Them Germans were good

[Imp]

Came back to WW2 after a long break playing MBT so decided to give the long campaign a bash to get up to speed, needed the practice Bob.
Poles did not cause to many heart stoppers though the last battle they mounted a last ditch attack. Had a lot of trouble holding the line as just went with my core & 2 Stukas.
Those big squads take some stopping & I was about to get overrun when their morale broke halting the surge forward. My poor machine gunners must have been emptying their canteens over the guns to keep em cool. Of note Polish infantry AT weaponry seemed surprisingly accurate regulary scoring hits at 4-500m, not enough to kill but damage was a real possibilty.

Core as stands at move to France
3 Rifle Companies each with 2X MMG & scouts, 2 with ATRs
2 Truck transport Companies
4 Halftracks (new addition upgrded from above)
About 20 tanks MK IIs IIIs & IVs ratio about 6-10-4
Recon
6 assorted armoured cars & 3 motorcycles
Guns
3 37mmPak
2 AA
2 SPAA
4 81MTR
4 10cmNBw MTR
6 15cm Inf guns in arty role
Transport for above

So we head for France first battle is an assault so spend support as follows
1 company of engineers (thank god)
2 10cm, 1 15cm offboard
4 Ground attack & a spotter

Vision is 34 map 140x130 turns 48
What a map inverted Y stream running through with hills behind with a rough ridge near the stream protecting 2 of the flag clusters. 3rd is on a hill with little cover near. Cover to stream is good & fair from the one road that crosses the first. The second stream is deep in his territory with nice cover on his side & that ridge.
Bottom of map where fords are I can see wire (mines?) & some DT.
Fords to top have trees by river but followed by a KM or more of open terrain.
I would like to defend this lets see what the AI makes of it.

Main force heads down central road to first stream & crosses straight into a tight quarters fire fight. Luckily troops faned out & crossed but the 1 AC that tried got stopped by an ATG. Artillery is strangely quiet just some small stuff.
Fight way forward a couple of mines on road & armour crosses. Some nasty fields of fire here but the AI has deployed some units behind trees meaning sticking your head out for a look at sneaking round often results in getting it blown off close up.
Luckily French inf At weponary is not up to Polish standard as tanks are close.
Slow going but groups rather than main force so armour is turning the tide.

Top force has finaly reached the stream & infantry crosses & moves for a turn to see if can spot anything, notice a bunker then my smoke screen comes down & vehicles start to cross.
AI must have spotted someone or waited for smoke as steel rain poured from the sky.
3 of my new halftracks are gone & same amount of tanks are immobile.
Vehicles beat a hasty retreat as troops have spotted 3 bunkers & slightly further back some H-39s. I only have 1 platoon of engineers with this rifle company so send in the planes, second one flys straight over a AAA gun & leaves smoking. That does not bode well for my infantry this is open ground with lots of automatic weapons.
Drop smoke & get engineers to bunkers, ready to assault & armour pops out to suppress to find 3 ATGs had not spotted, more time lost.
2 Bunkers down but the third one seems to have a rifle company screening it by the amount of fire my scout just took, going round it.

Meanwhile the main force is nearly at the second stream relativly intact & all hell was about to break lose.
The AI has infantry all over the rough ridge & I have few safe crossing points for my vehicles. First to try was damaged as the hills seem full of Char-Bs
This turned out to be one tough battle those Char-Bs shruging off most arty & air attacks while my troops took heavy loses protecting the engineers from his infantry screen.
Tanks have given limited support as having to fight behind a smoke screen & I lost a couple when it disapeared a bit quicker than I had anticipated.
As it stands think I have got most of his Chars but at some cost & control central flags.
Top Group got to hill flags on without much trouble only to come over & find more H-39s in a reverse slope defence. Every sort of gun is here to further back & now I think the infantry I bypassed will come for me. I was hoping they would as will leave foxholes but did not want to be the meat in a sandwich. If the H-39s decide to charge as well I could be in big trouble.

A nod to Andy & Don as pester these last 2 battles have been very good no half hearted playing here & this one in particular my core will be heavily mauled. Good job it gave me a decent amount of time otherwise I would be kippered.

If the next battle is an assualt I think I might take a bit more arty as new routines mean it spends more time offline. As I said at the start the German War machine was awesome my armour is totaly outclassed, if I had not bought those enginners this could have been a disaster.

[curious123]

i don't remember the poles had any AT guns in my campaign, maybe you mean their AA guns?

[PanzerBob]

Great stuff Imp, and yes the Poles have some very capable AT to be watched for!!

Bob out

[Imp]

Originally Posted by curious123

i don't remember the poles had any AT guns in my campaign, maybe you mean their AA guns?

I was refering to infantry AT weapons, dont remember name but some RPG type weapons have a range of 500m like a modern RPG-7 just not such a big bang. Plus they do have decent ATGs & you are right the AA is dangerous.

My view the Germans did not have better equipment but had far better tactics & command & control. I cant touch half the French tanks & the Brits have MatidaIIs.
Going to try to do without 88s till N.Africa or just buy a couple if defending.

[runequester]

Didn't the Germans uses 88's in a ground role at Arras ?

The weapon he is referring to may be the Polish 46mm (or thereabouts) grenade launcher ? it can propably hurt the light German tanks with lucky shots, and I believe its carried by the infantry squads, instead of being a separate weapons team

[Imp]

They may well have but I am assuming it was not a common practice till Matildas in N.Africa. I could well be wrong but as said will just use a couple if defending till then to "discover" their effectivness. Besides playing like this is making for a challenging game. The plan is not to become a fully mechanised force till Italy where the rough ground will make HT handy. Should not have bought trucks in core till near that time really.
Going to add a platoon of engineers to my force though.
I am sure I will lose more core this way & wont get as many kills as can't leap in taxis to mopup but its a 60 battle game my guys would be unstopable if all survived to veteran status. High exp levels & an extra shot make a big diffrence with poor FC of WW2

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

88's are aways in my german core, i get a couple of them and trucks to move them, this way i get experienced gunners in N.Africa and 1337 gunners when back to the swim against the red flood in the east, and what if we can win "the last battle"(like in sp1)?
what happens if i keep being victorious in the east, may i change history, or simlpy live it again?(this lead me to a question, is spww2 long campaign limited to living history?or can i change it?eg:sealion,succesful defense of normandy?)

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by runequester

Didn't the Germans uses 88's in a ground role at Arras ?

The weapon he is referring to may be the Polish 46mm (or thereabouts) grenade launcher ? it can propably hurt the light German tanks with lucky shots, and I believe its carried by the infantry squads, instead of being a separate weapons team

88s under the personal command of Rommel at Arras. Also the 105mm arty in the direct role too (there is an AT version of the gun there somewhere).

Poland has a 37mm ATG, and can also field 75mm field guns in an AT role. Also have the usual ATR, which can annoy Panzer 1 and 2 and is availableto some heavy infantry sections.

Cheers
Andy

[Imp]

Thanks for that did not know about 105 arty will take a look, I just dont want overkill, multi role stuff is useful

[Imp]

SF> Don't make predictions they may come true, detouring in was not so sensible 231 moved 100m & went bang mines parallel to village, said he would never shoot his load (scuse me). Thing is he had a squad on either side (blind as bats) & there is a row of trees not far away with no fire forthcoming. I could clear these without coming under fire. Of course all dedicated mine clearers are in the other force. Playing the AI more often would help here if facing a line of mines could transfer to here, but if not wasted 3-4 turns moving over. Poor deployment somebody should be watching.

MF> 4 Vehicles opened up on new squads followed by a squad. Unit out of sight then moved into wood & dug out all dead & there is no one else on this side of the trees. Now I have a problem even with JPz1s I will need to be close from front or mid for a turret side hit, this mean have to find whats past them in the murk to deal with safely & thats if I dont hit mines. Think I can get in position to South of as horizontal row of trees about 200m from them & those guys are the furthest forward. They are only a Km from level 0 flag cluster though so are likely to be coming up on something
Decided 2 Pioneers are heading North to clear mines just in case, turfing the others out of halftracks as safer transport if need to move up & dig out stuff.
Being honest not being very effective here I am in a mess. The only thing I have done right is all mortars are now mobile & should not have to move again once arrive.