Bruce
11 Mar 04, 13:54
From Tigersqn:
I've run through a couple of hotseat games of this scenario and come up with a few tidbits.(timbits in Canada) : )
Using min. loss attacks on turn 1 is counterproductive. Tried this the first time and I only got 3 combat rounds(down to 50% after 1st round) and advanced 3 hexes towards the pocket. Moderate soviet casualties.
Second time around, I went to a mod. loss attacks and results were much improved. 6 combat rounds and within 2 hexes of the pocket(chose the centre dep. option). Several sov. units evapped.
From MikeJ:
So my general thoughts are as follows: - if you intend to give up the initiative and fight a tactical, defensive battle, be prepared to make liberal use of supply drain attacks. It's cheap and personally I'm not a fan, but this is a tourney and I guarantee you the Soviets will be using supply-drain attacks on the 6th army pocket so be ready to respond in kind. It might be the only way to equalize the quantative disparity and leverage the Axis advantage of supply (obviously, outside the Stalingrad pocket heh). If your opponent makes heavy use of supply-drain, consider not digging in some of your artillery (unless it's already 33/1). It's wasted readiness/supply supporting defensive actions against supply-drain. Use it instead to hammer his artillery, support your attacks and smacking key HQs to kill supply squads. - if you're confident in your attacking abilities and aren't afraid of taking risks, the way to attain a convincing win is probably going to be a series of tacitcal encirclements (about the only large-scale encirclement we can realistically hope for is in the first 4 turns when we have shock). Score a big victory early on and setup Soviet forces for annihilation. There's no other way to sufficiently close the gap of 580 rifle squads per turn vs 80. We have to destroy Russians at high ratios if we're going to go this route. Spread fronts you can afford to retreat as thin as possible (without giving it away) so you can concentrate everything on a strong attacking force and be aggressive. Lesser Soviet players will crack under the pressure and shelve offensives against your weak fronts to deal with you - which is the ideal scenario. Even if they don't.. well as long as you never expected the Italians and Rumanians to hold ground, no big loss. Regardless of what general route you take, I think it's imperative that in the early turns to do something decisive - either attempt to open the door to Stalingrad or try to destroy a good chunk of his army... it's never going to better for us than it is in the early turns. Also, from what I've read (haven't reallyt ried this though) attaining air superiority as the Germans should not be an issue - so make this a priority. It's going to be one of the few advantages we'll have.
From viridomaros:
i wanted to tell you that i'm currently playtesting the scenario with vindex i have taken the german side, i have chosen the early release of 19th panzer for deployement to i will send you a screenshot of the situation after 3 turns ( i have played turn 2) it has already interesting i have already noticed that the soviet infantry units are quite weak in this scenario, the artillery seems to be so powerfull, i did a few single unit limited attack on minimize losses, for this i used small and exhausted units of the stalingrad pocket, i attacked all the red soviet stacks a few times, the results are quite impressive on the infantry units.
I've run through a couple of hotseat games of this scenario and come up with a few tidbits.(timbits in Canada) : )
Using min. loss attacks on turn 1 is counterproductive. Tried this the first time and I only got 3 combat rounds(down to 50% after 1st round) and advanced 3 hexes towards the pocket. Moderate soviet casualties.
Second time around, I went to a mod. loss attacks and results were much improved. 6 combat rounds and within 2 hexes of the pocket(chose the centre dep. option). Several sov. units evapped.
From MikeJ:
So my general thoughts are as follows: - if you intend to give up the initiative and fight a tactical, defensive battle, be prepared to make liberal use of supply drain attacks. It's cheap and personally I'm not a fan, but this is a tourney and I guarantee you the Soviets will be using supply-drain attacks on the 6th army pocket so be ready to respond in kind. It might be the only way to equalize the quantative disparity and leverage the Axis advantage of supply (obviously, outside the Stalingrad pocket heh). If your opponent makes heavy use of supply-drain, consider not digging in some of your artillery (unless it's already 33/1). It's wasted readiness/supply supporting defensive actions against supply-drain. Use it instead to hammer his artillery, support your attacks and smacking key HQs to kill supply squads. - if you're confident in your attacking abilities and aren't afraid of taking risks, the way to attain a convincing win is probably going to be a series of tacitcal encirclements (about the only large-scale encirclement we can realistically hope for is in the first 4 turns when we have shock). Score a big victory early on and setup Soviet forces for annihilation. There's no other way to sufficiently close the gap of 580 rifle squads per turn vs 80. We have to destroy Russians at high ratios if we're going to go this route. Spread fronts you can afford to retreat as thin as possible (without giving it away) so you can concentrate everything on a strong attacking force and be aggressive. Lesser Soviet players will crack under the pressure and shelve offensives against your weak fronts to deal with you - which is the ideal scenario. Even if they don't.. well as long as you never expected the Italians and Rumanians to hold ground, no big loss. Regardless of what general route you take, I think it's imperative that in the early turns to do something decisive - either attempt to open the door to Stalingrad or try to destroy a good chunk of his army... it's never going to better for us than it is in the early turns. Also, from what I've read (haven't reallyt ried this though) attaining air superiority as the Germans should not be an issue - so make this a priority. It's going to be one of the few advantages we'll have.
From viridomaros:
i wanted to tell you that i'm currently playtesting the scenario with vindex i have taken the german side, i have chosen the early release of 19th panzer for deployement to i will send you a screenshot of the situation after 3 turns ( i have played turn 2) it has already interesting i have already noticed that the soviet infantry units are quite weak in this scenario, the artillery seems to be so powerfull, i did a few single unit limited attack on minimize losses, for this i used small and exhausted units of the stalingrad pocket, i attacked all the red soviet stacks a few times, the results are quite impressive on the infantry units.