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Germany 1933-1940: problems after France

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lucido

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Jun 15, 2014
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CONTEXT

Events and decisions have been mostly historical so far, except:
- annexed all of Czechoslovakia, there is no Slovakia;
- annexed all of France, there is no Vichy regime;
- annexed Denmark, but didn't invade Norway;
- no pact with Italy.

Current ministers: von Neurath, Schacht, Frick, Canaris, Beck, von Fritsch, Raeder, Göring.
Intelligence: level 16, with 94.17% counter-espionage.
Tech: research levels are normal for 1940, but most forces are outdated (1936 INF, etc).

Heer: 98 divs (76 INF, 5 MNT, 3 CAV, 4 HQ, 6 MOT, 4 ARM).
Luftwaffe: 22 units (11 CAS, 1 TAC, 1 NAV, 9 INT).
Kriegsmarine: 33 units (2 SUB, the rest is the default you get as Germany).

Economy: base/available IC - 236/341. Dissent: 0%.
Resources: Energy 192K, Metal 87K; Rares 44K; Oil 85K; Supplies 21K; Money 13K.
In production: 3 INF; 2 ENG brigs; 1 MIL+MP; 1 HQ; 3 MOT; 2 ARM; 3 CAS; 3 INT; 2 NAV; 1 SUB; 1 Factory.

1940: THE AERIAL PROBLEM

France surrendered in 24/06/1940, just 2 days after historical date. Germany now occupies: Austria, Czechoslovakia, half of Poland, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, and France. Full context is described above.

Suddenly the UK started to land in Brest and Amsterdam. Completely suicidal attacks, they just didn't quit. I placed a few divisions along the coast to stop the madness.

And then it began: daily bombings in several provinces, with TACs and FTRs from UK, Canada, Australia(!), South Africa(!), India(!)... I put Milch with his 8 INT units in Air Superiority missions, but after some days they lose too much strength, and you have to stop to reinforce.

Reinforcements take weeks, meanwhile you're being bombed every day, and you can't even bomb them back when 1) you only have CAS; 2) you're constantly outnumbered. I thought: maybe with more air units? So I started a test, and spent a full game year just producing and researching.

ONE YEAR LATER

So after a full year, with 410 IC, no dissent, no invasions, everything peachy apart from bombings:
- I have only 114 land divs (just 16 more than in 1940);
- I have 16 INTs and 19 CAS, but they still won't stop the UK (even without the US);
- most of my forces are still outdated.

Doesn't look good. How can I invade USSR with 114 divs - mostly from 1936? The upgrades take forever, and still need 400+ IC.

I get that my main problem is production - obviously too little, too late - and maybe I wasted some IC in 1-level upgrades instead of waiting for the 2nd level, but even with better planning DH seems to take too much time + too much IC to produce/upgrade.

And how to win in the air, if they just won't stop? It's an endless loop. You win air battles, but eventually you have to stop to reinforce, and during those weeks it's back to square one: they return to daily bombings. And then the US join the war, and it gets even worse.

Sorry for the long post, any advice is appreciated.
 
1) Allying with Italy opens a whole new front for UK AI. It usually spends quite a bit of time shipping wings back and forth from North Africa to UK killing ORG in the process. (gamey)
1a) Figure out what area/regions the AI tends to send these planes (such as southern France, Bordeaux, or Med sea near Florence) and run Air Superiority there. Added benefit of their planes are low org already due to rebasing and the AI keeps issuing the rebase order until you wipe out the wing! (even more gamey)

2) Use Air Scramble rather than Air Superiority on/adjacent to your garrisons being attacked. This lets you use adjacent to air base bonuses, radar bonuses (you do build a radar or 2 on your key airbases right?), and lets you regain org/repair when enemy planes are not overhead.

3) Focus on INT/FTR Doctrines (1939-1940). Super key are the +25% to Air Scramble/+25% to Air Superiority which require some research into TAC or CAS doctrines to unlock.

4) Build an AA brigade and some static AA for whatever division they're bombing. AA + entrenchment = very little damage to you, at least in the early 1940's. Static AA = damage to them.

5) It looks like you're building too much IC and not enough army/air force. (about 40 is normal) Fine if you want a long fight with USSR but better to have an army that can knock them out than IC to run a prolonged war.

6) Don't worry about 1936-1939 upgrades for inf, it's like 1 soft attack or something. Set them on 'do not upgrade until you get 1942 tech.'. Really focus your upgrades on specific units such inf->mot, or inf->cav->arm, etc. Or just focus upgrades on the Air Force.
 
Jazwana:

1) I try to avoid gamey tactics as much as possible, and regarding Italy I usually go for a full german map, attacking Spain and Italy short after France. Didn't plan to have allies except Japan.

2) Unfortunately no radars, I sacrificed them when I saw the ridiculous (compared to Doomsday) production times, and felt I had to choose. Will give them a try, as well as Air Scramble.

3) I have all INT and CAS doctrines up to date, but still no luck. I do win most battles, but the losses and long reinforcement times eventually grind me to a halt.

4) Again, didn't build any AA when I had to choose what to put in production. Will give them a try as well.

5) Yeah, I went for a large IC base. What surprised me was that even 400+ IC (in 1941) wasn't enough! You're right, I need more divs and planes, but that means forgetting upgrades altogether.

6) Indeed, upgrades seem just not worth it in DH. But then why research new units if you're not going to use them, at least until 1942-43? And going to war with really old units seems just... meh.

SpaceViking:

Will try the AA, but these production times are so off-putting... I'm considering a restart in 1935-36 to reprioritize production. A shame really, because beating France+Ned+Belgium in time was quite a lot of work...
 
2) You can decide to not build any radar, but having the technology enabling Air Scramble is a must.

4) I understand than players may not want to build AA guns, nevertheless they are very effective. You can check my AAR (update of 06\21) and see how destructive they are on "my" Luftwaffe.

6) Upgrades. They are not really worthy, except where you want to maximize your punch (like PAR, MAR...) Personally, I consider it a must to have up-to-date FTR/INT or AA brigades on ships.

Globally, I am on total agreement with Jazwana (even if I don't use 1- on purpose)
 
I'll lend my voice to the AA chorus. They're not the least bit sexy, but they're always there when you need them and if you have enough of them they'll relieve the pressure you're under and make the UK spend more on maintaining their bomber force than you lose as a result of its efforts. If, as Viking suggests, you lay down a line at start up they end up being a very cheap and effective option.

lucido said:
How can I invade USSR with 114 divs - mostly from 1936?
Click to expand...

If within that 114 you have 7-9 Arm and about the same number of Mot it's do-able. The trick is to get your mobile forces through the Russian front line and deep enough into the rear to sever the connection to Moscow. Once that's done all those brown stacks hammering on your infantry will lose supply - and with it org. That will not only knock their fighting capacity into a cocked hat but will effectively halt their movement so that they can neither maintain their push toward Berlin nor advance to the rear to restore their supply lines. You, on the other hand, will be able to progressively pull your infantry out of the front line and move them through the gaps to create a solid cordon isolating the bulk of the Russian forces.

You'll have to really push to get your penetrations firmed up before the scripted Russian reinforcements start arriving, and you'll have a few palpitations along the way, but you can get it done. Needless to say, any help you can get from allies will be well worth cultivating - especially if it compels the Russians to commit forces to defending the Caucasus and gives you the chance to open a second front deep along the Black Sea coast via amphibious assault.

lucido said:
The upgrades take forever, and still need 400+ IC.
Click to expand...

I found this one of the hardest things to let go of in my re-orientation to DH logic. The fact is that in this game quantity beats quality nine times out of ten and those 400+ IC would be much better spent putting more feet in boots.
 
I've learned a lot from reading your AAR Lucifer :) I tend not to go too gamey but I feel that UK AI bonuses are somewhat balanced around having to fight two fronts so 1 is "OK" but not 1a.

It nearly always pays off to run a string of AA guns, a string of radars, and a string or two of air bases once dissent is quashed, and you have IC left over after meeting your IC building goals.

Some other things I noticed - you have 14k gold. Why not turn off your consumer goods for an extra 30-50? IC and spend it on dissent lowering. OR, influence yourself some allies. OR, buy supplies and turn off supply production. OR, war game your generals. etc, etc. You have to really use all your resources as Germany to make Barbarossa an "easy" success.
 
Jazwana said:
I've learned a lot from reading your AAR Lucifer :) I tend not to go too gamey but I feel that UK AI bonuses are somewhat balanced around having to fight two fronts so 1 is "OK" but not 1a.
Click to expand...
Thank you!
So, bottom line, it appears that I was in agreement with myself (or almost) :rofl:
 
UPDATE

I'm posting this follow-up for any players that may encounter the same doubts and problems.

So I returned to 24/06/1940, as Germany, and followed the advice from Jaswana et al: added 3 AA to my production. The AA did NOT solve my aerial problem (it should have been built long before), but still it did help.

As I continued playing until June 1942, I learned that in DH:

1. Building AA from early on is indeed a good investment.

2. Air battles are won (almost) exclusively by STACKING UNITS. My groups of 3-4 units were always smashed by huge allied stacks. Even with 12-16 units in the same battle, I'm often outnumbered.

3. NAV are still the best (and only?) way to defeat the Royal Navy. With only 8 NAV, I've sunk dozens of ships, from carriers to battleships that take years to build - all gone in few minutes.

4. Upgrades, on the other hand, require absurd amounts of IC and take forever. In DH they seem hopeless.

5. Land battles can also drag for ages. It's always the same: you win a battle, and your INF (sometimes even ARM) takes long days to move to that province. Meanwhile some enemy divs keep popping up in that province. You keep battling over and over again, usually easy wins, but your progress is delayed even further. Very annoying.

6. Due to constant hassle from UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Egypt, South Africa... etc., always bombing and always trying to invade Brest or Amsterdam, I found it impossible to delay Seelöwe. No AA and no air units seemed enough to stop them. Only after invading (through Ireland) and defeating the UK, I found some peace to prepare for Barbarossa. This led to delaying it until May/June 1942.
 
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lucido said:
2. Air battles are won (almost) exclusively by STACKING UNITS. My groups of 3-4 units were always smashed by huge allied stacks. Even with 12-16 units in the same battle, I'm often outnumbered.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's the most important point. It's not about leaders, or tech level, it's about how many planes you can bring to the fight.

I found that to maximize the numbers of your planes when fighting the british you need :

1. 20, preferably 24 INTs, so that you can most of the time field 12-16 wings (when the beaten down one are getting repaired)

2. Do not use Air scramble, but air superiority over Heligoland Bay (before the fall of france) OR over the scheldt estuary (after the fall of france) . Because sea region are quite big, you'll be able to gather all of your wings in that sea region, and to intercept everything britain and the commonwealth is sending at you.

3. Air war is about momentum. Because it take a long time to repair air wings Org & Str, every battle you win means you face less enemy wings for the next few weeks. Which means the next battles are easier, and so on. That means you need to be stronger than britain from day 1.

Using those methods it is possible to achieve total air superiority against britain (operation seelowe becomes then quite easy)

AA guns are a good backup plan (doesn't cost much), but with that technique they don't see much use.
 
hawo, havnt played in a while but ussually play TRP these days.... but similar circumstances for both anyway.... in regards to a 33 scenario u need to build industry till atleast 1937. You need to build tanks and motorised. Forget about upgrading ur forces as germany atleast in those early years as it costs too much and takes too long. Make sure you have ur economy towards Central Planning as you need the extra ic. Because you should focus on motorised/tanks (tanks especially by 1940), you need to max stockpile oil from the outset.

Like one of the other guys said, have ur interceptors set to air scramble and put them within the original German boundaries. Allied fighters will not have the range to go there until later in the war.
 
Concerning the Air stacking: I've had ok results with changing the maximum size for air stacks from 8 back to 4 (as it was in DD/Arma) in the misc.txt. Only rarely do I face aerial doomstacks now and only in certain areas (English Channel for example).
 
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