tbriert
Posts: 154
Joined: 9/5/2008 Status: offline
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Really like the game, but I am getting extremely frustrated as the Germans in the Trappenjagd Scenario. I simply cannot take Kerch. I have completely destroyed the two Soviet Armies in the peninsula (as well destroyed 4 armies in the Izium Salient up North). Hundreds of thousands of Russians are KIA. In Kerch itself, there sits the Crimean Front HQ, two Army HQs, 1 infantry division, 2 fortified regions, and an anti-tank group. Opposing that on three sides I have every single piece of Artillery in the 11th Army, 4 divisions, a panzer division, Lemelsen in command of the corps, Manstein close by, and a full complement of the Luftwaffe. For two turns in a row, I have pounded the city with air attacks and small bombardments. It only drives down the readiness of the Sov units a small percent, and most all units are back at 100% readiness at the start of every turn. The air attacks are only marginally helpful because of terrain. I have done a preliminary assault with a couple of divisions the previous turn to knock down Soviet readiness, but it always recovers completely. So for my final attempt, I have a successful Manstein 'Gamble' card giving +44% to all units in the attacking corps, Lemelsen plays an attack marker on the strongest division, giving it a +80% total, I hit the city with every piece of artillery in 11th Army, almost all of which are completely stockpiled full, and then attack. Despite all of that, I can only manage to even get 1 retreat result on the Soviet units in the city. Despite the fact that at least half of the units there are rear echelon HQ personnel, they simply will not break. As a result, the city just cannot seem to be taken at all, even when its defenders represent 3% of of the total starting strength of the Soviet forces that were in the Kerch peninsula at the start of the campaign. This just does not seem right to me, and it is quite frankly ruining my campaign game. This is Kerch, not Stalingrad, yet it will not fall. It seems as though the defenders are armed with M1A2 Abrams, Apaches, and plasma rifles for all the good the best formations in 11th Army are able to do against them. Why do they always recover their readiness so fully? Why do they defend like superhumans? What can be done, if anything, to dislodge them? I have already wasted nearly 100 PP delaying the 'take Kerch' order deadline at least 2 or 3 times. Now, I dont have enough PP left to do that again, and am about to lose 6 of my 10 Prestige because of this travesty, meaning every effort expended was a total waste. This just does not seem right to me at all, period. The garrison should have surrendered several turns ago, yet nothing I do will seem to affect them negatively in any lasting way. I am doing something wrong here? Is there some trick I am missing? Or is there something wrong with the design of this particular part of the campaign which makes it impossible to succeed even though the Germans did so historically fairly easily? Dont want to complain too much, but between careful planning, doing the 'free setup' and game play, I have 60-70 hours into this campaign already just to get to June 7th, and this situation. Now, I feel like all that time has been wasted because I cant take Kerch, am going to lose the prestige, and between the lost prestige and wasted PP's trying to delay the deadline, I am basically going to be so crippled going into the 'real' part of the Case Blue campaign that it almost seems a waste of time to play it out -- which is hard to square with feeling that I wasted 60-70 hours only to get to a juncture where the campaign is seemingly doomed before it really starts. Frustrating.
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