such things..

Its a side issue, but I'm still not sure what to do with the Italians, Suppress the 2 Greek Divisions on the Pindus Mountains with the arty and Italian TAC bomber or try and retreat to Tirana and hold them up there - the problem is if the Greeks catch one of those Italian units in the open they can just wipe them out.

In my two previous tries I used the Italian Fleet to wipe out the naval units in Athens (well, Piraeus actually) before going back to attack the land units in Kalamata. If I just stay around Kalamata will those units actually come out of port or do they just wait to get destroyed no matter what the Italian Fleet is up to?

I just played the scenario to put my money where my mouth is. Report coming up shortly!

Report posted in the AAR subforum:
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