Slitherine

No really ?

I first bought Allied Corps and despite some difficulties, which I could overcome, I finished the campaign with a mix of DV and V (well mostly V but that is fine).

Then I bought the first game, wehrmacht.
I first got DV in Poland and Norway and then continued with V.

All this at colonel level.

Then I reached Moscow, which I tried 1st at colonel level. I could not even have a victory. Well I would have needed 1 or 2 more turns.
A DV is out of question.

As I absolutely want to do the US scenarios, I played this one at sergent and finished just right (around turn 18 / 27). I do not even know how it is feasible at colonel in 14 turns.
(I tend to overpower only my artilleries, should I overpower thanks/planes as well ?)

Now to the point:
I'm at Sealion 42.
I can barely land, let alone win (with a simple victory).
1st I tried to land the paratroopers in NW and NE. Both groups were crushed by the tanks waiting for them there.
I tried to fill in the slots with a huge army of fresh infantries. Its like 25 slots of infantries. Few of them could land. I coul take 1 or 2 ports/cities but to my surprise could not deploy my core units from those points.
Lets not speak about ennemies' aircrafts crushing mine or my boats.

I have absolutely no idea how to win this scenario ? Should I overpower the planes ? Which kind should I use ? I'm using a good mix of strategic (Doxxx) and fighters (BF109G). I have only one tactical (BF110G).
If anybody can give any hint I would be grateful.
I already searched the net but could not find any info.

Imarion

Win France and get Sea Lion 40. It is far easier. By '42 you need to have an elite force if you hope to land anywhere!

Plus, if you win in '40 then you can have two chances at Moscow - '41 (or Rush to) and '43

- BNC

Thanks for the tip.

I did not feel like redoing all those maps, so I played it in the lowest difficulty level (I think it is sergent).
This one is really easy.
I switched back to colonet difficulty for the US scenario.

Imarion

It's definitely doable… I am currently battling it out at Manstein level - think how it looks when all enemy units are strength of 15! It smells like a DV.

General advice:

1) Don't rush. There is absolutely no way that you should try to land before day 3 or even 4. The first couple of days are dedicated to making the enemy airforce and navy weakened. Approximate sequence of events: Get rid of the destroyers first - with level bombers, naval bombardment from afar with the battleship and heavy cruiser, and land arty in the Channel. Then use the submarines and level bombers to destroy enemy capital ships. Then land.
2) Be very careful not to reveal the position of your ships and transports - beware the radars! If the enemy cannot see you, they will not advance.
3) Focus almost all of your firepower on clearing the channel at its narrowest point. All of your air force, plus pre-place as much artillery as possible on LAND so that yo can bombard ships and the pesky ground units across the channel. Put also an 88mm AA gun there. Do not show any aircraft West of the small British peninsula with a radar on it - this will keep half of the enemy airforce just sitting idle in the West, while you use all of your air power in the Channel on 3-4 aircraft at a time. The whole enemy naval group in the West with 3 battleships will also stay put. You will take care of them later.

More detailed points:

1) First bomb the destroyers in the Channel with strat bombers and finish them off with land artillery and the battleship if necessary. position all of your fighters around the bombers - with the emphasis on also bringing the 3 aux fighters - when enemy's air counterpunches, they will first focus on the aux units, leaving you core fighters intact. Bomb the AT unit with remaining arty - I had 2 with +1 Range, which helped. Keep one sub close to the Channel - on day two he will bring the cruisers. Move 3 paras all the way to the West (outside radar range).
2) Decimate/destroy his Eastern air wing on day 2 with AA, fighters and 110 bomber. Finish off the cruisers - the sub will stay in the visible range to attract a tac bomber to be destroyed. If all clear, position your strongest tank transport on the only field accessible without visibility from two radars (you have to remove the AT unit with arty and tac bombers. Bomb tanks which could attack your landing unit (if still available tac bombers - I had 2 stukas - if not do it the next day). Move strat bombers all the way NE and start destroying the remnants of the Eastern naval group - destroyers first. Continue to move one sub towards the battle cruiser without being detected. Also move the Eastern transports into landing range on the Eastern-most flank.
3) First landing! Your strongest tank should be invincible with his tanks weakened. Prepare to land as many troops as possible - stay out of the range of the Western naval group! Finish off the Eastern naval group, if possible, or weaken significantly. If possible prepare to land on the Eastern edge. Paras should drop down on the Western edge - again - make sure not to be detected! The three paras will capture the Western-most port. If skies clear in the East,start moving the two paras towards the back of London (they will be crucial in taking out the rear artillery once you attack London heads-on).
4) Now you are on your way… Land units should be clearing out the area in front of London. The 2nd landing all the way east is also done. Move naval and air assets West, repeat the same drill with the Western group. Paras in the West will get hammered by battleships - actually a good thing, because they will be lured away out of position to attack the central front. You can cheaply resupply them in order to take the isolated air field in the West, so that you can refuel air units.

I hope this gives you the picture… If one can do it at Manstein, it is certainly doable on regular levels.

Thanks for all the tips.

In the meantime I finished the campaign.
Had to do 3 times the US-east landing, but managed it (in colonel).
I managed US mid-west almost the 1st time (had to redo the last 5 turns).
Finally, US-west, I did it on sergent. I missed twice at colonel, and once at Lieutenant.

Retrospectively I think I did not build a good core corps along the campaign. I think this is an aspect of the game I overlooked.
I'm about to start Grand campaign and will take more care on this.

BTW, what is your strategy regarding overstrengthening your units ?
I saw an AAR from someone who overstenghtened all his troops. But doing so while playing Allied corps, I had a prestige issue in the middle of the campaign.

Imarion

You generally should try to avoid overstrength on units that are sure to lose it anyway. Especially more than two extra points are not adviseable on tanks and infantry, because the cost progression is not linear and each overstrength point gets more expensive. For a unit that costs 300 prestige points it goes like this: 300 (base unit) + 60 (lvl1) + 90 (lvl2) + 120 (lvl3) + 150 (lvl3) + 180 (lvl5) = 900 prestige points. So getting knocked down from strength 15 to 13 is more expensive than losing the complete basic unit!

On the other hand overstrength is very powerful. So use it on artillery and bombers and it can help on some tanks and infantry with special tasks in order to make sure you can beat the mission. All the prestige is worth nothing, if you can't win after all

Imarion wrote:Thanks for all the tips.

In the meantime I finished the campaign.
Had to do 3 times the US-east landing, but managed it (in colonel).
I managed US mid-west almost the 1st time (had to redo the last 5 turns).
Finally, US-west, I did it on sergent. I missed twice at colonel, and once at Lieutenant.

Retrospectively I think I did not build a good core corps along the campaign. I think this is an aspect of the game I overlooked.
I'm about to start Grand campaign and will take more care on this.

BTW, what is your strategy regarding overstrengthening your units ?
I saw an AAR from someone who overstenghtened all his troops. But doing so while playing Allied corps, I had a prestige issue in the middle of the campaign.

Imarion

Just my 2c on a few questions that you pose. Most of these have been heavily debated in previous threads, but here is my take.

1) Good core corps is important. My core is usually roughly divided: 1/4 infantry (incl. 1 flammpanzer), 1/4 tanks, 1/4 arty, 1/4 air. Carefully select transports because of the cap (not so important in vanilla campaign, but in DLC) - favor trucks vs. half-tracks (then plan carefully in deployment to put trucks close to roads, and the open terrain cover with half-tracks) and none for gebirgsJ, paras and certainly none for 4 move (w heroes) pieces. Roughly 50% of arty is towed and I keep them 10.5 deep into the campaigns because of ROF (really their main job is suppression and de-entrechment of enemy's infantry in cities and rough terrain, as well as his doing the same to AA and arty). Tanks mid-campaign are half PzIII and half PzIV (armor kill and def. vs. soft kill and att.), then mostly tigers and 1-2 panthers for mobility (especially with def heroes). Tigers II first with Move heroes. Air: 2-3 stukas, 1-2 110's, 1-2 strat, rest fighters. One 88m AA comes in handy (also substitutes as a tank killer). Maybe not historically accurate, but I don't use AT - in some late DLC scenarios where a crappy towed aux AT is offered and I know a tough battle is ahead and I have extra prestige, I upgrade it to a jagdtiger or jagdpanther just for that occassion.

2) Over-strengthening depends on the stage of the campaign, prestige status, type of unit, and especially style of play… Obviously, it's a balance - a 1-2 point loss on a valuable tank can be costly, but those same 1-2 extra points could make all of its battles X:0 events vs. X:1-2 events in terms of kill:loss. Always max it on units not directly engaged (or at least not expected to be engaged) in tough combat - arty, bombers, AA… I tend to err on the side of over-strengthening, and then being patient and careful as much as possible to avoid losses. Always check the combat pre-view window and do not attack unless the opponents odds are zero. If you are hurting for prestige and/or you feel that an upcoming campaign is doable without going overboard in strength, then the opposite is true. Finally, if you have a "killer" unit due to heroes (like combo +3 att +3 def grenadier), I'd max overstrengthen and keep an eye on them that they do not get hurt.

Overstrenght is a topic with many aspects, there are many discussions in the forum, if you are interested in more details. Moreover one important issue is soft cap. Because of that you will lose a lot of prestige even with no losses because of massive overstrength. If you have enough that is fine, if not reducing (extensive) overstrength is the easiest way to do better on the prestige front.

In DLC '44 east I have one 5* infantry (Mnt 43) and one 5* tank (Tiger 2), aside from a mix of 0-3* stuff. I only overstrength the infantry and tank (to 15), simply because the tank blasts all opposition to oblivion. The infantry just gets dumped in some important victory city and never gets attacked as the Soviet AI is too afraid to attack (and is probably getting -8/-1 odds!)

Flamms are also worth overstrengthening after 1943 as they can confirm a death of a fort and are cheap by that point of the game - you have to watch out for them very carefully though - one Firefly or IS-2 and there won't be any more Flamm

- BNC

braccada wrote:Overstrenght is a topic with many aspects, there are many discussions in the forum, if you are interested in more details. Moreover one important issue is soft cap. Because of that you will lose a lot of prestige even with no losses because of massive overstrength. If you have enough that is fine, if not reducing (extensive) overstrength is the easiest way to do better on the prestige front.

As I said: "Over-strengthening depends on the stage of the campaign, prestige status, type of unit, and especially style of play… I tend to err on the side of over-strengthening,... If you are hurting for prestige and/or you feel that an upcoming campaign is doable without going overboard in strength, then the opposite is true."

I did not explicitly talk about the soft cap, because it's not so much of an issue in the vanilla campaign that Imarion is discussing. But "hurting for prestige" is what I had in mind with the soft cap, which is clearly evident in the DLC campaign. I would still always max overstrength my arty, bombers, AA, and do the same with a selected few "killer units".