Belgium

[GPounda]

What is the best way to take Belgium?

I've tried numerous approaches. . .

The traditional Plan Sickle
Spearhead
Large scale offensive along the entire front
coming down through Holland

Nothing works. . . I'm bogged down with England throwing scores of divisions

France falls but a year later I'm still slugging it out with Belgium. . .

 

[denisKhan]

What is the best way to take Belgium?

I've tried numerous approaches. . .

The traditional Plan Sickle
Spearhead
Large scale offensive along the entire front
coming down through Holland

Nothing works. . . I'm bogged down with England throwing scores of divisions

France falls but a year later I'm still slugging it out with Belgium. . .

Well as soon as you declare war to Belgium throw in the blitzkrieg machine. Deploy CAS in the Benelux and concentrate all your armoured forces in the Ardennes: push towards Liege rather than Sedan, I find more efficient to encircle a smaller allied force in the Netherlands than a larger one in the whole Benelux. Then, after destroying the Netherlands, bring your armies on the Belgian-French border, with a larger front to handle, the allied armies will spread their forces thin. Here simply punch into northern France, when the AI starts retreating from Maginot, cross the Rhine. The retreating Maginot garrisons will be sandwiched in Champagne. Fall Gelb ends up to be a fast and decisive victory where the allies lose the Dutch army and half of the French army in encirclements.

 

[GPounda]

Thank you, I'll try that.

 

[Dalwin]

Coming down through Holland should work very easily. Every time I have seen someone struggling with this it has come down to them ignoring supply limits and sending in far too many units at once.

I like coupling an infantry sweep through Holland with one armored thrust through Luxemburg and another along the Dutch border with Belgium.

 

[GPounda]

Coming down through Holland should work very easily. Every time I have seen someone struggling with this it has come down to them ignoring supply limits and sending in far too many units at once.

I like coupling an infantry sweep through Holland with one armored thrust through Luxemburg and another along the Dutch border with Belgium.

Darwin, so only use 4 divisions? The original (historical) plan called for 60 divisions for Holland and Belgium. . .

 

[Dalwin]

Darwin, so only use 4 divisions? The original (historical) plan called for 60 divisions for Holland and Belgium. . .

Who said 4 divisions? I typically do it with 5 armies though the panzer/motorized armies may only have a dozen divisions each. Most players I know use something like 70 for that entire campaign not counting the units sitting on the other side of the Maginot. When I said avoid using too many it is from players who said they were struggling with that campaign who were throwing something like 200 divisions into it.

 

[GPounda]

This is getting ridiculous!!!

I had 850 fighters, 450 Stuka's, 15 Armoured, and 50 infantry and it still took from October, 1939 - April, 1941 to finally take Belgium.

The British, Free French, even the Americans had divisions defending. . . half of them were driving me off with the yellow exclamation mark beside them. . .

 

[browd]

All of your divisions (including the garrison divisions on the coastal provinces) are woefully understrength, which means they are underequipped. Depending on the precise level of their equipment shortfalls, divisions that, at full strength, might have base attack value of 150-200 might only have 10 base attack. You should make sure (much earlier than this) that your divisions do not enter combat with, e.g., 20% of their required equipment -- that's recipe for needing 1-1/2 years to take Belgium (a task that should take no more than a few weeks).

 

[GPounda]

All of your divisions (including the garrison divisions on the coastal provinces) are woefully understrength, which means they are underequipped. Depending on the precise level of their equipment shortfalls, divisions that, at full strength, might have base attack value of 150-200 might only have 10 base attack. You should make sure (much earlier than this) that your divisions do not enter combat with, e.g., 20% of their required equipment -- that's recipe for needing 1-1/2 years to take Belgium (a task that should take no more than a few weeks).

Is that the yellow or the green line?

 

[Gerar_doorlock]

Is that the yellow or the green line?

It's yellow line.you also might want to use some tanks to get Belgium faster

 

[drake546]

Darwin, so only use 4 divisions? The original (historical) plan called for 60 divisions for Holland and Belgium. . .

My current game I used about 30 total in two armies (6 of them armored) and went through Belgium and Netherlands like a hot knife through butter.

 

[grandad1982]

Apart from the crippling lack of equipment what division templates are you using?

Try to take the ports quickly so that the allies can't reinforce or supply the divisions in Belgium.

 

[Meglok]

Coming down through Holland should work very easily. Every time I have seen someone struggling with this it has come down to them ignoring supply limits and sending in far too many units at once.

I like coupling an infantry sweep through Holland with one armored thrust through Luxemburg and another along the Dutch border with Belgium.

And like in this case not enough equipment and possibly poor templates.

If when you fire the Maginot focus you capitulate Lux, then Holland, Belgium is indefensible. When you take Holland reset your armies south of the rivers along the Northern border of Belgium, preferably with tanks leading. Cakewalk to Paris, especially when coupled with another Panzer thrust thru Sedan.

If you declare on all three at once the ai will try and fort up in Belgium behind the rivers and behind the Maginot.

 

[GPounda]

I believe the problem is that I mass produced infantry early in the game, and didn't have enough time to actually bring them up to 100%. On top of that, I disregarded the rivers, and the coast.

Holland and Lux were easy, as was France. . . but taking Belgium took longer then getting to Moscow.

 

[redrum68]

I believe the problem is that I mass produced infantry early in the game, and didn't have enough time to actually bring them up to 100%. On top of that, I disregarded the rivers, and the coast.

Holland and Lux were easy, as was France. . . but taking Belgium took longer then getting to Moscow.

If you end up building too many infantry then just disband some of them. Its better to have fewer fully equipped divisions then lots of under strength divisions.