Having guts can sometimes save the day

[I had a bad name 99]

My force spent several months bottled up in the Shanghai peninsula, due to overwhelming Chinese numerical superiority. Despite my strong CAS support (1600 planes!), I was unable to break the stalemate. I even had to build forts to defend myself, from being de-org by their relentless attack.

Finally, I took a leap of faith and expanded outwards immediately once they led their guards down. This has allowed me to spread out their forces more, so they can't keep spamming their attacks in a concentrated manner. I even had one division defending against 16 divisions (fully equipped)! This aggressive expansion requires me to keep attacking their weak points (with a few tank divisions) so I can prevent them from concentrating on mine too. I also took the risk of bringing in 10 more panzer divisions and another army, at the risk of low supply (and deorg again). Luckily this moment of guts (or folly) is a worthwhile payoff. Now I can keep pushing in, while bringing more reinforcements..

Do you have such moment when you have to take a gamble?

 

[Dlin369]

When I was fairly new to the game (I think just above 100 hours) I was playing as Italy and had just secured the Suez as well as connected the Italian colonies. Problem was there was still significant resistance south of the Sahara, which was taking a while to crack due to low infrastructure. I decided to try doing the Napoleonic route - overland through Iraq + Iran, only to find that Iran has a lot of mountains (I didn't know terrain back then).

Desperate, I realized that the British had left the sea zones to india fairly unoccupied. So I managed to launch a naval invasion of India from Ethiopia (with all 24 divisions of my 3rd Army, which was stupid) - successfully capitulating it and gaining enough resources to continue the war easy - going on to conquer South East Asia before Japan.

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Also also this one time as Germany I screwed up and declared war on my friend playing USSR over Romania. Ended up on a losing defensive war in Poland, so I needed to knock out UK (another player) fast. He let his guard down, so I used paratroopers to cheese his capitulation (though tbf, he left like 5 divisions total in Britain and I dropped some 240,000 men since this was before special forces limits

 

[Harin]

I think my first big gamble was when I finally decided to launch Sea Lion. I had played many games, but never considered it, because I just assumed the Royal Navy would wipe out my armies in the Channel. That is what I get for assuming the game simulated the war a little better than I thought it did.

Imagine my surprise when I launched my invasion and found out no one was home.

 

[I had a bad name 99]

I think my first big gamble was when I finally decided to launch Sea Lion. I had played many games, but never considered it, because I just assumed the Royal Navy would wipe out my armies in the Channel. That is what I get for assuming the game simulated the war a little better than I thought it did.

Imagine my surprise when I launched my invasion and found out no one was home.

Me too. I think even in real historical scenario, Churchill would never have dared to put such a big fleet in a small channel, where the ships can get attacked by naval bombers. I think air superiority is the key to victory. Also, he probably would have allowed some beachheads to form, then counter-attacked with tanks and infantry. Unlike D-day, Germans did not have the ability to maintain a full-scale naval invasion.

 

[KRonn]

I think my first big gamble was when I finally decided to launch Sea Lion. I had played many games, but never considered it, because I just assumed the Royal Navy would wipe out my armies in the Channel. That is what I get for assuming the game simulated the war a little better than I thought it did.

Imagine my surprise when I launched my invasion and found out no one was home.

Same for me playing Germany with my first invasion of UK. With limited naval building capacity I focused on heavy cruisers and naval bombers. Committed my whole German navy,hoped for the best. I wasn't hit as heavily as expected by the Royal Navy, and was able to land most forces and keep them supplied well enough. UK had many troops and the campaign took some time, but with my strong armored forces landed I defeated UK in good order.

 

[I had a bad name 99]

Same for me playing Germany with my first invasion of UK. With limited naval building capacity I focused on heavy cruisers and naval bombers. Committed my whole German navy,hoped for the best. I wasn't hit as heavily as expected by the Royal Navy, and was able to land most forces and keep them supplied well enough. UK had many troops and the campaign took some time, but with my strong armored forces landed I defeated UK in good order.

That reminds me of my current Italy campaign. I took a gamble and invaded UK from German-occupied France. I think I sent a total of 55 infantry divisions and a few panzer divisions. Intelligence said that the UK has an estimated 125 divisions, but I was desperate to close the Western front for German before US could join the allies.

The even craziest thing is that Dover and Portsmouth are guarded (unlike my German campaign), so I tried my luck and invaded Plymouth (the third British base to the west) instead. Before my troops could reach, i could see a British division stupidly leaving the port, allowing me a clean landing with the first 10 divisions.

Once I started the landing, I was initially plagued by low supply, luckily I could encircle and defeat the British troops in the area using local numerical superiority (and arguably more experienced units). The next problem was the UK air superiority which was inflicting at least 20% penalty on my divisions.

Took me a while to finally cheese London

 

[I had a bad name 99]

Had I not sent a lot of my panzers and the rest of my armies immediately (at the risk of being sunk on the way or clogging the already bad supply lines), my entire front at the East coast would have been collapsed by a massive American counterattack!