How do I ever take any city ever? (Full Version)

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laagamer -> How do I ever take any city ever? (11/22/2021 9:43:44 PM)

Playing the Destruction of the Southwestern Front, and it's literally impossible to ever take any city. Ever.

Kharkov, which I finally reached on turn 15, has a garrison of 43 DV. So, that's not dropping.

Then I keep chipping away towards Dnepropetrovsk, only to find it has a garrison of 52 DV.

I don't have the time to encircle or siege any of these cities.

Odessa never weakens because of it's supply via sea, so that's a dead end.

And trying to rush Perekop is getting me nowhere, because the Romanian infantry might as well be made of paper.

Just so incredibly frustrated.



Teo41_ITA -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/22/2021 9:47:57 PM)

Do you manually handle support units? I found that my best strategy to take the fortified cities is to assign Pioneers and Heavy Cannon/Gun/Artillery battalions to the Corps HQ tasked of taking such cities.

For Odessa, I tried and succeeded several times in besieging the garrison by land and harrassing it by sea using the Romanian air wings. In 3 turn, the DV went from 392 to 58, allowing me to attack and take the city by T12.

Not sure if this helps though! [:)]



Rosencrantus -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/22/2021 9:58:43 PM)

CV values in cities can sometimes be higher than what they actually are once you actually engage the hex. I'm willing to bet that a 43CV city is only one or two rifle divisions with lvl 1 forts or lower; pretty easy to take actually. An attack by a single rested infantry corps with good support units with GS should be enough to take it in one swoop.

You can usually overcome high CV values if you outnumber the enemy a lot. ex 8000 men holding a city with 60-80CV can be routed with 4 15 CV infantry divisions which at full strength is about 65000 men.



DeletedUser44 -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/22/2021 11:02:52 PM)

Agreed. I strongly feel the full range of CV values displayed on unit counters currently way too extreme.

(i think the intent was that higher recon values will help to normalize the CV ranges displayed...)

Except for a few heavily fortified cities, you will find the displayed CV values a gross exaggeration.

----

The real problem becomes that it requires a level of in-game experience (through trial and error) to know when to ignore game-displayed CV values (and use a more likely enemy CV for combat calculations)

Even in the best situation, there is an overly random element to final CV calculations.



Gunner Garidel -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/22/2021 11:18:08 PM)

I won't try to address what you have said from a game standpoint because I'm a newbie. I WILL address it, however, based on my experience in the USMC and many years reading and studying military history.

I'm sure someone will correct me, if I'm wrong, but I believe it was Clausewitz who wrote defense is inherently the stronger form of war by a factor of 3 to 1. This has proven true throughout history. e.g. The USMC island hopping campaign in WW II is a very pertinent [and close to my heart] example. At the Battle of Tarawa it took the 18,000 Marines of the 2nd MarDiv [76] hours to defeat only 4,500 Japanese troops, in spite of the fact the US had Air Supremacy and the firepower of a Navy Task Force at its disposal. This was primarily due to the heavily fortified Betio Island. The 2nd MarDiv had more casualties in the [76] hour battle than the 1st MarDiv suffered in its SIX MONTH campaign at Guadalcanal.

So what's my point? You cannot rely on just throwing bodies at a fortified city. Even if you outnumber the defenders by 3 to 1, you don't take a knife to a gun-fight. As the previous posters pointed out, you need additional support units: assault troops, engineers, artillery, air support, etc, etc, ad nauseum. In war, there's no such thing as too much firepower. Bullets are cheap, dead grunts are expensive....



DeletedUser44 -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/23/2021 12:13:59 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Gunner Garidel

I won't try to address what you have said from a game standpoint because I'm a newbie. I WILL address it, however, based on my experience in the USMC and many years reading and studying military history.

I'm sure someone will correct me, if I'm wrong, but I believe it was Clausewitz who wrote defense is inherently the stronger form of war by a factor of 3 to 1. This has proven true throughout history. e.g. The USMC island hopping campaign in WW II is a very pertinent [and close to my heart] example. At the Battle of Tarawa it took the 18,000 Marines of the 2nd MarDiv [76] hours to defeat only 4,500 Japanese troops, in spite of the fact the US had Air Supremacy and the firepower of a Navy Task Force at its disposal. This was primarily due to the heavily fortified Betio Island. The 2nd MarDiv had more casualties in the [76] hour battle than the 1st MarDiv suffered in its SIX MONTH campaign at Guadalcanal.

So what's my point? You cannot rely on just throwing bodies at a fortified city. Even if you outnumber the defenders by 3 to 1, you don't take a knife to a gun-fight. As the previous posters pointed out, you need additional support units: assault troops, engineers, artillery, air support, etc, etc, ad nauseum. In war, there's no such thing as too much firepower. Bullets are cheap, dead grunts are expensive....


I am a former Marine as well. (Artillery Fire-Direction-Control)

I thoroughly agree with the "3-to-1" ratio and wish the game based its successful combat outcomes on this instead of the current "2-to-1". As a computer scientist, I feel the mathematics involved in using a 3-to-1 baseline facilitates a more uniform combat model.

But anyways... for a new player trying to predict the impact of adding engineers or fortress-busting artillery and air support are further ill-defined and nebulous within the game. (as if fortress-busting is ever defined?) Unfortunately, in-game experience is the only way to get a feel for it. And even then, through trial and error.

There is an overly steep learning curve for new players. I pity the new player who goes head-to-head with anyone with any level of experience.

The CV values currently displayed offer only a bare minimum ability to predict likely combat outcomes.



Sammy5IsAlive -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/23/2021 12:44:21 AM)

General principles - you need to be attacking with troops with high CPPs. So as you are approaching an urban area you need to hold back some divisions in an Assault Army and let them build up their CCPs. As far as possible you want your assault troops to spend a turn with a hex gap to the city to rest and add CPP. As above you need to get a few pioneer and artillery SUs into the attacking Corps. In this scenario There is a siege mortar (classed as artillery) SU that you definitely want involved when attacking an urban area (without wanting to go too deep into detail I think that SU starts in a Corps on T1 so you need to transfer it out before you do any attacks so it doesn't get dragged into unnecessary battles on the frontier). You need to plan ahead with the SUs - they lose half their CPPs on being reassigned so if possible you want them in a couple of turns before your planned attack so they can get the CPPs back.

Going city by city

Odessa - you need to isolate by sea as well as by land. So you need to use the airforce to run naval interdiction around the port. I think the way I would do that is on the turn I expect my ground troops to complete the land isolation set IV Fleigerkorps to run naval ops on Odessa in the air phase, run the AI assist and then cancel any directives it schedules for Odessa. That should get your planes up into workable positions. The next turn in the air phase run the AI assist again but this time let it run the missions (double check that the missions are set to run in both phases although I think the AI should do this for you) and in the ground phase get your assault troops into position to attack on the following turn. I think you'll need to run some form of Naval Ops on that final 'assault turn', but if you have manual control of the air and it might be worth moving one of the LB AOGs to a ground support directive supporting 11A.

Perekop - basically use the German Corps you used for Odessa. There is a fair distance between the two so you have plenty of time to let them build up CPPs (as above you need 11A set as an assault army). The Airlanding Div is very strong so in particular make sure you look after it so it can be involved in the attack. Perekop isn't an urban hex and there is no river crossing in the way so 3x German Divs with high CPPs should blow through anything the Soviets can put in that hex.

So those two above are fairly straightfoward - if you get them and Kiev/Kirovograd you should be on course for a draw and maybe a minor victory if you have beaten the Soviets up enough. To be more comfortable getting a win you need one of D-Town/Kharkhov. In my last play of the scenario I didn't get either. If I was going to play it again I think I'd be taking a few more risks to try and get maybe 1 and a half Panzer Corps from 1PG around Poltava at about the same window as the 2PG units arrive. Essentially you want to consolidate your strongest forces in a position where they could go after either victory location so that the opponent is forced to split their troops.



AlbertN -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/23/2021 2:38:30 AM)

The CV shown is nominal and that is very important. Also it does not change through the combats.

You can attack with a probing unit first to 'scout' the defences and gain recon at the cost of some losses. (Tragedy if it is not just scouting).

Check how close the parent HQ can be - if not a City Fort.
A 3 division held City can be a though nut to crack but if their HQ is at 10 hexes of distance ... that changes the table a lot because the division elements are not going to fight adequately and their CV will be shrunk by buckets as tests are failed and failed and failed.

But in general it is better to encircle and storm later. Attach AA units to the units around the City from the side the enemy air supply can arrive to AA down some of their planes!



Jango32 -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/23/2021 7:33:35 AM)

I always find it weird when the idea of defending being easier than attacking is brought up in the context of World War II. It may be true if both sides involved were identical in all respects, but this was far from the case in World War II. The eastern front data from 1941 to 1945 quite plainly suggests that any advantage from a defensive posture can be neutralized by other factors.



Joel Billings -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/23/2021 9:03:49 PM)

Taking an urban hex that is heavily defended is not likely in WitE2 unless it is isolated. Unless you're dealing with a defense of just one or two weak divisions, a strong defending force that can be resupplied and reinforced is not going to fall (see Stalingrad). Best to bypass and isolate unless only up against a token defense.



baloo7777 -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/23/2021 10:10:59 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Taking an urban hex that is heavily defended is not likely in WitE2 unless it is isolated. Unless you're dealing with a defense of just one or two weak divisions, a strong defending force that can be resupplied and reinforced is not going to fall (see Stalingrad). Best to bypass and isolate unless only up against a token defense.

And yet the Axis must take a certain number of cities to avoid a sudden death loss, and if you bypass and cut off everything after turn 2, you may not reach that point total. So it was that I found myself in my first PBEM game having to make a 3 or 4 hex (~ 12 Divs with support) attack against Rostov to get to the 525 points needed, and the Soviet player has a fort with a CV around 300. So it certainly is tough to gain cities for points, especially for those of us who never played WiTE1.



Joel Billings -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/23/2021 10:29:07 PM)

The Germans should be able to encircle enough cities to meet their VP requirement in 41. You can take a few less defended by storm, but generally you will have time to encircle the cities you need to take.



Jango32 -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/23/2021 10:30:52 PM)

I agree with Joel that urban hexes not cut off from supplies should be tough nuts to crack, never mind the losses you may end up suffering as the attacker.



Gunner Garidel -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/24/2021 6:10:37 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Sauron_II


quote:

ORIGINAL: Gunner Garidel

I won't try to address what you have said from a game standpoint because I'm a newbie. I WILL address it, however, based on my experience in the USMC and many years reading and studying military history.

I'm sure someone will correct me, if I'm wrong, but I believe it was Clausewitz who wrote defense is inherently the stronger form of war by a factor of 3 to 1. This has proven true throughout history. e.g. The USMC island hopping campaign in WW II is a very pertinent [and close to my heart] example. At the Battle of Tarawa it took the 18,000 Marines of the 2nd MarDiv [76] hours to defeat only 4,500 Japanese troops, in spite of the fact the US had Air Supremacy and the firepower of a Navy Task Force at its disposal. This was primarily due to the heavily fortified Betio Island. The 2nd MarDiv had more casualties in the [76] hour battle than the 1st MarDiv suffered in its SIX MONTH campaign at Guadalcanal.

So what's my point? You cannot rely on just throwing bodies at a fortified city. Even if you outnumber the defenders by 3 to 1, you don't take a knife to a gun-fight. As the previous posters pointed out, you need additional support units: assault troops, engineers, artillery, air support, etc, etc, ad nauseum. In war, there's no such thing as too much firepower. Bullets are cheap, dead grunts are expensive....


I am a former Marine as well. (Artillery Fire-Direction-Control)

I thoroughly agree with the "3-to-1" ratio and wish the game based its successful combat outcomes on this instead of the current "2-to-1". As a computer scientist, I feel the mathematics involved in using a 3-to-1 baseline facilitates a more uniform combat model.

But anyways... for a new player trying to predict the impact of adding engineers or fortress-busting artillery and air support are further ill-defined and nebulous within the game. (as if fortress-busting is ever defined?) Unfortunately, in-game experience is the only way to get a feel for it. And even then, through trial and error.

There is an overly steep learning curve for new players. I pity the new player who goes head-to-head with anyone with any level of experience.

The CV values currently displayed offer only a bare minimum ability to predict likely combat outcomes.



First of all - no such thing as 'Former' Marine, and you know that... ;)

Second - wishing a Happy 'Belated' Birthday to you!! OOOOOOO-Rah!!



Erik Rutins -> RE: How do I ever take any city ever? (11/24/2021 6:15:17 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: baloo7777
And yet the Axis must take a certain number of cities to avoid a sudden death loss, and if you bypass and cut off everything after turn 2, you may not reach that point total. So it was that I found myself in my first PBEM game having to make a 3 or 4 hex (~ 12 Divs with support) attack against Rostov to get to the 525 points needed, and the Soviet player has a fort with a CV around 300. So it certainly is tough to gain cities for points, especially for those of us who never played WiTE1.


It's quite possible to get to those requirements. With practice, it becomes fairly easy to avoid the sudden loss, but while you're still learning and playing PBEM it can certainly be a tough learning curve. It only takes 2-3 turns of encirclement combined with a good mix of units, support units and air power and the city will generally fall.

Rostov is also a bit of a stretch goal for the Germans, you might want to aim for some of the closer cities to get the necessary points.

Regards,

- Erik




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