How do you break through the Low Countries as Germany?

[Simon_9732495]

but you simply can't get them in decent numbers for France/Poland without making too many sacrifices,

Not true.
As Germany your priority is to have a big army of good tanks and enough fighters for Barbarossa. So Tank research is top priority anyway.
You can get Medium Tank 2 in Mid to late 38 and thats early enough to produce enough Medium2s for Poland/France. (You need only 2-3 40 width Divisions)

Advantages:

• You don't need to produce any light Tanks (that are useless for your main goal) at all. (You can cancel the line at game start.)
• Don't need XP to spend on a light Tank template.
• You fight all your wars with the same tanks. They gain experience for Barbarossa from Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Greece...
• Mediums are better than Light Tanks for breaking the line and pushing Divisions
• All the strategies you mention (Pin then rush to cut off) work with Medium Tanks as well.

If you do France with Light Tanks or Medium Tanks is personal preference.

Both can be easier for beginners. It depends.
I think your strategy is good for beginners and it's great you posted it here. But it's not the only one.

 

[Simon_9732495]

that building a mass of medium armor can become a big burden on your limited resources due to the requirement to trade for tungsten. So less CIVs to build other things.

It's true that you need to trade a lot of Tungsten for Medium Tanks. But what else do you do with your CIVs?
Having a lot of good Tanks is one of your main priorities. The whole point of building CIVs in the beginning is to have enough to build MILs and trade later.

 

[Hjalfnar]

Just saying, but I usually take down France and the Benelux with not really researching any techs besides, industry, doctrines, light SPArt and light SPAA. Just building MIC from the start, with some refineries inbetween. Send air volunteers to Ethopia ASAP (bombers only), volunteers/air volunteers to Spain and advisor/air volunteers to China to grind XP. Upgrade the Tier 2 fighter to max range, agility and reliability above 90% (don't forget to declare the base model obsolete so you can upgrade). Now just churn out Panzer IIs, SPArt, SPAA and motorized and recruit a shitton of infantry divisions to cover all fronts. Annex Czechoslovakia a bit later, maybe on the historical date, thus they give you more light tanks on annexation. Congrats, you now should be able to overrun anything with 20x 20 width light tank divisions, while having like 5000 fighters and if you invested some factories, either 2000-3000 CAS or 1000-1500 tac bomber. Depending on how much the AI screws up improving upon this a bit it's even enough to take down the USSR.

Obviously this is not the full plan, naval, air etc. are more elaborate but it works pretty well. Might need a somewhat microcapable player though.

 

[sekelsenmat]

MT are useful for Russia, but you simply can't get them in decent numbers for France/Poland without making too many sacrifices, and they aren't necessary for Poland or France. Once you research MT2 (probably finished at the end of '38, depending on when you do armor treaty), then you can start building them, but I wouldn't even bother putting them in the field until you want to take on Russia. I'd also argue that MT are inferior to LT against Poland and France. At that point in the game they are going to struggle to even pen the LT, and you want the speed to overrun France as fast as possible.

I think all your advice are good, except the one about ignoring medium tanks. Sure a good player can defeat the AI with any strategy, but you get plenty lights from Czech and if you don't start building early you won't have enough Mediums Vs Russia. Any improvement in the AI and it will pierce your lights, so they might not breakthrough. Realistically line art should pierce light tanks and is one of the reasons they werent as useful as mediums

 

[mursolini]

Medium tanks are a huge upgrade over LT2.

If you get them early, in 1936, then even 5 MIC will produce substantial amount.

The more or less sole reason to not get it, would be CIC spamming with concentrated industry, with a plan to launch MT3 spam as soon as possible.

 

[Black_Shade]

Not true.
As Germany your priority is to have a big army of good tanks and enough fighters for Barbarossa. So Tank research is top priority anyway.
You can get Medium Tank 2 in Mid to late 38 and thats early enough to produce enough Medium2s for Poland/France. (You need only 2-3 40 width Divisions)

Advantages:

• You don't need to produce any light Tanks (that are useless for your main goal) at all. (You can cancel the line at game start.)
• Don't need XP to spend on a light Tank template.
• You fight all your wars with the same tanks. They gain experience for Barbarossa from Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Greece...
• Mediums are better than Light Tanks for breaking the line and pushing Divisions
• All the strategies you mention (Pin then rush to cut off) work with Medium Tanks as well.

If you do France with Light Tanks or Medium Tanks is personal preference.

Both can be easier for beginners. It depends.
I think your strategy is good for beginners and it's great you posted it here. But it's not the only one.

Yes, it requires very things in your production queue to manage, so it's easy to play.

But I'd argue that lights are far from useless in your main goal- they are even more valuable in Russia. It's not like those divisions I built just disappear- they will still bum around at 13-14 km/h, which is very useful for both overruns and encirclement. I use my mediums to punch a hole, and the lights to exploit it. Russia usually only lasts a few months if you do it right.

 

[Black_Shade]

Medium tanks are a huge upgrade over LT2.

If you get them early, in 1936, then even 5 MIC will produce substantial amount.

The more or less sole reason to not get it, would be CIC spamming with concentrated industry, with a plan to launch MT3 spam as soon as possible.

You shouldn't have them in '36, because you should take the industry foci first. Just wait until MT2. There is zero reason to build any MT1- they're very slow, and their boosts in breakthrough are wasted against Poland in France. The speed of LT2 makes them >>>> than MT1 against Poland and France.

 

[Simon_9732495]

But I'd argue that lights are far from useless in your main goal- they are even more valuable in Russia. It's not like those divisions I built just disappear- they will still bum around at 13-14 km/h, which is very useful for both overruns and encirclement. I use my mediums to punch a hole, and the lights to exploit it. Russia usually only lasts a few months if you do it right.

In 1941 you have Medium3s and the limiting factor for speed in tank templates is motorized. Your Mediums are as fast as your light tanks.

So it comes down to play style. I don't like having 6 Light Tank Divisions (you don't build more do you?) somewhere at Barbarossa. They are for sure not at that point where the Breakthrough happens.

 

[Black_Shade]

In 1941 you have Medium3s and the limiting factor for speed in tank templates is motorized. Your Mediums are as fast as your light tanks.

So it comes down to play style. I don't like having 6 Light Tank Divisions (you don't build more do you?) somewhere at Barbarossa. They are for sure not at that point where the Breakthrough happens.

Yeah, that's 1941-I'm talking about why build MT1, or be stuck with two or 3 divisions of MT2, when you can have a dozen LT divisions instead. I'm not saying don't ever build MT, obviously you're going to spam MT2 and MT3 like crazy. You just don't need this for Poland/France. At the start the lights are more useful, and they will remain useful for the whole game. You don't have to keep building them later on, just devote 2 mils to replacing losses for your existing divisions is all you need.

 

[him_15]

A well-designed tank division and air superiority are a must.

 

[mursolini]

You shouldn't have them in '36, because you should take the industry foci first.

There are at least 3 valid path for German focuses that don`t take industry first:
1. Rhineland->Anshluss->industry.
2. Rhineland->Army Innovations->German-Soviet->Industry.
3. Army Innovations ->German-Soviet->Industry.

It is better to delay industry focuses to use industry bonuses for 1939 tech, and get it in 1937.

German Soviet treaty fits perfectly, unless you really want to go for navy.

Just wait until MT2.

As Germany, it is preferable to skip MT2 altogether. Because 400 or slightly longer days production run is not worth it.
At which point, there are 2 options, MT1->MT3 or LT2->MT3.

There is zero reason to build any MT1- they're very slow, and their boosts in breakthrough are wasted against Poland in France.

They give armor bonus. It probably just depends on your game setup. If you set difficulty higher, you might need to make due with less armor, so template like 5ARM+ 4 M.ART+9MOTis pretty viable. With Expert AI, France will have piercing and your LT2 divisions will suffer, especially considering you might find your air superiority far from complete, or even certain. All of which make LT less viable.

That said, in Vanilla France and Poland don`t provide much of a fight, regardless, so you might as well skip armor altogather, for something more useful.

The speed of LT2 makes them >>>> than MT1 against Poland and France.

9.6km/h isn`t that slow (Designer + Guderian). Then, there are mountains in Spain, Brits in the middle east, Iran, British Raj, all of which have problematic terrain, if you come in without at least some armor bonus.

 

[donald dawkins]

As a rule you need fighters and cas along with armor divisions to do well in a blitzkrieg against France.

As enemy superiority in the air will do do about 25% penalties to your attack, coupled with enemy cas smashing your attacking divisions (especially armor with no AA) not investing in air is a very bad and often common mistake for German players.

Primarily what I do is dedicate a tech slot to rushing medium tanks, and dedicate a tech slot to rushing fighter 2s and after that air doctrine. (In MP you don’t have to do this which is a god send).

Then build civs until September 37 then switch to building 3 silos and a lot of refineries. Then have about 25 mils on fighters and 5-10 on Cas. Then dump most of the remainder of your mils into the medium tanks (aim for about 3-5) 20 width armor divisions.

For focuses I rush the soviet tech treaty to rush the armor and then jump back and forth between industry and Anschluss/land grab focuses to rapidly expand my industrial base.

Finally for spies I rush 2 spies and build a collaboration government in France (as this is where most of your civs will come from).

When war starts in September blitzkrieg Poland with the cas and fighters and then immediately move onto France and the Low Countries. I tend to have 3 armies for Poland and 3 armies for France by September 39, 20 width infantry with Engineers and AA, support artillery too if you can afford it.

After taking Poland declare war on the Netherlands first and after taking it declare on Belgium after. Use the eastern front armies to push the Netherlands and Belgium while the other armies stay at the maginot. Send all your air over Belgium at this time. You should have between 200-500 Cas and about 1000 fighters.

Send your tanks to blitzkrieg either around Belgium via Calais and dunkerque (risky strat) aiming to take Paris and force a quick French capitulation, or push Belgium first then slowly advance using your armor to break through (takes longer but is safer).

You should now win in france, send your armor to take Denmark and one army to take Norway, meanwhile leave 3 armies to hold against d-day and keep investing in more infantry divisions if you can unless resistance is screwing you up.

You should now hopefully win against the soviet with your air and growing armor divisions (which you should aim to now make 40 width), keep 2 armor divisions in France and if possible leave one in Norway. Help Italy if you want in Africa.

Make sure you build a few more refineries and a considerable amount of silos before Barbarossa.

when barb starts aim to encircle the soviet armies, either pushing from just north of Hungary down into Romania for a big encirclement or cas dumping over the central parts of Poland and encircling there.

This is a good single player strat to winning as Germany, but is not optimal in mp for the following reasons:

1) in mp you’ll have a dedicated air controller and you won’t have to waste a tech slot fully dedicated to air, simply buy license, research fighter you licensed then land lease all air to your air controller. This should free up a tech slot which you can then use for submarines or whatever you fancy.

2) You allies should also be investing in air Which means you’ll be able to decide whether or not to invest in less aircraft and let your allies take the slack.

3) mediums can do quite badly against a heavy tank soviet player or a org wall AA soviet player, and so in MP it is preferable to push for heavy tanks or push to make more CAS, but again your allies should alleviate the load by helping build cas or bringing their own armor to the table. The cost of heavy tanks with the above strat is that you’ll maybe get 5 out before Barbarossa (40 width) but it’ll leave you vulnerable to early d-days and norway invasions as you won’t be able to dedicate armor to these areas until 42. The benefits is of course an easier time breaking the Stalin line and less hassle against a soviet player who org walls.

I cannot stress enough the importance of cas in the eastern front; a fort spamming Stalin line soviet or no air heavy tank Russia will win every time unless you can deorg his lines with CAS, and have enough to ignore his AA.

 

[Black_Shade]

9.6km/h isn`t that slow (Designer + Guderian). Then, there are mountains in Spain, Brits in the middle east, Iran, British Raj, all of which have problematic terrain, if you come in without at least some armor bonus.

You seem to be taking me advocating LT2 over MT1 for France as "Never build MT", which is incorrect. The issue is you simply can't put enough MT into the field to build a dozen armored divisions in time for France without significantly hampering your build up, or doing things like not taking industry foci first and costing yourself a couple dozen factories longterm. I typically spam MT2 and MT3, and generally have 24-48 40W medium divisions for the Soviets. Still, I find the LT divisions far more useful for Poland and France than MT, and I don't have to do crazy things like gimp my industry and research. I typically don't build anymore than the initial LT divisions, but even in Russia the my 12 LT divisions end up doing most of the conquering- the MTs do the heavy lifting and break through the lines, the LTs overrun the rest of the country once a hole has been made. Typically at the point the war breaks out in early '41 MT2 will make up the bulk of my MTs, so they are still slower than the LTs.

It is better to delay industry focuses to use industry bonuses for 1939 tech, and get it in 1937.

This is incorrect. The best thing to do is take the industry foci ASAP and use the bonus to rush construction 3. See the German build up threads.

 

[mursolini]

You seem to be taking me advocating LT2 over MT1 for France as "Never build MT", which is incorrect. The issue is you simply can't put enough MT into the field to build a dozen armored divisions in time for France without significantly hampering your build up, or doing things like not taking industry foci first and costing yourself a couple dozen factories longterm.

I have no idea why you would even want a dozen medium armor divisions for France. Typically 4 is plenty enough, anything more than that is just a bonus.

I typically spam MT2 and MT3, and generally have 24-48 40W medium divisions for the Soviets. Still, I find the LT divisions far more useful for Poland and France than MT, and I don't have to do crazy things like gimp my industry and research. I typically don't build anymore than the initial LT divisions, but even in Russia the my 12 LT divisions end up doing most of the conquering- the MTs do the heavy lifting and break through the lines, the LTs overrun the rest of the country once a hole has been made. Typically at the point the war breaks out in early '41 MT2 will make up the bulk of my MTs, so they are still slower than the LTs.

I find that amount of armor execive, and more a case of fighting supply, than Soviets.

This is incorrect. The best thing to do is take the industry foci ASAP and use the bonus to rush construction 3. See the German build up threads.

You should be more specific, there are several of them. Point to post is even more desirable.

 

[Black_Shade]

You should be more specific, there are several of them. Point to post is even more desirable.

Porto ran through the math in the economy benchmark thread in post 134. You lose a ton of production by delaying the foci and research. So you tie up slots trying to research way ahead of time, and end up losing out on the production end too. It's a lose-lose, you should never delay the industrial foci.

 

[mursolini]

Porto ran through the math in the economy benchmark thread in post 134. You lose a ton of production by delaying the foci and research. So you tie up slots trying to research way ahead of time, and end up losing out on the production end too. It's a lose-lose, you should never delay the industrial foci.

If you talk about that post https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...conomy-benchmark-thread.1387471/post-26691261
He is comparing rushing construction 4, which, is not what I propose, but rushing construction 3 and tools/concentrated/dispersed. That said, his math is kinda faulty even there, not accounting for faster war economy and Free Trade, if Rhineland is first.

That said, math he gives is interesting, delaying industrial focuses by 1 is worth ~1 CIC and production overflow of an extra 1 CIC/2 years. So, at best a percentage point difference, so I don`t think you are correct that taking industry focuses is mandatory first. Getting further in doctrine tree and getting Medium1 early, or getting early anshluss is also valid strategy.

 

[Hjalfnar]

I have no idea why you would even want a dozen medium armor divisions for France. Typically 4 is plenty enough, anything more than that is just a bonus.

I find that amount of armor execive, and more a case of fighting supply, than Soviets.

That's the point. Logistics company, transports dropping supply, and you are golden. You I usually have 24-36 medium tank divisions in 1941, with 24-36 motorized divisions to clean up behind them and secure the breakthroughs and encirclements while the tanks keep going. For Poland I usually have 12 light tank divisions, for France 12-24. My casualties are usually bellow 10k in total for Poland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Yugoslavia.

 

[Black_Shade]

If you talk about that post https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...conomy-benchmark-thread.1387471/post-26691261
He is comparing rushing construction 4, which, is not what I propose, but rushing construction 3 and tools/concentrated/dispersed. That said, his math is kinda faulty even there, not accounting for faster war economy and Free Trade, if Rhineland is first.

That said, math he gives is interesting, delaying industrial focuses by 1 is worth ~1 CIC and production overflow of an extra 1 CIC/2 years. So, at best a percentage point difference, so I don`t think you are correct that taking industry focuses is mandatory first. Getting further in doctrine tree and getting Medium1 early, or getting early anshluss is also valid strategy.

You typically do rhineland first no matter what because of the PP. I just tried a game going armor treaty before industry, and building MT1 as soon as it was done. I came out 14 (had a typo of 24 earlier, it was 14) factories behind compared to the same run doing industry foci first at the start of the war. I also had 1500 less fighters (3100 vs 4600) and was down 3 techs as well because of the research penalties. The only benefit was I had 3 40W medium divisions. You don't gain much from getting dispersed 3 early, because you don't have very many mils. The combination of not having a research bonus for construction 2, and the delay in getting the industry foci, means you end up getting construction 3 about 8 months later than if you had used the bonus for construction 2+3 and way behind on your factory counts. You also miss out on the snowballing from getting the +12 civs earlier, and you lose ~5 civs in trade for tungsten early on. Combine that with not having construction 2 and 3 for a lot of your CIC buildup time, and the net effect is a huge hit to your industry. Meanwhile, you do gain an extra 6 months of dispersed, but that's rather wasted since you don't have many mils at the start to begin with.

 

[ladner]

Would very much like to thank everyone for posting and sharing ideas. My biggest regret is not having screenshots, but have successfully "blitzed" the Low Countries and France on multiple occasions with the right hook through Holland/Netherlands. It's like a grander version of the Sheifflen Plan. My last play through, France fell before Belgium, von Kleist lead the way to the coast then a rapid sprint to Paris, it was a glorious thing to have France capitulate before Belgium, and with the ports overrun there wasn't the large flood of British Expeditionary force infantry, which becomes a real pains once dug in on terrain that benefits the defender. Have found Norway to be a great diversion to draw the British AI off to die in the mountains and get cut off from supply.

Also forgot have learned me lesson about managing fuel. That one decision tree path that leads to Hungary and Romania becoming puppets is too good to pass up on, in particular obtaining almost all of Romania's oil for 3 CIVs.

 

[KubiG37]

Jesus you don't need 40width divisons against AI at all, this belongs to some multiplayer room. Even a 20w or at most 27w Tank division can easily break the AI units.

About the low countries, keep in mind there are lots of rivers everywhere, the battle planner does not really account this and happily keeps sending tanks and motorized troops across the rivers. You do have to micro it a lot in low countries, mostly to avoid all these rivers.