DLC 42 Sevastopol Assault

[captainjack]

I have previously done the siege, but decided it was time to have a proper go at the city.

I brought out all my pioneers and grenadiers plus a few other infantry with spotting heroes, both strategic bombers plus both Rudels and some escorts, all my artillery and a few extras 17cms. I brought my two Captured Chars, four Panzer IVG and two stugs.

I concentrated most of the infantry and artillery in the north west and slowly blasted everything out of the way. The SE (all grenadiers) with Stugs and panzers went down the east, expecting to find armoured units as in the siege. The recon plane found all four ships which I managed to sink before they did any real damage, though the 85AA did quite a bit of damage to my bombers and to Recon Rudel. The special artillery units did a good job on the fortresses, helped by some strategic bombing when I had cleared nearby AA and some finishing off by pioneers.

On the eastern side, the SE grenadiers took out infantry while the chars took out artillery and any exposed AA (the +3 attack hero helped a lot).

Playing at General with Dice chess and Reform Units, I got DV on the final turn,having just eliminated all of the defending units. I lost two 3* pioneers (SMG units - yuck!) and a kradschutzen with spotting hero - he's just as good when green as I only want the 4 range spotting, so not bothered by that. I also took quite a bit of damage to bombers and some other units, some of which had to be patched up in play so they could carry on, so moderately expensive. I ended up neutral overall for prestige. I think the siege is easier, but it was a good change to do some real fighting rather than sneaking around the edges.

If I replayed it now, I would leave out the stug and two or three of the panzer 4s, which were never really needed and buy some more new artillery - probably 150s - to send round the eastern side. I'd probably have a similar result but suspect it would save me some prestige.

For comparison I then did the siege. The approach was pretty similar - infantry with heavy artillery backing takes out the cities to the north west, then a few units pull back to hold positions while the remainder work down the centre. The armour headed down the east side, with the air force spotting and removing any pockets of armour. Once it got to the cities, the main mission was to remove any AA, then take out the cities with air and ground assault and take out ships with the strategic bomber once spotted by Recon Rudel.

It seemed much easier than the assault, and more relaxed. I had a few nasty surprises from SMG infantry and a KV1 I'd missed in the overcast, and some aircraft damage mainly from 85s. The worst air damage was when three 85s closed in from three directions and took one of my fighters from 10 to 4 strength in one turn - it was just as well that the overcast that stopped me spotting them cut their attacks by half.

At the end after repairing all the damage I had just under 1400 more prestige than when I started, and had a DV on turn 14 of 18. With four turns to spare, if I had taken one more artillery and a slightly more methodical approach I could probably have avoided the ambush and have taken a bit less damage from the AA as well.

Well done to the designers for getting such a different feel to two apparently similar options.

[jkombae]

From my experience the key to a DV is recon and the exact positioning of your own soft target units. Moving close to the front is impossible as you are directly in range of soviet artillery. At first I used the 2 units of supporting heavy rail artilley to detroy any artillery in the norther part. Afterwards move close to the front and hit the AAs and Strongpoints with artilley and finish them with bombers.
It takes a little longer but as soon as you have cleared the norther part of the city the infantery assault is quite easy and very fast. All other units can directly move southwards beginning with the first turn and attack the southern part from the very south end of the map.