Hello Eugenioso,
Nice to meet you.
I have played HOI in different forms for many years. I recently bought Darkest Hour, and wish to convey that I find your post (written years ago
) well written and a valueable read.
Thanks
Adding to the valuable operational explanations of Eugenioso I'd also like to point out that, while the AI has gotten smarter (and thanks a lot for that!), the speed of some units have increased a lot in DH, especially ARM and the now superfast MOT. This again supports Blitzkrieg and Deep Operations massively.
As many helpful tips there are, I must admit, that it took me quite some time to master the in and outs of Blitzkrieg and Deep Operation tactics. I read up on examples given here and in the wiki and combined it with historical data, especially how the German army was organized and led. The latter with a focus on the difference between Polish, French, Russian armies (or basically in almost all other) on the one hand and the Wehrmacht on the other hand. The IMHO most important differences on the Wehrmacht side were:
# defeat in WWI: The winners usually do not but the loosers might sit down and try to analyse why they had lost. The commanding general v. Seekt of the Reichswehr (German army during the Weimar Republic) did exactly this, in the early 20ies he ordered his staff officers into dozens of groups to analyse and understand the failure and to develop new concepts for the coming war (of which those extremely right winged officers were convinced).
# high standard and tradition of tactical/operational schooling and skill
# this again allowed leading by task (instead of orders from far away HQ)
# together with leading from the front (which is the reason why around 600 German generals were killed in WW2... everything has its price)
This allowed and led to very effective usage of doctrines and different organisational elements like (to name a few):
# Panzerdivisions
# new concepts of combined warfare which especially integrated the usage of airforce as flying tactical artillery (combined warfare of infantry, cavalry and artillery are definetly much older, just look at Napoleon or even the old Romans).
# "Stillstand is Verteidigung, Bewegung ist Angriff" (Guderian) which can be somehow translated into "Standing still leads to defense, mobility to successful attacks" which was THE analysis of the German staff officers how to overcome the strong defensive abilities of a modern army as seen in WW1. Which means if you want to conquere, as soon as you stand still and allow the enemy to organise a defense, you have lost.
Now, in my experience, all the helpful tips on how to successfully wage Blitzkrieg get you only to a certain point, the rest is experience and the ability to react very flexibly to every situation at hand. For the Wehrmacht this was possible due to their doctrine of leading from the front plus the other mentioned points above (and certainly several more).
Basically you can imagine a Guderian or Rommel as speed junkies sitting on top of their specially built command panzers and reacting to situations immediatly with orders to their units or calling in the airforce. This leads us to another very important piece of equipment the Wehrmacht used much more and better than all the other armies:
# radio transmitters !!!
It weren't the Panzers or any fabulous Wunderwaffe which made the Wehrmacht so much more effective in the early phase of WWII but this small additional equipment of 2-way-radio transmitters. As a matter of fact the French alone had a lot more and better tanks than the Germans and the British Expeditionary Force was probably the best equipped and professional army of the world. But to what avail is the best tank if you can't tell him where the enemy is? While most of the German panzers in early WW2 were rather puny cans not equipped with a cannon but just a MG, they got the information about the sighting of a heavy French tank rightaway together with orders to avoid and to leave it to the mobile artillery or tactical bombers of the Luftwaffe.
Translated into DH this means:
# Your Panzers and MOT are probably better than the historical ones *grin* although you'll feel like never having enough which again is very historical.
# Pause the game, look at the map and plan your war very carefully (before you start it). This includes a whole plan on how to win the war as much as micro-planning especially the first few days.
# Hesitate to change that plan(s) once the action begins but at the same time don't shy away from reacting flexibly when necessary, usually when things don't go like planned or you see "possibilities"=new information are available (due to airforce intel or whatever) and try to exploit them (leading from the front and 2-way-radios).
# Mobility and speed is essential. NEVER equip your Panzer or MOTs with any brigade that might reduce their speed, regardless of how strong or cool this makes your units.
# Use your ARM and MOT tactically correct: Not as infantry support nor as your "best" units. Their main distinguishing feature is speed, don't waste them for other purposes.
# Artillery brigades might be a nice addition for infantry but mostly they aren't, neither economically IC-wise nor in manpower. At some point in a (successfull) war your mobile forces will have outrun your infantry, don't make your infantry even slower. Instead use inf+art, or with any brigade that slows down, tactically for special purposes, stationary defense or bottlenecks.
# All this talk about MOTs and ARMs is a bit misleading, while they are tactically very important units, your infantry remains the main fighting force to do the actual battles.
# Do not attack if you can't heap all the possible advantages like attacks from several sides, air support, vast superiority in numbers, best leaders etc. If you find yourself intending to attack without all this advantages, stop and think hard wether you REALLY need to do this and wether attacking somewhere else isn't better or wether it wouldn't be better and possible to just wait a bit longer until you have all the right units in position to achieve your multi-advantages. Otherwise attrition of strength and organisation will let you fail, perhaps not in the short run to win the battle but certainly in the long run to win the war.
# If you get attacked, the standard Wehrmacht answere was a local counter attack. Too difficult for the AI to master but you should try to learn and to apply it. After all later in the war it became a standard also for the allies (if they had skilled enough commanders).
# Use your tactical bombers tactically correct as flying artillery to support your breakthroughs. If they have still enough organisation, you may also use them to support other battles. To use your tactical bombers alone (and not in a combined warfare) is a luxury you most probably can't afford before the war is basically won and some mopping up needs still to be done.
# Blitzkrieg means "ground support" over "ground attack" for tactical bombers, breaking morale or organisation to win the battle is prime, destroying the enemy units is best done by encirclement or overrun tactics and not by your precious planes.
# Enemy planes are usually not destroyed in the air (partly this is DH and HoI specific, partly this is even historical) but mainly on the ground. If your plan allows it (or even better it should be part of your invasion plan), mark those enemy airfields and give them priority to get conquered to destroy their planes (you don't necessarily need to hold those regions for long except you need the airfiled for your own air force).
# Be bold! And remember: Standing still is defense is defeat. Keep your enemy surprised, in disarray and don't allow him to reorganise (in DH terms literally).
The DH AI makes a much better job preventing breakthroughs and gets madly offensive in case of encirclement (great work btw). What I found very helpful to counter this: Mixing Blitzkrieg tactics of breakthroughs and encirclements with Deep Operation tactics of the Red Army. In DH this can be translated into overruning the opponent's divisions when they retreat, await them at their destination and thus destroy them. Due to the speed increase of MOT and ARM in DH this has become easier.
And what needs to be said, before glorifying the abilites of the Wehrmacht too much: The original plan of the Wehrmacht to attack France was the Schlieffen plan, same stupid approach that had so utterly failed in WWI. And if there had not been several unexpected unlucky events which then again triggered some absolutely unforseeable events and the implementation of Manstein's/Guderian's Blitzkrieg, they would had indeed used that plan and I think we are safe to assess that the Schlieffen plan would had failed even more horribly than the first time. The result: no famous Westfeldzug, no WW2 at all but just a historical note of an unbelievable stupid attack which failed. And nobody would had assumed that the world had just avoided a war so much worse than was imaginable at that time.
