Successful encirclements, anyone?

[Big Nev]

I did some more testing yesterday.

What I'm trying to determine is: If a unit that's already moving on an attack picks-up an attack delay, will it continue to move after it's entered the second province along it's extended movement line.

It's clear that the first units in the battle will stop in the first province, but the LArm, which is "following up" often completes it's movement in to that province before the battle is over. This moves on immediately after the battle and the poor enemy foot sloggers (and just about anything else) get over-run unless there's something to stop the LArm in the second province.

But what I'm pretty sure happens, but not yet been able to get a screen shot, is that the LArm will continue past the second province, even though it's picked-up an attack delay by fighting there, and continue on to complete the over-run of the units retreating from the second province as well.

I'm using pairs of some rather convincing [LArm+2Mech+SPArt] which are generally quite capable of quickly dealing with a standard Inf division, even though my LArm guns & armour are a bit behind tech.


And yeah, pop-up HQs are a right royal pain in the bum.

Again, I find LArm is the answer. You only need to peel-off a single bgd and you can do an over-run rather than encircle. They're also fast enough to re-join their division before the front gets very far ahead.

I haven't tried it, but I suspect you can over-run a HQ using an armoured car, provided you use a unit with frontage to get the HQ to retreat first of course. Generally, I find LArm faster than AC. But that's TFH-TRP so I'm not sure which is fastest in Vanilla to TFH un-modded.

 

[Count Blue]

What I really hate is when a new enemy HQ spawns after the battle, your units stop to fight it, and then it "retreats" forward into an empty province behind your lines that you already control, essentially capturing it, while your units sit there and burn off a few hours of Attack Delay.

A unit that retreats should never be able to freshly "occupy" a province that is considered enemy territory.
The game is definetly at fault on that.

I must say that I have not witnessed this in my games prominently.
If it does happen to me its very rare.

 

[Laurwin]

A unit that retreats should never be able to freshly "occupy" a province that is considered enemy territory.
The game is definetly at fault on that.

I must say that I have not witnessed this in my games prominently.
If it does happen to me its very rare.

sometimes it seems to happen when an enemy HQ falls back in cases where the HQ isn't completely encircled by your own troops. In that case I've had enemy HQ which fell back into my province and upon having retreated the HQ "conquered" the province.

 

[Chromos]

I second Big Nev here, as speed is one big key.
We can help our breakthrough and follow up with air to soften up the defender and later hinder its movement through interdiction.
Also attaking with heavy div for the initial breakthrough (HARM, INF + ost of ART).

If the enemy defends in more deep, then speed is still very important to get the Kessel closed asap. Be it just one province or more.
Also, bigger Kessel help in trapping the enemy(ai) as it is much later aware of the danger it is in. But that big Kessel is also harder to defend against counterattacks.
In my mod, mobile units have intentionally a much higher speed as in vanilla. And overruns are much more likely if the enemy has not a second line wich holds long enough for the retreating units. Feels much more realistic in that way and fun as you keep an eye on any mobile units.
Haven't played vanilla for a very long time, but still remember that fast LARM DIV helped a lot after the initial breakthrough was reached.
Just don't slow them down with other much slower Brigades.

 

[Pugmak]

Germany is a good country to play to learn encirclement.

I'll lay out the way I went about learning the ticks, even though most folks think it's a totally boring method.

Keep in mind that force structure and build is a huge component of, and necessary for, encirclement. But, there's many ways to go about that and personal experiment is the best way to go about that, imo. So, I won't go into that here.

Start the game at 1936. Build the forces you feel necessary for war opener with Poland. Once you have those forces built and just prior to war start, save the game.

The Poland warfront lends itself to mad dash and Victory Point seizures to force a win, but it also serves as a very nice encirclement practice field.

For encirclement practice, try a 2 prong envelopment. North and South. The north prong goes in 1 province south of Danzig. Danzig is put under passive siege and bypassed. The north prong drives to 1 province short of Warsaw and swings south.

The south prong drives 1 province into Poland just north of the major city in that AO. I forget it's name. Then branches into 2 prongs. 1 prong pushes south to trap Polish in that city which is placed under siege and remaining forces in that sub prong continue south to trap Polish forces along the border with whatchumacall it (brain's not recalling names of stuff atm. Sorry.) The primary southern prong continues to drive east for 4 or 5 provinces then swings north to meet the northern prong coming south.

In this practice, avoid taking VP cities since you don't want to force a defeat on Poland until you've worked the encirclement exercise.

Reduce your pockets, once you've established them. Don't forget to use your airforces in this exercise, both in reducing resistance to your encircling prongs and in reducing resistance within the encircled pockets.

Play that saved game until comfortable with the pace and timing of encirclement in that particular battlespace.

Once that's done, save the game at the end of the Poland Fight and then continue the build up for France. Once you've got the force you want for France, save the game again.

With France, if Belgium remains neutral, open up the western front by sweeping Netherlands down to the Belgium border.
Once that's done, arraign your forces with as light a line along that front as you believe you can get away with, and stack your offensive forces for a drive south along the coast and also south along the backside of the Maginot Line.

Drive south with both prongs, through Belgium and into France. The Maginot Line prong needs enough forces to stretch the length of the fortification line to trap as many French forces along there as possible, and enough forces to branch off once the penetration is online with Paris and push toward that city.

The coastal prong drives along the coast, securing ports to prevent reinforcements landing from the UK until it is also on line with Paris. Then part of that prong swings east to meet the Maginot Line prong coming west, 1 Province short of taking Paris itself. Again, not looking to force a quick win.

So now, there should be a good sized pocket of allied forces trapped in Belgium and France, in 2 pockets. 1 along the Maginot Line, the other in the fields including all of Belgium and the fields just short of Paris.

The coast prong can then keep pushing to attempt to trap even more French forces in the horns sticking out into the channel.

A primary lesson to learn in the French Fight is logistics. This is the first of the fights where forces are large enough, and the distances long enough, that supply and fuel will become issues.

Once you've gotten comfortable with the exercises offered in the French fight, continue your game. You should be schooled up enough to have a good clue as to how to progress into Russia.

PS. The prongs and goals listed above are just examples. There are many ways to go about the task. If not too bored with the replays, try both big encirclement and smaller nibble type encirclements. Also, pay attention to logistics. Units can be built to be ultra killer on battlefields but then be too costly logistics wise to keep them fed and on the move. There's a balance there to look out for.

There's also techs that help. In the Theory tab in techs, there's 3 techs that help in this. 1 reduces the "tax" that log is reduced by per province it crosses, 1 increases 'throughput' which is the amount of log that can be pushed down the supply line, and 1 increases the speed at which unit strength is repaired.

Also, pay attention to the ground you intend to cross in your encirclements. Terrain will play a roll, in speed of advance, strength of enemy resistance and ability to flow logistics to your front to maintain and sustain your offensive.

This game is all about budgets and balances. Kill power - man power - number of units necessary for the planned offensives - ability to keep them fed and on the move. All those must be considered in force structure and strategic goals.