Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Battle Reports & After Action Reports (AAR's)

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braccada
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Lillehammer

Post by braccada »

For Lillehammer my goal is to quickly push through the initial targets in order to have time to carefully maneuver and position around Lillehammer itself. Rough terrain and very limited space make it quite tricky to dislodge the British and Norwegian forces without taking a lot of damage in return. Also very helpful is taking out the northern most city with Oleh Dir, otherwise you are going to face an endless stream of fresh Norwegian units.

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braccada
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Narvik

Post by braccada »

Narvik ended up being a though fight - much harder than expected. The real issue is neither the Royal navy nor the massive concentration of enemy forces in and around Narvik. It is the lone infantry units waiting on the way to Narvik that really put up a fight. Hard to kill and an effective speed bump. I was preparded by dropping Fallschirmjäger in the back to support the aux units, but still the German losses were brutal on this one.

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goose_2
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by goose_2 »

So looking forward to seeing you start 1940, how you will handle Albert Canal will be a must see in my opinion
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braccada
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Eben-Emael

Post by braccada »

Just like in the real battle it is best to risk a massive attack on the center fortifications and hope the enemy is not prepared. A quick success in the center will give you the time reserves to deal with the rest of the map and get them before reinforcements happen. More tips: Do not underestimate the Belgian and Dutch infantry! Let them run into your defensive artillery and positions carefully. Always look for opportunities to lure them on hexes, where you can push them on river hexes for expample. Panzer III and your auxiliary scouts work best as baits.



Next up is Albert Canal. Apparently this will be one of the thoughest missions. I want to attempt some Fallschirmjäger action to try and secure Brussels (lots of prestige waiting to be taken). At the same time I will need lots of artillery and lots of fighters and pack everything into 21 core slots. Balancing the force composition in my opinion will be the key to win here.
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braccada
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Albert Canal

Post by braccada »

This is a battle of attrition against a stream of Allied and Belgian infantry units. So this map teaches how to deal with superior numbers the hard way. You need to do damage on your and the enemy turn using traps, luring and pushing units into unfavourable terrain and finally surround/suppress/surrender. We will use it all in this attempt and still it is quite challenging not to run out of steam.

The battle plan involves taking all objectives and Brussels on top. A classic case of aiming for the stars... :mrgreen: On the tactical level I have 12-point-overstrength on some key units (Panzer IV and some infantry units) and those have to be kept at full health as long as possible. Those units enable me to do the damage needing to destroy and not only damage enemy units. Mixed in are three Fallschirmjäger units that are effective at dealing with damaged units and low-strength garrions and provide me with the flexibilty to quickly reinforce struggling battle groups.

:arrow: Hope you enjoy the show - it was a super hard to do.

Part 1


Part 2
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goose_2
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Re: Albert Canal

Post by goose_2 »

braccada wrote: Mon Oct 22, 2018 4:11 pm This is a battle of attrition against a stream of Allied and Belgian infantry units. So this map teaches how to deal with superior numbers the hard way. You need to do damage on your and the enemy turn using traps, luring and pushing units into unfavourable terrain and finally surround/suppress/surrender. We will use it all in this attempt and still it is quite challenging not to run out of steam.

The battle plan involves taking all objectives and Brussels on top. A classic case of aiming for the stars... :mrgreen: On the tactical level I have 12-point-overstrength on some key units (Panzer IV and some infantry units) and those have to be kept at full health as long as possible. Those units enable me to do the damage needing to destroy and not only damage enemy units. Mixed in are three Fallschirmjäger units that are effective at dealing with damaged units and low-strength garrions and provide me with the flexibilty to quickly reinforce struggling battle groups.

:arrow: Hope you enjoy the show - it was a super hard to do.

Part 1


Part 2
Just finished watching this at work and this is the way to do it folks, Braccada has a way of taking a map and dissecting on how to hack through it on any level, and now that he is going through on Manstein level he is showing how Decisive Victory is possible at any level.

I am sure that he could even accomplish this effect on the Super Hard level I am playing at, but happy to be seeing him do it at Manstein.

Braccada, be careful with The Hague as the heavy amount of Infantry coming at you is quite daunting.

Do you have any ideas how you will handle the defense of the Primary Airfield's held by your aux units, I would say only try to hold the central one, but when I did that the Northern Force was able to rush me way too quickly?

Looking forward to watching you handle
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braccada
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by braccada »

Thanks :) Looking back I am glad I had some quite bad rolls here, just to show that it is not based on luck and can be done very consistantly and without any overly risky maneuvers. At The Hague I will try to outflank them and stop the reinforcements from the north. Basically a big pocket. I am pretty sure that works. The big question for me is, how to keep the aux units alive. That I do not know, because I do not play that much on Manstein and lack the intuitive understanding of defensive setups I have on Rommel. No idea how long they might be able to hold out on their own in the Manstein setup and when it is time to pull back.
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goose_2
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by goose_2 »

braccada wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 7:32 pm Thanks :) Looking back I am glad I had some quite bad rolls here, just to show that it is not based on luck and can be done very consistantly and without any overly risky maneuvers. At The Hague I will try to outflank them and stop the reinforcements from the north. Basically a big pocket. I am pretty sure that works. The big question for me is, how to keep the aux units alive. That I do not know, because I do not play that much on Manstein and lack the intuitive understanding of defensive setups I have on Rommel. No idea how long they might be able to hold out on their own in the Manstein setup and when it is time to pull back.
This is tricky, I played this wrong on my playthrough, but I had tried it so many times already that I wasn't willing to try it again, but I believe your best bet is to ignore all secondary objectives, and instead pull back to central airfield except for those Northern 2 starting Fallschimjaeger, let them spend time eliminating those 2 defensively held units.
(The Main airfield guy starts an Entrenchment of 5.)
But I would concentrate solely on taking out Rotterdam as quick as possible, making their units attack unwisely into your artillery backed up units, once Rotterdam is sealed fan out from their only taking the Main Objectives and not worrying about any of the Secondary ones.


That is my suggestion
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braccada
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by braccada »

I see that working and definitely a good advise. However I want to try an encirclement taking a lot of secondary targets in the process. The Panzer IVs are superbly effective against the Dutch infantry at this point of time and I want to exploit that. Yours will be the fallback plan :)
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by goose_2 »

I look forward to your continued success
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braccada
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The Hague

Post by braccada »

For this we will try some proper Blitzkrieg tactics. Tanks will be used to breakthrough, encircle and use the open terrain towards and behind Utrecht. The infantry will go through Rotterdam. Their task is to reach the Fallschirmjäger in time. If everything works out, we should be able to completely wipe the map. Even on Manstein :)

Part 1:

Part 2:
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fitzpatv
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by fitzpatv »

First of all, thanks for the videos - they've certainly improved my game! I'm currently playing three parallel Grand Campaigns on Rommel, Guderian and Manstein. Straight decisive victories so far on the first two, but Manstein has been harder and I had to settle for Marginals at Lodz and Spoils of War and replayed Modlin to end it in better shape.

Just played The Hague at Manstein and got a Decisive win on the last turn, without core losses. I did it by evacuating all but one of the Fallschirmjagers by air and slipping the other one out of the Northern airfield via the hills to the SE. They hardly took a scratch. Some of the units were used around Rotterdam and three flew out to sea, then attacked the targets in the N. I had to sacrifice the 75mm gun. Otherwise copied your right hook with the Panzers at Utrecht. Lots of Dutch to slog through, but superior unit quality won out in the end.

My main problem is a comparative lack of prestige (about 5,500 starting Sedan) which means I have to be very selective when overstrengthing. I don't replace in-game unless I have to but, at Manstein, I find this is sometimes unavoidable. If I end-up going West in 1942, this will be less of a problem, but it doesn't augur well for the later Eastern campaigns. By comparison, I've got about 3,000 Prestige at Rommel (hardly ever need to replace in-game, but have been keeping the army at two-star) and around 11,500 at Guderian.

Looking forward to Sedan. Now I've caught-up, I might even watch live.
braccada
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by braccada »

Quite the undertaking you have planned!

And I think flying out the Fallschirmjäger is actually a great way to do it. I thought of that option only in my latest attempt and only did it for one of the northern ones. Regarding the prestige I can't say how much you actually need in Russia - 3000 seems a bit low at least. I find a little bit of overstrength on some units quite helpful, because often you need a unit with some extra punch and on units with high initiative the extra strength helps preventing damage allowing to use normal replacements while retaining enough experience. So in my experience overstrength sometimes saves prestige
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braccada
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Sedan

Post by braccada »

For Sedan I have a quite complex plan including the use of Fallschirmjäger to help creating overwhelming force concentrations (instead of sending them to distanct objectives) and multiple different landings.

Part 1:


Part 2:
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by goose_2 »

Knowing that you are taking the British path, your next real hurdle will be the pain of Arras...not that the other maps are easy, but Arras, is a pain that will be fun watching you dissect.
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fitzpatv
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by fitzpatv »

Sedan's pretty tough on Manstein, isn't it?! It's awkward enough on lower levels of difficulty because of the close terrain, entrenched opponents, counterattacks and time-consuming flank-securing operations. Decided to use two overstrengthed PzIVs to clear the artillery at Sedan, as PzIIIs don't really have the soft target firepower, but it still took two turns. Once this was done, it seemed just as quick to go overland to the Westernmost objective (Poix-Terron) with less risk of units getting in each others' way or being airstruck, so I didn't use river transport here. Two PzIIIs got badly mauled in the battle with the French counterattack at Wadelincourt but, like your engineer, survived. Got the decisive win on the last turn, but could've done it on Turn 17. Prestige is looking healthier now on 8,450-odd after basic repairs.

You caught me out by opting for the British route, as my Rommel and Guderian teams were already bound for Stonne, so I'll do both routes on Manstein, just for fun. Totally agree with Goose about how murderous Arras is likely to be and will also be very interested to see how you tackle it.
braccada
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by braccada »

fitzpatv wrote: Wed Nov 28, 2018 5:45 pm Sedan's pretty tough on Manstein, isn't it?! It's awkward enough on lower levels of difficulty because of the close terrain, entrenched opponents, counterattacks and time-consuming flank-securing operations. Decided to use two overstrengthed PzIVs to clear the artillery at Sedan, as PzIIIs don't really have the soft target firepower, but it still took two turns. Once this was done, it seemed just as quick to go overland to the Westernmost objective (Poix-Terron) with less risk of units getting in each others' way or being airstruck, so I didn't use river transport here. Two PzIIIs got badly mauled in the battle with the French counterattack at Wadelincourt but, like your engineer, survived. Got the decisive win on the last turn, but could've done it on Turn 17. Prestige is looking healthier now on 8,450-odd after basic repairs.

You caught me out by opting for the British route, as my Rommel and Guderian teams were already bound for Stonne, so I'll do both routes on Manstein, just for fun. Totally agree with Goose about how murderous Arras is likely to be and will also be very interested to see how you tackle it.
Sorry for the late reply, I just making room for Panzer Corps in my schedule again :) Yeah Sedan was a surprise! It felt much easier on Rommel so I did not expect that many problems. But it seems we both got through alright in the end 8)
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braccada
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Maubeuge

Post by braccada »

Fighting the British on a huge front line this one is not easy. The first instinct would be to concentrate forces, but unfortunately leaving enemy city hexes open for reinforcements can really be devastating on this one. So rush and block them! On the bright side the Royal Airforce is not so strong here and you can get away with bringing three fighters.

Part 1


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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by fitzpatv »

Good to see you back in circulation. That was close! Maybe couldn't have been done on the last turn on Dice Chess (which I play). I actually found Maubeuge harder than Arras, perhaps because I underestimated it a little, but also scraped home on the last turn. Got through the first forest a bit quicker, which enabled both task groups to reach Lille. The oddest thing about the scenario is the British armoured group in the forest SE of Lille - they look intimidating, but never seem to do much and you could almost believe that they are all dummy tanks (a noted British ruse in the real conflict)! Wonder what the designer meant them to do?.

Actually did Arras first-time with a turn to spare and no losses, but it was as exciting as you might imagine. Might have to wait until I'm back from holiday in early February to watch your playthrough but, as I'm now at Smolensk in all three campaigns, you have some catching-up to do.
braccada
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Re: Grand Campaign on Manstein (live streamed)

Post by braccada »

It is a though one, mostly because of the turn limit (and the mud :)). I am currently fooling around with Arras to get a better idea and there for sure are a lot of tanks. However it seems most of them are getting stuck somehow (in the north) and end up doing nothing. So far I am only 8 turns in and I plan to absorb the southern counter attack a little away from Arrass and then hopefully counterpush. Getting the victory hex in the corner seems painful.
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