AAR: "Enjoy the War."

[Wiking]

Some quick thoughts on the long campaigns:

I tend not to replace destroyed units until an appointed period of "Refit" is reached. As an example, any unit that was destroyed during the Polish campaign I would not "Fix" or "Change" until I reached May 1940. This meant that over time, especially heavy combat or in-cautious decisions could leave a tank or infantry company well under-strength. It meant I also had to make careful decisions about which companies to commit to the main line and which to hold in reserve.

As an addendum, I make a point of repairing infantry squads up as long as they're not totally destroyed. For a long time I tried leaving them un-repaired until they hit 50% manpower but I found that artillery would disperse them far too quickly and easily and my core forces quickly bled out experience. It also meant I had to spend more rallies than I really could afford to.

Sometimes with replacements, especially if its in the middle of an ongoing campaign (like Russia) I'll issue out foreign equipment for a bit of a change of pace. So say I lose an MG37(t) or MG34 MMG, I may replace it with a Polish Maxim gun or a captured Russian one. Same with artillery. I don't do it with tanks very often as I found that the wild speed differences don't make it worthwhile, and their combat worth is extremely marginal many times. If I do it, I will at most replace a platoon.

I used to use captured T-34's all the time, but now I try to limit that to instances where I can clearly say that my forces occupied an abandoned enemy vehicle, so it usually means no more than one or two of those operating in my core by late 1941.

Later in the war (1944 onwards) I am toying with the idea of allowing parts of companies to be completely destroyed or only replacing when down to a bare handful of men to signifiy an increasingly dangerous situation. I feel like this all helps with the spirit of the campaign, and also to increase the challenge as my experience grows in my core.


As another addendum to my OOB, I do intend to break with historicity again in early 1943 by deleting the Panzerjaeger platoons and buying a Tiger I company. This may sound remarkable to most of you but I haven't got much experience using Tigers! I mostly have played early and some mid-war, so rarely do I get a chance to try them out. I have certainly used Russian heavies a lot, but I feel like their utility is quite different. Tigers are definitely more long range than the short range brawlers of the KV series.

[Wiking]

Almost wrapped up the June fighting in the USSR. Some more thoughts follow:

I find myself being of two minds about artillery. On one hand, I know my men really appreciate it when I can do anything possible to reduce incoming mail, as the A.I. loves to hammer a location where it thinks you are. Sometimes it thinks rightly! And its not always possible to shift forces when you're bogged down in a fight and don't want to draw additional op-fire just to re-position away from artillery.

On the other hand, especially now that I'm on Der Ostfront, I find that the repeated infantry waves are best handled by pinning with machine-gun fire and then broken up with massed artillery. This takes time and shells that cannot be used against enemy artillery. So on a case by case basis, I have to decide what is the greater threat at a given time.

I must mention and re-mention how much I hate the Soviet 76mm "Rat's Tail." I loved using a platoon of these in my Soviet scenarios, but being on the receiving end is just too much! My one saving grace is that the computer usually puts them in the worst places for line of sight, and my mortars have racked up a lot of kills in neutralizing them.

[Wiking]

Finally into July now. The fighting around Smolensk has been quite tough, mostly due to some AFV losses suffered during the fighting in Eastern Poland. None of the Panzer companies are heavily depleted but October and Operation Typhoon are a long way off. Smolensk and Kiev will greatly wear down my forces even if I do well, so I'll have to carefully husband my elites and veterans.

So far only a single KV-2 has been encountered, of the dreaded KV and T-34 families. It was mostly ineffective and withdrew after fierce fighting around Bialystok. Frankly I don't consider them a very grave threat, as they tend to fire on the move and this is horribly inaccurate. Either I plot artillery or close assault with infantry and move on.

Artillery has time and again been the key to breaking the Russian, and while we have not made use of rolling bombardments like the British, we do believe in maximum concentration of fire. The artillery regiment has been supplemented for the Smolensk campaign with some of the new Nebelwerfers. They've proven quite effective against enemy gun crews, and I think that's the utility I finally needed for them. Infantry or dug in units tend to need repeated hits, even in the open. But exposed gun crews that are strewn around an area are quite susceptible to a sudden and devastating rocket bombardment. Previously I'd been rather disappointed with the vaunted screaming mimi's so this is a welcome discovery.

So I found a new way to bleed points for the enemy: trucks! I employ a Kfz 70 Horch motorised battalion and each one costs about 12 points. Through careless maneuvering I let a T-26 shoot up several of them and when I realized the cost I suddenly felt a bit silly for letting a support unit die when it didn't need to! I never used to care much when trucks died but now I think I may have to care a little more, since some of these battles can get pretty close in points...

The Panzer II has found a new lease on life with me also. Previously whenever I used them they'd just die incessantly. Well, they still die more than I'd like, but I find that hanging just behind the infantry lets them shoot up enemy infantry and careless BT-7's that don't respect the fast-firing 2cm Kwk. I do intend to replace each light panzer platoon in the battalion with a full medium panzer platoon by July 1943, probably even before that.