Encirclement questions!

[unmerged(1668)]

Hello all,

I'm playing Armageddon, 1.1 (straight out of the Anthology box). Probably should patch the game, but I have a good one going, and don't want to chance it.



I am/was playing as Germany, and conquered: Lux, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, Romania, Denmark, and Norway. I earned my Vichy event, and steamrolled everyone until...

The Soviets. I invaded late (March 1, 1942) and did well, and I was ambitoius with my encirclements, and appearantly, too much so.

I was going for huge traps, trying to enclose 4-5 provinces at a time. My idea was to send 4 mixed armies (infantry with a few armor divisions) into a province, wait for them to reorganize, and then sent the armies to the next province, but leaving one behind for defense of the supply lines.

EVERY time I came close to my encirclement, the Soviets attacked a 9-division army that was defending, and then my armies were encircled!

My questions are:

Should I go for 1-2 province traps, and keep larger armies behind in newly-conquered provinces for defense?

I believe I was making a mistake with this:

Let's say that my encirclement was going to be complete: my last army would complete the trap at April 2, 1942 for example. I would wait a few days, or even longer, to attack the armies that I just cut off from their supply lines, since I figured it would be better to "starve" them a little before wiping them out.

Was that a bad approach? For example, if my ETA for my last army to create the finished encirclement was April 2 1942, should I have set that to be the time for my armies to attack the troops that I trapped, or is it better to let the trapped armies languish a bit?

I hope this makes sense!

Also, if I have a province completely surrounded, but they have access to a river or an ocean, will they still be cut-off from supplies?

I remember the Soviets destroyed me on HOI I the first time I tried to use encirclements, until I figured out what I did wrong, but now I can't remember how I changed my strategy!

I have some other general questions for later, but this is the big issue for me right now.

Thanks!

P.S. Was it the best unit to use with conquered provinces with a high revolt rate? Am I doing something wrong, or it impossible to move garrison troops into a province conquered by partisans? And does the "MP" brigade useful when dealing with partisans?

 

[pdBravo]

Quite a few questions, I'll try answer a few of them to the best of my knowledge.

With any encirclement you need to ensure that the 'shoulder' of it is secure. The size of your encirclement is dictated by what troops you have available to secure it. If you have a lot, you can do bigger ones. Overstretch and your spearhead will become encircled in itself and you'll lose it. Paratroopers are very useful for closing the final gap in an encirclement, quite often I plan so my final province will be an airfield and then after the pocket is reduced the paratroopers stay there and use it as a jump off point for the next encirclement.

Troops forced out of supply at coastal areas will initially be out of supply until they are able to get some convoys going. You either need to dominate the waters, or follow up quickly to destroy the enemy forces contained.

 

[unmerged(1668)]

Quite a few questions, I'll try answer a few of them to the best of my knowledge.

With any encirclement you need to ensure that the 'shoulder' of it is secure. The size of your encirclement is dictated by what troops you have available to secure it. If you have a lot, you can do bigger ones. Overstretch and your spearhead will become encircled in itself and you'll lose it. Paratroopers are very useful for closing the final gap in an encirclement, quite often I plan so my final province will be an airfield and then after the pocket is reduced the paratroopers stay there and use it as a jump off point for the next encirclement.

Troops forced out of supply at coastal areas will initially be out of supply until they are able to get some convoys going. You either need to dominate the waters, or follow up quickly to destroy the enemy forces contained.

Thank you!

Is there a general rule on when to attack isolated troops (as soon as they are trapped, etc)

 

[pdBravo]

Is there a general rule on when to attack isolated troops (as soon as they are trapped, etc)

I tend to yes, unless there were some other circumstance where if your troops lost a lot of org in the process of the attack you'd be risking losing a bigger amount. Though that sort of circumstance would be rare.

Just today I managed to clear up a pocket of 21 Japanese divisions with only 17 of mine. I had more troops incoming but I thought I'd have a bash quickly as they were about to take another province which my forces there had to retreat from. If they'd got there I'd have had much more difficulty clearing the pocket due to the time it would have taken to catch up with my main body, and I couldn't have committed all those troops anyway as they were needed to defend the 'shoulder'.

It was a very close battle and I wasn't far away from being defeated and all of a sudden they collapsed. So yes, quicker is generally better

 

[unmerged(1668)]

Thank you!

 

[unmerged(105989)]

Another note on encirclements:
I split my army into three groups: straight inf / mobile inf / arm (mech generally falls here too).

Infantry attack in large numbers to cut holes and hold the shoulders of a bulge. Armor and mot exploit going deep. The armor complete the encirclement (generally) while the mot keep the the armor from getting surrounded in turn.

Also, I prefer getting a number of smaller, surer encirclements as opposed to going for the huge cutoff. That said, against the SU, the pripyet marshes are a ready made trap for dozens of soviet divisions if you play your cards properly at all.

Attacking encircled troops (or cut off ones) really all depends on the situation. Generally I agree with PDbravo, and sooner is better than later. But sometimes, you will have the combat power to contain the enemy, but not enought to beat them in a stand up fight. Conversly, they can hold their ground, but due to lack of supplies, cannot move back and try and cut their way out. The Pripyet pocket for the soviets is a perfect example of this scenario. Then simply wait a while, let their org go down, then attack. This requires more troops to cover your mobile forces as they advance deeper(you don't want to repeat Hitler's mistake and stop your spearheads for a month), but overall it does work.

 

[unmerged(1668)]

Thank you.

My plan sucked, to be quite honest.

I had tanks mixed with infantry...moving forward, my initial attacks will consist of 2 infantry armies with HQ, and once (if?) I win the battle, I will send pure panzer armies to attack the retreating Soviets armies.

I'll send whatever I can spare to attack the encircled divisions.

 

[Dinglehoff]

I suggest you break through and keep your mobile troops and tanks pushing past, while you screen off the encirclement with smaller groups of troops and air support. That way your main force keeps the rest of the enemy armies under attack and pushing away which makes it much more difficult for the encircled troops to get relief or break out.
They might fight it out for a while or the enemy might try to attack around; but as long as the front lines are moving away from them, it's a done deal.