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Germany 1936 to defeat on 1.2 patch

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unmerged(50607)

Corporal
Nov 16, 2005
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This is my first crack at writing an AAR for a game like this so show mercy on me when posting.... I am writing this at game time Feb. 1 1940. And as soon as I figure out screen shots I will include some. I am very excited by the new patch since the game at first was not very fun. This patch seems to have eliminated a ton of issues.

I am taking Germany from 1936 to victory or utter annilation depending which comes first.

1936 Military decisions.
Focused on building existing ground forces into a viable two front capable Army. Redesigned each INF division to contain 2 INF bdes, 1 ART, and 1 ENG, AT, AC of choice. 3 divisions to Corps, 3 corps to an army. Additionally each Corps HQ contains 1 AA, 1 INF, 1 ART, bde. My plan is to use the HQ units in a crunch as an understrength division. By March of 1937 I have 3 armies on the western front, 2 armies facing Poland, 1 army facing the Checks, and 1 in the Konigsberg pocket.

I am quick building 5 additional interceptor wings of 3 Interceptors each. I am also building airfields around the edge of the fatherland so as to put an effective umbrella over the nation from strategic bombing.

1936 Decisions Politics and other
I am going after Romania and Bulgaria heavy with diplomacy. Italy and to a smaller degree Hungary are already hunching my leg to join. Austria is being lured in with heavy spy concentration promoting Nazism internally.

1937 military decisions
By march completed the rebuilding of the INF forces. Began construction of my first motorized divisions. Motorized units will be composed of 2 INF, 1 SP ART, 1 TD. I am focusing heavily on research for better equipment and upgrading.
Began construction on TAC bombers to have 4 (3 wing) bomber groups by the start of war. Began construction on CAS units to have 4 (3 wing) CAS groups by the start of war.

1937 events and other decisions.
I took Italy in as a partner. Hungary followed shortly after by the end of 1937. Oddly enough the Republican Spainiards won and are now the largest threat in Europe. I have a feeling this Repub. Spain deal will be a pain later on.

1938 Military decisions.
Got tech going full blast on research for a variety of weapons I will need early on and to get SP-ART, Mech INF, as soon as possible. I began building 9 more armored divisions. Armored divisions to be composed of 2 M.ARM, 1 SP ART,1 Mech Inf, (substituting mot. INF for now). Goal is for two Panzer armies of 6 divisions each. Long range structure of a Panzer army would be 6 ARM divisions with 3 MECH divisions.

Tech researched Para, Marine, Mountain Divisions. Parachute units with aircraft are being developed and Marine as well.

1938 politics etc.
Fighting a major economic issue with money. Turned to producing a huge amount of supplies to sell to intern buy as much oil as I can get my hands on. Pushing refining and conversion techs for oil to the hilt.

Anschluss is accomplished on Feb. 1 1938 without really much incident.

Tradewise I am totally focused on Romania and Bulgaria. Not sure this helps align them with me but I guess it cant hurt.

Also trading with Soviets as much as possible.

Munich conferences go smoothly with Chechoslovakia being dismembered quite nicely. Refaced my army from that border to Poland.

1939 Military Decisions.
Prior to conflict I want 2 Panzer armies understrength and 2 motorized armies at my disposal. Also two airborne divisions with lift capability and 1 marine div with lift capability.

1939 Politics etc
I am basically trading fast and hard to get all the oil I can before August 1 1939 which I chose as "war day". This works well with a large supply of crude to refine.

AUGUST 1 1939
Danzig or war scenario after molotov/ribbentrop agreement. On july 1 I activated the mobilize feature. To date every unit built was a reserve formation. The allies do NOTHING at my mobilization. Except Denmark...they mobilized...thought that was quite funny.

Poland Strategy
Konigsberg pocket is held by 1 INF army and 1 MOT army. INF army is defensive except for attack in far east to capture province with the airfield in Poland. The MOT army is tasked to drive on Warsaw at all costs. I want to cut the supply and political head of Poland off as soon as possible.

Danzig is assaulted by one Panzer corps with a 1 Marine div landing. The remaining armor is used in a two prong attack from Cottbus to Warsaw, and Biernice to Warsaw. To spice things up I am dropping 2 airborne divisions in the path of the armor to seize an airfield deep in Poland. CAS is tasked to help the airborne assault. TAC supports the armored thrusts. The 3 INF armies are to open breaches in the lines to allow the armor to roll, then mop up the pockets. In my mind classic blitzkrieg tactics.

RESULTS....Poland is destroyed in 18 days.
The MOT division after a hard slugfest takes Warsaw. This seems to throw the AI system for a loop. Units begin pulling back even faster from good defensive positions. The armored thrusts perform as expected and relieve the MOT army from encirclement.
Pleasant surprises. My airborne assault landed on a Pole Army HQ and destroyed it. The airborne holds out till the armored columns arrive. The result is the Poles are retreating INTO the teeth of my armor. The airborne assault totally disrupts the Poles attempts to organize and helps tremendously. They are ground up quickly. Also the Marine invasion of Danzig went well. Nice little diversion.

3 INF armies are left on the eastern front to hold and the rest of forces are transfered to the western front.

I STILL CANT GET THE DAMNED STRAT. DEPLOYMENT TOOL TO WORK. Can someone explain how it works plz?

The rest of 1939 is spent building up MOT and ARM forces for the assault on France tentatively planned for June 1 1940.

1939 Politics.
After the destruction of Poland my diplomatic efforts in Romania and Bulgaria pay off. Both Romania and Bulgaria join the axis so I have a continuous front against the Soviets. One way to accomplish this was to not take the Hungarian side on the Vienna dictate that cost Romania. I need the Romanian oil more than the Hungarian stew...hehe.

Also the Repub. Spaniards joined the allies and are at war with me. They are doing the most damage to my shipping and are beginning to cripple my oil imports. I am altering my global strategy to include taking Spain out.

I will try to do updates every 6 months of game time and I hope this wasnt to long winded but I enjoy reading the other AARs for hints on how to play better. I have the game set on HARD level as well.

I appreciate any suggestions and questions...I really like this game, I playted HOI2 and this one appeals to me even if it is hugely complicated.

KH
 
Nice AAR! You seem to produce a lot of armoured forces. I wonder if you did anything for your navy? Do you build battleships or even CVs?
 
Armor wise I have 12 armored divisions as of June 1 1940. To me thats about adequate and not near enough to take on the Soviets. The Navy has suffered a lot in this scenario. I have begun a submarine construction program now that I have the tech moved forward enough to justify building some good boats and not just fodder.
 
June 1 1940 Update

March 1 1940 I elected to take the Danes out to help secure the Baltic sea area. French and Brit surface forces were threatening my northern coasts so by taking out Copenhagen that threat is moved back some distance. I used my airborne forces and Marine forces to invade. It was a cake walk but good practice for my special troops.

June 1, 1940 Invasion of France.
Forces tasked for Invasion:
4 INF armies (36 INF Div)
2 ARM armies (12 ARM Div)
2 MOT armies (18 MOT Div)
2 ABN Corps (6 ABN Div) "only have aircraft to move 4 div. at one time.

Strategy:
1 INF army to attack Netherlands.
2 ABN Corps to be dropped in to secure Rhine river crossings. (Think of Market Garden in reverse).
1 MOT army attacking from Dusseldorf to cologne.
1 MOT army attacking Luxembourg/Bastogne area.
1 INF army attacking Aachen to Brussels area.
2 ARM armies behind Luxembourg assault.
2 INF armies Maginot line area on defense.

My plan is to run over the Netherlands and Belguim quickly. Luxembourg is to act as the gateway for an armored thrust to Lille. The two ARM armies are positions so I can exploit the Luxembourg attack or go more north thru Brussels if the MOT breach attack on Lux bogs down.
Air power is completely committed to air superiority over the Low Countries at this point. Will shift focus once my airborne drops are completed to cover part of France. TAC and CAS forces are tasked to destroy logistics and ground forces around LUX.
This plan is very similar to the actual attack on the western front in 1940.
 
The Republican Spain allies component is odd. Liberia joined the allies which is weird since they are more or less a US puppet and the US is still neutral. The JAP AI player is not interested in the Axis and seems to be getting mauled on the Chinese mainland. That needs to be fixed since the JAP forces handled the CHN forces pretty easily in real time. Another thing that is odd is that I almost had Greece in the axis and the Italian AI attacked them. Now Greece is an Allies player. Kind of silly for the Italy AI to attack when I had them close.
 
Fall of France

Invaded France on June 2nd 1940 with the battleplan laid out in earlier posts.

I then made adjustments to the plan after the initial fighter sweeps over the Netherlands and Belguim. Most of my airborne forces would land on Dutch divisions if I went with my plan. On the other hand the Belgians were crowded up on the German border and the center of Belguim was wide open. I airdropped 6 divisions on the provinces around Antwerp. All drops were successful and this did a number of things.

1. Belgian army went into full retreat from the German border without even being attacked.

2. Seriously slowed down, actually stopped the flow of French forces northward to help either the Dutch or the Belgians.

3. Provided a perfect stepping stone for an armored thrust to the coast with speed in mind.

All INF div. attacks went as scheduled and I altered the trajectory of my Armor a little. 1 Panzer army went thru Luxembourg and on to Paris. 1 MOT division dropped off divisions along the way to keep a lane open back to Germany. The other Panzer army blew thru Belgium turned left at the Channel coast and arrived north of Paris on June 23.

Luxembourg surrendered on June 10th.

Antwerp fell on June 20th. Belgium was fully occupied by June 30th.

Amsterdam fell on July 2nd. The Dutch held out better than expected and didnt fold militarily till July 17th.

In France the AI model went ape over the sudden appearance of armor so close to Paris. It began pulling units from the Maginot line and trying to move them westward to Paris. I blocked this movement with a MOT army on the west side of the Maginot. I wasnt able to complete an encirclement of the defenses but a huge battle erupted between forces trying to get to Paris.

I kept the pressure on province by province while supplies caught up with my forces. I then moved my airborne forces to antwerp, loaded up, and made a jump into the cherbourg peninsula. From Caen to Cherbourg. Again the AI tried to react and pulled units away from Paris to try and contain this thrust. I made one huge mistake at this time and dropped an airborne div. on the channel islands. The Brits defenders ate them for lunch. I continued to stretch the French forces towards Brest while hammering slowly southward along the whole line.

One thing I found interesting was the huge difference in casualty report totals. The French were losing 4 times on average as many men as I was.

July 30th Paris Fell. The vichy france event trigger didnt happen till Sept. 9th but I also backed off and conserved my forces in August.

Also I regrouped my Paratroopers in Cherbourg, and jumped the Channel island with 5 divisions on August 10th. This time the brits got smoked.

Anyway took 99 days and the low countries and France are out of the war.

Interesting side note Greece agreed to be a puppet state of Italy and now is a part of the axis.
 
Pamplona and the Running of the Bulls!!!

It is now Jan. 1 1941

After the fall of France in Sept 1940 the AI model surprised me with a couple of interesting moves.

1. Launched repeated invasions of the channel islands that were rebuffed and resulted in huge Brit casualties.

2. Republican Spain INVADED southern France.

I countered by attacking Spain. Pamplona is one of the first provinces I took so I envisioned the Spanish running infront of German armor like they do the bulls...lol.

My invasion force consists of 2 MOT armies and 1 INF army. This Spanish issue has seriously altered my plan for global conquest. Currently after 3 months of heavy fighting I have about one fourth of Spain under my control. I say its hard fighting since you have to punch thru the Pyrennes mountains to get into Spain, the infrastructure in Spain sucks, and no close air fields to bring my CAS and TAC forces into the fight effectively.

Air power wise my neglect of tech on airframes and engines is beginning to show. My interceptor squadrons are now getting mauled by the Brits. Dec. 1 1940 I pulled all my squadrons back to rebuild them. Over half were down to 25% or less strength.

Naval power wise no real change yet although my naval bombers are tasked to bomb convoys and have done a lot of damage to shipping.

1941 Planning.

The following objectives are what I have in mind for the coming year.

1. Conquer and consolidate Spain, and Gibraltar. Diplomatically get Portugal on my side as an ally.

2. Consolidate and garrison properly France, BENELUX, Poland, and Denmark. I am going to use a armored car division formation to knock down the partisans.

3. Conquer Norway. Consolidate, garrison, etc. and use it as a base to cut off eventual supplies from Brit to Soviet Union.

4. Conquer Yugoslavia. I plan on using the "call to arms" function on Yugoslavia to bring ROM, BUL, ITL, GRK, and HUN, forces into play. THey all seem to want a piece of the Balkans so this is a good way to get them into the fight I think.

5. Complete the construction of my planned forces for invasion of Soviet Union which I am now planning for Spring of 1942.

Biggest problem I am beginning to encounter is manpower.

Diplomatically the Soviets are still my buddies, and my biggest threat to face. Although the HUGE number of Sov divisions all along the eastern front is very scary to look at!!

KH
 
Jan-July 1941

I kept my conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in full gear and was actually surprised on March 1. I captured Madrid on March 1 and Republican Spain hit the floor like a pair of panties on prom night. Total surrender and annexation was achieved. I then turned my focus to Gibraltar which I really wanted to seal off the Mediterranean. I captured Gibraltar by the end of March.

Spent April - July 1 consolidating my gains with evenly spaced garrisons and after I had a good control I began to bump up the level of govt. I went from collaboration to military rule and this boosted my income of IC significantly.

Headaches: The British have a huge supply of air and I am using up a ton of reinforcements on rebuilding my ftr and int. units. I finally just pulled the whole airforce back to Germany to be rebuilt. The strategic targets rebuild themselves fairly quickly so this isnt hurting me much. I have also constructed a lot of radar installations and "teched" them up so I can see most of Britain.

I liked the tech radar so much I began installing it on the Soviet front. That was a bad idea since I CAN SEE THE HORDE now. The SOV is deep in troops and is massing. I am still crash building my ARM and MECH armies I mentioned before but will I be done in time to strike first? Or will Ivan come after me?

I have decided that Scandanavia would be a headache i dont want so I scrubbed my invasion plan for Norway. I am going to attack Yugoslavia on August 1. This should drag my axis partners, all of whom are still on the fence into the fight to get a piece of land.

Would appreciate some feed back and ideas if you have them. I also love questions. I really need to figure out how to take screen shots...any advise on this?
 
Barbarossa in 1942... That definitely means a lot of fight. I hope you can finish your army build up. Maybe you should search some defensive doctrines (for tactical with. or delay) in case of a Soviet thrust.

Also, do you guard shores of Spain? An allied embarkment easily ruin your day.
 
expecting a slugfest

I have my coast lines covered with coastal forts under construction, double garrison on ports, and then I keep a Corps (3 div INF) within a couple days march of each port.

I noticed the AI just attacks the ports for invasion so I just focus in on those.

I am keeping the SOV "happiness level" with Germany at around 140 and plan to do that before I lower the boom on them.

Either way the eastern fight is going to be bloody.
 
January 1942

Game play from July thru Dec. 1941 was largely uneventful.

Military action
Invaded Yugoslavia on Sept. 5 and they surrendered to the axis forces on Oct. 19. I invited BUL, ITL, HUN, GRK, and ROM to join the war and they all agreed. On Sept. 26, the totality of the axis alliance is in conflict with the allies. I am letting the AI run these other countries since I am handling all aspects of Germany. I did let the AI handle the Intelligence area for a brief time but it sent spies to such high level enemies as Sweden and Switzerland so I thought I could handle this thing a little better than that.

Oct. 1 I withdrew my air forces from the battle again to rebuild. The reinforcement cost on my fighters is huge. The downside to this was the damage that was inflicted by bombing, although minimal, did drop my national unity from 98% to 82%. I have been trying to raise it back up but to no avail.

Mid Nov. I put my air forces back in the fight and stopped the bombers but again my reinforcement costs are staggering. I mean over 100 IC to keep the planes in the air.

On a positive note with some extra reading I did figure out how to strategically redeploy troops. That makes fighting insurgents much easier. In this six months I had one uprising in France and two in Spain. The garrison system is working well and keeps my IC at about 467 minus whatever is bombed.

Massive construction is underway for my Barbarrosa forces. But I am concerned about the national unity issue. I want to get that back up in the 90%.

Any thoughts on raising that number up? I switched my INT forces to raising unity for 2 months and got nothing for the effort...
 
Hi, re NU - if you are in combat you get a negative impact (something keyed off 'brigades in combat'), plus whatever damage the RAF may be doing. So in war your spies on NU are in part bogged down in offsetting the negative factors. But even in peace its just a long haul to push your NU up -- do you have a minister that might help?
 
National Unity

Yeah i see what your talking about but an interesting point would be I got a bigger boost out of interception of bombers and knocking them down than from the spies. I guess that makes sense in a lot of ways.

I did stumble onto a solution for casualty issue. Using "big wing" tactics similiar to what the Brits tried to do at the beginning of the battle of britain versus having squadrons dispersed and intercepting indepth.

6 wings grouped together does not seem to trigger a stacking penalty and sure knocks the hell out of the RAF bombers. Invested heavily in tech on aircraft and its beginning to show results as well.

This game could use strickly night fighter squadrons. Right now I am staggering my interceptors from night to day duty to avoid fatigue.
 
F11 screen shot look in your game folder under screenshots.

ps.
If you use Vista (aka ME II) or 7 (aka ME II SP7) and have installed it in program files you may have too search for your print screens :(
 
Don't you use your spies to increase national unity? Try looking around the intelligence screen.
 
Tackling the Russian bear in 1942..damn that hurt

The first 8 months of the year were spent consolidating my gains so far in my occupied territories and preparing for Barbarrosa.

Sept. 10th 1942. After construction delays on my ARM divisions I am finally ready to launch a limited attack to tear off a big piece of Soviet territory.

Strategy:
I am going to launch a two pronged assault with the aim to encircle as many SOV divisions as possible and wipe them out. I am going to try and cripple the SOV ability to fight offensively.

Plan:
Phase One:

An ABN drop on Riga to seize a port forward and to disrupt reinfocements flowing from the north.

Phase Two:

The left arm of the attack will start from Memel, go to Riga, and then to Smolensk. An armored formation of 2 ARM armies and 1 MOT army, will attack from Memel to Riga and then follow the river that flows thru Riga to the East to Smolensk.

The right arm will attack from Brest Livotsk due east along the river system that runs east till it intersects with the river system about 300 kilometers to the east. This force is composed of 2 ARM army and 1 MOT army.

Phase Three:

The 4 INF armies in the center will push the line to tie up the front line SOV units and begin to drive them back eastward. At the same time after a rest 1 ARM army from each arm of the attack ( one north one south) will turn and attack along the river that runs north south at that map point. Thus completing an encirclement. ARM armies will hang on and knock back any rescue or breakout attempts while the INF armies grind up the entrapped pocket.

Phase Four:

Consolidate and prepare for a summer offensive.

RESULTS:

The airborne assault went flawlessly and did its job in capturing Riga and disrupting the SOV lines in the north. My initial assaults on the SOV line met with heavy resistance. Fierce battles erupted while attempting to break the SOV line.

By Oct. 15 I had relieved Riga and was pushing eastward. In the south the armies were heavily engaged and still trying to break out. I noticed the SOV AI was robbing its front lines to try and patch holes in the lines where my armored thrusts were gaining momentum. I launched my INF divisions early to tie down the front line SOV divisions. What ensued could best be called a bar fight. Provinces were changing hands as the SOV counterattacked in the center and my Armies were hanging on for dear life.

SOV AI also launched a very serious counter attack just south of Brest-Livotsk which shattered my 5th Army INF that was on the defensive in this region. I had to pull my mountain army (6 divisions) out of Yugoslavia to bolster the line and keep the SOV out of Poland and from encircling the Hungarians. The BUL, HUN, and ROM forces were losing ground along all the borders with the SOV as the AI pushed offensively everywhere.

Jan. 1942.

After four months of bitter fighting the encirclement was completed. Dec. 28th 1941 the SOV forces were surrounded. The next two months were spent mopping up the pockets of resistance. Pockets were focused around north of Memel (18 divisions), Lida (12 divisions) Kaunas (13 divisions) and Vitebesk (26 divisions). In total the German forces wiped out 69 SOV divisions.

Mar. 1942.

I am consolidating the situation in my area of advance and pulling together my armored forces to attack southward to blunt a SOV. drive. The SOV AI attacked hard south of my main penetration and has fought its way and taken Brest-Litovsk. I am going to slice southward out of my area that I have taken and encircle the SOV again...thank you SOV AI!!!!

Casualties were enormous on my units. 8 units shattered completely, mainly in the south under assault from SOV units. And on average my ARM units lost 40% of strength and the INF units were losing about 33% of strength.

I have noticed that I am pushing the SOV to the breaking point since fewer divisions are coming into the line from the East and what is coming in are from its puppet states. I hope IVAN is close to breaking...but I doubt it.

KH
 
Mar.-Jun 30 1942

After months of hard fighting the objectives of the initial invasion of Russia have been met. My lines have been stabilized and I have pulled my Armored Armies out of the line to rest and refit.

The Soviet forces unfortunately did not cooperate with my plan.

April 8th Romania completely collapsed under the weight of a huge Soviet assault. They refused to surrender and have set up a government in exile in German territory.

Naturally my Hungarian and Bulgarian allies were not happy about this situation.

I hastily began making plans for an attack into the south of Russia to cut off this occupation of Romania and most importantly get that precious oil back. I altered my construction schedule to crank out some INF divisions in a hurry to help hold the line while I attacked southward.

June 8th I launched an attack with 3 of my ARM armies down the dneister river with the goal of cutting off the invading SOV army in the south and destroy it. My initial assault on the Dneister river area southward is proceeding well and I expect to be my on the shores of the Black Sea buy August 15.

I am going to wear the Soviets down by cutting them off and destorying them every chance i get.

KH
 
The war in the east sounds like quite a difficult fight! This is great. :D
 
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