Slitherine

Well here we are. My on again off again (very off again honestly I don't think I played much at all last year honestly, not sure why, was just busy with other stuff I guess, but finally got bit by the Panzer bug again and so is now back on) Grand Campaign (East) Colonel Difficulty Game has finally taken me to Berlin 45.

At the moment I've got about 11K prestige in the bank, though I haven't spent it on any major upgrades /elite reinforcements yet.

My army is made up of

1 43' Grenadier
3 43' Gebirgajager
3 43' Pioneers
3 Eliete SE Grenadier's
2 4 Star King Tigers
5 5 Star King Tigers
1 1 Star Prototype Maus
1 4 Star SE King Tiger
4 5 Star SE King Tigers
1 Brand New 2 Star SE Prototype Maus
9 Five Star Hummels all Strength 13 (I know I should have changed these to some towed artillery with bigger guns for heavy russian tanks, but I am still so in love with the freedom of the speed they have plus a three range... would be a waste of money to convert them now since they're over strength, and they can still clean streets of infantry fairly well, which is exactly the kind of fight this is probably going to be)
1 Five star 15 strength Captured Su-112(r) that I never bothered to convert.
6 5 Star FW 190 D-9's
3 Five Star 13 Strength Me 262s which have so far managed to more or less effortlessly shoot down any Russian Fighters they've tangled with, to the point that I haven't even been bothering to overstrength of my FWs at this point since they only need to bat clean up.
1 4 Star Se Bf 109K with the legendary hero Wihelm Batz.
4 5 Star Tacticle Ju 87 Bombers, including one that got move +1, Attack +3 and Attack +2 which would make it a real beast... except that then you have to compare it to Hans Ulrich Who went Attack +9 Defense +9 Move +1 and Defense +1 and Defense +1
1 5 Star Me 410A with Helmunt Lent, the +6 intative hero, probably should/should have converted his plane to a Fock Wulf FW 190 G so he can use that huge intiative bonus and a decent air attack to really help sweep fighters.
4 Strategic bombers, all five star,3 are He117A one a Do 217E

Oh and those 2 12.8 cm Flak guns and one Wirbewind you got from doing the raid extra mission back in 44.

I probably over invested in the air war, but I did so love the unqusetioned superority you could get here and there in those moments when not only had you knocked out all the enemy planes, but you'd managed to take out all their AA units in a given area also.

Probably should have bought bigger artillery pieces as previously noted, probably should have stopped over strengthing tanks to 14 and 15 back in 42' (right now all my tanks are set at 11 except for the new SE Maus which came in at 12) could have done a lot of stuff a lot smarter.

But here I am in Berlin, with a core that's pretty darn well intact.

I've got 10 Infantry units, which should be enough to clear a path to the victory hexs/hold them.

Given what I've got do you guys think that I'm a reasonable position to be able to get to first Berlin Redux and then the Epilogue?

No spoilers on how the missions play out, though I think I can guess/have a rough idea just from the briefing/map...

Hi Iwan53,
You have a great core, but what you need here is to pick a defensive line and to hold the line, yes give up un-defendable flags. tanks backed by art SP or Towed, use your Flak and fighters to clear the sky. do not be tempted to cross into soviet territory and take back flags too soon as they will sucker punch you at un-defendable spots. move only backed by your SP's and you will be fine, Oh and have lots of fun !

Martin

I am currently at Vilna, July 1944 - in my 2nd try DLC East, using the SS-mod, starting in 1936.
First try was General, now playing advanced settings player prestige 40% and exp 50% / AI prestige 150% and exp 100% / AI level 2 (comparable with Manstein / Guderian level? - dont know...)
Prestige left: 10000, so will have to discard of some of my units I guess in order to get some Me.262s....
Apart from auxiliry losses, only lost one Hummel and two scout units so far of my core units, although three times I was very lucky, escaping with 1 or 2 points left with a Tiger, Fw.190 and Ju.87...

4x 4star fallschirmjager
4x 4 star gebirgsjager
2x 4 star pioniere
1x 4 star bruckenpioniere (with 6att 2ini 2 def bonus)
6x 5 star Tiger II (all have +1 spot and +1 move)
1x 4 star Tiger II
1x 2 star Tiger II
2x 5 star Panther G
2x 5 star Tiger I
1x 4 star Pz.IVH
5x 5 star Elefant
3x 4 star sdkfz 234/2 (one has +7 att)
2x 5 star 17cm K18
2x 5 star 21cm mrs 18 (one with +1 range)
2x 5 star wurfrahmen (indespensible from the very start - best value of movable arty to attack soft targets)
2x 5 star hummel
2x 5 star su-122 (not the highest attack value, but at least some armor to protect)
1x 2 star 12.8cm flak
1x 3 star 12.8cm flak
1x 1 star 12.8cm flak
1x 3 star sdkfz 7/2
1x 2 star me.109K
5x 4 star fw.190A
2x 5 star fw.190A
1x 5 star fw.190D-9
2x 5 star Ju.87G
2x 5 star Fw.190G
1x 2 star He.177 (I have never seen the benefit of using bombers to attack land targets - only keep one for the sea targets)
1x 5 star Armoured Train (came with 36-45 SS mod as core unit )

I doubt if I will make it through to Berlin, but I like the challenge...

ptje63 wrote: First try was General, now playing advanced settings player prestige 40% and exp 50% / AI prestige 150% and exp 100% / AI level 2 (comparable with Manstein / Guderian level? - dont know...)

AI=2 is "General" level of difficulty. But to be honest, there's very little difference between AI=1 and AI=2.

Hi PTJE63,
I love your Core force, what a mix, in some ways very similar to mine and in others very different, 4 para? do you use as ground troops or still drop them? I always found Wurfrahmen were a magnet for enemy attack. love the fact you got 2 to 5 star, 5 x Elephant x 5 star, great defensive (ex Ammo) but such poor movement and fuel in attack. But I love the idea of a 5 star armoured train! How did you get that?

Martin

milliethedog wrote:Hi Iwan53,
You have a great core, but what you need here is to pick a defensive line and to hold the line, yes give up un-defendable flags. tanks backed by art SP or Towed, use your Flak and fighters to clear the sky. do not be tempted to cross into soviet territory and take back flags too soon as they will sucker punch you at un-defendable spots. move only backed by your SP's and you will be fine, Oh and have lots of fun !

Martin

First attempt did not go well, lost an artillery piece by the start of turn two, my position was by no means hopeless, but I wanted to restart, clear my head and start again with an entirely new approach.

Seelow I could afford to go on the offensive early because I only had to hold four points, and the terrain worked with me to let me easily set up blockcades.

Here, we've something like different fronts all pushing in at once, there's no way to effectively counter punch everywhere, if I don't start serious engagements with some groups until turn 3 that's just fine.

Make mental notes of where soviet bombers/fighters tend to fly in turn one, I know some of them end up in fog of war over dead auxilleries but it is not cheating to remember where they are and then fly my own fighters over to blow them up, if it was then they wouldn't allow you to see exactly what the enemy does on your turn!

So second try I'm gonna go for the old rope a dope, this mission lasts for 32 turns (can't come close to recalling another of that length) it's a siege not a sprint. Lure the soviets into the bridges, use their own overflow of units to easily force surrenders, take advantage of what seems to be a lack of early mission anti-air units to pick off their mobile artillery with my bombers so that I can properly employ my infantry for city fighting.

Don't give me any super indepth feedback just "yeah that sounds like a cool idea" or a mysterious "it might work" as I'm sure turn 15 or so the second wave will show up with a pile of anti-air trucks/something else will end up happening to ruin my strategy.

I only spent down to 7K on this though, so I can afford to get my planes/infantry even tanks scratched up and still have bank for what comes after.

Also Panzer Corps even with start from mission again reloads is much more stressful than my Veteran Honestman (like Ironman but with saves in case of game breaking bugs, which indeed I did run into one of which literally caused my game to crash) XCOM 2 run... so much easier to command 4-6 guys per turn than oh, at least five times that across four or so different battle groups.

Well it's a good pain and I didn't come all the way to Berlin not to find out what the Epilogue Mission is like and for the love of god don't spoil me!