How do I use ammo trucks?

[Imp]

To Charles22

Everybody to their own the flexibility of this game allowing for that is just one of its good points.

I used to buy my core like you maximising it, only have best equipment no trucks sacrificial lambs biggest squads so survive, even occasionaly reloading if I lost superman.
But times change & now its just a series of battles with the same guys.
Yes its gutting when you lose super FOO & his fast arty strikes but even if only half your core survives to improve for the next battle its easier than a regular one.
Besides you did have a second guy you were nurturing didn't you.

[PanzerBob]

Good daqy all

Trucks and Ammo Trucks in the Core, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,

IMHO, as mentioned I think it depends on what your are trying to portray. If you want to at least start in a historical TO&E for your force, you will find a lot of forces were likely to be lucky to have trucks. If the plan is to upgrade as you Campaign along, trucks are a good start so once you have made those upgrades you have a unit together, not some motor pool dudes. (Although for some US Units this maybe accurate) I've even a few times kitted my PzGen out with Sdkfz 10's or a mixture of HT’s and Trucks. I even tried a mixture of trucks and horses/mules and while historical it did slow down game play. Especially at the unit sizes I usually field.

I think as well that if you plan on having fully HT’d Infantry Units having the vehicles gain experience only makes good sense.

Ammo Trucks are a must if you have an onboard battery or two in a Campaign, especially SPA’s. Of course you can start with towed stuff with horse drawn everything and be real historical.

I think the bottom-line is this game is so awesome that one can do all these things and more.

Bob out

[Charles22]

Originally Posted by Imp

To Charles22

Everybody to their own the flexibility of this game allowing for that is just one of its good points.

I used to buy my core like you maximising it, only have best equipment no trucks sacrificial lambs biggest squads so survive, even occasionaly reloading if I lost superman.
But times change & now its just a series of battles with the same guys.
Yes its gutting when you lose super FOO & his fast arty strikes but even if only half your core survives to improve for the next battle its easier than a regular one.
Besides you did have a second guy you were nurturing didn't you.

You're right about that, only if I lose a superman he's lost; no reload there. Besides, how much does it matter if half or more of your core is supermen anyway?

[Imp]

Hi Charles

Okay lets clarify if you want the best super core then dont buy trucks ammo resupply in your core. I dont vs a human player.

But against the AI come on give it a break you do not need more advantages what you need is a fun challenging game.
Read my post them Germans were good I did not bother to mention I have 2 ammo trucks & 2 ammo mules in cmy core.
These have been hard battles & I am pretty good.
Be honest when is the last time in a Campaign the AI gave you a real challenge.
Do you accept the battle as it comes or change the map vision if you think it will be hard. I dont with the exeption being urban in the snow as time consuming.
Vs the AI I generaly play to fast risking losing a unit I would not in PBEM esp when mopping up

I would say we both want diffrent things from our campaign.
You I feel want an easy quick play victory as I used to.
I want a challenge & my hat is off to the team in that I have got one.
Sorry to those I am PBEM at moment but seeing if I can make the crossing fairly intact has gripped me, I am favouring a game vs the AI over a human good grief.
But things are tense & I have an uphill struggle once on the far bank. What happens if I lose my 6 engineers how do I fight the tanks then?

[Charles22]

Imp: No Imp, you read me wrong to a degree. I'm not for easy victories, in fact my desire to play weaker nations speaks to that, and often in wargaming I desire the defeated nation more, but, then again, Germany was a defeated nation.

Now think of all the things that would make Germany or most any nation uber-powerful. Buy plenty of 88's for example. I buy only two. If things get really bad I might add two more, but as Germany can get pretty good or outstanding tanks sooner or later, there's only a temporary need there.

Now that I have dwelt on a truly more effective core in writing it here, it does occur more clearly to me the greater advantage I have against the AI, but what else are you to do? It's obvious what the point of campaigning is. My idea is that my army is the elite force of that nation's army, or at least it will be if I do well. I personally think my force is VERY susceptible to air attack, but since that won't come till late '41 at the earliest, I can always add in more AA later. Another thing is, that part of the idea of optimizing your effectiveness, becomes that much more necessary should you be campaigning as say a weak Japan. Optimizing with Japan, or Italy becomes a lot more crucial and you don't succeed with them buy buying trucks in core; no way. Germany and the USSR can often skirt despite having such a thing.

The one thing about Germany that attracts me more to playing them more than the others, is that not only were they defeated, but they were also a nation who had lots of victories. IOW, they're not a nation that sees pretty much only one type of battle, like the USA for example.

As far as the AI giving me a challenge, realize first of all that almost every battle, even against the Poles as Germany gives me many challenges. I may have a very effective force, but I am crippled by playing fire brigade style. What is fire brigade style? Firstly, it's playing on 200X140 map with somewhere between 90-110 core units. You see the problem? The map is so tall and narrow, that every battle that has the AI attacking is much more dramatic, as I don't have enough units to cover all the holes. This leads often to my armor having to rush from one scene of non-defense, or helping a picket line somewhere. It's really a lot of fun. Overall, you might look at the end result in points and conclude I didn't have a good time, as I am almost always getting decisive victories (excepting possibly France '40 and USSR '41), but it's those little periods of weakness that even make the overall decisive victory so enjoyable. Can the flank, be reinforced by units in the middle in time, for instance? Will the middle regret sending them and be subject to a heavy attack afterall? Will the other flank help the then weak middle and get there on time? A lot of that goes on. Even just the battles before help arrives is quite invigorating, as a platoon of infantry, perhaps, tries to find the most effective way to either slow the attack, run from it, or dish out maximum damage. I have so many units that end up being on the lopsided side of things, for a time, that there's no way you can truly say that I'm not at a disadvantage and that it's a total bore. Besides, for me, losing even one core unit is something of a tragedy, though I know those losses will often come.

I will tell you one thing about this game though, that would make it more interesting. I used to play Panzer Strike way back in the old days, which was very similar to SP. It had a campaign feature where if you replaced/upgraded more than a certain percentage of your core at one time, you would not be able to fight the next battle and have to wait till the battle after that, or longer. To put that in winSPWW2 terms, that means that when that occurs your 60 battle war just went to 59 battles at most, such that it hurt your point total to not fight as many battles. Part of me plays to better what I achieved in Panzer Strike and SP, where despite the scoring system being somewhat different, and there being no delays for changing your whole core if you want to, I at least have some sense of whether my warring has improved over the years.

BTW, I will probably buy 30 mines maximum, probably 15-20 in most cases, just because I know how overwhleming they can be. The AI can mine me to hell and back, and that's one advantage he will have over me and I'm not that terribly good at sniffing them out. I almost always will buy a pillbox or two, just because they throw a different element into the game, though I find their effectiveness debateable. It's just fun to have certain units which cannot be moved and have to be defended to the last man.

The AI, when it's available to them, often WAY overspends me in both artillery and air support. I buy 'maybe' two air sections when I can, usually one. The entireity of my arti comes from one battery of offboard core 100cm's in for early Germany anyway (4 guns), 2 onboard 75IG's, and 2 150IG's. I might pick another arti battery of some light variety in support for assaults, but usually not.

Other than the experience I hope to gain later, there's nothing terribly overpowering about my force. I tone down my air, I tone down my arti and look for my most major punch being in each core unit being as effective as it can be through experience gain.

I will give you some example form my last battle of the kind of excitement can be found in parts of my battles. I had almost exactly what I described to you earlier concerning an infantry platoon picket in a meeting engagement with the top 40 hexes being completely berift of units, save for this platoon and one lousy PZ38t. The PZ38t was there as sort of a flank infantry support, and to do exactly what I did with it. What is that? He found a cranny where the 2-3 platoons of tanks were coming (a small cranny with at most 15 hexes before trees would interupt it) and started destroying them one-by-one. Now it wasn't exactly easy, and he got damaged mid-way through the battle himself, but I stuck it out with him and the sector ended up not needing help and got none. Should the tank had been destroyed, or there were another platoon of enemy tanks, I probably would had sent help. Now you may ask, why didn't you send help earlier, despite the unlikely huge success? I don't recall why exactly. Maybe the closest armor was just too far away. Maybe I was convinced the attack once past that point would home in on where the rest of my frontal forces were and come to me, so to speak. Or maybe I just had a hunch. You see what I mean? Nothing too dull about that, I was against tanks that could had just as easily destroyed that tank and swept the area. These weren't tanks with just MG's and that close range could had easily destroyed them. Oh, I'm wrong I did have some help, as I sent an airstrike up there and immobilized or destroyed one tank by that.

To me, as I so often found when playing SPWAW, the game got boring partly because I often was confined to a map height of 20,40,or 80 hexes (at the extreme most 120 hexes) against my will. There's just not too much fun when the flanks can be reached by placing AFV's, even in the early years, in the center of the map and blast away without moving. Excitement is when you have to move AFv's not just one or two turns to reach that area, but sometimes as many as eight turns. You're gritting your teeth, will they get there in time? Jolly good fun. It really gives you the feeling that you have individual armies out there, let's say about 7 or 8, and each one has it's own particular problems, whether extremely successful or not, instead of having such a blob of concentration that it feels as if the whole thing is just one or two armies.

OTOH, I don't attack in a very concentrated manner against the AI. Oh my two tank companies will have an infantry platoon with them perhaps, but that's as much concentration as I get. I'm pretty much attacking the entire AI line at one time, but with VERY varying amounts. Sure, my 2 main armored thrusts will often have great success, but when that same infantry platoon and one PZ38t hit a certain area you know they will be at their wit's end just like I described in that defensive portion of that meeting engagement I mentioned. With a 200 height map, there's all kinds of spots where your two armored thrusts aren't going to be able to reach very soon.

One last bit of my not excessively pressing an advanatge a lot of people would press...not only am I picking only two core 88's but I don't even plan on using them until France, maybe not until the USSR. They're such an expensive unit for that early, that not only do I hate to lose them, but I don't want their experience severely crippled should they engage units that don't need to be interfered with by them, and lose men. They start the battle on something of a rearward hill with transport nearby. If something breaks through, as is almost always the case, the target will have to be really worth it, and even then I will probably wheel them off after only 1-2 turns of firing, because I'm pretty sure the AI will bring the arti a calling.

When France comes, when I'm pretty sure they will do a good amount of firing, I will change where I place them, but not as you might expect, such as some front hill overlooking a big area, but the opposite, should I be on a defensive mission. I have had them on the ground, guarding a cranny, maybe 30 hexes deep if possible. The idea is for them to engage strong AFV's when not more than a couple of the AFV's will be able return fire. They're that way never overwhelmed, and while they're not the most active of my guns, in that role they are devastating more than usual, because almost no units can engage them in equal terms. It's taking your most expensive unit, which will definitely draw all kinds of fire and artillery and making it available to every unit and their dog, that gets your best units in trouble. If it were a Tiger in '40 france, I would blaze away on a hill once I was convinced the enemy had no air (and maybe even then) but as the 88 is a lot more vulnerable if have to play these games with it.

So you see, I give the AI quite a few chances, but I'm not dumb about it either. I still want to come away with a victory of some sort, and I should if I have a nation which is often favorable. Playing with Italy or Japan, I should feel lucky to get even a marginal victory. Different nations; different measures of success. If you can play with as much fun as I can with the USSR or Germany, due to a small ratio of units to map size, then even these traditional more boring nations can have a good deal of fun. Yes, there is some boredom, but that's if I forget all the nice little undermanned battles I won to get to that point, and all the delaying actions that made a difference.

[Imp]

Okay appologies I miss read you taking not a defeated nation but the underdog in equipment is always a good idea vs the AI. This time I wanted to play the Germans though as have a nice variety of weapons & my core is purposely big enough to allow for the variety when they come along. It will never be a Tiger company but will probably get the odd nice vehicle like a Jagdpanther for long range overwatch as decent FC for the day. As back from main force hes also in a position to react to finding heavy armour but thats a long way off.

Just increase the size of your core slightly & suddenly you can afford those taxis.

Yes I sometimes play full height because it means you do not have enough units to cover front. Not so much vs AI as it slows down the game as 1/3rd of my force is reconing slowly knowing it may find a force that totaly ouclasses it.
Versus AI not that big a disadvantage though as it may spread its forces to.
Versus a human had a very amusing game once loads of hills & we near enough swapped ends as both forces missed each other.
A wide map gives you more tactical oportunities & if attacking AI is probably spread a bit thin.
Your refit comment on other game do not understand the logic. Yes if refited should delay next attack if set up with a few days between battles but if a month no. should not change the number of battles just would mean remaining ones are closer together.

Sorry but think about this if you are capable of attacking the entire front at once with acceptable losses just how good is your force. Especialy if like me you do not generaly have enough arty to go round. I never take what I can the river crossing I am doing being an exeption as they are very hard & I desperatly need the smoke, plus the tank problem.

I would say playing how you are is more difficult on the whole than a denser map for meetings as you will have to react to AI but I have a horrible feeling your tactics would lead to an early demise vs a human as he picked you off.

The Poles were no pushover as I found in my 3rd battle against them.

In WW2 bunkers are great as they draw fire & tend to last a while slowing the attack. In MBT as penetration improves they become virtually useless as one hit will kill it.

I would suggest if you do not already try a PBEM game & then review your tactics & if you are giving yourself a hard time.
You need to give yourself a hard time otherwise you will never improve, sticking to basic possibly flawed tactics as there is no need to learn more.
Things like being able to kill tanks regulary with unsupported infantry should be second nature, pretty damn hard in the dessert if they do not have some sort of ranged weapon & he has been sensible enough to have an infantry escort.

[Charles22]

Originally Posted by Imp

Okay appologies I miss read you taking not a defeated nation but the underdog in equipment is always a good idea vs the AI. This time I wanted to play the Germans though as have a nice variety of weapons & my core is purposely big enough to allow for the variety when they come along. It will never be a Tiger company but will probably get the odd nice vehicle like a Jagdpanther for long range overwatch as decent FC for the day. As back from main force hes also in a position to react to finding heavy armour but thats a long way off.

Just increase the size of your core slightly & suddenly you can afford those taxis.

Yes I sometimes play full height because it means you do not have enough units to cover front. Not so much vs AI as it slows down the game as 1/3rd of my force is reconing slowly knowing it may find a force that totaly ouclasses it.
Versus AI not that big a disadvantage though as it may spread its forces to.
Versus a human had a very amusing game once loads of hills & we near enough swapped ends as both forces missed each other.
A wide map gives you more tactical oportunities & if attacking AI is probably spread a bit thin.
Your refit comment on other game do not understand the logic. Yes if refited should delay next attack if set up with a few days between battles but if a month no. should not change the number of battles just would mean remaining ones are closer together.

Sorry but think about this if you are capable of attacking the entire front at once with acceptable losses just how good is your force. Especialy if like me you do not generaly have enough arty to go round. I never take what I can the river crossing I am doing being an exeption as they are very hard & I desperatly need the smoke, plus the tank problem.

I would say playing how you are is more difficult on the whole than a denser map for meetings as you will have to react to AI but I have a horrible feeling your tactics would lead to an early demise vs a human as he picked you off.

The Poles were no pushover as I found in my 3rd battle against them.

In WW2 bunkers are great as they draw fire & tend to last a while slowing the attack. In MBT as penetration improves they become virtually useless as one hit will kill it.

I would suggest if you do not already try a PBEM game & then review your tactics & if you are giving yourself a hard time.
You need to give yourself a hard time otherwise you will never improve, sticking to basic possibly flawed tactics as there is no need to learn more.
Things like being able to kill tanks regulary with unsupported infantry should be second nature, pretty damn hard in the dessert if they do not have some sort of ranged weapon & he has been sensible enough to have an infantry escort.

Out of my 30-35 AFV's (not including the four HT's) I will likely field 8 heavies, maybe 2-3 lights, and the rest mediums (the Panther is a medium BTW).

Oh I know my leftover points can purchase taxis as you call them, but those points could had been on more combatant units in core. Having a larger core doesn't change the fact that the trucks are a waste compared to a combatant unit in core, it's just a little less of a waste because your force is larger overall.

I have spoke a lot about map height, but none about width, and temptation for a lot of people, is to do the obvious and go with the largest map period. I tried that myslef for a while, and that's why I'm not using that sort of map anymore. With the 140 width, and I'm still trying to figure if it wasn't 130 which was better, noentheless, there is a width which is ideal. I found that anythign over 140 gave so much time that the AI attacks thinned out too much. It also gives the AI less ground to cover on the defensive. Perhaps more important still, to perfect the fire brigade effect, you have to have a map narrow enough to where when a frontal flank is attacked, there's less time to react on your part. If the map were placed at a narrowest possible, it might just be that there would ne no more neutral territory to begin with, so it's easy to see what I'm saying is true. Less width means less AI "width spreading" and less notice on attacks. Naturally the AI can still "height spread" and will likely do so for higher maps, but this is somewhat compensated for when one picks only cluster objectives, as the AI is not programmed to hold the shotgun spread of objectives, though it might appear that way at times just through random placement.

Yes, I see what you mean about loss refits, but the game I was talking about had a minimum of a month between battles, so this was a way of keeping peopel from going hogwild refitting every time they had enough points to do it. Besides, while a refit in many cases might take mere days, often formations would go through a period of R&R and re-training to get up to battlefield conditions again, which of course would add to the delay. It certainly made you more careful with your losses, and also more careful in how quickly you replaced or refitted units.

I'm not sure of what point you're making about me attacking across a whole front. I was trying to make the point that I even cripple myself to a degree in attacks. I'm trying to add a little suspense. It's tryin gto bring the defensive fire brigade tactic to the offensive. Naturally it doesn't work as well on the offensive, but it still makes things more intersting, as you're not always in the advanatge that way. If you are saying that my force must be prety darn good if I'm doing that, I would agree, but it's not to say I'm attacking as favorably everywhere as where the two thrusts are. I guess you could say the much more minor attacks are more sort of a wearing down job. they're trying to wear the lesser attacked areas down through attrition. Just a lot of constant fire from a small amount of units. If they do poorly the attempt is abandoned or more than likely someting will be sent out of one of the armored thrusts to reinforce it. You see, sort of the same concept? Some weak areas has to have decisions made as to whether the stronger areas reinforce them or not, and to what degree. Huh, in SPWAW, I could figure pretty quickly with such a narrow map, just what the size of the enemy force was. So if they were attacking the northern flank, I would "abandon" the southern flank. you can't do that in a 200X140 map and get away with it. You usually have to send reniforcements from the center, and then decide if the other flank should reinforce the center. While there is a height stretching that can occur with AI forces, thereby making them with more holes too, they generally have more units than me, so it's less of a problem, but even so, with a more spread out height attack, I cannot abandon a once guarded flank and not expect enemy units there. That's part of my game BTW, to maintain frontal integrity and never lose a single hex that I orginally possessed. Not too easy all the time, but it does tend to make thinks a bit more difficult than otherwise would be. I played SPWAW the same way in regards to frontal integrity and often had no problem at all abandoning it. It's very simple when the AI piles up pretty much into one corner.

yes, this fire brigade stuff, particularly on the offensive would probaly lead to problems agaunst a human, but since I will never play humans, for my own point of view it's a moot point. you were wondering what I did to make battles not too terribly easy or boring, and that's the main thrust of my more recent comments. I am also commenting on what other aI-only players should be doing to be more effective or exciting. I havemn't offered one comment as to how any of this woud help against human opponents, as, after all, we were talking about long campaigns weren't we? Incidentally I'm sure some of the ideas work against humans too, but since you don't long campaign against humans, therefore have a core that gains experience along the way, then sure trucks in core don't make a difference, as no unit gains experience outside a campaign.

The Poles not pushovers? Ah, sometimes, but I still get decisive victories against them every time. I think the armor on the 9tpw's and 7tpw's, or whatever they're called, was downgraded a point from 3 to 2, so that helps enormously. I give the AI the heavy tank option BTW. To me the Poles are tough when I have lost more than 5 tanks, and that usually only happens if I'm chasing after detroying every unit, and if I act in more haste. I recently started a serious campaign to get one of my tanks into the hex with enemy infantry, hoping the already damaged infantry will surrender and quicken and ease the process of eliminating them. I didn't lose a single tank to that sort of action but I was pretty cautious. It will make good training for later, though generally enemy infantry is the least of my problems. It can get pretty tiring and boring to always fire with AFV's at some 19 man unit routing across the whole field. If my attack hadn't broke down before that, then it certianly doe sat that point, though cohesion isn't needed too much there, because the enemy infantry in the routed state retreats so far that they're quickly out of the reach of my infantry. Any interest in picking up infantry to chase them delays things more. Delay and they may rally back again.

Pillboxes? MBT? Nah, I don't play MBT. Pills are about the only chance Japan and Italy seem to have against the larger allies.

No, I'm not interested in PBEM. even at the expense of lousier tactics. Lousier tactics doesn't matter to one who never has to face those who allegedly could fight better. Often the tactics are the same, it's just any predictability of the human versus the AI that is in question. As the narrow height SPWAW map example I gave, I wouldn't dare abandon the opposite flank to a human, but that just goes to show one of the strengths of the winSPWW2 AI, in that I have to, in some degree, treat that opposite flank as though a human were against me. Even if you gave SPWAW a higher map, I bet the AI wouldn't defend or attack possibly both flanks with at least something, because years ago it was so extremely rare I developed the tactic of abandoning a flank to compensate a flank attack elsewhere. Anyway, the middle can probably still help a priorly abandoned flank if need be, and if there's no objecitves there, there's not a whole lot of gamewise point to doing that, but frontal purists like me would consider myself somewhat defeated for allowing that sort of thing nonetheless. Play humans, and I guess the frontal integrity, and a few other things to make things tougher, go out the window.

Of course, if human inpredictability is a strength, it is also a weakness. For example, I tailor my force selection to succeed within reason to the AI, but if a human opponent had 10 88's or 30 tigers, what do you think I will do? If the AI routinely comes to me with such forces, as they often used to, I will make adjustments. Same with my AA defense, if I'm regularly losing heavy and medium tanks to air units, guess what I'm going to do? There is no one force that can do it all.

[Imp]

Well Charles you are fixed in your ways & you said yourself you do not play challenging games. "Against the Poles I always get decisive victories & consider 5 tanks a loss"

Nuff said & may you continue to have many more as thats what floats your boat.

[Charles22]

RERomine: I was going to respond to you paragraph by paragraph, with some minor comments, but my blasted post got deleted somehow. At least up to paragraph 6 it's apparent we are understanding what we are trying to say much more clearly. I'll start a 7 therefore with this post.

P7: in the deleted post, I mentioned that most people, I think, don't know the subtle differences between HT's, AC's (armored cars) and light tanks. In Gerry's case, they usally don't find that at least one of the early GE AC's has better hitting ability than the HT, because it has a range finder and fire control that the Ht doesn't have, even if they have the same guns. Even if the HT couldn't load units, it's still not a bad fighting choice in comparison simply because it's so cheap. The AC is better for when you have to hit right away. I mention this because of your Tiger considerations of ammo loads; anothe rthing which can be easily overlooked. In my case the PZIVB is mt AP punch workhorse, but since it has only 20 rounds and isn't the most accurate thing, the PZIIIb/d I think it is, solves both problems quite well, as it has both a high AP ammo rate and more accuracy. Getting nothing but Nashorns in the later game may look awfully pretty (and risky), but that ammo is gone very quick.

(still P7) Amazing 240 Ht's! I have played this game for so long when you were limited to like 300 units, that this is truly unbeleivable. I have seen some hordes when compared to the force I had. I think some games used to allow 5X your defending force in assaults and I bumped into that situation a few times. even with my usual 90-110 core units, smaller than your own core, I was in awe. On the subject of artillery, however, even with my less mobilr force, especially on attack misisons I usually don't have that much problems with them, partly due to the AI times of bombarding me where I'm not (not necessarily because I moved). the way I look at it, I have played the same AI opponent enough, that I can usually teel when the arti is coming after the intital strikes. I just have a feel for it. I don't nother moving anything for the sake of 75mm arti, but 100mm or better gets me more interested in moving. Attacks are almost constantly moving anyway, and what is not moving, should it get attacked at that time, is very foten in cover anyway, so they really have to open up with the big ones to shift me as far as infnatry are concerned. Now, another thing. Do you reserve any core arti for counter-battery fire? I do so with those early GE 100mm 214 hex ranged ones. They can counter virtually any off-map bombardments but until they get very experienced I think their response is often undependable. I also counter onboard arti, of course, by my own onboard, or possibly by those 100mm's. I do a much better job at this than the AI. Part of it, I think, ahs to do with the AI thinking he can hit my infantry he's spotted, so they soak up a lot of what would otherwise could be counter-battery to my onboard arti. His 75mm onboard, or indeed mortars, against so many of my infantry is fairly useless, since so many prove relatively invulnerable when in good cover. My only real worry comes from AFV's getting suppressed by a lot of collatural hits or of course for the much larger guns against most anything. My first Polish battle saw me lose only 3 AFV's and only 65 men, so it couldn't get much better than that for losses; even to a weaker nation.

P8. 23 tank killing guns? What would these be, all AFV's? Because you seemed to make the point before that ATG's weren't your bag anymore. About aerial recon. i'm not too keen against it, and it is new for mesomewhat so I am at least still playing around with it, but so far no matter how much I've improved with them they are still getting shot down each and every time. And this isn't the AA-happy '45 units I'm going against either. I primarily like to pick aerial attack units in the form of fighter bombers. Not only are they pretty insusceptible to being shot down when used wisely (unlike the Storch) but they have multiple passes, each pass producing a more reduced form of recon, and with weapons that not only can be armor-piercing, but fire om those multiple passes (though AP ammo is more limited). It's not exactly a key element, but you have to remember that one top hit, probably the most likely hit for fighter bombers, often means a heavily damaged AFV. I get real tired of enemy air raking my AFS's. BTW, for those who don't know it, I guarantee the AI does far better then the human in attacking ground units through the air. I don't think they are as keen though on taking paths unlikely to have enemy AA assets. So I pick an air asset a good deal of the time, hoping they can nail a T34 or two for each battle over the course of the early invasion (even a T34 immobilization is largely a victory). It's also something for diversion's sake. It seems really stupid to see the AI rake my AFV's badly at times, and then for me not to even consider trying to match that.

(still P8) I would like you to consider an adjustment to your defensive HT's. I've alrady made more suggestions more radical to your viewpoint on what to do with them (not have them ), but here's something more mild to digest. How's about compromising my strategy with my HT's, and yours? IOW, Ht's often are attacking in limited circumstances, defensive battle or not. You mentioned their AA assets. Ho wmuch use are those asests at the ned of the map. Maybe they knock out a plane starting from your rear. I don't know why the AI would start precisely where his places a lot of his AA assets, but I digress. Why not still have them still to the rear somewhat, but not the rear of the map? IOW, I think the AA is better used when to the rear of some of your fighting units. Place them 10-20 hexes behind your AFV's or something similar on defensive missions, I bet the planes you shoot down will go up significantly. As battlefiled intelligence goes partly due to my Storch inadequacies, I often play some of the map blind, so that adds a little more to my excitement. Most of my intelligence, somewhat spotty though it may be, comes largely by more dependable ground units. Foot scouts on an AFV perhaps. Walk to the lead trees and spot while they can, then go back to the AFv, the enemy usually being none the wiser and the scouts not being interfered with; mostly due to good timing. Naturally holding some key areas, by any unit, eliminates the need for much recon there. Again, we're not talking about defending against looney human players here, who would probably just do things that were impractical or even impossible to do, such as squeezing a ton of units into one hex, so the enemy might mistake it as a platoon or smaller. Yeah, you might need more severe recon against human players, but who would want to play somebody who did gamey stuff like that?

(last paragraph) I have the notion that you do not really know just how vulnerable AFV riders are. I use them because I use them wisely. The definition of wise being that they are not fired upon in that situation. I can't say it doesn't happen entirely, and I hate the losses should it come, but as I don't know how realistic the losses are, I'm pretty sure, one who doesn't use them knows far less still. What more reason do I have to say that even I do not know? Because the latest patch changed that supposedly; they're more vulnerable now. So if I were you, thinking as you do, I doubt I would change mid-stream ousting a lot of HT's (I thought you were beginning a new campaign with the latest patch, as I did - just a hunch) to start a serious AFV effort to carry my SS, but do know it is not as it once was. OTOH, though I have done quite a few AFV infantry riders sinc ethe latest pacth, not one of them has been fried upon while there, so I cannot tell you the losses. The only thing that came close was I had a sniper on an AFV and he disappeared from bombardment raining nearby a full throttled march. Being a one man unit, that doesn't help matters any, as most riders I have seen on the old versions lost at least a man

Hmmm, now you're saying you're into some ATG use again. Didn't you say they were useless as far as you're concerned? Must had been that offensive mindset describing their uselessness, while what's left of a defensive mindset decided to grab them for support on defensive missions, right?

BTW, what do you think of Brandenburgers? I'm talking the full squad ones, not the recon? They're a nice novelty for me and are my infantry elites and have a platoon of them. They're sort of my Steiner outfit and I like their having two LMG's. I go for the satchel charges over the sniper rifle though.

I only have one platoon of SS myself. They're not too impressive to start with, as most of them don't come with the MG34 LMG.

[RERomine]

Charles, I've attacked a simple save file as an example of how trucks rally passengers. There are a series of German trucks on the road and the lead truck has a suppression of 6 and the passenger has a suppression of 7. You can unload the passenger and confirm this. Reload the file and rally the truck with the passenger still on board. It might take a reload or two because the experience and morale of the truck is just national average. Once you do get a successful rally, unload the passenger as well and you will see it also rallied. This method allows you to see both the before and after pictures of the situation. I'm not sure if it should work this way, but it does.

As far as ammo trucks running away, it is something that can happen, but isn't common. Since ammo trucks are unarmored, they are more likely to be destroyed or immobilized than just suppressed. I have had them run before, but the overall objective is to keep ammo trucks out of harms way whether they are core or support. Typically, I'm careful with my supply vehicles, but the AI sometimes just slings artillery randomly and gets lucky. I start with trucks, but switch to armored carriers as soon as practical. Some nations have armed and armored ammo supply vehicles available and some don't. Armed isn't as important to me since their role isn't to fight. I use two supply vehicles as battalion level support with my core.

Your theory about deleting units from my core is incorrect because you don't find out what the mission is until after you pass the repair phase. I've just tried out different units in my core to see if they worked for me and what I wanted to achieve. One example is I had added some Elefants and just found out they weren't worth it. Too expensive and I just figured I didn't need a slow moving pillbox. There are other instances where I had towed artillery with transport. I upgraded them to SPAs. As such, I didn't need the transports anymore and deleted them. Mostly, I add units to my core which is at 125 at the moment.

My core actually has 28 SdKfz 251/1 half-tracks for transport and an additional 8 recon or assault tracks. The transport tracks average 1 kill each, which isn't much but I use them to pepper a target and then run up and unload my infantry. Most of the time in those assaults, the infantry gets the kill. Trucks, even the few that are armed, aren't good for this type of attack. The tracks are with my core at all times. Most of my battles aren't defends so they are useful in delays, meeting engagements, advances and assaults. When the mission is a defend, I do park them but make a nice ad-hoc reserve if I need to use them as such. Personally, I find it a good thing if they can just stay parked the whole battle because it means I didn't need them.

On to the speed aspect, I do consider it to be important to not be in the same place for any length of time. This goes back to the artillery aspect again. The objective is to get out of the impact zone as soon as possible. Usually not a problem with trucks because if they don't blow up when the artillery comes in, they drop their load and cease to be transports. Tracks are much more survivable in this area. If I have units in any given area for more than three turns, I feel artillery is a risk. Being able to move and move quickly takes that out of the picture. Being able to move fast doesn't translate into being careless. The main purpose is to get them to from the LD to their assault position as quickly as possible so time. Sometimes, that assault position is in the enemy rear area. Why go through what you can go around? My entire force ends up in the enemy rear. No assets are left behind. I find it amusing to see the AI "counter-attack" and push into my deployment zone to find nothing there.

I am getting what you are saying about trucks in the core, but am just saying they aren't entirely worthless. Nearly so, but not completely. There are a couple of points in favor of it and at least six against. The point I was arguing against is that there were no benefits what so ever. As I said, I am not a fan of trucks unless it's the enemy using them. They die easily, unload at the slightest amount of incoming fire, they rarely have any offensive or defensive capability, off road mobility is limited, get stuck easily, etc. Because of these limitations, half-tracks are always the better option. I will take a track over a truck every time.

My core is two SS infantry companies, one tanks company, two heavy tank sections, a couple of SPA batteries, recon elements, two SPAA sections, three MG-42 sections and one section of ammo supply tracks. Of my core, only my two ammo supply tracks are unarmed. This force is balanced well to deal with most missions. This core runs about 8,000 points, mainly due to their experience. I've cycled different units in and out over time. The Elefants I mentioned earlier didn't meet my needs. I had StuGs at one point too, but I replaced them with Tigers. The 88mm on the Tigers is good, but I was more interested in the larger ammo supply the Tigers had. I've fought battles where I was running out of ammo and even having resupply didn't help. There wasn't time to pull units off the line for resupply. PzKw IVh tanks were hitting AI armor and half-tracks with HE rounds! Terrain prevented easy shifting of units from one section to another and visibility was low enough that units from one flank couldn't fire across the front of the other. The AI had a combination of 240+ AFVs and half-tracks, about 180 were left burning. My core is more oriented toward offensive action. It use to have six towed ATGs, but I got rid of those as well, because I found them generally useless in this role. My support points can be used to buy ATGs if the battle calls for them. I also found having any non-mobile units in my core was a waste as the AI tends to have scads of artillery with nothing better to do than pound them. Those are actually what were replaced by the Elefants. The campaign is in Italy right now and I don't encounter anything the Tigers can't deal with so the Elefants are gone also.

Because of the size of my core, I do rely heavily on defensive obstacles in defend missions. The AI usually attacks with 25,000+ points and I now have only 23 tank killing guns. Obstacles are required to give those 23 guns time to engage targets. Using obstacles isn't that great of an advantage because the AI is very adept at getting through them somewhere and often everywhere. I've faced situations where I've been out numbered 8 to 1 on tanks and time is required to thin them out before they get to me. A mobile defense doesn't make much sense, being that you would be giving up one bonus to being on the defense, the revetment for your tank. Aside from mines, I use fire trenches, wire and dragon's teeth. Other points go for bunkers and artillery. In a defend, very few support units are at the broken end of the bottle. Mostly my core is on the line. The only exception are the bunkers, which have a rifle. My infantry stays hunkered down in those for protection against incoming artillery until they have to deploy against the AI assault force. As mentioned, my tracks all stay back on this type of mission, but there is one thing to consider. Each of those parked half-tracks have a AAMG so they provide support, even when off the line. They have taken out enemy aircraft before. As for aircraft, I rarely use them, except the spotter. Battle field intelligence is more valuable than the few units that a strike unit could take out.

Trust me, my core does most of the fighting. With a core of 8,000 points and support points ranging from 500-2,000 points, I couldn't win if they didn't. My force is designed as a reasonably realistic battalion sized task force oriented to the offense. As such, the SS infantry companies have track transport. I could go without tracks, but it doesn't make sense with the model I'm using. For me, putting them riding tanks isn't an option because I don't think it is modeled well in the game. Tank riders should be more vulnerable to casualties than they really are in the game, IMO. Overall, my core has served me well. There are instances where support units go in first. My core isn't an engineer battalion. I've got a few, but not enough to effectively breach the enemy line on an assault. They make the hole and my core blasts through it. My engineers are more intended for mines encountered beyond the main line. Remaining points tend to go for artillery, air spotter if available, additional recon and to fill any gaps that need filled, if the mission is something other than an assault. My standard on delays is six MG-42s and six 50mm ATGs. At a 2 to 1 disadvantage, I typically need more tank killing guns and the 50mm works well against the Americans and British in 1943. There are some DARs I've done out there that detail how my battles have gone.