New Axis Cemetery at Haller

[dazkaz15]

[X(]

[Phoenix100]

I guess you won.....

[dazkaz15]

I did, but not as convincingly as you might think.

In an attempt to save lives, my plan was to fight on a narrow front, with the axis of advance along the main highway running into Echernach.
I suspected Echernach wouldn't be to heavily defended early on as the objective opened later in the game.
After breaking through the heavy resistance of the front line, I moved quickly down the highway and took the town.

This allowed me to set a bridging team to work on re-building a bridge early on.
I then sent the next arriving Regiment down the cleared highway to Echernach, then had them clear along the south, then north bank of the Sauer, and size all the bridges.
The third arriving Regiment were given an axis of advance, along the Emz Noir.
This caught everything in the centre of the map in a big pocket, cutting of their escape and a large part of the supply.

This plan I think saved a lot of lives, and lead to a large proportion of the Axis forces being destroyed.
The problem with it was, the enemy were sat uncontested on their objectives for a long time, while the encirclement took place.
This allowed them to accumulate occupation points, so the win wasn't as big a margin as it could have been.

Sometimes the game, especially in historical scenarios, doesn't like you not following the historical plan that is laid out in front of you, with the assigned objective's.
There is nothing stopping you from experimenting with your own plan of course, but even though you may end up destroying the entire enemy Corps, you might not win by as convincing a margin as you might think.
Especially if the max points allocated to, "Destroy the Enemy" are not that high.

Its very important to read, and understand the objectives when playing a game to win.

[Phoenix100]

Nice to pull off an encirclement though, even if the scenario isn't set up to reward it. You lost 1,200 men and the Axis 13,200. Soon you will be thinking this game is too easy for you, Daz. [;)] Time to play H2H then...

[dazkaz15]

There are still a few ways I can ramp up the difficulty level if I won't.

I can increase the command delay to Painfully Realistic, and/or set the reinforcements to favour the other side, for both myself, and the computer opponent.
I can also change the resupply level to favour the other side.
So plenty of scope to make the game harder.

I really enjoyed the St Vith scenario playing as Allies, with the favour Axis settings.

I'm not keen on playing with painfully realistic orders, as its hard to tell if the unit is just stuck, and needs a new order, or waiting for orders to arrive still [:'(]
Also if the AI chooses a ridiculous route I like to intervene with a better one, and on painfully realistic, this could be annoyingly long.

I would like to play all the Historical ones with the standard settings first though.
This was another of the Historical ones I hadn't played before, so it was nice to get a win on my first play through, though I think it may be a different story if I tried to play it as Axis.

[Phoenix100]

I think you should try Charge of the Centaurs next. Italians v Greeks. Play as Greek. Try to ignore the obvious tactics and go for an encirclement again. I tried it a long, long while back and did manage to encircle large numbers of Italian men and materiel, but they always managed to keep in supply, somehow (even thought it's a 9 day scenario).

[dazkaz15]

Did you mean play as Italians mate?

Not sure how to encircle an entire Corps with one Division, although I have only read the briefing so far.
Just wondering if you made a mistake, and meant to say, play as the Italians not the Greeks?

[Phoenix100]

Play as Italians? No way. You have to go for the poor embattled Greeks, fighting armour with pea-shooters. If I recall correct I picked the western approach (for the Italians), let them (the Italians) flow in, then came round behind them just as they were coming out of the pass into the plane. Not a whole Division, but enough. Maybe it was a daft plan. Anyway, it didn't work. But I'm am amateur compared to you, so maybe you can do it, I thought. It's a great, heroic scenario, I think (if you play Greek). Sadly, in real life, the Greek generals surrendered the nation, eventually, but not before they had given the Italians such a stiff fight that they had to ask the Germans for help.

[dazkaz15]

Interesting that you should suggest that.
I take it your aware of the tactics used by the Greeks at Marathon 490BC?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgijJ-zdHow

[dazkaz15]

In response to your query about supply, its actually quite difficult to make the cutting of suppy an effective tactic, in the short length, of the games scenarios, even a nine day one.

Here's why:
From the table you can see that a fully stocked Coy needs to be put under pressure for two full days before it starts to have supply problems, at normal expenditure rate.
It would normally take about two days in most scenarios to preform a complete encirclement of a sizable nature.

So that takes you to about day four in most scenarios, before you start to see a Coy or Bn sized force that has been engaged in heavy fighting for the last two days start to run out of ammunition.

If you also trap the Regimental base in the pocket but have been unable to locate or destroy it, that's an extra four days of supply they will have, taking you to day eight of continuous fighting before they start to have supply problems.
If you also trap the Divisional base in the pocket that's another seven days, taking you to day fifteen, before they run into supply problems!

For these reasons, its vital that you probe into the rear of the pocket to locate, and destroy the bases.
I don't know what the stocking levels of the bases are at the start of the Italian campaign, but as they planned the attack well in advance, and its near the start of the war, I suspect they were well stocked.

You will see the effects of an encirclement of German forces in the BFTB scenarios a lot sooner, because they start the scenarios, especially the latter ones, with virtually no supply anyway.
Also its a lot harder to cut of infantry units, than motorized ones, because they are supplied by man portage, or horse, and can traverse most terrain, albeit at a slower rate.

The reason the encirclement was so effective in the Eddy's Riposte scenario, is because there was no way to circumnavigate the bridges over the Sauer, (a major river) even with supply on foot.
I sought out and destroyed the bases, and from experience I knew that the Germans would start with very little supply anyway, at this stage of the war.

[Phoenix100]

Thanks Daz. I recall being told that by Dave at the time. I did post about my frustrating inability to cut them off and, more or less (in less detail, actually) that was the response. You're right it took 4 or 5 days to encircle them. There were no bases in the ring, I think, but I couldn't then keep them continually engaged, so it wasn't effective. But maybe you could!

[dazkaz15]

I like your blind faith in me Peter [:D]

I'm not very good at scenarios where I am on the defensive.
I find it very hard to give up an objective, and nearly always leave it to late to pull back [8|]

I don't think I have the kind of mentality that makes for a good defensive strategist, and much prefer to be on the offensive.
I don't like the waiting around to be attacked, or not having the initiative, and its very hard to gain the initiative when vastly outnumbered.
My tactics can lead to brilliant victories, but just as likely catastrophic defeats [:(]

It sounds like you took back the initiative when you surrounded the spearhead in your scenario.
What was the outcome by the way? Did you win?

[Phoenix100]

No. Of course not. I always lose. But I enjoyed getting there, and it was an heroic attempt. Don't recall the exact score - this was several years ago. If I knew how to properly search old posts in this forum (which I don't) then I could probably find my gripe mails to Dave and see how I did etc. But it wasn't with the present improved engine, anyway. Given your experience with Eddie's Riposte and encirclement, I've tampered with the stock Centaurs scenario to vastly increase the VPs available by just killing Italians. I also entrenched (instead of digging in) the front line Greeks. Now you have the choice of sticking to the trenches and playing defensively, or taking the initiative, ignoring all the other VPs and going for an encirclement. I think it should be possible because you have 9 days and a big map with only two obvious incursion routes for the Italians. On the other hand I wonder that I could have managed such a thing at all given that the Greeks have virtually no AT capability (the Greek force is all infantry, and poorly equipped) and the Italians come in tanks (albeit little ones). Maybe the new engine will have changed things so that any Greeks not cowering in trenches just get wiped out now. I'll have to play it to see. You want me to mail you the tinkered version? You should do it, I think.