New member, long-time armchair strategist that recently discovered DH after a five year hiatus from HOI2. All I can say is WOW, what an outstanding game, thank you dev's!
I've had a few campaign's since purchasing a few weeks ago and after doing some serious lurking of these forums learning all KINDS of things (1.04 btw), I wanted to take some time to give back to the community (in some small way).
On these forums, I've encountered lots of strategy and technique's which have helped my gameplay immensely but it's been all over the place and required lots of reading in individual topics. With this post, I was hoping to help the next generation pick-up what I have learned. Who knows, maybe someone will learn a trick or two.
After trouncing the world as Japan ('33 scenario) and literally draining the third reich of MP as the SU (very fun!), my latest campaign is an attempt to play Germany.
The differences between HOI2 and DH cannot be understated enough, particularly when it comes to Germany!
There's all kinds of things I could discuss about my game to this point (hold off Central Planning, stay focused with research, play the MP-game wisely), but I want to focus in on Fall Gelb. An area, I was quite surprised when reading, provides a fair amount of player frustration.
I play my games fairly historical, so Poland came in September '39 while Norway and Denmark (full annex) came in Winter '39. I launched Fall Gelb in April '40 (a little early, but I was ready... or thought so at first!).
Let me begin with army organization. I play in LtG led three division stacks (except for HQ's, which include 5 INF divisions and are led by Gen's in six division stacks). Along the French front I placed LtG stacks (with some last minute militia builds, 2 division stacks) to obtain roughly 13-16 divisions in each of those three provinces, holding forces only (so no HQ's). On the border with the Dutch, all I used were LtG stacks (single one only), again as holding forces (this line broke around the fall of France, dang Dutch, but no biggie).
My entire offensive occurred in Belgium. What I have seen of the AI to date (and based on this campaign in particular), they are truly fond of land forts! While my holding forces on the Maginot and Dutch lines were sufficient, I ran into breakthrough difficulties due to the prevalence of fairly significant fortifications in Belgium (lvl-5 forts) that were constantly in the path of my spearhead (theres a joke in there somewhere)! Couple these fortifications with the rapid response of the British Expeditionary Forces to seal off Belguim from France and my breakthroughs were stymied almost from the start!
After several miff's, this was my strategy to overcome.
I prefer not to attack unless I can obtain the envelopment bonus (attack from 3 prov's), thankfully the DH map has plenty of opportunities for this! First objective, "plant the stick". The French are kinda scary during Fall Gelb. While their quality is kinda low they have an absolute butt-ton of forces available and move wicked fast from Maginot to seal the Belgian breach. In my campaign, the key was delaying their response. Typically (in HOI2), I would use a force in Luxembourg attacking France and use that action as a fulcrum about which my forces could safely rotate around, not so in DH! The key is using Luxembourg and the immediately adjacent Belgian province of Liege to accomplish the same thing.
However, it isn't the taking of those provinces that provides the fulcrum, it's the "taking" of those provinces. Combat in DH is SOO much longer that I actually had the most success by initiating combat to take Liege and Luxembourg simultaneously (4 Gen stacks with 3 LtG stacks in total for both combats) and used this action to obtain and retain my spearhead's momentum. Necessary for this envelopment is moving rapidly into both Maastricht and Namur (no mobile/armor forces used for this portion of the plan).
Once the "stick" (i.e. assault in progress) was in place, I could "rush to the sea". This consisted of a single MOT-2 three division LtG, two LArm-3 three division LtG's, and five regular three stack INF LtG's. This force moved through the Hasselt-Antwerp-Bruges corridor. For each of these territories I left behind a single INF stack to maintain supply (and to individually assault Eindhoven and Brussels). The Belgian forces for this portion of the advance were easily overcome. My first attempts at the rush to Paris had me turning early to limit the number of provinces to get to Paris. This was a major mistake!! All this does is force your spearhead into the high fortification Belgian center where advancing BEF troops stop your advance in its tracks!
You have to get to Bruges, then to Dunkirk! At Dunkirk, my last two INF stacks guarded the supply line (they almost lost it too) and finally exposed some open area for the Paris maneuver.
The Paris maneuver consisted of moving my remaining 2 LArm LtG's and single MOT LtG to Amiens (where I left one LArm), Chateau Thierry (where I left the other), and finally into Paris with my MOT stack. It was around the time of taking Dunkirk where the AI, sensing the vulnerability of my extended spearhead (I suppose), began to stop the defence of Lieges and Luxembourg and started shifting their weight back towards Paris.
Before I knew it Liege and Luxembourg were both occupied (by me!) and a greater Belgian advance was undertaken to pin the BEF and French forces (also to protect my precarious supply line). The BEF at this point, was also trying to break back through to the Channel at Dunkirk but my Amiens armor saved the day with a quick sprint back up the path.
With the fall of Paris, I utilized my ART brigaded PAR's (who were part of the holding forces in Mainz) with the single starting transport plane to air drop some token defences into Paris (I had previously built an airfield in Mainz).
Once I had a friendly unit in Paris, my MOT unit took the f' off and gobbled up almost the entire (non Mountain) center and Atlantic coasts of France, bypassing or skirting around anything bigger than a single unit French force. I had to retake some prov's and I lost a bunch in the process (including the supply link to Paris, but they managed). The MOT shuffle had the desired effect with the French surrender event chain starting up around week seven of the offensive. Took about another week for the fighting to actually stop and then it was just mop-up of the BEF forces remaining in France.
As with all strategies, your results may vary, but it was fantastically fun figuring this out! Oh and my games are all vanilla, so DH Full, normal difficulty, limit gamey-ness, etc.. etc...
In all I'd say that while my mobile forces were sufficient, I could have used more (especially armor, they defended my supply line like absolute champs).
The luftwaffe engaged in all portions of the offensive (using TAC's, CAS, and INT's), but were grounded later as I couldn't establish air superiority over all the areas of Belgium in addition to the various French regions impacted by the spearhead. Hence the allies pretty much owned the skies as the offensive progressed.
My navy had no role in France apart from continuing to send the British merchant fleet to the bottom of the Atlantic (sub-focused strategy as Germany).
But my most glaring weakness? INFANTRY! Just the regular run-of-the-mill three stack variety. My spearhead would have been soooo much stronger with the addition of just a handful more! Good lesson for Barbarossa!
Hope you enjoyed! I'm always open to critique's, no ego to bruise here.
I've had a few campaign's since purchasing a few weeks ago and after doing some serious lurking of these forums learning all KINDS of things (1.04 btw), I wanted to take some time to give back to the community (in some small way).
On these forums, I've encountered lots of strategy and technique's which have helped my gameplay immensely but it's been all over the place and required lots of reading in individual topics. With this post, I was hoping to help the next generation pick-up what I have learned. Who knows, maybe someone will learn a trick or two.
After trouncing the world as Japan ('33 scenario) and literally draining the third reich of MP as the SU (very fun!), my latest campaign is an attempt to play Germany.
The differences between HOI2 and DH cannot be understated enough, particularly when it comes to Germany!
There's all kinds of things I could discuss about my game to this point (hold off Central Planning, stay focused with research, play the MP-game wisely), but I want to focus in on Fall Gelb. An area, I was quite surprised when reading, provides a fair amount of player frustration.
I play my games fairly historical, so Poland came in September '39 while Norway and Denmark (full annex) came in Winter '39. I launched Fall Gelb in April '40 (a little early, but I was ready... or thought so at first!).
Let me begin with army organization. I play in LtG led three division stacks (except for HQ's, which include 5 INF divisions and are led by Gen's in six division stacks). Along the French front I placed LtG stacks (with some last minute militia builds, 2 division stacks) to obtain roughly 13-16 divisions in each of those three provinces, holding forces only (so no HQ's). On the border with the Dutch, all I used were LtG stacks (single one only), again as holding forces (this line broke around the fall of France, dang Dutch, but no biggie).
My entire offensive occurred in Belgium. What I have seen of the AI to date (and based on this campaign in particular), they are truly fond of land forts! While my holding forces on the Maginot and Dutch lines were sufficient, I ran into breakthrough difficulties due to the prevalence of fairly significant fortifications in Belgium (lvl-5 forts) that were constantly in the path of my spearhead (theres a joke in there somewhere)! Couple these fortifications with the rapid response of the British Expeditionary Forces to seal off Belguim from France and my breakthroughs were stymied almost from the start!
After several miff's, this was my strategy to overcome.
I prefer not to attack unless I can obtain the envelopment bonus (attack from 3 prov's), thankfully the DH map has plenty of opportunities for this! First objective, "plant the stick". The French are kinda scary during Fall Gelb. While their quality is kinda low they have an absolute butt-ton of forces available and move wicked fast from Maginot to seal the Belgian breach. In my campaign, the key was delaying their response. Typically (in HOI2), I would use a force in Luxembourg attacking France and use that action as a fulcrum about which my forces could safely rotate around, not so in DH! The key is using Luxembourg and the immediately adjacent Belgian province of Liege to accomplish the same thing.
However, it isn't the taking of those provinces that provides the fulcrum, it's the "taking" of those provinces. Combat in DH is SOO much longer that I actually had the most success by initiating combat to take Liege and Luxembourg simultaneously (4 Gen stacks with 3 LtG stacks in total for both combats) and used this action to obtain and retain my spearhead's momentum. Necessary for this envelopment is moving rapidly into both Maastricht and Namur (no mobile/armor forces used for this portion of the plan).
Once the "stick" (i.e. assault in progress) was in place, I could "rush to the sea". This consisted of a single MOT-2 three division LtG, two LArm-3 three division LtG's, and five regular three stack INF LtG's. This force moved through the Hasselt-Antwerp-Bruges corridor. For each of these territories I left behind a single INF stack to maintain supply (and to individually assault Eindhoven and Brussels). The Belgian forces for this portion of the advance were easily overcome. My first attempts at the rush to Paris had me turning early to limit the number of provinces to get to Paris. This was a major mistake!! All this does is force your spearhead into the high fortification Belgian center where advancing BEF troops stop your advance in its tracks!
You have to get to Bruges, then to Dunkirk! At Dunkirk, my last two INF stacks guarded the supply line (they almost lost it too) and finally exposed some open area for the Paris maneuver.
The Paris maneuver consisted of moving my remaining 2 LArm LtG's and single MOT LtG to Amiens (where I left one LArm), Chateau Thierry (where I left the other), and finally into Paris with my MOT stack. It was around the time of taking Dunkirk where the AI, sensing the vulnerability of my extended spearhead (I suppose), began to stop the defence of Lieges and Luxembourg and started shifting their weight back towards Paris.
Before I knew it Liege and Luxembourg were both occupied (by me!) and a greater Belgian advance was undertaken to pin the BEF and French forces (also to protect my precarious supply line). The BEF at this point, was also trying to break back through to the Channel at Dunkirk but my Amiens armor saved the day with a quick sprint back up the path.
With the fall of Paris, I utilized my ART brigaded PAR's (who were part of the holding forces in Mainz) with the single starting transport plane to air drop some token defences into Paris (I had previously built an airfield in Mainz).
Once I had a friendly unit in Paris, my MOT unit took the f' off and gobbled up almost the entire (non Mountain) center and Atlantic coasts of France, bypassing or skirting around anything bigger than a single unit French force. I had to retake some prov's and I lost a bunch in the process (including the supply link to Paris, but they managed). The MOT shuffle had the desired effect with the French surrender event chain starting up around week seven of the offensive. Took about another week for the fighting to actually stop and then it was just mop-up of the BEF forces remaining in France.
As with all strategies, your results may vary, but it was fantastically fun figuring this out! Oh and my games are all vanilla, so DH Full, normal difficulty, limit gamey-ness, etc.. etc...
In all I'd say that while my mobile forces were sufficient, I could have used more (especially armor, they defended my supply line like absolute champs).
The luftwaffe engaged in all portions of the offensive (using TAC's, CAS, and INT's), but were grounded later as I couldn't establish air superiority over all the areas of Belgium in addition to the various French regions impacted by the spearhead. Hence the allies pretty much owned the skies as the offensive progressed.
My navy had no role in France apart from continuing to send the British merchant fleet to the bottom of the Atlantic (sub-focused strategy as Germany).
But my most glaring weakness? INFANTRY! Just the regular run-of-the-mill three stack variety. My spearhead would have been soooo much stronger with the addition of just a handful more! Good lesson for Barbarossa!
Hope you enjoyed! I'm always open to critique's, no ego to bruise here.
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