Tactical Checklist

[Bruce]

With a game as complex as this one it could be useful to have a checklist of things to do during a turn. I'm hoping that people will add to the list with their own ideas:

1. Check all your fighters are on air superiority, at the begining of the turn AND AFTER EVER SINGLE MOVE OF YOUR UNITS. Some of the German Me109 units (SchG1) begin the game on interdiction - get them into AS. As your units move they may be hit by enemy interdiciton. Your fighters will intercept and may revert to a rest status - check all your air units using the View/Air Units menu on the menu bar.

2. When using artillery don't rely on the range showing in the info window this is the range of the longest ranged pieces in the unit. Open up the artillery unit and check the indivdual guns ranges.

3. On the advance don't dig artillery in to support multiple attacks. Instead put it into tactical reserve - this gets it off mobile status and lets it support attacks, but allows the unit to move up when the attack succeeds.

4. Don't launch direct fire artillery support attacks after moving the unit without checking the effect its going to have on your combat phases. If you move an artillery unit most of its move and then using it in direct support of a bunch of other units that haven't moved, then your turn will end a lot sooner than you expect! If you put the artillery unit in a non-mobile disposition you don't have this problem.

5. Before using a unit to do something important open up the unit screen and have a look inside. Check the unit proficiency, and what sort of equipment it has.

6. Watch your use of the combat phases. You really need to maximise the number of phases you get in the first turns of this game. Use the attack planning dialogue.

7. To get over the major rivers you need bridging capacity. If one engineering unit doesn't have enough, then stack another on top - the total major ferry capacity in the hex determines whether the bridging is successful.

That's all I can think of at the moment - Good luck everybody!

[MikeJ]

Good list so far... about the only thing I'll add that most of you probably know:

Don't make heavy assaults on fortified or (to a lesser extent) entrenched units without digging them out first.

Defenders get x3 their AP values when fortified and x1.5 when defending or entrenched. They get the same benefits for AT values. However if you use Ignore Losses even this increased defensive firepower isn't always enough to get your attackers to break off in one round.

INfantry in a fortified state get x4 their defensive strengths meaning the enemy infantry is much harder to kill - which translates into the enemy unit sucking down a lot of combat rounds because, despite your overwhelming strength advantage your soldiers and tanks just aren't killing much enemy infantry which is the primary equipment type in the Soviet units. Only your artillery will manage to kill significant enemy infantry but they probably won't be able to kill enough to avoid a bunch of combat rounds down the drain.

If they're entrenched they get x3 and defending x2. x2 is managable, x4 is absurd.

To get around this, try to anticipate these kinds of "digging out" operations in the previous turn and have units finish turns adjacent to them. The idea is to be able to spend a single combat round at the start of your next turn solely for digging out entrenched units that you need to force into retreat.

You will want to make light attacks (to ensure your forces breakoff early so either min or limited losses) with strong units and as much firepower as you can bring to bear (try to focus as much of your firepower on the key hexes you will need to dig out). Supply drain can also do the trick if you have absurd amounts of firepower, but is less effective. Digging out is better accomplished with as much strength on the attack as possible, but with *light* loss tolerances for two reasons:

1. Well, they'll kill more enemy equipment, obviously.
2. I haven't verified this from TOAW log data - it's anecdotal but - I believe the ratio of strength affects the defenders morale/quality check after each round. The stronger the attackers the less enemy equipment you have to kill.

It's important to distinguish between loss tolerances and attack strength. Totally different things. When digging units out, one is desirable the other is not.

If you dig out an enemy unit, go nuts with an ignore loss attack if you have a strong force to attack it with. Don't be fooled by the size of those Guards divisions.. if they aren't dug in they're easy to force into retreat.

[Becker]

also put the air units on limit or minimize losses if you use the combat support (for combat phases)
and put them on air sup. again after the attack