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Vanilla ironman on regular.
01.01.1939:
60 CIC
112 MIC

- 7.04k light tanks
- 6.58k truck
- 1.25k fighters
- 0,65k CAS

As @Secret Master said, I'll be aiming for air supremacy, CAS shredding and overrunning > encirclements.
I forgot how long the vanilla focuses take, so I kinda missed the time table and can't launch Fall Weiß in the beginning of 1939.

Not yet decided on the question: Should I attack the Soviets immediately after Poland or go the MR-route?
I need to attack them in early 1940 though, so I'm not sure how that will work out with the non-aggression pact. Given that it's ironman, that is a risk.

Edit: I went ahead with MR, but maybe I should just break the pact and keep Eastern Poland. If I intend war in 1940 anyways...
 
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Poland went very well in a 6 day war which ironically resembled the same feat that Israel later achieved.
It would have gone even faster, had I not been lazy enough to use the battle planner.

1592336196675.png
 
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This is getting better and better. Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and France fell within 7 (!) days.
That is by far the fastest Fall Gelb + Fall Rot I have ever achieved in any Hearts of Iron game.

Casualties are very low on both sides, chiefly due to my manual control of the light tanks. I exploited every gap in the line and reached Paris well before the French were able to strategically re-deploy to the Belgian frontline.

It is July 1939 now and I'll spend the rest of the year taking Denmark and the Balkans. Will launch Barb in spring of 1940, if the non-aggression pact mechanism allows for it. Will probably have to concentrate my entire army on the Soviet border briefly in order to be able to break the pact.


1592337302569.png


Meanwhile I had to make the decision whether to switch to medium tanks or not. I decided to go full ret..., uh I mean, full light tank and instead opted for the 1941 light tank tech.
That was another initial blunder as I wasn't aware that the next light tank tech was already 1941. I assumed that there was some 1938/39 tech that I could mass produce before the war.
 
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That was another initial blunder as I wasn't aware that the next light tank tech was already 1941. I assumed that there was some 1938/39 tech that I could mass produce before the war.

:p

Everyone forgets about the poor, poor Leopard.

Meanwhile I had to make the decision whether to switch to medium tanks or not. I decided to go full ret..., uh I mean, full light tank and instead opted for the 1941 light tank tech.

This is the right answer. If you are going for speed and a 1940 Barbarossa, you don't want ARM mucking things up.
 
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Meanwhile I had to make the decision whether to switch to medium tanks or not. I decided to go full ret..., uh I mean, full light tank and instead opted for the 1941 light tank tech.
That was another initial blunder as I wasn't aware that the next light tank tech was already 1941. I assumed that there was some 1938/39 tech that I could mass produce before the war.
You can make Marm 1941 go fast enough, even tech-rush 1943 armor. Even just one battalion of Marm is far better improvement than Leopard.
 
I'm curious if you use '41 LTs by themselves, with weak divisions (maybe only 2-3 LT brigades) modded with 5 engines and having the correct ministers, is a viable strategy. With the ministers+engine mods, your LT will move at ~23 Km/h as Germany IIRC. Basically my idea would be to break the lines on a broad front, say 6-8 provinces, with normal tanks, and then send in the LT to rush through and overrun the retreating forces as they move at 23 km/h.
 
I have seen players use a combination of the two. A few pure LARM formations to perform overruns, while LARM/MOT formations create the breakthroughs.

The key with a LARM approach is to focus on those overruns more than actual encirclements. Yeah, you get some encirclements, but that's not the focus. A single pure LARM division can stack wipe 100 Soviet divisions if they are all in retreat and it reaches the enemy province before they do.

Important safety tip:



The air superiority portion of the air war will be crucial. Again, yes, you want the firepower from CAS, but paralyzing the Red Army with total air supremacy will make it that much easier to get those overruns. This strategy is one that favors more fighters than CAS, I feel.
CAS contribute more to air superiority, which is slowing down enemies.
 
CAS contribute more to air superiority, which is slowing down enemies.

But they don’t fight other planes well. It’d be a shame to lose air superiority points in an air region because enemy fighters kill more CAS than they would have killed your fighters.
 
But they don’t fight other planes well. It’d be a shame to lose air superiority points in an air region because enemy fighters kill more CAS than they would have killed your fighters.
True, but if Vanilla AI outproduces you in fighters, I know what you should do about it.
I often find the AI concentrating Air forces very much - so fighting in low countries sees french skies uncontested. For that, 200 CAS make a huge mess of reinforcements' schedules.
 
Oh man, that MR-pact done too late killed the game.
The earliest date to cancel MR was April 7th, 1940. Only weeks before the Soviets had finished the winter war and annexed the Baltics.
By April 7th, they had moved their army to the front and instead of the required 200% superiority I only had 78%, in other words: I couldn't launch Barbarossa before summer of 1941.

I quit the game in January 1941 with 20,700 light tanks in my arsenal.
Lost interest in continuing the game cause by now the question of an early light tank rush became obsolete.

If you want to do Barb in 1940 with mass light tanks, then either rush MR-pact or preferably skip MR and do Barbarossa in 1939/40.

Btw. I used a very unspectacular template:
5 light tanks, 5 motorized
support: eng, sig, arm rec, arty, maint
 
So you went with a "normal" Light tank, including motorized.

I thought you'd do something like that:
1592418675449.png


Leopard Base= 14 km/h
Henschel (5%) + Guderian (10%) -> 14 * 1.15 = 16.1 km/h
Variant Speed +5 (+20% of speed of base model) 14*0.2 = 2.8 -> 16.1 + 2.8 = 18.9 km/h
Elastic defense +10% -> 18.9 * 1.1 = 20,79 km/h

That's the base speed.
Why it is +20% to 24.94 and only the +10% mobile warfare modifier is listed? -> I don't know...


The stats are decent (20 Org) so could be possible to fight with these... (But they are not cheap 12500 IC, 1224 Tanks for 1 division.. and only 45 HP... puh...)

I think that will be my next run... :cool:
 
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Oh man, that MR-pact done too late killed the game.
The earliest date to cancel MR was April 7th, 1940. Only weeks before the Soviets had finished the winter war and annexed the Baltics.
By April 7th, they had moved their army to the front and instead of the required 200% superiority I only had 78%, in other words: I couldn't launch Barbarossa before summer of 1941.

I quit the game in January 1941 with 20,700 light tanks in my arsenal.
Lost interest in continuing the game cause by now the question of an early light tank rush became obsolete.

If you want to do Barb in 1940 with mass light tanks, then either rush MR-pact or preferably skip MR and do Barbarossa in 1939/40.

Btw. I used a very unspectacular template:
5 light tanks, 5 motorized
support: eng, sig, arm rec, arty, maint
A general advise on MR is the trusty 1xINF division. Build hundreds of them, deploy immediately and then trash them after breaking the pact!
 
A general advise on MR is the trusty 1xINF division. Build hundreds of them, deploy immediately and then trash them after breaking the pact!
They're counting number of divisions instead of battalions??? Seriously?
OMFG, that is incredibly silly.

@Simon_9732495
Yeah, I wasn't too adventurous. I don't know that 24kmh is significantly better than 12 kmh despite the 100% speed increase.
12 kmh lead to a 7 day campaign against the Low Countries and France.
I think that the speed only has to be sufficient to overrun the enemy and 12 kmh is more than enough for that.

I'm intrigued though and extreme approaches are always fun.
Please share your results should you try that.

The main issue is that Leopards can't be tech rushed to be mass produced in time.
 
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I think that the speed only has to be sufficient to overrun the enemy and 12 kmh is more than enough for that.

You almost never get that 12 km/h, though.
Speed is reduced with 5% per Infrastructure level. Terrain (Rivers! Forest) gives debuffs. Air can reduce your speed. You can get attacked. And so on.

Would be nice to be able to overrun infantry that is railroading away from you... :D
 
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take pact with SOV-I to get Pz-III
Use it and take LPZ-Leo after it

Leo is faster in research,
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you cant use 20 KM/h with MOT so why upgrade speed
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use WESPE or Leo ART too use old tanks cheap in frontline
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delete cheap Cas and use Taks, you dont want to destroy, you want earn products by rolling against them,
but you need the slow up effect, and enjoy that taks will not die

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delete cheap Cas and use Taks, you dont want to destroy, you want earn products by rolling against them,
but you need the slow up effect, and enjoy that taks will not die

I disagree; in my humble opinion tacs are only usefull when you need range; cas are the better cas and navs are the better navs. I don't need planes, which cannot nearly perform as well as the specialized ones.
 
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lol
i dont want damage,
i want Items and no looser against fighters

and range wins,
fighters from near airports
Taks from ~ any europe port