Grand Campaign 1943-45 Field Marshall

[loganfive]

I have been following your AAR for a while now, very interesting and very nice progress indeed, well done!

Thanks.

[loganfive]

Turn 11 at Poznan45.

It's been going quite smoothly.

My Bruno Sutkus infantry hero unit got its second hero, a +3 Defence.

In the image below you can see the last recon unit on the train, with which it can travel to the designated hex in one turn and get the DV on the next turn with minimal damage to my core.

From a prestige standpoint it makes no sense to prolong the scenario.

However, I still have a few units in need of kills or experience, so I have elected to prolong the scenario. The additional turn bonuses and forced surrenders should somewhat pay for the additional damage to my core.

[loganfive]

Turn 18 at Poznan45.

Basically, if you decide to prolong the battle you really need to move all your armour to the East, where there is no river between you and the Soviets. It get gets pretty hairy.

And then there's the 20 or so Soviet air units, which have an uncanny knack for turning on the weather at an advantageous time.

Anyway, the last of my Original 9 infantry units finally got its third hero, a nice +2 Attack.

[loganfive]

Entering Breslau with 95052 prestige points.

I forgot that there was another street battle prior to the Berlin scenarios at the end.

This one is fairly easy from a DV standpoint, although your core takes a bit of a beating, and you can potentially lose core units if you're not careful. There's about 8000 prestige points available though, if you can get under the cap.

I am planning to deploy 13 infantry units, which should basically wipe the floor with anything they encounter. The trick is to keep them off the clear hexes, because otherwise the AI will hit them with tanks.

I am going to do some serious overstrengths here, partly to avoid losing frontline units, but also to get experience and kills for the units that still need them. I expect that my prestige windfall will not be great.

[loganfive]

Turn 7 at Breslau.

As I had indicated above, your core takes a beating here. You really need to click on the +* button for the first 10 turns or so, which I did not do here.

I also did a poor job of protecting my Southeastern flank. It's going to take some effort to establish some containment against those Soviet units on the bottom right, but it's manageable.

Swarms of Soviet air units turn up at about this time, including Yak-9Us.

I like to destroy the fighters first, before going after the bombers, although that strategy often leaves expensive ground units open to air attack.

The Matthaus Hetzenauer infantry hero unit got its 2nd hero, an anticlimactic +1 Defence. Which means that the development of my infantry units is more or less complete. With eleven 5-star, 3-hero units and three 4-star, 2-hero units (the three hero units from the 1943 and 1944 campaigns) I am not likely to get any more stars or heroes for my infantry units.

[loganfive]

Garbage time at Breslau.

Once you destroy the second Soviet wave, there is nothing else left to do, other than surround the last victory hex to keep the AI from spamming you with IS-2s.

I am well under the cap too, so I should get the entire full 600 points for the remaining turns, plus the 5000 points for the victory bonus.

The Maus presents a curious problem. Big cap hit and expensive repairs. Movement of 3. It might have been better to disband the thing and use the prestige to upgrade one of my two remaining KV-85s (with experience and kills to its credit) to a Tiger II, but the time to do that was at the start of this scenario.

My JagdPanther is close to its 5th star at 495 experience points, and one of my Hs-129 tac bombers is at 498.

Things are looking up for the final five scenarios.

[loganfive]

96604 prestige points going into Budapest45.

I remember having to do a reload in this one on my first attempt at the Grand Campaign.

There are a few tricks to this scenario:

• You can drop a couple of paras into Budapest on Turn 3, and that helps the survivability of the Hungarian aux units immensely.
• If you don't mind spending the prestige you can upgrade one of the Hungarian flak units to an 88 or 128.
• There are a couple of towns with rail links on the Northwest corner of the map. If you can open up a rail corridor by e.g. Turn 4, you can use the railway to get your forces into Budapest by Turn 5.
• The Hungarian aux units in the Southeast corner are toast if you let them stay and fight. However, if you withdraw them to the West the Soviets will not pursue them, so you should be able to salvage all but one or two of these units. The Soviets will eventually leave the towns and airfields undefended after capturing them, and you can easily retake them later in the scenario.

[TSPC37730]

Nice summary. Thanks for posting it!

[loganfive]

Nice summary. Thanks for posting it!

No problem.

Here's another tip for Budapest44: the Soviers leave two of their artillery units around Budapest unprotected at the start, and there is another one in the far Northeast corner that is within range of your own aux 105mm. You can do a preemptive strike against one or two of them on the first turn. It generally means sacrificing a couple of aux tank units but it also weakens and delays the Soviet onslaught.

[loganfive]

Turn 7 at Budapest45.

As you can see, my rescue force is in the city and is in a position to stop the Soviet onslaught by the end of the next turn.

[loganfive]

The final turn at Budapest44.

I have cleared the map and rescued 15 Hungarian units in Budapest.

I'm still unsure about the Maus unit. It's at 153 experience points and 165 kills. It should get its second star in the next scenario, but it's a cap space hog and the only reason for putting it in the action is to get it ready for the Berlin battles. Quite honestly, I would have been better off nursing along one of the captured KV-85s and upgrading it to a Tiger II.

It's the same with the fighter units. At Field Marshall level, the best strategy is to purchase three fighters in 1939, and rotate them into the action. Add Heinrich Bar in 1940 and Gerhard Barkhorn in 1944, for a total of five, plus the SE Eric Hartmann unit for the Berlin battles. The two defence-crippled hero units you get in 1941 and 1942 are worse than useless. You can also sell off Wilhelm Batz in 1945, as he will be stuck at one hero and two stars, and you can't upgrade him to a jet. You are probably better off getting another SE tank unit instead.

If I ever do the GC again at Field Marshall I will try it that way.

[PeteMitchell]

I'm still unsure about the Maus unit. It's at 153 experience points and 165 kills. It should get its second star in the next scenario, but it's a cap space hog and the only reason for putting it in the action is to get it ready for the Berlin battles. Quite honestly, I would have been better off nursing along one of the captured KV-85s and upgrading it to a Tiger II.

It's the same with the fighter units. At Field Marshall level, the best strategy is to purchase three fighters in 1939, and rotate them into the action. Add Heinrich Bar in 1940 and Gerhard Barkhorn in 1944, for a total of five, plus the SE Eric Hartmann unit for the Berlin battles. The two defence-crippled hero units you get in 1941 and 1942 are worse than useless. You can also sell off Wilhelm Batz in 1945, as he will be stuck at one hero and two stars, and you can't upgrade him to a jet. You are probably better off getting another SE tank unit instead.

I agree, I am not a big fan of the Maus either as it is normally/also too slow... on the fighters, yes I agree (especially on selling the poor heroes), I am just not sure whether these will be enough fighters then?

[loganfive]

For this campaign, I purchased two fighters in 1939 and added the Heinrich Bar hero unit in 1940.

When playing the GC again on Field Marshall, where experience is at a premium, the idea would be to purchase three fighters in 1939 and to deploy them on a rotating basis (because you never need more than two of them in the early stages of the Grand Campaign). Then you add the Heinrich Bar unit in 1940. The three purchased fighters should all have three stars by the end of 1941. This way, you don't need both of the -2 Defence fighters you are awarded in 1941 and 1942. You can sell off one of the defence-crippled hero units and use the other one sparingly. You should end up with four five-star fighters in 1945, plus the three-star Gerhard Barkhorn hero unit you get in 1944. You can also sell off the Wilhelm Batz SE unit and purchase a jet for the Berlin battles. That will free up an SE slot that you can use to get e.g. another SE Tiger II, which in turn means that you can sell off the Maus.

Anyway, I am just thinking out loud about how I could do things better in terms of building my core and ending up with better quality, cap-friendly units of the same type.

This strategy is probably not good for e.g. Manstein, where you get the normal experience points, plus a lot more kills for your fighter units.

Also, I tend to use more Flak and fewer bombers than most players, which generally means that I can get away with a smaller fighter core.

[loganfive]

91950 prestige points heading into Seelow.

I struggled with this scenario in my first attempt at the Grand Campaign. I think the problem was that I was afraid of deploying all my fighters at the front line because of a morbid fear of Soviet SPAAG units, when in fact there's only a couple of them here and they don't show up until later in the scenario.

I should be able to win air superiority with fewer air and AA units than last time. That would allow me to use a lot more infantry, which is critical here because of the sheer number of rough terrain hexes.

I believe the victory bonus at Seelow is something like 7000 points if you can stay under the cap, although this scenario is really hard to win on the cheap. The second wave of Soviet units is huge and powerful. I know that some players have been able to turn this scenario into a turkey shoot by destroying all the Soviet bridging units, but that too is not easy to do on the cheap.

There are a few of options here:

1. Deploy just enough resources to get the DV while staying under the cap (or just above it) and not losing any core units.
2. Go All In and try to run the table.
3. Find some middle ground between the first two options.

The first one sounds attractive, but this scenario can get really hairy, and I don't really need the prestige.

[loganfive]

Deployment at Seelow.

This is the first scenario where I deliberately purchased cannon fodder core units. In this case it's the three Volksstrum in the middle of your screen and the Pak43 on the lower right. The fort on the rail link is useful because you can transport it to the Southwest where you can use it as a barrier in case the Soviets break containment there. I also left my Flak unit exposed to artillery fire and attack by Soviet tank units, but it was the only way to protect my Maus and railway gun from the Soviet air force.

[loganfive]

Turn 9 at Seelow.

One of my green artillery units got a +1 Range on the first turn, and my Maus unit got a +1 Movement. On the negative side my Wilhelm Batz fighter unit got jumped by 3 Soviet fighters and barely survived. I am not optimistic about keeping him alive during the Berlin battles.

As you can see in the image below, I am in a position to move the special recon unit to one of the designated hexes and get a DV on the next turn. However, I elected to stick around for few more turns, mostly to get a few more kills and experience for my units.

[loganfive]

The end at Seelow.

You can see some the damage to my artillery and fighter units.

In this case it's not the end of the world, because the damage brings you closer to the cap. With a 7000 prestige point max victory bonus, an extra 10% on the cap means 700 points.

Also, my Maus got its 200th experience point on the final turn. With 2 stars and +1 Movement it should be a fairly useful unit in Berlin.

[loganfive]

On to the first of the Berlin battles with 88513 prestige points. Which means that I have dropped more than 8000 prestige points over the previous two scenarios. Not a great job of managing prestige on my part.

However, I have way more prestige than I could possibly need from now until the end, so it's not really an issue.

I am not sure what strategy I am going to employ in Berlin.

In my previous attempt at the GC, I was able to rescue some of the aux units and upgrade them to useful infantry and AT units. You can even upgrade one or more of the AT units to a StuG IV and use it as artillery.

I didn't use Volksstrum (or other sacrificial core units) last time but I suspect that it's an effective and inexpensive way to slow down the Soviet advance over the first two or three turns.

Another thing I learned from my first attempt was that your big guns will always be running out of ammo in the two Berlin scenarios and that is a huge problem. Which is why 105s with attack heroes may not be very sexy but they are really good units have here. Bridging units are very helpful too.

Also, for some reason the Soviets don't bring any AA units with them when they attack, which makes it fairly easy to locate and destroy the Soviet artillery.

[loganfive]

Deployment at Berlin.

No point in worrying about prestige for the two Berlin Battles. I spent about 30000 on upgrades and overstrengths for Berlin and should have about 60000 left for the Redux.

The plan here is to do a fighting withdrawal in the Southwest, and maintain a small force on the Southeast to hold the airfield. Everything else is between the canal banks.

Kill the artillery, IS-2s and Soviet Engineer units first. The other units are much less of a threat.

I also plan to rescue and upgrade about a dozen aux units. The extra units will plug up holes in the line and provide extra infantry and artillery (well, artillery in the form of Stug IVs).

This approach will mean that the first six or seven turns are going to be intense. But once I get past the initial crisis, it should get much easier.

[loganfive]

Turn 7 at Berlin.

You can see on the bottom left that I have completed my planned fighting withdrawal, and I rescued the 12.8cm Flak unit too.

There are three Soviet units on the bottom right that have broken through my perimeter, but I now have more than enough units to wipe them out in a couple of turns.