What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

World in Flames is the computer version of Australian Design Group classic board game. World In Flames is a highly detailed game covering the both Europe and Pacific Theaters of Operations during World War II. If you want grand strategy this game is for you.

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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost

Since nobody else has tried the section on HQ and ARM, I have made a first cut at it. My experience with Final Eddition is limited to CWiF, but this part of the rules does not appear to have changed significantly since the older versions, so my experience should still be of use.

3.4.5 Using HQs and Armor

These are the 2 most important types of land units. By proper use of HQs and armor (supported by other land units, air, and navy), you can control the pace of the game.

The use of headquarters is a trade-off between two competing needs: supply lines and reorganization.

It has been said that amateurs study tactics and professionals study logistics. Examine the rules for supply (insert section reference here), and you see that the “secondary supply source” is often an HQ. Unless you are fighting in or very near your home country, you will need to have an HQ within a few hexes of a ground or air unit in order to operate at full effectiveness. Thus you want to have your HQs keep up with your front-line combat units.

On the other hand, if your units are disrupted, they are through for the rest of the turn. The reorganization capacity of the HQ lets the units fight again. If you use the HQ to reorganize one or more units, the HQ is disrupted, and can no longer advance to supply your front-line units.

As a further consideration, one of the optional rules allows an HQ to improve odds in attack or defense. This use disrupts the HQ and prevents its use for either of the other purposes. If you play with this optional rule, you will also have to balance this need with the other two.

This is where the trade-off comes in. You will have to decide for yourself what the proper balance is between combat support, reorganization, and supply, but some general guidelines for the placement and use of HQs can be given.

If your opponent has superiority in ground forces at the front, avoid placing an HQ directly into the front line where it is vulnerable, unless the position is one which you must hold (for example, Gibraltar is often considered the most important hex in the game). By placing and HQ in or adjacent to such a hex, you can lower your opponent’s chance of taking it.

If your opponent has strong tactical air units, try to place your HQ in a hex beyond his air units’ ranges or in a terrain type that halves tactical air factors. If no such position is available (for example, France lacks “strategic depth”), assign a fighter or AA unit to defend the HQ if possible.

If you are playing with oil-dependent units, the reorganization of your HQ will burn oil that could have gone to other units or to your hungry factories. Sometimes, this is a necessary price, but consider the situation when choosing. Examine the weather chart and where you are in the turn. Use of the HQ for reorganization may have a prohibitive “opportunity cost” in poor weather or late in the turn. Weather is unpredictable, but the chart can give you an idea of probability of poor weather. Poor weather reduces the supply range, and requires your HQs to be closer to the front. If the turn is about to end, the reorganization will have been wasted.

If you manage to find the proper balance, your HQs can allow your units a second crack at a key point, or sustain a drive deep into enemy territory. When you do make that drive, you will find that the spearhead will usually be armored units.

The choice of combat table will often rest with the combatant with the most armor engaged in the battle. The choice of combat table will control the pace of advance. In addition, most armor has high movement and combat factors. The combination of these two effects allows an armored attack to rapidly advance to an enemy position and possibly breakthrough to cut off his units. Thus, the one with the most armor at the point of decision will determine if it is blitzkrieg or sitzkrieg.

Note where your opponent is massing his armor, and you will have an idea of his main front.

So, does this mean that you should always strive to have the most armor on all fronts? No. Note the phrase “at the point of decision”. If it is a secondary front (or area of one front) or a place in which you can afford to fall back, be willing to concede the advantage to your opponent in order to gain it elsewhere. Historically, in the summer of 1941, a small fraction of German and British armor was near the English Channel. The two sides considered France secondary, the Germans due to having conquered it and the British due to a calculation that they were not strong enough to invade. Both side sent their armor elsewhere to gain an advantage over their other foes.

Certain terrain types permit the defender to always choose the combat table. Their high combat factor will tempt you to use armor in attacks on enemy cities and mountains. Especially if playing with oil-dependent units, you should only do so if the position is important. A smart defender will see his chance to disrupt your critical armored units and use the assault table, especially since this will prevent breakthrough results. Sometimes, the position is important (e.g., an Allied attack on Berlin or counter-attack on Moscow), and armor may make the difference. If so, use it.
Mike, Thanks.

Could you email me (SHokanson@HawaiianTel.net) a TXT version of this text? That will be a lot easier for me to work with than cutting and pasting from the forum post.
Steve

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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by paulderynck »

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Look, I knew I had read that from Harry already :
This is from the 1996 / 1999 Q & A, from which we dug out many of the first questions of the FAQ (this one was not included, but we can add it if you think it is worthwhile) :

******************************************
Suj : Re: more clarifications
Date : 23/01/97 02:22:36
From: 100400.1103@compuserve.com (Harry Rowland)
Resent-from: wif@list.digivis.com
Reply-to: wif@list.digivis.com
To: wif@list.digivis.com (WiF Players)

(...)

Q5> At the moment the rules on what happens to minors controlled by France when she goes Vichy seem to be. If the minor was aligned with France (ie. After taking Belgium the Belgian Congo is still aligned with France) the country stays Free French. If the minor was captured by the French (eg. Libya, say) it goes via a roll on the "other territory or minor" row. Is this right?

Ans> No. You roll on the other territory/minor table for all controlled (aligned AND conquered) minors.
******************************************

You should trust me more often... [:(]

PS : You can find in included in the PDF file that is available at our rule discussion group. Page 63, top left column.
Yikes I was kind of hoping the newest FAQ would be a definitive single source. Especially since it ended up changing some of the answers from previous compilations. So now I have to look at those past sources when my question isn't addressed by the latest FAQ? I think it would be better to try and get those exceptions remaining exported to the latest FAQ. I thought we started out with all the prior questions and added from there, this last time around.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: paulderynck
Yikes I was kind of hoping the newest FAQ would be a definitive single source. Especially since it ended up changing some of the answers from previous compilations. So now I have to look at those past sources when my question isn't addressed by the latest FAQ? I think it would be better to try and get those exceptions remaining exported to the latest FAQ. I thought we started out with all the prior questions and added from there, this last time around.
Yes Paul, I was hoping too.
But only Peter Kanjorsky and myself have gone through reading the whole old "Clarifications" document. Some issues must have been judged self explanatory now that the rules have evolved, and some might have been overlooked, I'm sorry there are. Do you think that this one should be added ? I'll put it through the rules discussion group, as we have a discussion where it might add light anyway. But no time right now.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by iamspamus »

Wow. Really good.
Jason
ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is my edit of input from Christopher and Patrice. [Let me know if my edits distorted what you meant.]
===
3.4.10 Production

Production is one of the most interesting facets of game play in MWIF. Production strategy is at least as important as military strategy. Without a successful production strategy, your major power will be without key units at key times, the consequences of which can range from your offense running out of steam, through to outright defeat.

The Production Plan
You should always have a production plan, which is a more-or-less structured idea of what you are going to build and when. Your production plan is influenced by:

1. Your strategic plan, which should drive your production priorities. Your production plan must enable you to accomplish your strategic objectives.

2. Your opponents’ activities. Early on, the Allies mostly react to the actions and plans of the Axis, and their production should reflect this. Later, the tables are turned.

3. The major power for which you are building. Each major power has its own unique characteristics and requires certain unique production elements. The CW and US, for example, usually need many sea-lift units to transport their units overseas. China never builds a navy.

Qualities of a Good Production Plan
A good production plan, one that assists a major power in achieving its strategic objectives, has several qualities: focus, flexibility, redundancy, and discipline. It must also account for timing and shortfalls. Certain major powers and situations call for the possession of a greater degree of some of these qualities than others.

Focus
Your production plan must be focused on fulfilling the requirements of your strategic plan. Avoid the temptation to “get a little of everything”, unless that is all you need to do. For example, a German production strategy for Barbarossa requires cheap land units, blitz units, engineers, and HQs, and must eschew excessive investment in the navy, higher-cost air units, and the like.

Flexibility
It is also important to be flexible. Remember “no plan survives contact with the enemy” - changing tactical and strategic conditions will punish a rigid production plan. You want to be able to react to unexpected opportunities or dangers, both at the tactical and strategic level.

For example, if the Axis are not defending their home country factories from air attacks, the Allies should build strategic bombers to launch more aggressive air raids. Another example is: while preparing for the war against the CW and US, Japan must keep an eye out for an opportunity to attack a weak USSR or the need to defend against a Soviet invasion.

Redundancy
Luck can lay waste to the best-laid plans. Your production plan must enable you to bounce back rapidly from a sudden reverse. In addition, your production in the present should anticipate future losses.

Some examples are:
• A bad combination of surprise die rolls may see an otherwise inferior enemy naval force sink or damage 1 to 2 AMPH as you are getting ready to invade. If you built redundancy in, you will have some uncommitted, spare AMPH and land units to bring in next impulse.

• If using divisions, build your PARA and MOT divisions and keep them together. Any PARA corps lost due to bad luck in the air combat can be reformed immediately during the next production step from the PARA and motorized divisions. Don’t forget to build extra air transports (always useful) and immediately rebuild the divisions.

• Germany and the USSR must maintain high rates of infantry production while at war with one another, to make up for turn-to-turn losses.

• After the fall of France, the Commonwealth should start building spare convoys before it starts losing them in large numbers.

Discipline
Certain units are easy to overlook. When preparing your production plan, be aware that both ‘workhorse’ units (convoys especially) and ‘chrome’ units (artillery and offensive chits in particular) have their place, and build them at the appropriate time.

Making the effort to properly lend to your allies is often very difficult. The USSR, Free France, China, and Italy are all likely to require a constant flow of lending from their allies to survive and/or thrive. Overlooking this aspect of production will weaken your side overall.

Keeping Italy propped up and building SUB units, even in the midst of a Barbarossa campaign, can serve Germany well, by keeping the Western Allies busy fighting U-boats and naval air instead of landing in Italy or France.

Timing
The trickiest element of the production plan is timing. Units take anywhere from one to twelve turns to build. For powers such as the US, there is often a further 1 to 2 turn delay before they are shipped to their destined theatre of operation. A good production plan will take these factors into account.

For example, if the CW wishes to take part in a strategic invasion of Italy by July/August 1942, it will require some combination of sea-lift, paratroopers, marines, regular army, and long-range fighters and bombers arriving on the map by May/June, so that they can be deployed to the Mediterranean in time.

Shortfalls
Frequently, you will not be producing up to your full potential: seizure of your territory, sinking of your convoys, or bombing of your factories will reduce your production. You must prioritize carefully in the event of production shortfalls.

Suggested Guidelines

Here are some suggested guidelines for how to allocate your build points (BPs) between the service branches:

• At the start of the game, estimate your BPs for all the turns of the game (or at minimum 1 to 2 years in advance), and plan 90% of your builds. Keep 10% uncommitted. This last 10% is committed as each turn arrives, or a couple of turns earlier. You use that 10% to deal with necessary emergency builds/ repairs, or to provide flexibility should you need to adapt your production plan to a new strategic plan. Your planning here can range from excruciating detail, to a mere rough cut of what you intend to build. The big mistake that you need to avoid is: having each production phase arrive and you deciding what to build on the spur of the moment, as a response to recent events or whims.

• Plan all "must be built" units, based on when they become available; that is, annually, in the Jan/Feb game turns. These are the HQ, ENG, and other special land units that you know you will need. Always build HQs the first turn they are available, or at worse in the 1 to 3 first turns of the year (this assumes that you will need them, and rest assured, you will always need HQs). Also pre-plan all Offensive Chits, saving BPs in prior game turns if you're not a rich major power (that’s everyone except the USA). This is so the impact of their high cost on your other production is less severe when they are built. Plan them so that they arrive during the key game turns when you'll need them. In addition, preplan all Intelligence expenditures, as a regular expense item. This can be 0 to 1 BP per turn initially but can grow to 3 to 5 or more BPs per turns in the latter stages of the game, depending on the enemy's Intelligence expenditure. The Axis cannot let the Allies gain too large an advantage in Intelligence, so they must increase their BPs spent on Intelligence whenever the Allies do.

• Plan all the ships that you intend to build for nearly the full course of the war. This means all capital ships laid down or completed and TRS/AMPH laid down and completed. This especially true for the USA, Japan and the CW, and somewhat true for Italy, whose naval builds are only SUBs and TRS/AMPH. For major powers that need a powerful submarine force (USA, Japan, Germany, Italy), always devote a certain number of BPs each turn to building SUBs. Usually 2 to 3 BPs for the richer countries, and 1 to 2 for the poorest.

• Decide how to split the remaining BPs between the Air Force and Army (Land Forces). Usually 50/50 is reasonable, but this can vary from major power to major power, and also depends on the circumstances. For example, in Russia before 1941 it’s likely to be 95% Army, 5% Air Force (or even 100% Army). That’s because Russia starts with a rather large number of planes and pilots, while more land units are critically needed to stop the Germans.

• Given the amount of BPs allocated to the Air Force, evaluate how many Pilots can be built consistently from turn to turn, and always build about that number of pilots each turn. You also need to evaluate how many air units you will be able to build, and be prepared to build a few more air units than pilots. The logic here is that when playing with pilots, about 50% of the time you do not lose the pilot when the air unit is destroyed. Thus, fewer pilots need to be built. Never build fewer than 2 pilots a turn for big countries such as Germany, the USA or the CW. Neglecting pilots can have dire consequences later because of gearing limits. The exception is if you experience gargantuan air losses and are flooded with extra pilots. Even then, learn to count your pilot needs a few turns in advance.

• Use the remaining BPs allotted to the air force to build the air units you will need 2 to 4 turns in the future. Always build a minimum number of FTR per turn. Depending on the major power, this can be 3 to 6 for the USA (once they are in the war) or 2 to 3 for the CW and Germany, or even simply 1 per turn. Always build a minimum of carrier air units per turn for the CW, the USA, and Japan. This can be 2 to 4 for the USA and 1 to 2 for Japan and the CW. Sprinkle the most expensive units (LND4 & NAV4) over the course of the entire year, but be careful about when they will be completed. For example, a LND4 reinforcing the UK, or worse the USA, in Nov/Dec is quite useless, as it arrives in Jan/Feb when the turns are short and the weather bad. It’s better if it arrives in Sep/Oct or Mar/Apr, when it can be immediately put to use.

• With the allocated Army BPs, build the units you'll need 2 to 4 turns in the future. Sprinkle the most expensive units (armor, mechanized, expensive artillery) throughout the year, and fill in the holes with less expensive units. But try to build the best units so that they arrive when needed. For instance, it is useless to build a lot of armor without also building motorized and infantry to fight with them. And none of those units are of much use to the USA until they have successfully invaded somewhere. Try to create a balanced force of artillery that matches your strategic plan.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by composer99 »

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is my edit of input from Christopher and Patrice. [Let me know if my edits distorted what you meant.]
===
China never builds a navy.

As my parents often say 'never say always and always avoid never'.

It is not 100% unheard of for China to build submarines if they end up holding to a port in 1942-43 (such that their subs can come in handy in 43-44).

This is an extremely rare occurence, to be sure, but it has been known to happen and can be a good build for the Chinese to support Allied attacks on Japanese merchant shipping.

Another possibility is Chinese sealift to support a campaign into Formosa (the Chinese MAR attacks across the all-sea hexside, artillery bombards, another corps & a div invade; you could even have a Chinese paradrop) in conjunction with a land o-chit. This is an extreme outlier, but I am almost certain it has happened & is certainly a possibility if the Chinese aren't too crippled in the early part of the game.

So instead of saying "never" I would say "almost never".

Other than that nitpick, the section looks good to me (of course it does, I wrote 2/3 of it! [:)]).
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: composer99
ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is my edit of input from Christopher and Patrice. [Let me know if my edits distorted what you meant.]
===
China never builds a navy.

As my parents often say 'never say always and always avoid never'.

It is not 100% unheard of for China to build submarines if they end up holding to a port in 1942-43 (such that their subs can come in handy in 43-44).

This is an extremely rare occurence, to be sure, but it has been known to happen and can be a good build for the Chinese to support Allied attacks on Japanese merchant shipping.

Another possibility is Chinese sealift to support a campaign into Formosa (the Chinese MAR attacks across the all-sea hexside, artillery bombards, another corps & a div invade; you could even have a Chinese paradrop) in conjunction with a land o-chit. This is an extreme outlier, but I am almost certain it has happened & is certainly a possibility if the Chinese aren't too crippled in the early part of the game.

So instead of saying "never" I would say "almost never".

Other than that nitpick, the section looks good to me (of course it does, I wrote 2/3 of it! [:)]).
Ok.
Steve

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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: composer99
It is not 100% unheard of for China to build submarines if they end up holding to a port in 1942-43 (such that their subs can come in handy in 43-44).

This is an extremely rare occurence, to be sure, but it has been known to happen and can be a good build for the Chinese to support Allied attacks on Japanese merchant shipping.

Another possibility is Chinese sealift to support a campaign into Formosa (the Chinese MAR attacks across the all-sea hexside, artillery bombards, another corps & a div invade; you could even have a Chinese paradrop) in conjunction with a land o-chit. This is an extreme outlier, but I am almost certain it has happened & is certainly a possibility if the Chinese aren't too crippled in the early part of the game.
Agreed. I did both.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by brian brian »

I hope though that this isn't really pointed out explicitly to new players of the game, because those who know their history would soon start to wonder just what other fantasies are going to occur in a game of WiF.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I hope though that this isn't really pointed out explicitly to new players of the game, because those who know their history would soon start to wonder just what other fantasies are going to occur in a game of WiF.
If players expect WIF to follow WW II exactly, they could simply watch newsreels from the era instead of buying the game.[:)]
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by brian brian »

I agree totally and love that WiF allows for so many possible outcomes; I don't like rules that try to stick it back in the historical bottle too much. But China building a navy to invade Taiwan....I guess what the game gets wrong is China appearing to do this internally, as an 'independent' power with their own build points for fancy military equipment. If it had a motor in it, it came from outside of China. The only way something like that could have happened would have been if Uncle Sam had bought and paid for the whole thing, and even then Chiang would have only done it with a gun to his head. You could WiFZen that this is what is really happening and this Allied power is abstracted out, like the logistics shipping for D-Day or something. But the looming Chinese Civil War would make campaigning against an obviously defeated Japan rather unlikely.

Anyway the manual is looking outstanding all around, nice work everyone.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

Here is my rewrite of Patrice's text for 3.4.3. The tables don't line up correctly here, btu they are correct in my WordPerfect file.
===========
3.4.3 Committing Air Units

How you commit your air units is vital to succeeding on the battlefields of MWIF. Air units are assets that give a powerful advantage to whomever uses them best in support of military operations on the ground and at sea. Understanding three concepts will help you master MWIF's air operations:

1. Air units only "act" once per game turn.
2. Activity limits make advance planning mandatory.
3. Fighters are crucial.

Concept 1: Air units only "act" once per game turn

Concept 1 is about having a good picture of your air unit arsenal, which air missions they are best for, and what you want them to do in the current game turn. Reorganization can let you use air units multiple times during a game turn, but there are always very few reorganization points available and they’re expensive to use. It’s usually better to only count on air units performing a single mission each turn.

The air units discussed in this section are bombers and air transports. Fighters are discussed in the section on Concept 3. Bombers and air transports have a direct effect on the war, while the fighters only serve to enable friendly bombers and air transports to accomplish missions, or prevent enemy ones from doing so.

Bombers
Bombers include: strategic bombers, tactical bombers, fighter-bombers, torpedo bombers, and dive bombers. Air transports (those air units with their range circled in white) don't drop bombs, or do so weakly. In WIF, there are very few air transports, but they perform roles that make them both unique and irreplaceable.

Here are the air missions that bombers perform. In parenthesis is the factor on the counter that is most important for the given air mission:

Naval Air Patrol / Naval Air Combat missions (air-to-sea factor) help control sea areas, either through combat or dissuasion. A port attack also falls into this category since it executes as a naval air combat. Usually the best bombers for this air mission are the naval bombers (NAV), because they receive a bonus when searching for the enemy at sea.

Strategic Bombing missions (strategic factor) can damage the enemy's military production facilities. Strategic bombing is also a valuable tool to force enemy fighters to fight your own fighters, when you are seeking air superiority in a theater of operations.

Carpet Bombing missions (strategic factor) help friendly land forces fight enemy's land forces. Carpet bombing can destroy ground units, but needs to have a large number of bombers (at least 4 air units heavy bombers, maybe more) to have a smallish, 50%, chance of success. This represents a high cost for limited results. Generally it is only used by the Allied side toward the end of the war, after their ground strikes and ground support needs have been met.

Ground Strike missions (tactical factor) help friendly land forces fight enemy's land forces. Ground Strike is the most frequently used air mission, as it disorganizes (i.e. “softens”) enemy land units before you declare your land combats. If successful, it gives a large bonus to land combat attacks (+2 per disorganized unit with the 2D10 CRT). One rule of thumb for having a reasonably high chance of disorganizing the enemy unit(s) is to have about 10 tactical factors perform the air mission. For example, 2 Stukas with 5 tactical factors each, gives two 50% chances to disorganize the enemy, or 5 fighter bombers with 2 tactical factors each, gives five 20% chances to disorganize the enemy. This does not guarantee disorganizing the enemy, but offers reasonably high odds. A successful ground strike can also immobilize enemy units, which limits your opponent’s reaction capacities, and is a good way to win land combats on the long term.

Ground Support missions (tactical factor) help friendly land forces fight enemy's land forces. Ground support is used often, because it doesn’t count against activity limits (discussed later in this section). Ground support simply adds tactical factors, as if they were land combat factors, to a land combat. For each quantity of tactical factors equal to the enemy defensive combat factors, you add the same bonus that a ground strike would have achieved by disorganizing an enemy unit. For example, if the enemy has 15 combat factors in a stack with 2 land units, for each 15 tactical factors you add, you gain a +2 (2D10 CRT) to the land combat. So, for 15 tactical factors you get a +2, while those same 15 tactical factors would have had a good chance of giving you a +4 against a hex with multiple units, if they had been used in a ground strike mission. Hence, ground strikes are better when the enemy hex is strong. Sometimes though, ground support is better, primarily when the enemy is weak. For example, if the enemy hex contains a single unit with 4 combat factors, using 12 tactical factors as ground support guarantees a +6 to the land combat, while using those factors in ground strike missions would provide +2 at best. Because ground strike missions count against activity limits, while ground support do not, it is best to not ground strike weak enemies, if you know you have the air power to hammer them with ground support bombing.

As you can see if you examine the factors for your different bombers, you have planes that are good at strategic bombing (high strategic factor). Those can be used for strategic bombing and carpet bombing missions. In some cases, your bombers will have both high strategic and high tactical factors. With those, you will be torn trying to decide which air mission they should perform. Therefore, you really need to know how many bombers you have, and how many of them you are going to use for each type of air mission you’re planning for the game turn.

Air Transports
Very few air transports are on the map at any one time, usually not more than half a dozen to a dozen worldwide for all major powers. Ironically, this makes it easier to decide which ones will fly which missions - you won’t have much choice. Because air transports have such weak air-to-air factors, one of the major concerns when using them is to make sure they don’t get shot down in air-to-air or anti-air combat before they can even complete their mission.

Here are the air missions that air transports perform. In parenthesis is the factor on the counter that is most important for the given air mission:

Paradropping missions (range) deliver paratroops directly onto enemy hexes, even if there are enemy land units present. A land combat occurs in a later phase of the game, and if the enemy isn’t forced from the hex, the paradropping units are automatically destroyed. This is a powerful tool for taking hard to reach hexes and for adding extra land combat points when attacking a particularly difficult target hex. For example, Gibraltar and island hexes are difficult to capture without a strong invasion force, or a combination of invading and paradropping units. Like invasions, paradrops are risky (they put your expensive units in harm’s way) but are fearsome weapons when used correctly.

Air transport missions (range) deliver land units to distant friendly hexes. This mission lets you deliver land units quickly to an overseas hex, or to a hex that plugs a hole in your line. This mission type isn’t used very often, partly because maintaining a threat of a paradrop, even if you never fly the mission, is a useful thing for your air transport to do during a turn. And partly because reorganizing a unit can be very attractive late in a turn.

Reorganization by air transport missions (# of reorganization points, range) permit you to reorganize units. See the discussion below on reorganization.


Reorganization
Reorganization is what enables an air unit (and other units) to “act” multiple times in a game turn. This is a very powerful ability, and you should always try to have as many reorganization points as you can, because it allows you to use your best units several times in a game turn.

Reorganization points during a game turn come from 3 sources :
HQs, that have from 1 to 5 reorganization points.
Air transport units (ATRs), that have 1 or 2 reorganization points (usually they have 1 point).
TRS/AMPH and a special kind of SUB (Supply SUB), that have 1 reorganization point.

Air bases
WIF doesn’t have air bases, per se. Instead air units simply have stacking restrictions in different types of terrain. Where you base your most valuable air units is crucial. This most commonly is done after they return to base from an air mission. You want them to be in supply and potentially capable of being reorganized.

That is, to reorganize air units after a mission, return them to base:
• In range of an HQ, and if you plan to use an HQ to reorganize units, gather as many units as the HQ can reorganize - so you do not waste the HQ’s reorganization points, or
• In range of an ATR, but you also then need to remember to “save” an air mission so the ATR can fly its reorganization mission, or
• In a coastal hex where a TRS/AMPH/Supply SUB is able to reorganize the air unit.

Concept 2: Activity limits make advance planning mandatory

The mechanics of MWIF are such that you can’t do everything at once. Unless you take an Air Action, you will only have a limited number of air missions in an impulse. So you need to prioritize the air missions that you want to execute, and then fly as many as you can each impulse. The priority of each mission is to maximize the assistance/support for the rest of your military operations. Delaying military operations can be deadly, so make sure you have the necessary air missions available when they are needed.

Activity limits and prioritization
Some air missions do not count toward the limited number of air missions you have available each impulse. These are :
• Ground support.
• Fighter escort.
• Fighter interception.
• Air units flying as air support for a naval combat.

All other air missions do count against your limits, but these four ‘free’ air missions can be conducted at will. This is one of the reasons why you will sometimes fly bombers in ground support missions rather than on a more efficient ground strike mission.

A good example of prioritization is to remember to “save” the right number of air missions to conduct paradrops. If you plan on paradropping 3 air units during this impulse, and you only have 4 air missions allowed, you know that you only have 1 single air mission remaining to fly other air missions. Generally you’ll use it to ground strike the enemy land units where the paradrop will occur, but not necessarily. It may also be a simple rebase mission to have a fighter air unit protect the paratroopers after they win their land combat.

Another example is to remember to “save” the right number of air missions to conduct air rebase missions when your army is advancing. After your land units have moved, you will want to rebase your air units farther forward, so in the next impulse they can reach withdrawing enemy units, or to cover your advancing forces. Saving air missions for rebasing air units in preparation for critical air missions during the next impulse, is an advanced game skill. Failing to do so is one of the pitfalls that new players fall into most often.

Action Choices
A second aspect of activity limits is the Action Choice. There are 4 types of actions that you can use during each impulse. In decreasing order of available air missions they are : Air, Combined, Land, and Naval actions. Depending on your major power, you may have more air missions during a land action than during a naval action, or vice-a-versa. For example, Germany is a land power and has more air missions during a land action, while the CW is a naval power and has more air missions during a naval action.

Here is an overview of these four action types, with emphasis on air mission activity limits:
Air actions have unlimited air missions, but no land or naval moves.
Combined actions have a large number of air missions (3 to 7, China excepted), some land moves (2 to 6) and a few naval moves (1 to 3).
Land actions have some air missions (1 to 4), unlimited land moves, and no naval moves.
Naval actions have some air missions (1 to 3), unlimited naval moves, and no land moves.

Your action choice also has an impact on reorganization. Reorganization is cheaper for air units if you choose an air action, otherwise it is twice the normal cost.

Many experienced players consider the action choice the most important decision of an impulse. Choosing wisely requires you to have a good idea of the units you want to move during the rest of the turn, not just for the current impulse. Then you have to match your current action choice to your planned moves in the current impulse, taking into account both the current weather and the weather forecast.

For example, if you want to conduct a large scale summer offensive, it might be a good idea to start the game turn with an air action (summer means good flying weather), so you can use your air force widely and without restrictions. Ground strikes can soften up the enemy for future impulses. To some, it might look like a wasted impulse, because there will be no land moves or land attacks. But it can pay off big during the next impulse, providing the enemy doesn’t have the reorganization capacity to immediately undo the results of your ground strikes. Another advantage of an air action is that it lets you reorganize air units using your full reorganization capacity. Other actions only let you use half that capacity, since reorganizing each air units would cost double the reorganization points.

Number of impulses statistics based on 8 actual games

The uncertainty of when the turn will end adds more pressure for you to make your action choices correctly. Here are some statistics from Patrice Forno, accumulated over 8 completed 39-45 games. That is 48 Jan/Feb game turns, 48 Mar/Apr game turns, and so forth. This comes out to an average of 125 to 126 impulses per side (3.5 per side, per turn) for an entire 1939 to 1945 game.

Code: Select all

	Average, maximum, and minimum impulses per side, per game turn:
 •	Jan/Feb	2.5 	4 	1
 •	Mar/Apr 	2.9	5 & 4	1
 •	May/Jun	4.2	7 & 6	2 & 1
 •	Jul/Aug	4.7 	8 & 7	3 & 2
 •	Sep/Oct	3.5 	5	2 & 1
 •	Nov/Dec	2.9	5	1
 

To translate this table, over-the-board experience has shown that a Jul/Aug game turn will have an average of 4.7 impulses for each side (say 5 for the side that moves first, and 4 for the second side), with a maximum of 8 impulses for the first side, 7 impulses for the second side, and a minimum of 3 impulses for the first side and 2 impulses for the second side.

Note that:
• The minima and maxima sometimes occurred only once over 8 games (48 game turns).
• The larger of the maxima is for the side that moved first. The second side may have one impulse less.
• The larger of the minima is for the side that moved first. The second side may have one impulse less.
• During the winter, you may only get one impulse in a turn even if you go first!
Simulated probability distributions for impulses per turn
This table is based on a simulation of 100,000 years of WiF game turns.

Code: Select all

 Prob. of turn ending after impulse	Jan/Feb	Mar/Apr	May/Jun	Jul/Aug	Sep/Oct	Nov/Dec
 3	5.60%	2.50%			0.10%	2.60%
 4	23.40%	11.80%	<0.1%	<0.1%	3.70%	12.70%
 5	32.80%	24.90%	3.50%	0.50%	13.40%	24.50%
 6	24.30%	27.10%	7.80%	0.80%	20.60%	25.10%
 7	9.90%	18.80%	16.50%	10.80%	22.60%	18.10%
 8	3.00%	9.90%	20.90%	18.30%	18.50%	10.30%
 9	0.70%	3.50%	20.00%	21.10%	11.70%	4.50%
 10	0.20%	1.20%	15.10%	19.70%	5.80%	1.60%
 11	<0.1%	0.30%	9.30%	14.60%	2.50%	0.50%
 12	<0.1%	<0.1%	4.70%	8.50%	0.90%	0.10%
 13	 	 	1.50%	3.90%	0.20%	<0.1%
 14	 	 	0.50%	1.40%	<0.1%	 
 15			<0.1%	0.30%		
 16+				<0.1%		
 						
 Expected # of impulses:	5.2	6.0	8.7	9.5	7.2	6.0
 						
 Prob. of an odd number of impulses	49.10%	50.10%	50.90%	51.20%	50.50%	50.20%
 						
 Prob. of an even number of impulses	50.90%	49.90%	49.10%	48.80%	49.50%	49.80%
 


Concept 3 : “Fighters are crucial”

Concept 3 is about enabling the bombers/air transports you have allocated to fly successful missions, and to deny that ability to the enemy. Specifically, you want:
• Your fighters to prevent enemy air units from completing their air missions, and
• Your fighters to enable your air units to complete their air missions despite the presence of enemy fighters.

You should be aware that some fighters that also have the ability to fly as bombers (fighter-bombers). These units provide additional flexibility, because if you have enough fighters to cover all your fighter needs, you can use your best fighter-bombers as additional bombers.

Air superiority

The final goal of concept 3 is to achieve total air superiority. This is when your fighters provide enough protection that you can consistently accomplish all your air missions (which can also occur if the enemy has no remaining fighters). At the same time, you have sufficient fighters, with sufficient range, to prevent the enemy from flying air missions. This happens rarely in MWIF: sometimes in the early stages of the War in Russia, and sometimes in the late stages of the War in the West. You can however, often achieve local air superiority in an area 10 hexes across more often. Additionally, towards the end of a turn, you might find yourself with total air superiority if enemy air units have all flown missions or in some other way have become disorganized.

Obtaining air superiority can be done by simply much building more fighters than the enemy, which means that you have geared up your production to achieve that goal (see 3.4.10). With a lower cost it can also be obtained by using your fighters wisely.

Elements that contribute to achieving air superiority, other than sheer mass production, are the following:

Choose your fights
You have to know where you need: (1) your air missions to succeed, and (2) your enemy's air missions to fail. To do this you need to rank the threats from enemy air missions, and reserve fighters to prevent those that are most threatening, (assuming you can’t prevent them all).

Take into consideration that Strategic and Carpet Bombing are more efficient if they are not intercepted (+1 to the die roll), so you might intercept those missions purely for the sake of denying that nasty +1.

When you are the phasing side, you have 2 opportunities to send fighters into combat. You can send them as escorts before the enemy sends interceptors; and you can send them after the enemy sends interceptors. When sending escorts, it is wise to only send those that cannot reach the target hex as interceptors (interceptors have half the range of escorts). This way, you send fighters if and only if the enemy sends fighters. Even better, you can control what the odds will be. For example, when playing the western Allies late in the war, and nearing total air superiority, you can try to arrange that all the air-to-air combats are at least +2 in your favor. This is possible because of the enormous range of the late war western Allied fighters.

Also, using an estimate of how many impulses are left in a turn, you can calculate how many fighters to use each impulse. For example, knowing that a Jul/Aug game turn has an average duration of 9 impulses (but can also last 15 to 16 impulses), if you have 27 fighters in a theater, you can estimate that using more than 3 per impulse will lead to too few fighters in the later impulses (unless you reorganize some). But you must also take into account your enemy’s use of his fighters and his reorganization capabilities. If he has 27 fighters, and is using 9 of them during the first impulse, then you can use just as many to counter the threat. Keep in mind the enemy’s reorganization points. If he has a lot, and you don’t, you’d best be advised to preserve some spare fighters for later impulses.

Only send what you need
You don't necessarily need to send a lot of fighters to prevent or interfere with enemy air missions. Check out the air-to-air combat results table and the statistics provided below, to form your own conclusions.

For example, being at +1 or 0 is the same regarding your chances to destroying/aborting enemy aircraft (56%). Being at +1 you will destroy enemy units more often, but if being at 0 can save you a fighter for later, you might want to save the fighter. On the other hand, at 0 you’ll have more “clear through” results that you won’t like.

Also, being at -1 or 0 is the same regarding your chances to let the enemy clear through to his target. So if you’re short of fighters and defending against enemy air missions, you may choose to fight at -1 rather than 0, and save a fighter for a following impulse.

Learn to abort
As an air-to-air combat is fought, both sides are likely to lose fighters. Be ready to abort the combat if the odds put you at an extreme disadvantage; fighting under -3 can lead to total disaster. Maybe letting that air mission clear through is a lesser evil than losing even more fighters?

Reorganize fighters
Reorganization was discussed earlier in this section. Seriously consider reorganizing your best fighters, if they survived. That’s because fighters are cheaper to reorganize that other air units (you reorganize 2 fighters for the same reorganization cost as 1 multi-engined bomber), and “fighters are crucial”. As usual, this depends on what you need most.

Choose your air bases wisely
Fighters generally have a shorter range than bombers, so you need to think about that when choosing their air base (i.e., hex). Remember that they have an interception range of half their printed range and position them so they are at interception range of the hexes/sea areas where you’ll want to engage the enemy. Never forget to make sure they are in supply.

When you are defending against raids that go deep into your homeland (and playing with the en-route interception option), try to have your fighters as a curtain through which the enemy has to pass to reach his target. Don’t forget to fill in the holes that the enemy opens in your curtain by forcing you to intercept air missions. He will use those holes in subsequent impulses.

When you are on the offensive, don’t hesitate to base your short ranged fighters directly on the frontlines (this is also true for very short ranged bombers, such as the Stukas). But be careful to avoid places that are threatened of being ground struck by adjacent enemy artillery! When you are on the defensive, you’d rather base your fighters within interception range of your front line, but as far back as possible, so they don’t get overrun by an enemy advance. Unavoidably, some of your fighters will be on the frontlines, but choose the worst fighters for those locations since they will be in danger of being overrun.

In addition, be careful about putting “all your eggs in the same basket”. This can occur not only by putting multiple air units in a hex but also by choosing a hex that has armor, an HQ, or other valuable units. If the enemy ground strikes the hex your fighters are in, you’ll either have to use your fighters to intercept (even if you would have liked to save them for a future impulse), or run the risk of seeing them disorganized by the ground strike.

When planning naval offensive in an enemy sea area, you generally first need to control air bases (islands, if possible with a port) in that sea area’s vicinity from which to base fighters to protect your fleet. You’ll need to plan this a few turns in advance, and possibly be obliged to conduct a few preparation invasions.

Statistics about air-to-air combat (from Carl-Niclas Odenbring)

Code: Select all

 	Air-to-Air Combat Value
 	-9	-7, -8	-5, -6	-3, -4	-2	-1	0	+1	+2, 3	+4, 5	+6, 7	+8
 Positive results for the Die Roller
 Enemy Destroyed	2%	6%	9%	12%	16%	20%	25%	30%	36%	42%	49%	56%
 Enemy Aborted	10%	14%	21%	24%	26%	29%	31%	26%	28%	30%	33%	25%
 Total	12%	20%	30%	36%	42%	49%	56%	56%	64%	72%	82%	81%
 Negative results for the Die Roller
 No result	8%	10%	12%	13%	14%	15%	8%	16%	8%	9%	9%	9%
 Enemy Cleared	80%	70%	58%	51%	44%	36%	36%	28%	28%	19%	19%	10%
 Total	88%	80%	70%	64%	58%	51%	44%	44%	36%	28%	28%	19%
 
 
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
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Froonp
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Ground Strike missions (tactical factor) help friendly land forces fight enemy's land forces. Ground Strike is the most frequently used air mission, as it disorganizes (i.e. “softens”) enemy land units before you declare your land combats. If successful, it gives a large bonus to land combat attacks (+2 per disorganized unit with the 2D10 CRT). One rule of thumb for having a reasonably high chance of disorganizing the enemy unit(s) is to have about 10 tactical factors perform the air mission. For example, 2 Stukas with 5 tactical factors each, gives two 50% chances to disorganize the enemy, or 5 fighter bombers with 2 tactical factors each, gives five 20% chances to disorganize the enemy. This does not guarantee disorganizing the enemy, but offers reasonably high odds. A successful ground strike can also immobilize enemy units, which limits your opponent’s reaction capacities, and is a good way to win land combats on the long term.
Here I'd like to add :

So in this regards, you're advised to spread out your ground strikes amongst the higher possible enemy units, to paralyze the most of them, while still concentrating on the hexes you're about to attack to disrupt them the most, for the best immediate effort. This is tough to decide and to master, but this is in my experience the best use of ground strikes.
Ground Support missions (tactical factor) help friendly land forces fight enemy's land forces. Ground support is used often, because it doesn’t count against activity limits (discussed later in this section). Ground support simply adds tactical factors, as if they were land combat factors, to a land combat. For each quantity of tactical factors equal to the enemy defensive combat factors, you add the same bonus that a ground strike would have achieved by disorganizing an enemy unit. For example, if the enemy has 15 combat factors in a stack with 2 land units, for each 15 tactical factors you add, you gain a +2 (2D10 CRT) to the land combat. So, for 15 tactical factors you get a +2, while those same 15 tactical factors would have had a good chance of giving you a +4 against a hex with multiple units, if they had been used in a ground strike mission. Hence, ground strikes are better when the enemy hex is strong. Sometimes though, ground support is better, primarily when the enemy is weak. For example, if the enemy hex contains a single unit with 4 combat factors, using 12 tactical factors as ground support guarantees a +6 to the land combat, while using those factors in ground strike missions would provide +2 at best. Because ground strike missions count against activity limits, while ground support do not, it is best to not ground strike weak enemies, if you know you have the air power to hammer them with ground support bombing.
Here also, I would have liked to add the following :

When planning your ground strike while you are on the offensive, you should also think about the following impulses. You need to keep tactical factors to perform ground support to hamper any enemy possible counterattack, besides keeping enough air power to continue to attack.
As you can see if you examine the factors for your different bombers, you have planes that are good at strategic bombing (high strategic factor). Those can be used for strategic bombing and carpet bombing missions. In some cases, your bombers will have both high strategic and high tactical factors. With those, you will be torn trying to decide which air mission they should perform. Therefore, you really need to know how many bombers you have, and how many of them you are going to use for each type of air mission you’re planning for the game turn.
I don't know if I was clear enough here, but i meant for example that for those Lancasters with tactical factors of 5 and strat factors of 8-9, and these B-17 / B-24 / B-29 with strat factors of 7-9 and tactical factors of 4-5 you need to decide at the start of each impulse for what you will use them. This will be easier then when the situation evolves as you will think of them for the roles initialy planned and it will maybe be less confusing.
Air Transports
Very few air transports are on the map at any one time, usually not more than half a dozen to a dozen worldwide for all major powers. Ironically, this makes it easier to decide which ones will fly which missions - you won’t have much choice. Because air transports have such weak air-to-air factors, one of the major concerns when using them is to make sure they don’t get shot down in air-to-air or anti-air combat before they can even complete their mission.

Here are the air missions that air transports perform. In parenthesis is the factor on the counter that is most important for the given air mission:

Paradropping missions (range) deliver paratroops directly onto enemy hexes, even if there are enemy land units present. A land combat occurs in a later phase of the game, and if the enemy isn’t forced from the hex, the paradropping units are automatically destroyed. This is a powerful tool for taking hard to reach hexes and for adding extra land combat points when attacking a particularly difficult target hex. For example, Gibraltar and island hexes are difficult to capture without a strong invasion force, or a combination of invading and paradropping units. Like invasions, paradrops are risky (they put your expensive units in harm’s way) but are fearsome weapons when used correctly.

Air transport missions (range) deliver land units to distant friendly hexes. This mission lets you deliver land units quickly to an overseas hex, or to a hex that plugs a hole in your line. This mission type isn’t used very often, partly because maintaining a threat of a paradrop, even if you never fly the mission, is a useful thing for your air transport to do during a turn. And partly because reorganizing a unit can be very attractive late in a turn.

Reorganization by air transport missions (# of reorganization points, range) permit you to reorganize units. See the discussion below on reorganization.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Simulated probability distributions for impulses per turn
This table is based on a simulation of 100,000 years of WiF game turns.

Code: Select all

 Prob. of turn ending after impulse	Jan/Feb	Mar/Apr	May/Jun	Jul/Aug	Sep/Oct	Nov/Dec
 3	5.60%	2.50%			0.10%	2.60%
 4	23.40%	11.80%	<0.1%	<0.1%	3.70%	12.70%
 5	32.80%	24.90%	3.50%	0.50%	13.40%	24.50%
 6	24.30%	27.10%	7.80%	0.80%	20.60%	25.10%
 7	9.90%	18.80%	16.50%	10.80%	22.60%	18.10%
 8	3.00%	9.90%	20.90%	18.30%	18.50%	10.30%
 9	0.70%	3.50%	20.00%	21.10%	11.70%	4.50%
 10	0.20%	1.20%	15.10%	19.70%	5.80%	1.60%
 11	<0.1%	0.30%	9.30%	14.60%	2.50%	0.50%
 12	<0.1%	<0.1%	4.70%	8.50%	0.90%	0.10%
 13	 	 	1.50%	3.90%	0.20%	<0.1%
 14	 	 	0.50%	1.40%	<0.1%	 
 15			<0.1%	0.30%		
 16+				<0.1%		
 						
 Expected # of impulses:	5.2	6.0	8.7	9.5	7.2	6.0
 						
 Prob. of an odd number of impulses	49.10%	50.10%	50.90%	51.20%	50.50%	50.20%
 						
 Prob. of an even number of impulses	50.90%	49.90%	49.10%	48.80%	49.50%	49.80%
 
Maybe add here that the author of this calculation is unknown, that is I have not recorded it and have forgot. Anyway the author is not me.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
You should be aware that some fighters that also have the ability to fly as bombers (fighter-bombers). These units provide additional flexibility, because if you have enough fighters to cover all your fighter needs, you can use your best fighter-bombers as additional bombers.
Here I would have liked to add :
Some fighters are also so much bad (i.e. P-63 & some late P-39 & P-40 come to my mind) at air-to-air compared to their cousins of the same years, and so good at bombing, that they can also be considered as bombers immediately and discarted from aini air-to-air activity, except for emergencies or for filling up a hole.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by doctormm »

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I hope though that this isn't really pointed out explicitly to new players of the game, because those who know their history would soon start to wonder just what other fantasies are going to occur in a game of WiF.


It's a game about alternate choices and therefore alternate results. I'm more concerned about silly tactics (like various strategies to prolong the existence of Italy) than what might happen if China is left pretty much alone by Japan.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by doctormm »

ORIGINAL: doctormm

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I hope though that this isn't really pointed out explicitly to new players of the game, because those who know their history would soon start to wonder just what other fantasies are going to occur in a game of WiF.


It's a game about alternate choices and therefore alternate results. I'm more concerned about silly tactics (like various strategies to prolong the existence of Italy) than what might happen if China is left pretty much alone by Japan.

The Black Widow can cover a substantial part of Europe with its interception range. Nice to have, to ensure that you've always got SOME kind of cover for important areas, especially later in the turn.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by paulderynck »

ORIGINAL: doctormm

ORIGINAL: doctormm

ORIGINAL: brian brian

I hope though that this isn't really pointed out explicitly to new players of the game, because those who know their history would soon start to wonder just what other fantasies are going to occur in a game of WiF.


It's a game about alternate choices and therefore alternate results. I'm more concerned about silly tactics (like various strategies to prolong the existence of Italy) than what might happen if China is left pretty much alone by Japan.

The Black Widow can cover a substantial part of Europe with its interception range. Nice to have, to ensure that you've always got SOME kind of cover for important areas, especially later in the turn.
I've always seen it as a 10-range bomber because we play with the Twin-engine option. Makes a huge difference.
Paul
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: paulderynck
ORIGINAL: doctormm
The Black Widow can cover a substantial part of Europe with its interception range. Nice to have, to ensure that you've always got SOME kind of cover for important areas, especially later in the turn.
I've always seen it as a 10-range bomber because we play with the Twin-engine option. Makes a huge difference.
Same. In the Pacific.
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Froonp »

Here is my take at 3.4.4 Deploying Naval Units for the Players Manual.


Naval unit’s deployment in MWiF is an art in itself. Naval units normally sail just twice during a turn, once to reach the patrol area, once to return to safe the haven of a port (unless they are reorganized and can sail again). They can fight virtually an unlimited number of naval battles against enemy ships, but kind of air units can only “act” once in regards to sea to land operations (shore bombardment, loading, unloading troops, air missions).

Task Forces’ composition
The first thing to master to have an edge at sea is the Task Forces’ composition. Normally you assemble Task Forces for special tasks, as their name means, but there are important characteristics of Task Forces that can enter in the decision too, which are :
• Speed & Range. Try to gather ships with comparable speeds. It is easier to plan their moves thereafter. The best is to have fleet(s) of ships that have a speed of 6, fleet(s) of ships that have a speed of 5, and fleet(s) of ships that have a speed of 4. Ships with lower speeds usually are useless in fleets, and are used in convoy escort duties. You’ll gather / arrange your various fleets depending on your needs from turn to turn, but having stable Task Forces across some game turns will help you assess your own forces, and help you organize yourself.
• Number of ships (Target Size). 4, 7, 11, 16, 22, 29. These are the maximum sizes of each row of the Naval Combat Chart. Having 8 ships is worse than having 7 ships, because for only 1 extra ship you are representing a significant larger target size. My experience is that 7 or 11 ships were the best sizes for medium sized Task Forces. Above 11 ships, you generally don’t bother anymore for your target size.
• Air to Air strength. If you can, evaluate the air-to-air strength of the enemy in the sea area you will operate, and build a Task Force that have, with or without land-based air units, the right air-to-air strength. Superior if you need that, or at least comparable If you don’t need to be superior. My experience is that I always try to reach +2 in provisional air to-air strength when I am in situation of air superiority. I may need more, and I’ll use more in that case, but that’s a general rule of thumb to try to evaluate what I need to send. Avoid massing too much unneeded forces in the same task force, they will be missed elsewhere.

Other important characteristics :
• Air to sea factors. You need to have some, obviously, otherwise you lack teeth.
• Surface combat factors. Same, but you will use it much less often. You may never use that for all the game.
• Shore bombardment factors. If it is a shore bombardment fleet, you need to evaluate how much shore bombardment you need for your upcoming invasions, or land combat, and also for the probable enemy counter attack.
• AA strength. When in doubt between two ships, take the one with the most AA.
• If possible, include a weak / cheap / non important ship in your Task Force for a cheap first loss.

Personally, I like to have many medium sized Task Forces, which I arrange and re-arrange within themselves from turn to turn depending on my needs, as if they were modules. I rarely change the composition of those medium sized Task Forces, except when better ships arrive or when I have losses.

Sorties
You need to plan your sorties carefully. Remember that if you sail your “big fleet” somewhere for example, this will also mean that your “big fleet” won’t be somewhere else, so the enemy could take advantage of where you’re not to do something nasty to you. Where you are not, can be more important than where you are.

You should always analyse the situation both by asking yourself where you need to strike the enemy to pursue your global strategy, but also where the enemy could strike you to pursue his own global strategy, even if his global strategy is only to make your life a misery conquering him.

You can also analyse the situation seeking what you might be able to do with your fleets that would oblige your enemy to do something you want him to do with his fleets, that would benefit him less than if he had done something else. Some kind of distraction mission.

Having analysed the situation, you will sail the fleets you need in order to accomplish the tasks that your global strategy needs, and you will also cover the places where you think your enemy could harm you (now that you have moved your ships somewhere) with other (reserve) fleets, or rather land based air units (that can be quite dissuasive by themselves). These cover fleets can either be sailed into the possibly threatened places for immediate defence, or simply held in reserve in a port, able to jump on the enemy after he will have moved.

When you are on the “reacting side” of the naval war (it is your enemy that has the strategic initiative, and you only react most of the time), you need to analyse the enemy’s fleet placements and try to understand his strategic goals. Then see if you can counter them by sailing in the same sea area and seek battle, or if you can counter them by sailing somewhere else, or if it is preferable to sail somewhere else again to take advantage of the enemy being absent from there to achieve some of your own goals, or simply not sail at all.

Land-based air units
Land-based air units are everything at sea. They literally rule the seas. There is nothing that fleets not accompanied with their own air power (CVs) can do in places where Land-based air units abound, so they should not even try. Remember the Repulse & Prince of Wales and the Bismarck for example, and never trust your AA to repel the enemy land-based bombers, even if sometimes AA can make miracles.

As a naval power that seeks to “gain ground” at sea, you should always first aim at gaining new airbases (islands with ports are the most preferable when there is no continent nearby) to base your Land-based air units to contest the enemy’s Land-based air units (unless there are none, but in that case there is nothing to difficult to do to “gain ground”), to contest the sea area.

Deploying Land-based air units at sea obeys the same general rules as deploying the fleets at sea, because air units at sea are treated about the same way as ships : They patrol the 5 sea boxes, and stay at sea for all the turn, or many turns maybe. A difference is that they can’t generally patrol sea areas that are not very near their base, contrarily to ships that can patrol very far way from their bases (example, air units in Pearl Harbor will be able to patrol the 3 adjacent sea areas without problems, but not more far, while naval units in Pearl Harbor will be able to patrol sea areas as far as the China Sea).

Convoy escort duties
The Sea Box Sections to cover with escorting ships are :
• Section 0 : always, because the convoys are here. Normal escort size : 2-3 ships to reach 4-6 ASW points. Air unit if possible, to deny 4 surprise points to the enemy.
• Section 4 : desirable, because this is from this section that the raiders & SUBs will be found and hurt. Normal escort size : 2-3 ships to reach 4-6 ASW points. Air unit if possible, to better find the enemy.
• Section 1 : if possible, because the ships that sail here will be sailing in section 0 during the first impulse of the next turn, and will be the only defence of the convoys if you play second.

The minimum escort size would be 1-2 ship where there is a very little chance of enemy raiding, 2-3 ships in places with some chances of enemy raiding, and 3+ ships or more in places with large chances of enemy raiding. Air units are very desirable in section 0 (remember they can often come here using a naval interception move, to spare air missions), and section 4.

At the end of the turn the ships in Sea Box Section 1 move down to the Sea Box Section 0, the ships in Sea Box Section 4 move down to the Sea Box Section 3 and the ships in Sea Box Section 0 return to base (except CP and ASW that stay here). During the first naval action that follows, you should move the ships that are in the Sea Box Section 3 to the Sea Box Section 1 and the ships that rebased home last turn to the Sea Box Section 4 (cruisers).

For example, for the CW during most of the Battle of the Atlantic (end 40 / early 43)
• Places with large chances of enemy raiding would be the Bay of Biscay (very high chances here), the Faeroes, the North Atlantic and the Cape St Vincent.
• Places with some chances of enemy raiding would be those sea areas that are just away from those cited above.
• Places with very little chance of enemy raiding would be the rest of the sea areas that the Euro Axis could reach.

Also, try to arrange to have spare ships to replace some losses, and especially spare convoy points to replace the convoy losses. Having reorganization power near the port where you have returned to base your aborted ships can be good to help replace the losses.

Raiding the enemy
SUBs
SUB raiding major powers are Germany & Italy (combined most of the time), Japan and the USA. The CW in a much lesser extends. They follow the same rules, that are :
• SUBs need to be numerous to achieve something durable. As much as 10-15 SUBs on a theatre is a respectable quantity that will achieve havoc in your enemy convoy lines. 5-10 SUBs on a theatre is a fair number that you can aim at reaching easily, that will give you good results, and less than 5 is nearly harmless.
• Have a steady BP rate of SUB construction / repairs to keep up the number.
• Avoid daring too much. There are sea areas that are death traps for the SUBs, these are the ones where there is fine weather and plenty of LBA available to cover section 4. Be wary of sudden weather changes.
• Don’t hesitate to sortie on bad weather. Storm & blizzard reduces the chances of scoring, but also reduces the enemy’s chances against you.
• Search often, possibly each impulse. You can vary the major power that is initiating the searches in a sea area. Italy can initiate for Germany, the CW for the USA or vice versa, just plan this from the start by mixing your SUBs as much as you can with allied major power’s SUBs.

Raiders
Raiders are less efficient as SUBs, and more at risk because they can’t choose to avoid combat as SUBs can.
• Strike where the enemy aren’t. If possible, strike where it is not escorted, far away from possible warships that could come hunting you.
• Spread up as much as possible so that the enemy spreads up seeking you.
• Abort combat if the place becomes too hot. There is no loss of pride saving a ship.
• Don’t risk precious powerful warships in raiding (Personally I’m very cautious with the Mogami and the Baltimore classes, that I prefer not to waste raiding as they are much more useful at fleet tasks, Mogami for their very good surface and defence factors, Baltimore for their high AA factor.
• Try varying the places where you hunt to keep the enemy on his toes, and to spread out his defence as much as possible.

General useful trickeries
You have to know a number of tricks on the MWiF oceans :
• Have fleets (or just SUBs) placed on the enemy’s way back from the Sea Area where you intend to fight him, so that you can try and intercept the damaged & aborted ships at an advantage. This looks like a stab in the back, but no one ever said that war at sea had to be fair.
• In the same idea, stay at sea at the end of the turn to intercept enemy ships that return to base across a sea area where you’re strong and in high sea box section. Obviously, this is even better when you’re the non phasing player, as you’ll know the decision of the phasing player whether to stay or not in each sea area.
• Stay at sea at the end of the turn to avoid having to take a naval action next turn (when you are busy with land campaigns) to sail your ships again. This is at the cost of lowering the efficiency of all those ships, but it may be better than to have to sail them again at the expense of a precious land action.

Safe Haven
• When basing important ships in a port, try to choose ports that have a back door. These are ports with more than 1 sea area adjacent. Ports adjacent to 3 sea areas are the most preferred. This ensures better supply, and a back door to flee in case of threat.
• Never have your important fleets based in port without land forces. This is too easy for your opponent to just invade here, and worse, to have his fleet intercept your fleeing fleet in case of success.
• Be careful that the ports where you place important fleets are in supply from multiple paths, because being out of supply in a port is the worst a fleet can suffer (except being sunk) as it becomes harmless.
• When an important and defenceless ship return to base in a port (either by accident or by need), consider returning to base a couple of warships with comparable speed & range in the same port to escort her when this ship will leaves that port next turn. It is entirely possible that enemy warships will blockade that port, and having 2-3 escorts with her will allow her to sail with some protection with only 1 naval move.
• When you return to base in a port, check that there is no immediate Port Attack threat in the vicinity. Take into account the possible reinforcements that the enemy might have at the beginning of next turn, and the disrupted air units that could be reorganized, or simply threatening next turn if they move first.

Reorganisation
Reorganization, for naval units, is less interesting than for air or land units, first because you can’t reorganize ships at sea, and second because naval units tend to have to work as Task Forces to be useful. There is usually no point in reorganising only 1-2 ships.

What would be better needed is to reorganize whole fleets or reorganise ships at sea, and those are only possible with the old version of the naval Offensive Chit.

But there interesting cases :
• Reorganizing sea lift (AMPH, TRS) after it has unloaded its cargo in a port. Only possible with cases 1, 5 and 6 below, where the sea lift ends its move in a port. This enable the sea lift to be used again, either to flee an endangered port, or to relocate to a port where there is a need to transport something out, or simply to immediately transport something else, or the three at the same time.
• Reorganizing aborted convoy escorts, or convoy points, so that they can sail again to fill in some holes caused by enemy raiding.
• Reorganizing key naval units that either got aborted during a previous combat at sea, or just arrived (disorganized) from the homeland as reinforcements, into a port that is near the warzone, with the goal of either sailing that ship as soon as possible in a key sea area where you need it or simply to sail it somewhere else.

Port Attacks
Ports attack can be deadly, but they are more often quite harmless. The real thing is that surprise port attacks are deadly, but regular port attacks are not that deadly.

Three reasons why Port Attacks are more often are quite harmless are :
• The ships in the port are in section 3 or 5, and the attacking planes are in section 3 if they are LBA, or section 4 at best if they come from the sea (counting as 5 if the CVP have sufficient range). So the initial surprise is more in favour of the defender and it all will depend on the search rolls. If the enemy rolls 3-4 less than you on the search rolls, he will cancel the combat. Your air unit will be disorganized for nothing.
• The Port Attack only has 1 round, thus no second chance.
• Half of the time, sunk ships won’t be really sunk, only bottomed (if playing that optional rule), much decreasing your attack efficiency because instead of having dispatched a naval unit, you only have rendered it useless for 5 6 turns, 3-4 for a TRS / AMPH.

Surprise Port Attacks on the other hand are nearly always very deadly, because the ships port struck are considered to have 0 surprise points, so the surprise points of the attacking force can be quite high. 15 max if the enemy rolls a 10 for the search roll and you are in section 4 counting as 5 because of CVP that have good range, and 15 surprise points is really huge as they allow you for example to increase your Naval Combat Chart 6 rows and select a target, which means that you will choose the 3 first targets in a row).

Bottom line is :
• When you have a Port Attack opportunity, don’t jump on it blindly, but analyse carefully the chances of success versus the air units that you won’t be able to use for something else later (except fight at sea).
• And more importantly, when you are threatened by a Port Attack, don’t hastily order your fleet out, because the enemy might benefit better from battling you at sea (unlimited combat rounds at sea, versus only 1 combat round in the port) than in your port. The enemy might only be baiting you to sortie. If you can leave from a back door (with ports that have more than one sea area adjacent) you can do that to end the threat, but this might be exactly be what the enemy is trying to make you do, so that he is free in turn to do something else.

Invasions
• When planning invasions, plan all your fleets with the necessary resources that your invasion combat will need (mainly air support & shore bombardment), but also plan enough resources for an eventual enemy’s counter attack as this is the moment when you’re the most vulnerable. Eventually, think in advance to spare 1 air mission to rebase a fighter air unit to the island you will just have conquered, to protect it against enemy air units that could help counterattacks.
• When (strategically) reacting to the enemy, try to always keep a counter invasion force that could be able to counter invade a place that the enemy just have invaded. The reason is that the enemy is often the most vulnerable just after having invaded, as his air units might be depleted, his shore bombardment might be depleted too, his land units may be disrupted, etc…

Transport Duties
You need to know all the ways to transport and unload units here & there. They are :

[here I have a diagram I had made to help people grasp all the sea transport concepts -- included at the bottom of this post]

Case 1 is the classic Port to port naval move. Very useful as the transported unit arrives without disorganizing and is ready for action.
Case 3 is loading by stopping its move in the sea area.
Cases 4 & 5 are loading by moving through a port. This is very important to master those ways. Case 4 is during a return to base naval move.

Supporting production
Carrier Planes
Carrier Planes will suffer a lot from air to sea combats. Air-to-air combat in itself is very damaging, and anti-air should not be underestimated, it destroys a lot of CVP, more than air-to-air combat sometimes.
To cope with those losses, you must, as a naval country, have a regular output of CVP from your factories. 1-2 per turn for the CW & Japan, and more for the USA, it can be 3-5 per turn. This regular output will also be necessary to keep the CV filled with the best CVP, even when the CV size is lowering each year and new better CVP can fit onto the CVs. Lacking this output, you will find yourself with empty or undermanned CVs, and this will mean that your CVs are becoming useless. There is no interest in having 20 CVs, If some of them are empty and some are undermanned. Better in that case to have only 15 CV.

Damaged ships
You should repair your best damaged ships quickly. It is cheaper & quicker to repair a ship than to have a new ship built, even if a better one. Neglecting to repair ships can lead to severe lack of warships later in the war when all those damaged ships will add up in a large miss of warships.
You should always repair the AMPH & TRS, except the worst one (3 movers) when you don’t need them.

Building a fleet
As the USA particularly, and also for Japan, your fleet is not ready to fight WW2 at game start. You should decide of what you need and have your build plan made up from day 1 so that you have what you think you need to win the battles that will allow you to gain the ground.



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Froonp
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RE: What kind of manual(s) should we ask for?

Post by Froonp »

I wanted to add a couple of remarks here.
ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost

Since nobody else has tried the section on HQ and ARM, I have made a first cut at it. My experience with Final Eddition is limited to CWiF, but this part of the rules does not appear to have changed significantly since the older versions, so my experience should still be of use.
On the contrary, the 2d10 CRT and the Blitz modifiers optional rules put a heavier emphasis on Armored units. I don't remember if the 2d10 CRT was part of CWiF. I seem to remember it was indeed, so maybe my remark is moot.
3.4.5 Using HQs and Armor

These are the 2 most important types of land units. By proper use of HQs and armor (supported by other land units, air, and navy), you can control the pace of the game.

The use of headquarters is a trade-off between two competing needs: supply lines and reorganization.

It has been said that amateurs study tactics and professionals study logistics. Examine the rules for supply (insert section reference here), and you see that the “secondary supply source” is often an HQ. Unless you are fighting in or very near your home country, you will need to have an HQ within a few hexes of a ground or air unit in order to operate at full effectiveness. Thus you want to have your HQs keep up with your front-line combat units.

On the other hand, if your units are disrupted, they are through for the rest of the turn. The reorganization capacity of the HQ lets the units fight again. If you use the HQ to reorganize one or more units, the HQ is disrupted, and can no longer advance to supply your front-line units.

As a further consideration, one of the optional rules allows an HQ to improve odds in attack or defense. This use disrupts the HQ and prevents its use for either of the other purposes. If you play with this optional rule, you will also have to balance this need with the other two.

This is where the trade-off comes in. You will have to decide for yourself what the proper balance is between combat support, reorganization, and supply, but some general guidelines for the placement and use of HQs can be given.

If your opponent has superiority in ground forces at the front, avoid placing an HQ directly into the front line where it is vulnerable, unless the position is one which you must hold (for example, Gibraltar is often considered the most important hex in the game). By placing and HQ in or adjacent to such a hex, you can lower your opponent’s chance of taking it.

If your opponent has strong tactical air units, try to place your HQ in a hex beyond his air units’ ranges or in a terrain type that halves tactical air factors. If no such position is available (for example, France lacks “strategic depth”), assign a fighter or AA unit to defend the HQ if possible.

If you are playing with oil-dependent units, the reorganization of your HQ will burn oil that could have gone to other units or to your hungry factories. Sometimes, this is a necessary price, but consider the situation when choosing. Examine the weather chart and where you are in the turn. Use of the HQ for reorganization may have a prohibitive “opportunity cost” in poor weather or late in the turn. Weather is unpredictable, but the chart can give you an idea of probability of poor weather. Poor weather reduces the supply range, and requires your HQs to be closer to the front. If the turn is about to end, the reorganization will have been wasted.

If you manage to find the proper balance, your HQs can allow your units a second crack at a key point, or sustain a drive deep into enemy territory. When you do make that drive, you will find that the spearhead will usually be armored units.

The choice of combat table will often rest with the combatant with the most armor engaged in the battle. The choice of combat table will control the pace of advance. In addition, most armor has high movement and combat factors. The combination of these two effects allows an armored attack to rapidly advance to an enemy position and possibly breakthrough to cut off his units. Thus, the one with the most armor at the point of decision will determine if it is blitzkrieg or sitzkrieg.

Note where your opponent is massing his armor, and you will have an idea of his main front.

So, does this mean that you should always strive to have the most armor on all fronts? No. Note the phrase “at the point of decision”. If it is a secondary front (or area of one front) or a place in which you can afford to fall back, be willing to concede the advantage to your opponent in order to gain it elsewhere. Historically, in the summer of 1941, a small fraction of German and British armor was near the English Channel. The two sides considered France secondary, the Germans due to having conquered it and the British due to a calculation that they were not strong enough to invade. Both side sent their armor elsewhere to gain an advantage over their other foes.

Certain terrain types permit the defender to always choose the combat table. Their high combat factor will tempt you to use armor in attacks on enemy cities and mountains. Especially if playing with oil-dependent units, you should only do so if the position is important. A smart defender will see his chance to disrupt your critical armored units and use the assault table, especially since this will prevent breakthrough results. Sometimes, the position is important (e.g., an Allied attack on Berlin or counter-attack on Moscow), and armor may make the difference. If so, use it.
Also, I wanted to add that armored units were very mobile, and that I experienced in the Russian front where the terrain is very armor friendly, that the armor (& mech) could strike literaly anywhere whithin a part of the frontline, allowing to quickly shift the major axis of an offensive from one point of the enemy front that is strengthening to a point not very far away (1 impulse away, that is 3-6 movement point away) that is weakening (because of the strengthening of the first point). This shift of the axis of the offensive can be very very swift, and you always need to be cautious when there are a lot of armor on the other side because they can strike where you are weakening.

Don't know If I made myself clear... [:(]
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