Finally I managed to win a marginal victory in Berlin with a "historical" core composition. It is possible and a decisive victory is possible to achieve also I think with a non optimized core, I had not the energy to replay it for a DV this time though. I must say I was a little disappointet that a MV ends with a plain and indifferent "Axis surrenders" Screen as reward instead of an Outro. I just have changed history a little by winning this onslought didn´t I, so why there is nothing emphasizing it?
On the other hand I apologize for my rant about poor scenario design in one of posts above. This scenario was designed just different by intention and needs a different playing approach using AI exploits, which I´m not a big fan off. Well nevermind.
So if anybody out there is playing a historical army and uses not only top-notch units up to 45, these hints might be interesting for you:
the setup
You need to be aware that this scenario starts off with your army being outnumbered by 10:1 at least and this relation will not change throughout most of the time. You have a constant stream of prestige income, I think it is about 200/turn, so you can repurchase green infantry units you lose. I never bought elite replacements on this map since it is the last battle and never ran out of prestige for repairs/ aux upgrades and infantry/pak repurchases, that I lost.
for comparison my core, consisting of the following units (* = experience, H = Hero, 7 SEs included):
Prestige: ~5000
Infantry: 2x Grenadier *H, 2x Fallschirm*H, 1 Inf;
Tanks: 2x TigerII*HH, 1x Maus*H (from Seelow Heights), 1x SE Maus** (granted at map start), 1x TigerI**HH, 2x Panther**HH, 2x PzIV*H, 1x PzIII*H, 1x PzIIFlamm ****H;
ATs: 1x Elefant**HHH, 1x KTiger***, 1x Pak43 **H;
Artillery: 4x SFh***H, 1x Mrs 21***H, 1x Nbwf**H,1x K5Railgun*****H, 1xBrumbär*****H, 1x Pzwerf***H;
AAs (most of them granted in optional raid mission in 45): 3x Flak40****H. 2x Flak36**H, 2xOstwind*****H;
Luftwaffe: 1x Me262**H, 1x Bf109K***HH, 1x FW190A, 1xKomet H, 1x FW190D**H, 1x Stuka*H, 1x Henschel**, 1x Heinkel*,1x Dornier***, 1x Junkers**;
In the beginning I left the weaker tanks, 2 aircraft and some infantry in my reserve for later use and bought a bunch of green units, my prestige dropped to ~3000:
4x Gebirgsjäger, 2x Brückenpioniere, 2x Kradschützen, 1x ReconSdkfz232, 1x Pioniere, 1x StugIV;
the rescue - turns 1 to 3
You have some additional forces that will be overrun within turn 1 and 2 and most of them are dead when you finally start moving. Because your core is not consisting of overstrength superunits it is an imperative to dig in at heavily fortified positions and hold them throughout the time,
rather blocking than killing of endless waves of enemy units going for the centre. If you try to cover too much space and move out of the inner area within the river/canal borders you will overstretch and fail. In order to be able to hold the centre you will need any help by auxiliary units available you managed to rescue and bring back to your ultimate defenseline. See the rescue op
here.
So I bought some green disposible units in order to rescue as many AUX units as possible. The rescue units most probably wont survive this operation but their loss is worth it as you will need as many units deployed simultaneously as possible to strengthen all hotspots the enemy is trying to cross or to interchange/ rotate heavily damaged strongpoint defenders. I learned that I can keep few of the rescue units alive if they have a high mobility (Kradschützen or cheap Recon) and run for life after the AUX are secured.
You can upgrade these rescued AUX later, which makes them really valuable since this is the last battle there is no waste in upgrading AUX here. At some point I delayed the enemy with green inf or green paks to keep escape routs open, one was rescued by train, one pak ran away by upgrading with a lorry, others by fleeing the river with the help of bridge engineers. Until turn 3 I managed to bring home 5 AUX Volkssturm, and 2 Paks from the outer city districts. Together with the ones stationed closer I began to upgrade the Volkssturm to Gebirgsjäger or Brückenpioniere when their hitpoints were reduced under 10, the Pak40s to Pak43 or StugIII / StugIV, if needed in open terrain. My army had the following auxiliary alive & helping / on-route for upgrades in turn 4:
7x Volkssturm, 6x Pak40, 1x Flak40, 1x Bunker
So I positioned the main core around the hotspots I marked green on the screenshot, on the insides of the riverbanks and canals except northeast of the High Command bunker, where I dug in behind the 2 clear hexes. My best units (TigerII, Maus, Ktiger, Elefant, Pak43, Grenadiere) are holding this open or close combat terrain, with very strong AA and Artillery support. See
here.
the luftwaffe
I did not deploy all of my planes right from the start, as my green infantry will die again and again in the first turns, I can redeploy less effective planes later as core slots will be freed constantly.
The cyan arrow marked on the screenshot indicates the direction where the soviet airforce will be flying in. It proved to be a good idea positioning the heavy AA calibres along that path, so my interceptors can deal with the already weakened enemy fighters and suffer less losses. This is vital because one can´t repair the Luftwaffe to full extent throughout most of this scenario. The Tempelhof dual airfields in the south will be overrun within 2-3 turns, the only airfield accessible will be the inner city airfield in centre west, BUT it will be next to enemy units trying to cross the river all of the time there, so your repair is slowed down to +1 maximum/turn. For refuelling you can use the 2 hexes east/right of that airfield to get fuel tanks filled as long these are held by your units.
My fighters units ended the scenario 1 shot down, others reduced to ~ half strength and I managed to keep air superiority due to my strong AAs on the ground. I bought repairs almost only for my bombers, because the red army has one big weakness here, they did not bring any ground based mobile AA units!! This makes this level a bombing feast for your tac bombers cutting down enemy tanks crossing water or your strat bombers destroying/depleting enemy Katyushas. The main danger from enemy fighters comes from the east, but you should always see them in time as they are coming the way along your positions at the High command bunker where you shell them heavily with your AAs. If there is undamaged enemy fighters remaining on the map you should use your own for covering your bombers rather than Strafe ground attack missions.
holding the bottlenecks
In the first ~ 10 turns things can get really nasty, the only way to survive is to deplete enemy IS2 tanks, Katyushas, SU122s with strat bombers, blocking off crossing units with your dug in infantry/paks from city hexes that you have to support with excessive artillery cover. Place your best armored units in the open areas that you need to keep. The enemy AI player wont charge into those terrain tiles if you keep your artillery supplied and well positioned. If the frontline defenders are hit severly they will be exchanged with weaker units deployed closeby until they are repaired. Bring in the upgraded AUX units to do the replacement job until your own are fit again. Bridge pioneers proved very helpfull as your backareas are hopelessly overcrowded with Artillery and AA support units and you run out of space for rotation moves. If the enemy breaches any strongpoint, it is very important to reconquer those positions as they proved to be the best bottlenecks to hold. It happened to me about 4 to 5 times in different locations, mostly when enemy artillery manages to supress my own support artillery. There is supreme overstrength heavy IsII tanks coming in from all directions so you probably wont be able to fend those off in every case.
You should keep control of these key hexes and reconquer them if lost at all cost:
Southeast: 17.15 (holding the bridges with KTiger), 23.14 + 23.16 (hold clear with TigerII or Maus, stuff space behind with AAs and Arty), 20.12 (Reichstag, Pak or Grenadiere),
Central Island: 19.9, 17.7, 13.7 (hold crossings from close combat terrain)
City Airfield West: 9.9 (use hv. tank), 10.11(Pak43)
There will be not much movement in the turns 5 - 15. Your army sits in the city hexes next to the water crossings and block weakened enemy units, jamming the better soviet units in the rear that you are bombing from the air. Occassionally if you have sufficient ammo you kill off only those, that wont be replaced by high threatening units by the means of the stone paper scissors principle as you need to anticipate what might do harm to your position and what replacement unit will pose a real threat when you open a pathway by killing. Avoid giving five star IS2s the option to attack your tanks in open or overstrength soviet engineers to charge unsupported city hexes. Artillery suppresion is really the key here. As you are killing off selected units every turn the enemy army will run of replacements little by little. First this happens northeast of your central Island, but dont cross the river yet, there is another enemy tank wave coming in around turn 15 (red arrows on this
screenshot). You can use recons (like the PzII Luchs) though to hunt enemy Katyushas and return the recon afterwards, finishing the job by air in this area. So you are clogged again in your fortifications until turn ~25, when the constant killing starts to clear the map finally.
the counteroffensive
I didnt really manage to play this part very well as I got reaaaally tired and ended in a marginal victory but I think I see some possibilities with a historical core for a DV as I got ~ 80% of the necessary victory tiles until turn 32. The enemies strongest position still brimming with different unit types will be the area east of your High command bunker, so for a DV your best units should be active right here. It might prove impossible to get 29,18 and the 2 vic hexes east of it in time still, I haven´t tried. The easiest & first depleted area from enemy waves is north/northeast and you could starting expanding here around turn 21, even if there is still danger on the other fronts. I marked this area green on
here. In my case I would deploy the Fallschirmjäger + Flammpanzer that I kept in my reserves right here an start a small offensive. The tricky part after turn 25 is to not run into soviets defenders (mostly undefended towed artillery) unnecessarily that are spread sparsely throughout the city, use air and recon to avoid them with your combat units that are going to clear the victory hexes held by infantry or stationary AA guns.
is that airports with enemy units next to it apparently dont refill my planes and all my 7 aircrafts are falling down the skies within 2 turns!!
As there was announcements that there will be an allied corps next I think I will postpone my purchase of the 43,44,45West DLCs because I´m afraid I would be facing huge amounts of enemy allied reinforcements there same as in the east DLCS rather than challenging map designs. I´m a little tired of that "endless stream of enemies" concept as I prefer shorter scenarios that dont require to save every man on the field.
