Very Hard Difficulty and Germany's Victories--(Major Spoilers within)

[ichitori]

I did it. I defeated the Soviet Union and United Kingdom on Very Hard difficulty in the same playthrough as Germany.

England is definitely the crown jewel of victories for a couple of reasons. I didn't think it was possible to defeat the Soviet Union and UK in the same playthrough but I saw my chance late game when UK made an ill-fated invasion of Southern Spain and I took it.

Once you defeat Great Britain some good things happen. I only had 6 months to spare until the end of the game, 1948, 01/01.

It is not impossibly difficult to do if you use some proper techniques as Germany.

 

[mrsund]

Nice, was it a vanilla game or mod, what kind off strategies did you go for in the beginning and how did it develop?
Time does always run out for me.

 

[ichitori]

Nice, was it a vanilla game or mod, what kind off strategies did you go for in the beginning and how did it develop?
Time does always run out for me.

It was with Vanilla with TFH DLC.

Here are a few must things, imo, if you want to defeat the Soviet Union and maybe UK.

1. Set Training Laws to basic. I did this 6 months into the 1936 game, I don't know what doing it earlier would do. If I were to play again I'd probably set it to Basic training right away.

2. Build and name some 3 star Panzer HQs and attach to a 4 star Panzer Army. Attach your tank divisions to the 3 Star Panzer HQ. In the Panzer HQs put generals that have the Logistic Trait into them and maybe even some tank divisions.

3. Go fairly tank heavy in your army, and some infantry, I like to keep my German overall manpower atleast at 1,000. Tanks are around 1 manpower or 1000 troops less than infantry that is why I like to build tanks. Germany has a manpower problem if you mainly focus on building infantry.

3.b. Your divisions don't need infantry to accept fights, a tank brigade with support brigades may engage in fights.

3.c. One of my favorite builds is 2 (light, medium, heavy) tanks + 2 Armored cars. Ex. 2 medium tanks + 2 Armored cars. I took flak for this build, but it works.

4. 6 months after you conquer the Soviet Union you will want to set your create convoy supply routes and convoys replacement to manual. You can make more effective supply convoys than shipping through the Irish coast.

My 1-4 steps were a must in my victory, imo.

I pretty much followed history, got Czech for free. Attacked Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, etc. and then Soviet Union. I forget when I took Spain since after the Soviet Union I let the game sit for 4 months. Then it was fun for me to play again.

I did get a little lucky. I think Japan sunk quite a few UK ships as I glanced over the sunk ships stat sheet. Like I said earlier near the end game, 2 years left I suppose, UK screwed up by attacking my South of Spain near Gibralter. They sent 20 garrision brigades, 6 infantry brigades, 3 tank brigades and some support units to their death.

This lowered their Army quite a bit. Although it still took me 10 hours of real time to defeat them in England.

Pick a good spot to attack England I read someone else post Hull was good for them and what a coincidence that was what I had used. Transport your troops to Hull at night time.

Anyway its bed-time for me. If you have any other specific questions feel free to ask. Thank you for the congratulations.

 

[mrsund]

Good work, I am still on normal difficulty and struggling
I agree on manpower may be the worst problem for Germany, even worse combined with supply problems.
My personal problem is that I am never satisfied with the tech levels off my units and often misses a year off attacking a weaker enemy, trying to keep everything up to date.

 

[ichitori]

Keep trying away at it.

The first time I played the game I was also on normal. I didn't even attack anyone in Europe but went to South Korea to help the Japanese fight there.

I played 4 campaigns on normal difficulty.

On Very Hard difficulty it took me 4 campaigns to finally defeat the Soviet Union. The same try that I defeated the Soviet Union for the first time I also defeated the United Kingdom.

Oh and stay away from Norway, it is a supply and division suck. Although on Normal difficulty you might be able to get away with it.

Keep playing and learn from your playthroughs. I mainly learned from my mistakes and sometimes thinking outside the box. It took me 545 hours of play time experience to conquer the Soviet Union and UK on VH.

 

[ichitori]

Good work, I am still on normal difficulty and struggling
I agree on manpower may be the worst problem for Germany, even worse combined with supply problems.
My personal problem is that I am never satisfied with the tech levels off my units and often misses a year off attacking a weaker enemy, trying to keep everything up to date.

Try making a 3 star HQ Corps and rename it Panzer Corps HQ. Also build a 4 star Army HQ and rename it Panzer Army HQ. Attach the HQ Corp to the Army HQ. I watched a history show and it said Germany had Panzer Army HQs. I didn't know that before, I only knew of Panzer Corps HQs. Attach most of your tank divisions to the 3 star Panzer Corp HQ. See how that works out for you. On very hard and wanting to attack Soviet Union "Logistic Trait" generals are a must in your Panzer HQs , so I put those in right away before attacking Poland and later "logistic trait" generals for some tank divisions. Some good generals will have logistic trait and a few other traits.

Eventually you will have 3-4 Panzer Corps HQs, and probably around 2 Panzer Army HQs. That is an estimate.

 

[Wraith11B]

The Germans were famous for giving their units grandiose names for what were nothing special.

 

[Kovax]

The Germans were famous for giving their units grandiose names for what were nothing special.

The Soviets did the same with their "guards" units. There's nothing exceptional about Germany or any other specific country handing out grandiose names. There were also a number of interwar "societies" and paramilitary organizations in many countries, often with wildly inflated titles, ridiculous uniforms, and other forms of self-aggrandizement, and some of those were directly incorporated into the national armies when war broke out, crazy titles and all.

 

[HFaber]

Later in the war often geographical names were given to Divisions, to strengthen the will to fight in the attached soldiers (Grossdeutschland, Schlesien, etc.), to instill an intense sense of threat, as these divisions were intended to be used in the defense of the regions they were named after. There was nothing grandios about them though, often they were cobbled together from other units that were mostly wiped out, sometimes a bit of Volksturm was mixed in.

I think that subject can give rise to dozens of Phd theses in linguistics. Names like Blitzbomber, Sturmgewehr and Amerikabomber were used by Nazi leadership merely for the purpose of invigorating the fighting will of the shrinking German forces. Some of these terms made it into modern common (German) language, like Sturmgewehr, and are used quite indiscriminately and the speakers are usually completely unaware of their original Nazi propaganda function.

 

[Kovax]

Some of these terms made it into modern common (German) language, like Sturmgewehr, and are used quite indiscriminately and the speakers are usually completely unaware of their original Nazi propaganda function.

Sturm = Assault

Gewehr = Weapon (Gewehr was a term used by Germany for many of its rifles since the 1800s, as opposed to Karabinier for its shorter-barrel rifles (carbines).)

Blitz = Lightning, denoting high speed (The American P-38 was also called the "Lightning". US propaganda?)

There's nothing invigorating or propaganda-oriented about those names. Those are functional names, like Sturmgeschutze = Assault gun (a self-propelled cannon on tracks for assaulting fortified bunkers and trenches).

Just because it's German doesn't mean that it's propaganda.

 

[HFaber]

Just because it's German doesn't mean that it's propaganda.

That isn't what I said. I am a German speaker and I am not making this up. I am relaying the scientific position here. The technical and correct term for "Sturmgewehr" would be Maschinenkarabiner (automatic carbine).

I agree with you that propaganda isn't something that was specifically German. I often wonder whether in other languages a similar normalization of originally propagandistic terms took place or what other influences war propaganda had on everyday language. A lot of writers in German struggle with these terms in so far as they don't want to internalize language that was originally created to strengthen fascist/NS ideas or goals. However, many times there are no other well known words for the same thing and often these terms are very powerful in a political or editorial statement.

Type names like "Lighting" or "Mosquito" have a similar function as, say, "Blitzbomber". That in and of itself isn't a problem. Every warring nation will try to strengthen its military and political coherence and efficiency by means of propaganda. But I find it remarkable that unknowingly a lot of people who otherwise (rightfully) abhor fascist language use it more or less everyday, even when different, more accurate and less propagandistic terms are available. Granted, most people don't use "Sturmgewehr" to propagandize, but because it just has become so common place. "Sturmgewehr" has become so common that most people are completely surprised when they learn that it isn't a technical but a political term originally. I was surprised when I learned that connection to German war propaganda. In the country I live in "Sturmgewehr" is the official military term for the personal weapon. I find this interesting from a linguistic and societal point of view.

While "Sturmgeschütz" is a borderline case, as Stugs were in fact at least intended, although not used very often, to assault infantry positions, terms like "Sturmtiger" are much more obviously propagandistic. Other obvious examples are "Atlantikwall", "Reichskristallnacht", "Kriegsweihnachten", "Arbeitsfront" and many more and more sinister ones like "Endlösung", etc.

An interesting factoid is that for some time the German propaganda called German planes "Kampfflugzeuge" (combat planes) while enemy planes were simply called "Flugzeuge". "Kampflugzeuge" is today the standard term for war plane in German. This shows how subtle and sophisticated the propaganda ministry was in employing language to further the ideas of national socialism.

 

[HFaber]

Another very interesting example is "Blitzkrieg", a term most everyone agrees is explicitly propagandistic. The accurate and official German military term would be "Bewegungskrieg" (war of movement), which it was called in the documents and manuals of German staff training.

"Blitzkrieg" has survived the war and de-nazification and even people who don't usually concern themselves with questions of strategy, military history, etc. know and sometimes use it. In Backgammon, a very old board game, if not the oldest known board game, "Blitzing" is one of the four fundamental game plans.

 

[Wraith11B]

Regardless, we are far off the original topic, so let's lock that discussion up.

Edit: do some research...