Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

20 battles total is ridiculously short for a whole WW2 campaign, especially for Germany. 20 battles would probably be OK for the 1944-45 period. 40 would be probably the minimum amount I'd allocate for an entire war GE LC.

The German LC also has special code to make a few more early battles (the clock advances slower). Otherwise the Poland & France bit of even a 40 battles WW2 would maybe have 1 early war action, Possibly skipping France completely, with maybe 1 battle in Poland, if lucky. That was changed way back in the DOS version as end users were complaining of too few early war actions.

Special battles don't count towards the total battle counter, nor do they advance the clock.

Also - after Poland, the clock will skip right over the Sitzkrieg to France 40, maybe with a side trip to Norway as well.

Andy

Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

Forgot to answer the bolded bit earlier, I see.

Scout car upgrades - really the weapon of the scout car is its eyeballs, and in Real Life its radio. In wargames you the Player-God get to see what it found out even if it got killed off (usually) or at least a hint about what shot it to death (e.g. a tiger..). In Real Life of course without the radio and being able to survive to use it, it would just fall off the net with the HQ none the wiser.

Scout cars main assets then tend to be speed and small size. Maybe a weapon that can bother other scout cars, like a 20mm or a 37mm popgun.

Some later war armoured cars have larger guns, perhaps more than tinfoil armour too, and so can act as "tank destroyers - lite" but if you try to do that too often then they usually die.

A scout car (or little light tank - I love my T60s!) with a 20mm cannon and co-ax is a nice little infantry support pillbox against enemy infantry hordes. Provided you have determined there is no local anti-tank threat, they can shoot the enemy grunts up happily, and the 20mm has effect in the adjacent hexes so is really great for dealing with clumps of enemy "orcs"..

Artillery upgrades - range is king. If your guns outrange all of his (or most of the time) then counter battery on you is nil, and by you is good too as he cannot reply. Generally I stick to a 80-105mm battery with decent range. Larger calibres make shell holes, and that can sometimes benefit the enemy. Core arty should be mediums anyway, and 155mm stuff was heavy in the day so reserved for the divisional level.

On map howitzers I usually never bother with, unless self-propelled. Too much hassle to pick up and move with trucks, should (when!) they come under counter battery fires. On map mortars can be pushed forward a hex if needed. The AI might forget about those, if it lost sight (or it may have plotted on the area already..). Katyushas, I only buy on trucks (USSR has a nice cute little armoured one too). But they do need a lot of care and attention from ammunition trucks. Towed MRL are pretty much spotted on firing, and so wont last that long.

60mm and smaller mortars have a real range problem. They may be useful in the defence, but not so in the mobile battles. If USA then you may want to use a small truck to shift the company 60mm unit, but I usually replace them with 81s. I cannot be bothered with shifting mortars around so I get ones with decent range, find a rough hex somewhere to emplace them in and leave them there. Don't put them too close to the baseline or the crew may run away off-map though.

Towed AT Guns. You'll probably be stuck with 37mm popguns at war start. Germany can use a decent captured 47mm Czech one, which I think gets APCR by France 40 so more useful. Once you get to 50-57mm ATG I tend to stick with these. If UK, the 6 pounder gets a model with APDS later on, well worth upgrading to. Soviets get a decent long 57mm reasonably early, and I tend to stick to it.

The 50-57mm category can be manhandled a hex. That can make all the difference in survival, or jimmying them about a defensive position if you did not emplace them right or smoke etc has screened off the line. Or a truck can drop them behind a contour line in more mobile warfare and the crew can manhandle them up onto the hill later on, without the enemy spotting them (you hope!). 75+mm guns are immobile once dropped so have no such advantages, the truck has to tow them up onto that hill, and so if it is in LOS of the enemy then artillery will get plotted.

Since light ATG can be pushed forward a hex, and the 57mm category is rather "hot" in 40-42, I quite often manhandle some forwards behind my advancing leg companies. Especially if advancing through fields which make spotting them less easy, and also gives some light cover to return fire.

So I'm not a fan of large towed anti tank artillery. I might have some sometimes, with halftrack towers. But I'd rather have an M10 SPAT than a 3in ATG towed by heavy truck.

larger ATG are useful in the defence, as they get dug-in for free. Or you can buy a bunker equipped with one. In the delay, you may have some set up out front which you pop off at him, then pick up and scoot to a second defence line - out of line of sight of his advance! - for a second shot at him. But these heavies (and their tows) can be support troops.

Infantry Upgrades. The key characteristics of infantry really is
- does the section have an LMG?.
If not, upgrade the rifle only ones to a type with an LMG ASAP.
If your enemy is primarily infantry (Japanese, Chinese spring to mind) then if there is a section type with 2xLMG in it then that is a worthwhile upgrade.

- What is the AT weaponry?
Most of the majors bring tanks to the mix. Anti tank capability of your troops is therefore important.
e.g there is a UK section with 3 or 4 low value HEAT rifle grenades. That section works fine for me the whole war, deals with Italian and early German tanks just fine and as an assault weapon on other stuff later on since the HQ will have PIAT by then.
Ranged stuff like the bazooka, panzerfaust, PIAT are double plus good. get them when you can.
I tend to avoid molotovs and flame throwers since they cause fire hexes which can block the LOS of your longer ranged weapons who were trying to support your grunts.

Anti-tank rifles are worth squit IMHO they are a wasted weapon slot. So platoon HQs or whatever with those get changed to something else with another weapon (e.g. an LMG) as soon as possible.

If your opponent is not a tankie army then the AT weapon is less relevant. LMG will be, little mortars nice to have, and perhaps designated marksmen (internal sniper rifle) or maybe SMGs.

NB - The chief anti-tank weaponry of each of my rifle companies however resides in the tank platoon I have operating in close support!.

NB2 - close support does not necessarily mean mixed in with the leg grunts. Tanks are easily spotted and so tend to draw artillery. Grunts no likee!. So if advancing then they should be a little bit away from the infantry phalanx (Perhaps way in the rear till first contact).

Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

Very useful, thanks!

:clap::bow:

Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

Thanks for the writeup. I think I'm doing pretty well so far on most of those categories. I might switch back down to leg AT guns though.

I'm a little confused about the unit sizes in WWII. For example, with a 1939-1940 German infantry company on foot, how many individual tanks would I buy to have a tank platoon? In my campaign I took two PzIIIs and two PzIVs for variety. Sometimes that feels like too many, other times not enough!

Same with mortars. How many are in a battery? In the game I have a single unit, of the 80mm variety I believe.

At least I'm pretty happy with how many scout cars I have. Three SdKfz 222s are a lot of fun to use on 40x60 maps to hassle the rear units of the AI.

Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

German tank platoons have 5, some formations have 4 later in the war. So 2 sections of 2 is fine.

Mortar elements come in sections of 2-3 tubes, and platoons of about 6 tubes usually. Count the tubes since some game mortar elements represent only one mortar, others are sections with 2-3 tubes (ditto MGs). The latter I prefer since they provide more concentrated fires and have more crew to absorb any damage.

Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

This thread is full of good information.

I have half a mind to try a Soviet LC on 80x80 or 100x80 then to 100x100

as

1 x fo
1 x 107mm battery
2 x aa truck platoon
2 or 3 x 82mm mortar platoon
2 or 3 x 45mm atg section
1 x BA20 platoon plus maybe 1 x mech scout platoon
1 x scout platoon
3 x rifle company (mg included)
1 x engineer company minus 2 platoons
but maybe 1 heavy tank added - to be a KV-2 when available
1 x T-28 company (or should it be T-26)
1 x BT-7 company - one platoon replaced by motorcycle platoon
and another platoon replaced by a T-27 platoon

The tank company will be changed to T-34 when available and maybe add a platoon. BT-7 will change to T-34 too. The T-27's will become T-60 when available and then maybe SU-87/122 when needed. The force may not be historical but I have no business trying a campaign with a force this large. I am not yet qualified. So maybe that will historical. Especially when in Finland. Could be a disaster or two in the making.

Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

With the Russians there doesn't seem to be anything between the 76.2mm battery and the 107mm battery, and if range is king then the 122mm battery at 210 hexes outclasses them all, even the 203mm (only 208). Thinking of upgrading the 76.2 "Rat's Tails" to off-map so no need to expand the core. Which would you advise? Thanks in advance.

BTW I've had two special battles out of 14 so far and it seems they do count on the campaign results screen. Got 41 points out of 42 possible. Or am I missing something (probably)?

Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

Here's all the WW2 era Russian artillery that can fire >199 hexes

Go with the 122's

Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

With the Russians my "favourite" off map core arty battery is the 107mm battery.

- Has decent range so sometimes will get good counter-battery fires (when skill has risen sufficiently) as well as being safe from some enemy shorter-ranged batteries
- Does decent damage, certainly a step up from 76mm
- But does not crater the ground, like the 122mm does (which can provide some cover for the enemy and/or make progress more difficult for own troops)

If I see the need to drop a wooden bridge - then I can buy a 122mmm section of on-map howitzers, or possibly off-map from support points. I often buy such "cratering" arty on winter maps to damage his approach routes (roads, wooden bridges etc).

Soviet mortars have decent range - any of them are perfectly fine for core on-map arty, other than the 50mm. The 120mm comes a little later but is an excellent grunt basher.

You should have 1-2 mortar sections for a battalion level core, and 1 off map battery if there are enough points that arty overload does not apply (I usually have 3 foot companies with 1 T34 company in support).

A section of 2 artillery tanks is always worth the points - BT-76, then upgraded to the various 122mm and 152mm SPGs as they arrive. Those can plaster an enemy with direct area fire (Z fire if needed) and do not count to arty overload as they do not have indirect capability. Especially nice when you see a phalanx of AI panzers coming at you - the AI likes to carry tank riders and a few HE lobbed at these will strip them off nicely. Low hit % is no bother with a pack of panzers, since any scattered misses are still likely to hit something.

Re: Daunted by Long Campaign force selection
 

So what's the best flak to buy and later convert to SP-AAA? In a current German LC I started with 2 3.7cm flak batteries and upgraded the 4 most experienced to Wirbelwinds with lower ranged 20mm after the first Western Front battle (June 44). Unfortunately a platoon of Panthers got left out in open fields shooting up Brit infantry for too long and 3 of them got whacked by 4 Typhoons with only 1 point of damage inflicted by 2 or 3 Wirbels in range. (In the first West Front battle--a German delay--the original stationary flak damaged 3 of 4 Typhoons during their first strike, with only one Panther lost).

While the tanks would probably have been lost regardless, would it have been better to upgrade to Moebelwagons with 3.7cm guns instead? Thanks.