Slitherine

I am determined to finally finish the Afrika Korps campaign and just reached Gazala again.

My question is, how much Prestige did you have at the start and how much do you think is needed to win?

I am again at only some 500 Prestige, but could disband some extra units to get more.

I'm assuming that you mean 500 prestige points after fixing your units and are playing on Colonel level. If so, go ahead, but look out for mine fields - only make a few breaks in them, avoid direct assaults on fortifications and make liberal use of artillery to soften up positions before attacking them. Basically you only need to break through in 2-3 places:

1) A wide encircling move in the far south can go through the gaps in the mine field there and, by-passing Bir Hacheim, attack the positions south of Tobruk - capture all the airfields on the map and the AI will be left helpless in the face of your air attack, and you'll get additional prestige and a bonus unit as you go. Tobruk itself can be captured by amphibious attack - only a single British destroyer is in the area and you can slip past it with your two units, but I kept a bomber on hand to attack any threat to the transports.

2) It's possible to break into a corridor two-hexes wide between mine fields north of Bir Hacheim and south of Sidi Muftah, This leads to an opening in the mine field through which the AI will attempt to counter-attack with tanks. Since the opening is only one hex wide the British must attack piece-meal, allowing you to destroy each British tank unit in turn - I used my Italian units (less the two self-propelled guns) to do this. You can use you infantry to make a break in the mine-field right at the end of the corridor to capture the town there, then hook around and attack the British position at Sidi Muftah from the rear. Sidi Muftah is the toughest objective on the map, so be careful advancing into it - you'll take heavy losses if you don't keep your units adjacent to an artillery unit and even then you'll see tough fighting. The key is to blast each British unit to the point where it is in the red, surround it so that it has no space to retreat into, and only then launch the ground attack - artillery and AA should be the priority.

3) The northern-most position and Gazala can be attacked using a few infantry units and the self-propelled guns, and maybe an additional anti-tank unit. Once you break through you should hook south and form a blocking position across the rear of the allied positions. The Allies will abandon their positions between Sidi Muftah and Gazala once you've captured enough positions behind Allied lines, and it is child's play to destroy the British once they are out in the open.

Watch out for British units appearing out of the blue - they'll appear in the South-East and over-run the towns you've taken there: let them, they're easily defeated by a armoured counter-attack within a turn or two of their appearance. It's important to keep posession of the airfields to stop British air reinforcements from having anywhere to land.

Don't disband units for prestige - this is just flushing experience down the drain.

I made it past Gazala and I am now in the Basra scenario. I was worried that my low Prestige in Gazala could make it hard to upgrade fighters to FW190 and tanks to Tigers later on, but I recovered and made it through the scenario.

GENERAL makes things significantly easier than FIELD MARSHAL, higher quality troops means a better chance of not having to replace units that took more losses or ran into a rugged defense due to lacking 1-2 stars experience.

I really liked the Gazala scenario. Breaking through the lines and attacking from behind is a cool thing to do, Basra now rather seems to be one of these bloody city conquests. Might have to buy some extra Sahariana/Infantry for that.

Yeah, Basra's a toughie and I'm currently slogging my way through it - on Colonel.

You will hate the jungle terrain in India!

FOARP wrote:Yeah, Basra's a toughie and I'm currently slogging my way through it - on Colonel.

There is a way to flank the defenses in Basra and it makes the game go much more quickly, and less costly. There is one aux bridging unit provided. I bring a second core one, too. With a quick aerial attack and some armor against the fortresses and strongpoints on the very eastern edge of the map, you can have units over the river and in favorable terrain very quickly. It also give you spotting of more of the map, and when the paras appear, you can shoot down 80% or more of them before they land. This really simplifies things.

Spotted the potential for a flanking manoevre (backed up by paras) in the east and pulled it off - two bridging units really speeds it up just as you say, though I'm still in two minds whether a core bridging unit is worth it I've had one since Palestine. My real problem was avoiding losing grenadiers in my northern crossing - even with artillery support the fortresses there can suppress both the artillery and the infantry, leaving them vulnerable to a counter attack. In the end I held back after the first crossing and then sent my Tigers forward to attack and destroy the forts. Sure, the tanks then take heavy hits from counter-attacking infantry in built-up areas, but no unit was totally lost.

The Paras got ROFLstomped by 88MMs, fighters, and fighter-bombers - it was epic, since it's possible to totally wipe out each transport with a single attack or two at most. Only one para unit actually managed to land, and they had the misfortune to do so right next to Bersalieri back up by artillery.