Slitherine

Difficulty: General (AI set at lv. 2)

0. Introduction:

It took me a couple of years to get to the point where trying out mods became an option. Due to the description and several AARs I knew for sure that the BF Europe mod would be the queen of all Panzer Corps scenarios to me so far. And I am not disappointed. I decided to take it easy and play a turn every once and a while (good decision not to neglect my family).

I did my first 8 turns so far and I am excited to already share my first strategy thoughts with the community and I hope to get some feedback on my short summary about my ‘opening’. The core forces I brought from the Poland, France and Balkan scenarios are:
- 3 Pzkw IVF (exp 2 star, 2 of them having proper heroes).
- 3 mountain infantry units with no transports (exp 2 star, at least one having a hero); I took them without transport since as long as they gain experience they do not cost that much regarding replacements and I need them anyway to move in rough terrain whereas taking from airport to airport flights and the train give me flexibility enough.
- 1 heavy artillery (exp 3 star); its lame compared to artillery in the basic game but historically more accurate and still very necessary to suppress enemies and to have any chance to attack fortresses and entrenched units.
- 2 Bf 109e fighters (exp 2 star, 1 hero).

1. Turn 1-8:

1.1 Basic strategy and how it worked out so far:

1.1.1 Air fight:

I allocated one of my core fighters from Russia to France helping against allied bombers. Moreover, I invested a lot of prestige in upgrading small antiaircraft guns into heavy aa 12,8 and moved most of them to protect the coast near the radar stations and frequently used harbors. I decided not to act aggressively but to wait and lurk, which gave me some great hits. I placed fighters in supposed flight directions of allied planes and now and then it worked. I attacked unprotected bombers. The aa 12,8 quickly turned out to be a great idea. As long as the Focke Wulf was not available it actually was the only way to severely damage at least 3-4 spitfires – these beasts really hurt.

Regarding Russia air superiority so far is mine but it is a tough fight and more and more air support is appearing from the Russians in the worst case so far causing casualties to bombers and tanks here and there. Regarding ground support I try to hurt most expensive unprotected units (tanks and artillery) via tactical bombing and I try to dig out fortresses and entrenched units via strategic bombing.

North Africa is special and at the beginning I had moved one Ju88 from Russia for ship bombing as well as one Bf109e fighter to gain air superiority. As in the first 3 turns this perfectly worked out since I also moved all weaker fighters from Balkan and Italy to North Africa and it is amazing how important these weak little fighters were to my plan. The Bf109e did the most but the small ones finished some British fighters and helped fighting bombers, Mathildas and even had a splendid strike against the British Battleship near Tobruk, which went on my nerves always shore bombing my aa 8,8 or artillery unit. The problem is, in turn 8 a lot of reinforcements appeared and this turn was successful but cruel. I am panicking to see more fighters gathering in Malta and an aircraft carrier going there crossing my plans with Italian ships… (see below).

1.1.2 Naval fight:

First I made the mistake of one sad expedition directing the English coast with my Northern Sea fleet. This could be described as a disaster, British fighters everywhere and two destroyers whereas battleships for sure not far away drove me back as fast as I appeared. At least one of the destroyers sunk and I could hurt some airplanes as they followed my ships to the aa 12,8 guns (harhar). But loosing 4 points on my core fleet cost 200 bucks at least and take some time to repair again.

Meanwhile I saved what could be saved at the Atlantic coast repairing my Schwere Schlachtkreuzer and other stuff. But these English bombers are looking for them and try to bomb my harbors – good to have these aa 12,8 guns and some proper fighters. The transport route in the Atlantic is menaced by 4 of my submarines whereas the long distance bomber deals with the destroyers whenever possible. I even tried to move one 'Do' strategic bomber to help it but – another mistake of mine – discovered that this was a bad idea since the Do only has 50 fuel – not enough for such long distance operations. So not having naval superiority the submarines play cat and mouse and already sunk two transports.

Northern Africa started as a disaster as British ships destroyed one of my Destroyers and one Cruiser. This was why I brought the Ju88 and I repaired all Italian ships and brought the rest of them together. This fleet took revenge and destroyed the English destroyer and cruiser responsible for my naval casualties. After that I gathered the now repaired Italian fleet and after already having successfully attacked the English fleet near Tobruk with airstrikes, I am now having the rare moment of absolute naval superiority finishing one cruiser, two destroyers, one submarine and …wait for it… this huge battleship!
The problem will be that I definitely want to avoid this aircraft carrier appearing in turn 8 bringing support to Malta and actually I want Malta but do not see many possibilities to get it. So I will help my ground units taking Tobruk and bomb this bloddy huge British aa and artillery unit in the center of Tobruk for 2 turns before charging with my ground units (see below). After that the fleet will have to go to Malta whereas I want this fleet to stick together because hell knows which ships will be lurking in the dark around Malta accompanying that aircraft carrier.

Very interesting is the fight with the Russian fleet where I by chance managed to sink a cruiser in the Black sea using the Romanian strategic bomber and my submarine. But a Russian submarine is still causing trouble. In the Baltic sea I spotted at least two Russian submarines and one Destroyer. I finished the Destroyer by Bf 110 bombings and two of my Nothern Sea Destroyers sunk one sub and for the time being try to find other Russian submarines.

1.1.3 Ground fight:

Actually I have a very bad feeling about it. But to hell with it, I also try to gain as much territory as possible in Russia. I still make progress but it is much more difficult to surround Kiev as I thought and I am already afraid of Russian counterattacks and proper forces. I try to save around 1.500 to 2.000 prestige to be able to upgrade tanks to tigers hopefully being released soon respectively to upgrade small antitank guns to at least 8,8s. Whenever possible I try to bomb Russian tanks and I try to build traps in a way that they move into cities or forests and other rough terrain to be attacked by lurking infantry in the next turn but there will be too many of these bloody tanks and I have no idea what to do about it. Karl Gustav is heading to the fortresses in the south destination Sevastopol but this will take for ages.

The western front will cause troubles soon enough but for the time being I just leave some units dealing with partisans.

North Africa was very tricky so far as I have no idea how to take that Tobruk. First this British battlfleet made it impossible. So I pulled back and used the time to upgrade these useless small Italian Artillery units into proper ones with a range of 3. Now in turn 8 I positioned them next to each other in the mountain western of Tobruk and I started bombing Tobruk from land and sea. I was very lucky meanwhile with the English Mathilda and heavy infantry attacking from direction East. Both units made the mistake to stuck in the gap next to my fortress and I destroyed the heavy infantry surrounding it with my tank. Mathilda has some 5 points left due to bombing and my 8,8 is waiting for the final strike – just could you please move out of the range of that damn artillery? Funny that my recon unit took the city and airfield western of Tobruk. Not so funny that two Mathildas are attacking. So I supported the area with my German tank and one infantry unit just waiting for one Mathilda entering the city…

Last but not least my favorite movements: The Fins drove out the Russians so far. I even head to one of the northern main objectives in the middle of the forest – let’s wait and see what two infantry units and one artillery unit can do.

1.2 Additional actionplan:

As a joke out of the box I love commando actions. The problem is: This is expensive and, with regards to the expected overwhelming superiority of the enemy forces, very difficult to contribute any benefit. Nevertheless, I packed my two parachute units from Crete in two Ju52s and replaced them with one mountaineer and left the aa on Crete. Both parachute units are heading east on a hidden route (one north of turkey and one in the very south over Sahara). I am playing with the thought to place one of them in some wood behind the Russian lines trying to, at least for a while, capture a city and/or an airfield - the latter only to immediately fly away again because Russian tanks love to eat infantry placed in an open field. The other would be great to try attacking the British oilfield in the Middle East but I do expect this as being impossible so I might also go to Caucasus and drop it in the mountains near to a city trying to take it.

First let me pay tribute to the creator of the BF mod, Mc Guba. This mod is not simply a scenario but a whole new game combining splendid ideas with historic accuracy. I tend to say that this mod actually brings Panzer General/Panzer Corps to the purpose it was born for. The scale of the units in my view ideally reflects the situation on the map and the whole European battlefield actually gives an accurate feeling of a combination of big strategic decisions combined with tactical combats at more than one sites pushing at least my decision making capacities to an unknown limit regarding this game.

So I finally made it to Turn 35.

To get a feeling how I play, I give certain advices at least I follow:

- Watch your prestige. (Deficiente pecunia deficit omne.)
Do intelligent investments. Do not always upgrade immediately – think of transferring e.g. a Pz II directly into a Tiger later on, when having lots of experience. Do not always replace elite units with regards to units nevertheless gaining lots of experience. Do not expose valuable units such as tanks and bombers to unprotected enemy air strikes. Do not storm fortified units with infantry carried by expensive transports.

- Be patient.
Wait for the right moment out of a strong defensive position. Do not waste units before a con-certed attack including artillery strikes is ready. Load your guns and keep your units in good shape (full points) instead of rushing. Never forget to reload aa after an air raid, never forget to load arty after an intense round of defending fire during a defensive battle. This does not mean that you shouldn’t ‘blitz’ if there is an opportunity to.

- Seek for air superiority. Back every expensive unit with air defence, if necessary also with fighters building air traps.

- Always try to use blind areas of the map to advance. Check the spotting area of the enemy.

- Watch and use terrain. Watch your own route. Don’t leave heavy Units on frozen lakes etc. Trap enemy tanks into rough terrain such as forests then hit them with infantry when standing in the forest.

- Fight naval battles with the maximum strength of your fleet, you will need it. Bring some subs to scout and attack capital ships.

- Encircle the opponent, if you want to destroy something strong.

- Bleed out the opponent if possible. Do not fully destroy units if you can afford it, let the op-ponent repair it first until some prestige is gone and gain some experience by chasing an ex-posed unit.

- Hit and run e.g. unprotected artillery with recon units. Hit and run with paratroopers but only in rough terrain. Transport Infantry via air transport.

- Try not to waste resources. First, do not stack to many units missing somewhere else. Sec-ond, even gain some experience bombing sea mines before letting a bomber do nothing.

My initial plan (see posting above) worked out well. Especially upgrading anti-aircraft guns (AA) to-wards big 12,8 AA in France and Germany helped a lot to deal with superior fighters from England and were necessary to protect my ships during the whole fleet had to be repaired. Later I did the same with anti-tank guns (AT) which were of good use in Russia. But I made one mistake, playing the amulet mod a lot before, I thought I would use the 12,8 AA also for defence of the Russian winter offensive but the first 2 Russian tanks immediately destroyed my ‚test subject aa 12,8‘ near Moscow. So in a replay I would only upgrade the AA to 8,8 which can also be used as active AT.

As anticipated already the first Russian winter offensive was cruel. I have to confess that this game is only fun to me if I do not lose everything I built up, respectively if I do not invest 10 hours of my life time completely playing into a wrong direction resulting in a total defeat. So I read verstaubtgesicht’s AAR, which helped me big deal and I here and there had a look on what was coming via the YouTube channel of Michael Engel. The latter in my view is a hero and very brave by in a most patient way play-ing through the mod as it is obviously without using information in advance as I did. But playing a little too let’s call it ‚attacking‘ and regardless to own casualties, in the end the game is not much fun to him and finally ends in the disaster of losing Sicily and most of the Italian allies which obviously results in a frustrated break up I perfectly understand.

Regarding Russia I did not make it into Moscow before 1942 but the trenches in front of it (most im-portant to defend the tank rush in winter 1941). I also decided to cut off Sevastopol and Leningrad and take them later on, to concentrate on my priority objective of taking Moscow. That is why I upgraded artillery to bigger versions - always keeping around 1.500 bucks for later tank/AT upgrades. And I posi-tioned Karl Gustav in front of Moscow.
But first I had to defeat the Russian winter offensive of 1941, which worked out but cost me more than one tank. I was almost too late with my idea of transferring and upgrading all AT guns affordable to the Russian frontline. In the end especially my infantry holding strong positions such as forests, cities or fortifications saved me holding the frontline.
The first day allowing airstrikes was a big relief. Since then I made big progress and took Moscow by concentrated arty bombardment combined with a strike from behind Moscow to destroy Russian aa and arty. Especially a big force coming from south of Moscow and going behind it with tanks was very valuable.
The second objective is Caucasus trying to catch as many ‘c’ marked cities as possible whereas in expectation of the second Russian winter offensive I preferred to execute that using mainly (mountain) infantry and artillery attacks and then trying to defend the achievements from rough terrain during Rus-sia’s 1942 counter offensive, which turned out to be a very efficient idea.
I am especially proud on my idea of landing my two paratroopers in the Caucasian mountains behind the first Oilfield objective. Even though I lost one heroic paratrooper, after the two of them had at least destroyed two arty, three infantries and one recon units and even occupied the oilfield for 3 turns gain-ing valuable prestige, the other after necessary retreat still covers the mountain meanwhile supported by a mountain unit.
The second Russian winter offensive is even worse than the first but at least several tank upgrades to Pz IV allowed a much more flexible defence which is making it easier for me. Nevertheless, that costed me some units so far and is causing a lot of trouble. Thanks god I have a very consolidated frontline around Moscow and south of it, perfectly using all obstacles to crush the ongoing never ending waves of tank attacks – where the hack do they all come from!? But even worse is the new airpower being refilled starting with winter time. So I fortunately already brought a strong focke wulf from Nothern Afri-ca helping a lot.
I thought I would finish off Leningrad during winter time 1942 while the frontline direction east stuck: I even planned to transfer Karl Gustav to Sevastopol after takin Leningrad in the same time – NO WAY. I will have to wait with Leningrad until weather is clear to bomb that strong aa gun with arty (range 4) first and to get rid of that capital ship next to Leningrad by bombing it.
But at least the Hungarian Infantry I received in 1942 helps a lot with Sevastopol. I upgraded 3 of the Hungarian Infantry units to mobile Infantry without transport (call me a power gamer but I take that movement 3 and I am glad about it!) and positioned them at the strait north of Sevastopol backed by one Hungarian arty upgraded to range 3. Fortunately, during winter, the Sevastopol defending Russian infantry attacks outside and is ambushed at the strait by the formidable Hungarian moto infantry. To take Sevastopol the Tiger I received in early 1943 is moved there by train hopefully finishing of that fortress easily.
Thanks to verstaubtgesicht’s AAR I drew a lot of attention to operation torch coming in the end of 1942. I operated with my whole fleet and 6-8 Italian land units prepared to land and defend the coast. The landing units were overpowered to stop operation torch so far, Since I had bombed Malta backed with one focke wulf constantly for ages finally occupying Malta in November 1942 just in time and probably this is why no operation torch landing occurred except the one from the U.S. coming directly from the Atlantic which ended in a disaster for the KI units.
The British offensive from Alexandria until now is perfectly defeated by my Africa corps. I digged in a Grenadier in Mersa Marut, an 8,8 as AT (gun down) on the airfield, a German elite mountaineer unit and a normal pak AT south of it backed with upgraded Italian best version arty. This frontline again is backed with an additional 8,8 AT (from Crete in change for Italian infantry – watch partisans on Crete!) and some additional weaker AT and Infantry as well as the Rommel unit of course.
Meanwhile I take my operation torch defence and plan to ship it to the middle east together with my fleet after I had repaired my capitals ships and especially my destroyers.

Let’s wait and see how this is going to work out…