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Stalingrad - 5/8/2003 7:05:15 PM

Tequila

Posts: 52
Joined: 5/8/2003
Status: offline

Hello :)

I've been lurking for a couple weeks now and finally registered. I was quite the SP1 addict back in the mid 90's so I was thrilled to hear about SPWAW. I had to reaquaint myself with the complexity of this game, thank god for those tutorials :)

Anyway I got some questions about Stalingrad and SPWAW. I downloaded the latest version of Stalingrad and so far it's been going good. I got a MV on scen1(escort supply convoy) and a DV on scen2(don basin). This is with all options on except C&C, I'm not quite ready for that yet.

My core force consists of:

1 FJ Company which includes 4 80mm mortars. Replaced the AT platoon with a Spec Ops platoon.
2 snipers
1 PzIV-f2 platoon
1 StugIII-F platoon
1 Flammenpanzer II section
1 SdKfz 221 platoon(recon)
1 FO
1 Ammo truck section
1 PzA LrS platoon (150mm mobile arty)
1 SdKfz 10/4 platoon (mobile AA)

I'm extremely happy with the flammenpanzer, yeesh those guys are plain nasty against infrantry, nice pyro animation to boot :) Between the 150mm arty and 80mm mortars I have plenty of suppression power. The FJ troops have worked out very well, the extra morale and experience seems to have payed off over regular GE troops. I'm not too thrilled about the Stugs though. They have half the ammo than the PzIV plus are turretless which means poor spotting and only have one MG and have lower Fire Control and Range Finder values. I'm thinking about just converting them all to PzIVs. I have yet to see the Red Airforce so I'm hoping the 4 AAs I have don't go to waste :) Everything else I'm happy with.

The one thing I'm worried about is if I have enough infantry. A company sounds like a lot but once I get to Stalingrad I wonder if that will be enough.

Crap, my mind is going from playing this game so much. I forgot what else I was going to ask lol. I'll get some sleep and figure that out tomorrow and edit my post :)

Thanks for listening.

Post #: 1

- 5/8/2003 7:23:27 PM

Belisarius

Posts: 4041
Joined: 5/26/2001
From: Gothenburg, Sweden
Status: offline

Welcome to the forums, Tequila! :D

Cool that you're enjoying the campaign. The flammpanzers are great, especially when it comes to close-quarters fighting. Keep them alive...

Think your core force looks good. I wouldn't be too sure to rule the StuGs out just yet - yes they're not as good offensive weapons as the PzIV, but they are small. I'd use them together with the PzIVs - if nothing else to soak up shots from the enemy. :)

About the AA's; hey, if the red airforce doesn't show up, you can always grind up some infantry and light armor. :p A company of infantry seems a bit light, and so does your recon. A platoon of 221's and a pair of snipers won't tell you much. What do you pick for extra forces outside your core? I'd go with a few recon teams if I were you...

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Post #: 2

- 5/9/2003 12:11:46 AM

rbrunsman

Posts: 1837
Joined: 1/31/2002
From: Phoenix, AZ
Status: offline

Welcome Tequila!

I haven't played Stalingrad, but I question having an ammo truck section in your core force. And, mobile AA for the Germans isn't going to stand up to much fire from the enemy. I'd swap them out for something else, like regular infantry.

Keep the Stugs. They make your force more realistic. And use them to draw fire and as infantry support. They tear up infantry at close range. Plus they are alot cheaper than PzIV-f2 IIRC. At least yours Stugs have MGs. In MCLV you don't get MGs. But I love them anyway. If you want to upgrade them to StuH42s that would be good. Those have 105mm guns so you get splash damage.

Again, I haven't played Stalingrad, but those 150mm arty tubes aren't going to do you much good when you are trying to fight house to house in the city. You'll want precision mortar fire for that, so get 8cm mortars instead.

Just my two cents worth.

Bob

_____________________________

Everyone is a potential [PBEM] enemy, every place a potential [PBEM] battlefield. --Zensunni Wisdom

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Post #: 3

- 5/9/2003 12:38:47 AM

Tequila

Posts: 52
Joined: 5/8/2003
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Ah, good point about the Stug size, I failed to notice it was one less than the PzIV. And upgrading to StuH42 is a good idea once those are available, the 105mm howitzer should come in handy against entrenched infantry once I reach the city :)

The reason I always pick two ammo trucks in my core is too keep a steady supply of ammo to my mortors and arty since I play with reduced ammo on. I never rely on support points for ammo trucks, in fact the first scen of Stalingrad you only get 95pts and nothing in the second scen so that would have ruled out any chance of ammo support :)

I'll mull over the mobile AA a bit. Maybe I'll convert 2 of those to 88s for better air protection and can also use for AT role...

I'm also thinking about upgrading one FJ in each platoon to a GE FT engineer. I figure the flamethrower unit will come in handy when it's too dangerous to call in a flametank.

Thanks for the ideas, keep them coming..

(in reply to Tequila)

Post #: 4

- 5/9/2003 3:46:51 AM

Belisarius

Posts: 4041
Joined: 5/26/2001
From: Gothenburg, Sweden
Status: offline

Yeah, i forgot the upgrading to StuH part. They are among my favourite weapons...deadly. You'll whack infantry as well as T-34s with those!

If they should be included in the core force I'm not sure, but with German mortars you've got to have ammo trucks around. And keep the 150's as well. Rbrunsman says it won't be good for house-to-house? Well, neither will 81mm, since they won't be able to knock the roof in as fast. They are suppression weapons. Keep the 150's, use them with sense to take out strongholds.

Upgrading to engineers is a good idea. Flamethrowers are necessary in house-to-house fighting and it can be gruesome to get a flametank into LOS without exposing its rear.

Also, engineers clear mines. Extremely useful.

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Post #: 5

Re: Stalingrad - 5/10/2003 12:16:20 AM

BryanMelvin

Posts: 1555
Joined: 7/28/2000
From: Colorado, USA
Status: offline

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tequila
[B]Hello :)

I've been lurking for a couple weeks now and finally registered. I was quite the SP1 addict back in the mid 90's so I was thrilled to hear about SPWAW. I had to reaquaint myself with the complexity of this game, thank god for those tutorials :)

Anyway I got some questions about Stalingrad and SPWAW. I downloaded the latest version of Stalingrad and so far it's been going good. I got a MV on scen1(escort supply convoy) and a DV on scen2(don basin). This is with all options on except C&C, I'm not quite ready for that yet.

My core force consists of:

1 FJ Company which includes 4 80mm mortars. Replaced the AT platoon with a Spec Ops platoon.
2 snipers
1 PzIV-f2 platoon
1 StugIII-F platoon
1 Flammenpanzer II section
1 SdKfz 221 platoon(recon)
1 FO
1 Ammo truck section
1 PzA LrS platoon (150mm mobile arty)
1 SdKfz 10/4 platoon (mobile AA)

I'm extremely happy with the flammenpanzer, yeesh those guys are plain nasty against infrantry, nice pyro animation to boot :) Between the 150mm arty and 80mm mortars I have plenty of suppression power. The FJ troops have worked out very well, the extra morale and experience seems to have payed off over regular GE troops. I'm not too thrilled about the Stugs though. They have half the ammo than the PzIV plus are turretless which means poor spotting and only have one MG and have lower Fire Control and Range Finder values. I'm thinking about just converting them all to PzIVs. I have yet to see the Red Airforce so I'm hoping the 4 AAs I have don't go to waste :) Everything else I'm happy with.

The one thing I'm worried about is if I have enough infantry. A company sounds like a lot but once I get to Stalingrad I wonder if that will be enough.

Crap, my mind is going from playing this game so much. I forgot what else I was going to ask lol. I'll get some sleep and figure that out tomorrow and edit my post :)

Thanks for listening. [/B][/QUOTE]

Yes, one Ammo Truck will come in handy for Mobile Artillery. I would suggest upgrade one ammo truck and plus a recon half-track to a SPA Mobile Mortar or a Nebelwefer - which works well with the one remaining Ammo truck to supply these.

As for Infantry, a company is what is required. Support units provided in game have infantry supplied.

Good luck in the game and remember to save each battle from tne begining and one at the last turn of each battle and store these for future plays ;)

_____________________________

MarauderMel

http://www.wargamer.com/hosted/Steelpanthers/index.asp

(in reply to Tequila)

Post #: 6

- 5/10/2003 6:22:56 AM

rbrunsman

Posts: 1837
Joined: 1/31/2002
From: Phoenix, AZ
Status: offline

Keep in mind when playing the Russians that there will be lots of them.:eek: You could have all elite troops, but it's not going to do you much good if you have 10,000 angry Ivans running at your few elite men. They simply won't have enough op fire to handle the waves of soldiers. (Picture the movie Black Hawk Down.) So, the point is, you need to balance quality with quantity when fighting Russians, if you get my meaning.

I still say having more precision mortars are better than fewer inaccurate 150s.:p

_____________________________

Everyone is a potential [PBEM] enemy, every place a potential [PBEM] battlefield. --Zensunni Wisdom

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Post #: 7

- 5/10/2003 3:07:29 PM

Tequila

Posts: 52
Joined: 5/8/2003
Status: offline

Ok just finished the 3rd battle, omg what massive tank battle that was! Those auxillary Marder IIs saved the day, I'll explain after a bit :) Before it started I upgraded the following:

- The 3 recon SdKfz 221 to SdKfz 250/1. The 250/1 recon HTs are nice because they fit a 4-man recon team.

- The 2 snipers to GE Recon Patrol(4-men). Not as good spotting as snipers but much more survibility when spotted. I really like these guys, they can give a 10-man Soviet crew a run for their money before retreating.

- In each of my FJ platoons I upgraded one FJ to a GE FT. Worked out nicely in the big battle in the middle village.

For support I bought 8 cargo planes to airlift some FJs hehe. They landed without incident at the far west of the middle village. I wish I had airlifted my whole company, I had enough aux infantry to help out in Sector A. I bought some artillery but skipped on anything else which almost cost me in the end because I didn't realize I'd be in the battle for my life with all those T-34s and KV-1s flanking my arse. :mad:

After roasting all the T-60s, Stuarts, and miscellaneous low-end russian and allied tanks in the initial battle in sector A I was starting my trek toward the two wooded areas to the south, ready to deposit my infantry. Sector B was a massacre also -- I had high ground in both sectors. In Sector A I head south toward the two wooded areas with my infantry behind the tanks. Suddenly I'm flanked to the east and west by T34s and KV-1s! I counted around 14 T34s to the west and about 10-12 KV-1s and T34s to the east. My tanks up there were caught in a wedge and were being shot at from every direction and lighting the sky with their firely death. Two things saved me from total defeat: Marder IIs which I did remember to keep parked up high and the support aircraft. But that wasn't all, in Sector B I noticed a slew of T34 model 42 tanks coming up the road also. Ouch, these guys are even better armored, 60mm of frontal glacis armor at 60 degrees equals .... uh I'm thinking around 130ish mm of effective armor to penetrate nooooo!! But I have the height advantage in this sector for all my tanks and two MarderIIs to help.

There was a point where I was really worried if I'd come out of this alive and even considered just restarting the whole scenario. I didn't panic however and made sure to set the range on the Marder IIs to 1 so they wouldn't go spastic with op-fire switching targets thereby losing accuracy. I let my PzIVs take the brunt of the fire and when it was my turn I was burying those T-34s in one shot with the Marder IIs.

After finally turning those evil Russian tanks aside I did a count on the kills from the Marder IIs --- holy sheet, 30 kills between them all!! After that it was cake, I linked up my core tanks in Sector B with the FJs that were drunk from some apple schnapps they sneaked aboard the cargo planes and they combined to take the village in the middle quite easily. Two flametanks and three FT engineers went a little crazy and barbequed the whole village. Note: No schnapps for the pyros next time.

Twas a great scenario. I was mentally exhausted after that one lol. Next time I'm not rushing so many tanks to support my infantry... must remember to keep some back to guard the flanks better.

Results:

German: 19948 pts
Soviets: 6510 pts

Marginal Victory.

I'm quite happy with it, especially considering at one point I was wondering if I'd be lucky to get a draw :)

Campaign: 2 MV 1DV for 7pts. Next up is linking with the Six Army.

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Post #: 8

- 5/11/2003 5:16:00 AM

BryanMelvin

Posts: 1555
Joined: 7/28/2000
From: Colorado, USA
Status: offline

Nice work Tequila,

Beware - paradrops can be costly later on ;)

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http://www.wargamer.com/hosted/Steelpanthers/index.asp

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Post #: 9

- 5/11/2003 11:46:45 PM

Raskolnikov

Posts: 52
Joined: 4/12/2002
From: London, England
Status: offline

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BryanMelvin
[B]Beware - paradrops can be costly later on ;) [/B][/QUOTE]

I found paradrops exceptionally useful at least once during the S'grad campaign - principally in Battle #6. The first time I played it through, I slogged my way up the hill and through the streets. Afterwards, as I often do, I decided to experiment with alternative approaches and dropped an FJ Co onto the hill. Combined with the use of Arty Smoke to obscure frontal vision, I was able to annihilate the SO forces with extreme ease. The key lay in parachuting in [I]behind[/I] where I expecting SO defences to be. The FJ were then able to take out the GE HQ, Onb Arty and AAA before moving up to the crest of the hill to assault the pillboxes etc.

In my experience, airborne assaults either work very well or not at all. I have also used them successfully in the Normandy campaign (BR) and in North Africa/Italy (US). Of course, there are also numerous battlefields across Europe where bloodied paratroops lie in heaps as a result of their transports running into heavy AAA concentration. Airborne assaults are not for every mission - and are definetly not suitable for the ridiculous anti-AAA mission in the S'grad campaign referred to above - but if you think you know [I]where[/I] the enemy is, and especially if they have numerous fortifications, then they can be decisive.

Unless you're British, of course. Ever tried to launch an airborne assault when your men are armed with Sten guns? :mad:
Try it for a laugh.;)

Rask.

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Post #: 10

- 5/12/2003 11:40:39 AM

Grenadier

Posts: 981
Joined: 5/10/2000
From: Newport Beach, CA USA
Status: offline

The core force looks balanced . I also used ammo trucks, mainly to keep my nebelwerfers amd wurfrahmens supplied. In the city the pinpoint mortars will be a godsend:D

Watch using the FJ's in uncontrolled sections. Someone did that and had almost the entire force wiped out by a Soviet counterattack.

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Post #: 11

- 5/12/2003 4:27:16 PM

Tequila

Posts: 52
Joined: 5/8/2003
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Sheesh, this game is addicting :) Spent the whole weekend playing it lol. I played 4 more battles in that time. I did find 50 minutes in that weekend for a nice run on the beach at least :cool:

Let's see as I recall it went like this:

4th battle: Link up with the Six Army. This was a pretty big map with lots of trenches and a village at the very east end. It was a total bloodbath, the trench battles were very intense. I felt lucky to pull out an MV here.

5th battle: Ah... much smaller map and a village assault. Man I love these kind of scenarios! Every square inch of it was filled with Russians it seemed. I took all the VHs on the 10th turn but unfortunately the battle ended up a draw.

6th battle: Another small map and this time I go on the defensive. This was a nice change of pace from all the attacking scenarios. Poor russkies didn't stand a chance on this one. Pulled out an easy DV.

7th battle: Attack a village surrounded manned er should I saw womened hehe with AA. Egads, I really learned to hate AA after this :mad: Only way to deal with it is heavy smoke and suppression. Bought three recon teams and mixed them in with my infantry so they could spot the AA fast and I could call in the mortors. Tough fight but squeaked out an MV. Defintely not a map to paradrop :D

So that makes 2 DV 4 MV 1 Draw for 14pts so far. **** you for making this such and addicting campaign, Bryan :mad:

Oh and I replaced one platoon of FJ with a plain old GE rifle. Two reasons: one to make the mix more realistic and two is I'm a bit worried about the FJ ammo supply during long scenarios. They carry half the ammo of a riflle squad. I'm thinking about replacing another platoon with SS rifle but I'm short on points right now :eek:

Also upgraded the 81mm mortars with the SP mortar 251/2. Definitely a good recommendation there thanks :)

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Post #: 12

- 5/12/2003 11:06:49 PM

BryanMelvin

Posts: 1555
Joined: 7/28/2000
From: Colorado, USA
Status: offline

Tequila, Your off to Stalingrad soon but another easy diversion till you reach there :eek:

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Post #: 13

- 5/12/2003 11:22:10 PM

Grenadier

Posts: 981
Joined: 5/10/2000
From: Newport Beach, CA USA
Status: offline

A couple of last chances to get some seasoning in on your troops before entering the fire:D :D

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Post #: 14

- 5/13/2003 12:47:53 AM

Tequila

Posts: 52
Joined: 5/8/2003
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Wow, easy diversion indeed hehe. I started off playing just a few rounds to see what it would be like and ended up finishing this battle in about 30 minutes of real time. I had the height advantage and the russians just rushed all their tanks in one spot with nary AA support. They did make a small attempt to flank me from the west but they ran right into a wooded area filled with two platoons of my elite FJs who promptly assaulted about 5 stuarts.

Score: DV
Germans:12508
Russians: 614.

I destroyed 54 russian tanks. 12 of those kills came from an aux 76mm ATG.

Now it's time for Mamayev Kurgan. Ouch, looks like this will take me at least a week to get through it. That's fine, this is what I've been waiting for. :)
.

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Post #: 15

- 5/13/2003 1:54:35 AM

Tequila

Posts: 52
Joined: 5/8/2003
Status: offline

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Raskolnikov
[B]
Unless you're British, of course. Ever tried to launch an airborne assault when your men are armed with Sten guns? :mad:
Try it for a laugh.;)

Rask. [/B][/QUOTE]

:eek: That doesn't sound like fun hehe. Yea I really like the FG 33/40 that the FJs carry with them. Am I right to assume this is the actual FG42 or is it something modified? As I recall not many FG42s were actually made so they mainly supplied the MP40 to the FJs, I'm not sure how this was delt with in SPWAW.

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Post #: 16

A bit off topic - 5/13/2003 5:09:38 PM

Sonni

Posts: 61
Joined: 7/3/2002
From: Finland
Status: offline

or is it?

I am wondering about where to find the updated Stalingrad campaign.

I succesfully messed up my own campaign with the "edit campaign" -function, and I would like to get it the way it was before, plus I would like to see what is new in the updated version.

Thanks beforehand

Sonni

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Post #: 17

- 5/13/2003 10:06:40 PM

Grenadier

Posts: 981
Joined: 5/10/2000
From: Newport Beach, CA USA
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CLICK ON THE BANNER-make sure you get the patch as well

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Post #: 18

- 5/14/2003 1:25:27 AM

Tequila

Posts: 52
Joined: 5/8/2003
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Click that banner then click on the Spotlight link, here's the full url: http://www.militarygameronline.com/steelpanthers/spotlight.asp. and you'll find the Stalingrad campaign a ways down the page. I have to admit that it took me a while to find it. My first inclination was to click on the Scenario link and then the Campaign sub link. Spotlight didn't seem obvious to me at the time :)

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Post #: 19

- 5/14/2003 1:52:03 AM

Jim1954

Posts: 1393
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From: Dallas
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Didn't see the patch there, but here is a link to it.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28947&highlight=stalingrad+patch

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Post #: 20

- 5/14/2003 1:55:39 PM

Sonni

Posts: 61
Joined: 7/3/2002
From: Finland
Status: offline

Thanks a lot guys,

I was a bit puzzled about the Arsenal page, as I thought I had allready checked the scenario archive thoroughly. Well now I know better.

- Sonni -

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Post #: 21

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