Albert Canal report (scenario 13)

[nikivdd]

While reinforcing my core units, i noticed i have my first 3 star unit. With the new core slot available i bought a pioniere unit.
Lillehammer was a nice nut to crack, so is this scenario. I'm advancing on both banks of the canal but progress is slowed down tremendously by those "erratic" counter-attacks.
It is actually not so easy to reach the last objectives while being under constant attack and there was not much room to maneuver either. I had several close calls on losing some of my units but was it either by luck or the unit's experience that they managed to survive. In my opinion this was not a scenario to let lose the armour from the rest of the group. Having 3 fighters was a big relief to repel those enemy bomber attacks. Anyway, i needed a lot of my prestige to bring several units back up to strength.
With every bridge captured i had to leave a guard behind, the chance was too great to have it recaptured. Only at turn 15 i gained dominance over the battlefield, after the last french infantry tried to recapture the bridge on hex (19,12). In the next couple of turns i got the enemy cornered in Antwerp. With a few units brought up to strength, i managed to capture cities all around the map, with the exception of Weert (28,2), to grab some prestige points. Antwerp was captured during turn 19, received a DV and left with only 714 prestige points. Above all it was a relief not to have lost a single core unit.
As attacker you need to keep your head cool and put priorities straight where to advance and which unit to attack. The Ai is agressive and i like that. Even more than in the vanilla version, in this kind of scenario you really need to use the terrain to your advantage and not to move forward too hastily. A great scenario for sure.

[charonjr]

Albert-Canal - Colonel - previous DV

There seems to be a bug in the briefing for this mission: "Your objective is to follow secure all crossings..." the "follow" looks out of place here to me - but then again, I am no native English speaker, so I might be perfectly wrong

Quick review of the forces currently at my disposal:

Infantry (7):
2 Wehrmacht **(*)
1 Fallschirmjäger *(*)
2 Pioniere **(*), 1 EK2, 1 hero
1 Brückenpioniere (*)
1 Gebirgsjäger **(*), elite

Armor/recon (8):
3 PzIIIF **(*), 1 elite
3 PzIVD **(*), 1 EK2, 1 hero
2 SdKfZ222 *(*)/**(*)

Artillery (6):
3 15cm sFH 18 **(*)
3 Sturmpanzer I **(*), 1 EK2

Airforce (8):
2 Bf109E **/**(*)
3 Ju87B - 1***/2**(*), 2 EK2, 2 heros
1 Bf110D ***
2 Ju88A **(*)

Starting at 1630 prestige here after repairs.

I like the fairly large number of counterattacking units I am seeing around Diest at turn 2/3, with some hindsight this was basically the theme of this scenario, nice.

Had to use a lot of elite reinforcements here during more and ore enemy units showing up, I really like it.

When starting to focus on Antwerp (around turn 13) the lack of any airfields at the center of the map made its presence felt - I think with this map I had to hardest time to utilise my air superiority in the end (which is good).

I even felt some pressure this time and was not 100% certain that I would be able to finish this one in time, in the end I finished with a DV at turn 18/21 - 2620 prestige left.

Overall I think this is the best scenario (including the original ones) I have played so far.

CharonJr

[bap66]

Fieldmarshall

OK. This is the first scenario that i cannot handle after easy going through polen and norway. I end this first try because of massive counterattacks and running out of prestige to repair my chipped units. I have to restart the scenario to continue the campaign. But because I'm playing the highest regular level is this challenge the best of all played scenarios. I will be back to comment my next try tommorow....

[monkspider]

Now this was a pretty tough scenario! The AI spawns a lot of infantry and cavalry units and with the heavy amount of forest, they were a slog to clear out. I spent enough on reinforcements that my prestige was pretty low most of the match, often around 100-200, only at the end did it start to get to a more comfortable level. And then when I finally got to Antwerp, I found the AI would buy new units every turn, making it an especially tough nut to crack. It might not be a bad idea to reduce the AI prestige because the amount of new units it was buying was getting to be kind of annoying. I finally got a decisive victory on the last turn but I didn't know if I would be able to do it for a while.

[bap66]

Fieldmarshall

OK. This is the first scenario that i cannot handle after easy going through polen and norway. I end this first try because of massive counterattacks and running out of prestige to repair my chipped units. I have to restart the scenario to continue the campaign. But because I'm playing the highest regular level is this challenge the best of all played scenarios. I will be back to comment my next try tommorow....

Seccond Try: Finished the scenario with dv in the last turn yesterday. This only works because I refill my troops sometimes with non-elite-replacements. So I saved Prestige but loose experience.
But compared with the real numbers of casualities of Westfedlzug, than it seems to be in proper.

However, I had the impression that Belgium has more infantry than inhabitants .

All in all am I the opinion that the scenario can remain in such a way.

[rilnator]

Much more enjoyable than Eben Emanuel. I used the bulk of my armour in the south where they moved westward and then hooked north. On the North side of the river I had a 1 PZIV, 3 inf and 2 art, they followed the river taking objectives as required.

Enemy counter attacks weren't as bad as I thought they would be and were manageable. Scored a DV on last turn, only because I been chasing extra prestige- which I got.