German Campaign using War Cab

[Imp]

Yellow some elevations they range from 30 - 60
Top is woods on low hills - middle the red bit has clear lines of sight - bottom is congested only decent LOS is from the ridge shown.
Can see virtually nothing to the SE from Vhex area.
Also only LOS down road is from trees at the end - LOS to 2 hexes from North of the road - No LOS at all from the South.

Defending the woods & below the South road could be punishing, no overlapping fire & short range so can be picked off.
It may make sense to defend the North from the crossroads & try retaking the Vhexes.
Gut feeling we could take heavy losses in this one.

[Ts4EVER]

I am beginning to worry that I use too few troops in my scenarios... what a slaughter!

[sigeena]

Defending wise, it's sometimes better to have short LOS so that your AT weapons are more guaranteed to hit. Your units have probably gotten pretty good experienced by now so they will be very accurate on short range quick draw shoot-outs.

Only thing is short LOS also means you have very little time to prepare for EN follow-on forces, especially when your ammo starts running low.

Depend on how the EN runs their armour, you don't want to waste good AT sabot ammo on light armour and armoured cars, while their slower heavily armoured infantry tanks come together with the infantry.

[Imp]

Originally Posted by sigeena

Defending wise, it's sometimes better to have short LOS so that your AT weapons are more guaranteed to hit. Your units have probably gotten pretty good experienced by now so they will be very accurate on short range quick draw shoot-outs.

Only thing is short LOS also means you have very little time to prepare for EN follow-on forces, especially when your ammo starts running low.

Depend on how the EN runs their armour, you don't want to waste good AT sabot ammo on light armour and armoured cars, while their slower heavily armoured infantry tanks come together with the infantry.

Good advice I do not mind them set up to engage at short range, medium range wastes ammo & can be dangerous if your not careful due to changing targets each shot. However we have a problem that makes it all dangerous.

[Imp]

Turn 3

Screen shows only visible incoming as seen by the spotter plane - 2 Patrols a Squad an Armoured Car plus transport.
The Bombardment is heaviest here & main push probably will come here as most VHexes are located in the North.

No need to worry about the map being a bit tricky its not quite as bad in the South as I thought this is another artillery onslaught.
Don't think you can do anything once AI% is set I think that's it for the duration of the campaign.

My force is now worth 5,400 points due to rise in cost from experience. Don't know exact calculation but while 25% advantage is okay for meetings or us attacking delaying I guess it gets around 13,500 points.
If we assume it buys 4 batteries & on map stuff Under Command & the rest as General Support that's 4,000 points.
That still leaves 9,000 plus for ground forces, now I have looked at it are some scary figures.

Counted 32 batteries (8 are 5in) On map about another 10 units (4 are 5in) & 4 Hurricanes.

Losses so far -Infantry 14 men, most are pinned or worse in the North - AA 3 destroyed 1 damaged - Halftracks 50% destroyed or damaged - Artillery 2 damaged - 1 Tank immobilised.
There goes the plan the tanks here were going to engage then fall back as expected some artillery.
Planes got a halftrack but also flew directly over arty park & my HQ who is pinned.

Its going to be a rough ride chances of avoiding that amount of arty are slim, the good news is with so many targets we have CB fired twice.

[Mobhack]

AI Advantage is a game global variable - it will be used at the point troops are bought at whatever you have it currently set to. It is not "locked" to your campaign. (Campaign difficulty level is locked to your LC, but that reltatesz to how many buy points you get awarded for your victory level after a game ends).

So feel free to change it if needed, provided you do so before any AI troop buy, the new value will stick.

[Imp]

Thank you learn something new all the time in this game, unfortunately you cannot adjust it to match the mission type.
The first opportunity you get to save after knowing the mission type is on the deployment screen & I assume the AI has already made its purchase by then.

Did some testing using 5,500 points (no AI bonus as battle) player 1 delay letting AI purchase but me deploy player 2.
4 battles per nation looking at artillery purchases.

Germans - Buy the least - most likely to buy rocket artillery
USA - Average - Off map mainly 105s but some heavies in there up to 8in.
Russian - Above Average - Off Map mainly a mix of light & medium plus the most onboard units, consistently the most plots of the 3.

Levels look right to me I would expect Germany to have the least & Russia the most. US is actually a good mix of suppression & hard hitters those 8in have to hurt - bought 3 out of 4 times.

UK - Nearly as many plots as the Russians but majority are off map, consistently buys 40+ off map units, so guessing I miscounted or some are still to fire. Looking at the purchases it consistently buys the regiments.

Modifying British OOB Regiments units 53, 54, 55 so they have 2 troops instead of 6 or 8 brings artillery purchase more in line with the US with around 20 off map units. It bought 19 to 26 still with a decent percentage as 5.5in - 4 to 8.

In view of this I have a hard save from the end of the last battle so going to reload using AI at 20% & modified OOB. Its supposed to be fun & we will still be facing a lot of artillery. Current levels most of my infantry in the top half of the map are pinned or worse & the majority deployed on rough hexes.
Only other option is a bigger map so arty is spread thinner but that means its ground forces are to.

[Imp]

First off I would like to say updates will not be so frequent for the next 6-7 weeks.
Its winter here so I work 50-60 hours a week as that lets me cruise the rest of the year & enjoy the summer sun.

Gave up trying to get a delay vs the Brits after over a dozen reloads so went with anything but a meeting. The bonus to keep loading is I can say batloc 215 produces good maps.

Advance Vs British visibility is 17 no AUX units.
Was stuck on trying to recreate previous battle so changed visibility to what that was & went to buy a spotter but had no air so hit go.
I did re spin the Vhexes they were to far forward initially.

Turn 3 start

Screens are an overview & a close up so you can see what most of the terrain is like. Figuring out LOS will be a problem a lot of those hills have high grass, orchards etc. Managing to get several units targeting the same hex could be a problem, we are bound to find some units do not have the LOS I was expecting.

This is not tank or halftrack country I need to look after my AT teams there are very few areas you can see any distance at all, higher visibility would not change that. I have marked the areas in yellow where MGs or ATG's can operate otherwise its mainly short range.
Mud is also a problem the high ground is directly behind the main splodge.

As LOS is congested we made made use of the roads to reach hex row 43 (2 rows from British deployment area) without incident now the fun begins.
A few units were hit by a turn 0 bombardment but it caused no damage.
Hopefully the British do not have air either it would have been very useful on this map.

[Imp]

Did I say there is also a lot of rough, some is brown so not so obvious

[sigeena]

38 turns for Advance?

You'll definitely need to move along the roads so that you can reach the objectives in good time.

Once the roads are clear, it's going to be an infantry slog to clear through the mud and rough terrain.

Your AFVs are probably going to have to stay on the road or risk getting bogged down in the terrain.

Are you playing with timed objectives?

If you have 5,400pts, I assume UK is delaying with around 2,700pts. What arty have you spotted so far?