Panzer General - Strategy Guide (Page 03)

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NORWAY, 4th suggestions:
Start unifying your fleet on the first turn. Do not bombard Oslo
with the southern fleet. Send it north. Do not freelance with
your subs. Wait until your fleet is combined. Then strike the
allies. Your destroyers are targets. Decide to eliminate either
allied capital ships or their destroyers with your capitol ships.
If you kill the DD's your subs should be able to kill any capital
ships. The DD's do not have enough firepower to stop you.
A Ju-88 will make this an even battle. Don't allow your
forces to be destroyed piecemeal.

I land a unit and some para's by the airfield objective. I do provide
shore bombardment for a turn or three here. A small force, 3 units,
lands south of Oslo, often taking it in a turn or two. The rest of my
troops head towards Lillehamer. Once that is secured we only have the two
nothern objectives.

Start sending your infantry in halftracks towards Nasmos. Sneak up
the Northern coast if you can. Send a unit or two up the river
to the right.

The southern of those two objectives ( Trondhiem ?) can be taken by
hard targets if you have air support. The Naval bombardment doesn't
seem to hit the Panzers very hard. Get your infantry away from the
allied fleet.

Hopefully by now you have all the objectives but the northernmost
one and your fleet is keeping the allied fleet occupied.
What should you have near Nasmos ?
Air superiority.
A unit or two from the river valley.
A unit or two from the North coast.
Your paratroopers. ( I have one in my core )
6 units and air to take one objective. It can be done.
You don't have to hold it. Just take it.

I have seen advocates of taking the northernmost city
and buying units there. I don't think that is needed here.
   --- DSHORT@nova.wright.edu

NORWAY, 5th suggestions:
It is possible to take out the British navy.
    (1) have around 4 fighters, 1 bomber.
    (2) gain air superiority.
    (3) group all your ship in one large group.  Have a line of
        destroyers in front, subs behind and capital ships behind
        the subs.
    (4) bombard their cities to the west of their fleet concentration
    (5) they'll send over a cruiser or 2 plus destroyers and you can
        pretty much nuke them loosing a couple of destroyer squadrons
        and a sub group.
    (6) repeat this and also bring in your bomber to bomb their
        capital ships while using destroyer as bait and hit them
        with your subs and captial ships.
   - I was able to wipe out their navy with 1 intact battleship group,
     a slightly damaged light cruiser and heavy cruiser group, and
     1.2 sub groups.
   - This should be the priority of your navy!!!
   - you could also paradrop your paratroopers to the city ne of the
     northern most objective.  You can take that city which is lightly
     defended and build units there.(of course, you'll probably need
     to take care of the British navy to do that.
   --- John [full credit unavailable to do my newsreader]


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FRANCE, 1st suggestions:
------------------------
...I can give you some advice about France. Take no notice of his entrenched armies
in the forrest to the north.  They will leave their positions going south
after you and are easy to kill in the open. Go as fast as possible with three
army groups and head only for the objectives. Take other towns if it can be
done without losing time. The first army group should head for the first coast
town, objectives only, disregarding the british forces. This means do not go
along the coast; go through in the center then turn west. You must leave some
units defending your towns though. The 2:nd army group follows the first one
Seine but heads for Paris. The third army group goes east. This group can be
the smallest 1-2 tanks with 2 infantry units to take the towns. Take out his
fighters first, you can buy an aditional fighter unit but it is not necessary.
Do not be afraid to use your bombers even though they take some damage. You
can easily take out his ship with level bombers if it troubles you. Do not
attack his tanks unless you have bombed it with stukas a couple of times.
Defend taken cities with cheap 39 infantry and let your experienced ones move
on. Take artillery and AA with tanks. AA are tougher but you can always bomb
them after they have lost a couple of points.
   --- Michael Berglund 


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* 2   *      DESIGNERS' NOTES
            ==================

        PANZER GENERAL was conceived as a easy-to-play but
challenging-to-master tactical/operational wargame in which the
player, taking the role of a general, leads an increasingly
experienced combined arms force all the way through World War 2
in Europe.

        We wanted a realistic feel without burdening the player: if the
player did something that made sense historically, it would work
in the game, but the player wouldn't have to handle a lot
mechanically.  This meant a highly intuitive and user-friendly
interface with all the complexity handled by the computer.

        World War 2 saw the rapid evolution of military technology, and
this was an important reality to model in the game.  Hundreds of
different types of equipment are represented, and players have
the ability to replace unit equipment with (presumably more
advanced) alternative equipment.  Upgrading unit equipment is an
important part of the campaign game.

        Different types of units and equipment had very different
tactical roles, and this is represented by using a common system
of unit values but dividing units into various types with
different capabilities according to their historical usage and
effectiveness.  For example, anti-tank guns look very much like
tanks with a lower ground defense value, but the rule that tanks
will almost always get to shoot first if an anti-tank gun
attacks them rather than vice versa helps encourage (but does
not require) their use defensively as was the case historically.
 Because of this limitation, they cost much less for an
equivalent main gun.

        Combined arms coordination was central to World War 2 tactics,
and we represented it by giving each unit a turn in which it can
move and shoot, with the tactical subtlety lying in the sequence
and of attacks involved in a particular local engagement.
Entrenchment levels are a key concept in the game: units able to
dig into a prepared position are tougher to root out.  The
concept of "rugged defense" represents ambush or the ability to
open fire with surprise at close range, conditions which favor
the defender and can devastate an attacker.  Rugged defense
really helps infantry, particularly well-entrenched infantry.

        Repeated attacks on such a unit, however, will disrupt an
entrenched unit, force it out of good tactical positions and
give the attacker intelligence useful for further attacks.  In
the game, the way to attack a strongly entrenched unit is with a
combination of aerial and artillery preparatory bombardment,
followed by ground attacks by one or more units.  Entrenching
takes time unless a unit begins a scenario entrenched.  Some
units can take more advantage of ground and therefore can
entrench more quickly than others in the game.  Moving units
have a zero entrenchment level, but gain the base entrenchment
level of the particular terrain they end in when they stop.


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* 3   *   GENERAL STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL NOTES
          ====================================

* 3.1 *       REQUISITIONING UNITS FROM HQ
              ============================

        The prestige cost of units only roughly correlates with their
effectiveness, so examine combat values closely before calling
HQ to send you new or replacement equipment.

        Some of these values can easily be overlooked.  Maximum fuel
capacity and especially maximum ammo capacity need to be
carefully examined, and are more of a constraint if the unit is
advancing than if stationary on defense--remember that a unit
can easily use up several rounds of ammo in a turn if repeatedly
attacked (or if providing defensive fire in support of adjacent
units that are being attacked).

        Close defense is another statistic that you can regret you
overlooked if the unit runs into infantry in the woods and city
hexes common on most battlefields, because you defend using your
close defense rather than ground defense value.

        Also be sure to check the Unit Equipment Tables to see what
kind of enemy equipment you are likely to come up against.
Start by comparing your attack values and defense values against
each other to see who has more destructive potential in a fair
fight.  Then compare initiative values to see who's more likely
to shoot first, bearing in mind that unit experience can count
for as much as 3 initiative levels.  Experience tends to be very
important in fighter combat, where initiative values don't
differ much and where attack values are high relative to defense
values--the better pilot often gets in a devastating first shot.
 It is less important in early-war tank warfare, where attack
values tend to be relatively lower compared with defense values.


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* 3.2 *        TERRAIN
               =======

        Careful attention to terrain is well worth it.  Rivers are
probably the most significant obstacle and make excellent
positions to defend behind.  Bridging units are very helpful in
terrain with many rivers but few roads or bridges.  Cities,
besides being victory objectives and prestigious to capture and
hold, are the next most significant obstacle because of the
strength they offer the defense--important advantages in cities,
swamps and mountains are that the effect of the opposing
equipments' initiative difference is minimized (because of the
close range combat involved) and entrenchment and experience
levels become key.  Cities, woods and mountains also allow
defending and attacking infantry to shoot against the close
defense number of the enemy unit as mentioned above (except that
infantry attacking against infantry who succeed in putting up a
rugged defense shoot at the defender's ground defense value).

        Entrenchment levels are a feature of units, not terrain, but
affect combat much as terrain does--they make a devastating
rugged defense more likely.  Entrenchment levels can be reduced
by attacking or bombarding a ground unit.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 3.3 *         WEATHER
                =======

        Bad weather generally helps the defender and helps the side
with air inferiority because of the inability of air units to
attack and their reduced scouting ability during bad weather.
Interludes of bad weather are good times to resupply and rebuild
units or make them overstrength while waiting for the weather to
clear.


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* 3.4 *          DON'T LET YOUR UNITS DIE
                 ========================

        Don't let your units fight until destroyed--if you can pull
them out with even 1 strength point left, they can be rebuilt
more cheaply per strength point than buying a new unit (even if
using elite replacements) and get to keep their experience as a
bonus.  This represents the importance of veteran cadres to the
performance of new recruits.

        The importance of preserving units has many tactical
implications.  One is to ensure that units which risk heavy
losses shoot before moving so they can retreat to safety if
grievously weakened.  The corollary of this principle is, of
course, to mercilessly wipe out crippled enemy units to keep the
enemy from rebuilding them.


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* 3.5 *        COMBINED ARMS
               =============

        There are many aspects to combined arms tactics, but this is
the most important: Armor is the king of open ground and
infantry is the king of restricted terrain.  If you consistently
violate this rule, you'll be lucky to end the war as a Panzer
Private.

        As in the childhood game of scissors-paper-stone, every World
War 2 troop type had a relative advantage over some other types
and a relative disadvantage compared with others.  Tanks can
roll over infantry in the open but be stopped dead by them in
bad terrain or entrenchments.  Artillery can slaughter infantry
but be slaughtered by tanks.  Anti-tank guns can defend well
against attacking armor but fare poorly against infantry.  Air
defense and anti-air units are poor against ground units but a
major threat to aircraft, which avoid them but can freely strike
anything else moving on the ground (except later in the war,
when other ground unit acquire their own organic air attack
values and can shoot back).

        Combined arms tactics involve using a variety of unit types in
close cooperation, each attacking the enemy where it has an
advantage and being screened by the other arms where it has a
disadvantage.  On the advance in open ground, for example, tanks
and tank destroyers would lead, with self-propelled artillery
and air defense units and infantry mounted in half-tracks or
trucks "tucked in" behind them where the enemy cannot attack
them without first forcing the armor out of the way.  Recon
units might be in or immediately behind the front line to use
their superior spotting range to scout ahead.

        Although an army consisting solely of tanks might be able to
win a battle (at least, a defensive battle), it is likely to
lose badly to a balanced force of equal size.  Both in the
overall army and in the battlegroups assigned to spearhead
particular attacks or defend particular sectors, the subtle
skill of using combined arms is one of the most important
talents of the Panzer General.  There are many aspects to
combined arms, as you will learn as you play, but a
stereotypical example follows.

        Attack on a Prepared Position:   To avoid ambushes and wasting
time by sending troops to inappropriate locations, you begin by
scouting to uncover enemy positions.  This can involve sending
aircraft along a path crossing over the terrain you are
interested in or pushing a recon unit to the limit of what is
currently visible (or one hex short of that, if you want to be
careful).   Absent either of these, you use a unit somewhat to
the rear of your front line whose full move would take it ahead
of your line but to a hex that is still visible.  When it
arrives there, it spots additional hexes and further units from
the rear can leapfrog forward, increasing the spotted area.

        Suppose the enemy is spotted, heavily entrenched in a victory
objective city directly ahead of you, with artillery positioned
behind the city and infantry or armor to either side.  You
decide you can't successfully bypass it and turn back to take it
later.  Your priorities are to eliminate the supporting
artillery, clear away the nearby enemy units, and weaken the
unit defending the city.   A typical sequence of events could be:

- fighter attacks city to weaken entrenchments

- tac bomber attacks artillery to inflict losses--getting rid of
the enemy artillery is key to preventing heavy losses to your
infantry

- tank attacks enemy tank/tank destroyer or tank attacks
infantry on other side of city (don't attack with infantry
yet since strong surviving enemy artillery will chew it up)

- artillery moves into range of city and deploys

- first wave infantry moves adjacent to city in front of
friendly artillery

- enemy turn--can't resupply, build, or successfully attack even
your infantry because of your artillery support; can't attack
your infantry with air power since your fighter will intercept;
his artillery will try to harass you, though.

- your turn: fighter over city attacks and moves to adjacent hex,

- if enemy tank or infantry on flanks gone, armor or tank
destroyer passes forward to attack enemy artillery while tactical
bomber moves over city to attack it

- friendly arty bombards city

- first assault wave attacks city, retires away if the enemy
survives (pionieres and engineers are more likely to win
immediately since they ignore enemy entrenchments and
prevent an enemy rugged defense)

- second wave moves adjacent to city, attacks and probably wins

- fresh troops from the rear occupy city.


        Make sure you pay attention to the estimated combat results
displayed for you by your staff on the bottom of your screen as
you plot your attacks, although actual combat results will vary.
The only important variable the estimate leaves out is the risk
of facing a rugged defense.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 3.6 *        THE OFFENSIVE
               =============

        To win a major victory, you must not only win--you must win
early.  In the campaign game, the difference between a major and
minor victory is important to your future.  Usually, a major
victory is won by taking your objectives especially early.  If
you take them too late--usually about 2/3 of the way through
offensive battles--the best you can do is a marginal victory.
On defense, how many objectives you hold at the end of the
battle is the key.  Tenacity and endurance count.  Avoiding
friendly losses and inflicting losses on the enemy don't count
for determining victory and defeat, although, particularly in
the campaign game, both of these goals help you improve your
core army and thereby help in future battles.  Since only
victory objectives count, you must avoid being led astray by
diversions.

        Part of staying focused on objectives is making and
implementing a plan and keeping your forces organized
accordingly.  Check the strategic map to see where victory
objectives are and the best routes to them, preferably routes
that pass by a number of them.  Paths that threaten multiple
objectives are preferable because the enemy must build and
deploy units to defend them all, thus leaving the target you
wish to strike weaker before your blow.

        The tutorial speaks in terms of battlegroups because thinking
in terms of battlegroups tasked with driving to specific
objectives is one good way of keeping on track and avoiding
time-wasting distractions.  To win in PANZER GENERAL, time is
the one thing you cannot afford to waste.  Offensives tend to
become dissipated and diffuse over the entire enemy front rather
than just the critical sector.  Units tend to wander across the
battlefield in the pursuit of temporary and often irrelevant
tactical advantages such as picking off weakened units.  The
result is that a decisive victory can become a minor victory or
a loss.

        Attacking on a broad front is an unwise dissipation of strength
except in fluid "pursuit" battles such as Kharkov where you are
chasing or racing past the enemy to your objectives.  Single,
narrow spearheads are too limiting, but a single, broad
spearhead is an effective way to punch through strong defense
lines into more favorable ground beyond, while multiple
spearheads work well in intermediate situations with
widely-spread objectives.  Lines of advance threatening multiple
objectives force the enemy to disperse to protect them all,
weakening him everywhere, while converging on an objective from
several directions lets you direct the most combat strength
against it.

        Force balance is essential on the offensive because of the
varied nature of the terrain and enemy forces.  Any force that
will attack woods or towns needs infantry..... If you have air
inferiority, consider an AA unit or two and self-propelled air
defense units to provide some deterrent to and protection
against enemy aircraft.  This works best if you have at least a
small fighter force to pick off weakened enemy aircraft after
they attack.


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* 3.7 *        THE DEFENSIVE
               =============

        On defense, build multiple lines of defense--get ATGs and
infantry, which entrench more quickly, focusing wherever possible
on defending river lines and putting infantry in cities, mountains
and forests. Artillery sited behind towns to provide defensive support
is especially useful.

       Active defense is the strongest form of defense--it was a very
effective practice to launch local counter-attacks immediately
to neutralize any enemy penetrations and before the enemy could
settle into a captured position.

        Combined arms on the defense is the converse of combined arms
on the offensive--an ideal defensive position consists of
infantry in bad terrain immediately supported to the rear by
artillery and air defense units, with armored and infantry
reserves to counterattack breakthroughs in open and close
terrain, respectively, and, ideally, fighters to shoot down
enemy tactical bombers and tactical bombers to weaken enemy
artillery and the attacking units they support.  If you can keep
the fighters in the air over your lines, they can intercept
attacks on adjacent ground or bomber units (unless first
attacked by the enemy themselves).

        You will usually have air inferiority, at least initially, when
on defense.  Sometimes your skill can turn the tables, but more
often you will be swamped by enemy airpower and must take
recourse to air-defense units.

        One thing to note, particularly important on defense, is that
units that cannot retreat surrender instead--if a unit is
particularly likely to be beaten, try to leave room for it to
fall back.  The disadvantage of this, of course, is that it
makes it harder to put artillery and air defense units in direct
support of the unit.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 3.8 *         THE AIR WAR
                ===========

        The air war is a subsidiary but critical part of the war.  Air
units cannot take or hold terrain--only land units can do
that--but they can prove a major help or hindrance depending on
whose units are flying overhead.  The ideal is air supremacy
(such as the Allies enjoyed in the Gulf War in 1990), which
means unopposed control of the air, but your minimum goal
(unless seriously inferior in the air) is air superiority, which
means that you generally have the advantage in the air and can
range freely over enemy lines to launch ground attacks.  If you
achieve air supremacy, keep your air units constantly busy
launching attacks on ground units to increase their experience
levels.  With air supremacy, your soft targets are also safe
from air attack and your air force can provide valuable
reconaissance of the enemy's dispositions while he cannot see
yours.

        With air inferiority, your soft targets, especially trucks,
artillery, and pioniere or engineer units, get hammered. Your
fighter and anti-air units should concentrate on enemy bombers,
since the fighters can do only minimal damage to your ground
units.  Your air defenses can provide some shelter from enemy
attack for your air units.

        Fighter/bomber coordination was a major doctrinal issue on both
sides during the war in Europe. notably in the aerial Battle of
Britain in 1940 and the air war against Germany from 1943 on:
should the fighters be tied to close escort of the bombers or
range free to hunt down enemy fighters before they can approach?
 From the aerial defender's point of view, should his
interceptors target the attacking bombers or the escorting
fighters?  to attack escorted bombers, first attack the fighters
to weaken or destroy them. If successful, this reduces the effect of,
or prevents intercepting attacks on the bombers.
Air defense units work the same way--though they are best attacked
by ground units, good tactical bombers and pilots can take them
out or severely weaken them from the air.  Sometimes the
attacker escapes without loss by shooting first to devastating
effect, but considerable losses to the attacker are more
typical.  When coordinating air units, remember that different
aircraft move at different speeds--don't leave your bombers
accidentally unescorted because the fighters have moved too far.
 It's usually helpful to move the slowest units first if they
can safely do so.

        Strategic bombers can inflict prestige losses on the enemy by
bombing victory objectives, destroy airfields, bomb other
enemy-held cities into neutral status (i.e., "neutralize" them
so the enemy can't build there or gain prestige from holding
them), or bomb units, destroying strength, ammo and fuel and
suppressing them for the entire turn.  Veteran and crack
strategic bomber crews are very effective.  Note also that
"heavy" and "medium" level bombers are inherently more effective
than "light" level bombers, but that the relative difference
narrows considerably with experience.  Level bombers all have
the same hard and soft attack values, so the real combat
difference is revealed by other values, including their air
attack and air defense values.  Bombers with high naval attack
values can also be extremely useful against ships.

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* 3.9 *         THE NAVAL WAR
                =============

        Most scenarios don't include naval warfare, but naval units
play an important role in almost all the scenarios in which they
appear.   They are expendable, and should be used to defeat the
enemy navy and then support the ground forces with bombardment,
or at least prevent the enemy fleet from bombarding your forces.
 Note that bombardment is much more effective against soft
targets than hard targets.

        In naval battles, keep the scissors-paper-stone interaction of
deatroyers, subs and capital ships in mind.  Since capital ships
can't fight back against subs, an escort screen is essential
against this threat.

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* 3.A *        QUALITY: EXPERIENCE
               ===================

        In addition to getting a chance of shooting first, experienced
units lose fewer casualties and inflict more casualties than
would otherwise be the case.  Units gain experience by fighting
and gain the most by destroying enemy with better experience or
equipment or at least forcing them to retreat.  Building up
units to overstrength status is very popular with some
playtesters because their combination of numbers and quality can
smash some enemy units with a single attack.  Building up to
overstrength takes time, however, and artillery and air
bombardment against you have the annoying effect of cutting
these units back down to size.


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* 3.B *         Composition of core
                ===================

My core is 4 fighters, 2 Stuka, 3+ artillery, 4 or 5 tanks, and
the rest is infantry.  When playing the campaign, I upgrade
units and transport frequently (halftrack everything eventually
as they move fast and can survive some surprise contact.
Shift to more air and arty.   Buy PZ IVDs - look at the specs.
They're better at antitank and are cheaper.  For the auxiliaries,
buy some anti-tank PZJagers.  They can depress fortification levels,
move fast, and knock out weakened allied tanks.
   --- John Heidle 

[In response to my then core composition of 2 fighters, a level bomber,
1 artillery, and the rest a 2:1 infantry to armor ration --- Jenkins]

1. Your force balance is all wrong. You have far too many ground troops,
especially for the early scenarios. I never built artillery until the last
few Russian scenarios (because the weather got bad), but even then I had at
least 30% of my force in the air. For Norway, you need at least 4 fighters-
buy the best you can get, whatever the cost. You will need  about 6 Stukas.
This will mean that you will suffer when it rains, but make hay while the sun
shines... So during rain, reinforce and move up lagging units.
   I think your major problem is the lack of Stukas. With 6 Stukas, you can
afford to attack tanks and entrenched infantry every turn. I only attack
British tanks (and even the good french ones) with Stukas! Don't use your
own tanks until they are reduced to half-strength. German tanks could not
stand up to English tanks at the start of the war.
   You only need 2 or 3 tanks and 1 or 2 infantry in any battle group (until
Russia), as the Stukas will clear out the enemy in front of you. Scrap your
artillery! (I would start over.) Count on having about 3 battlegroups, so
fix your numbers.

2. Buy IVD's. They are easily the best tank until IIIj's show up. Don't buy
IIIg's!

3. Upgrade to pioneers and/or bridging eng's in half-tracks ASAP. Attack
entrenched infantry ONLY with pioneers. Use your other infantry units to
mop up. The max. number of infantry you'll need to win the game is 6 (all
bridging). You should have some pioneers by Norway.
   --- Roderick Duncan 

[In response to my then core composition of 2 fighters, a level bomber,
1 artillery, and the rest a 2:1 infantry to armor ration --- ]

Ok, all your tactics are very good except maybe for unit ratios.  I
usually invest in more air power ( bombers) and your ratio of armor to
infantry should be at least two to one, NOT the other way around.  This
is after all PANZER General.  I usually have no more than about six
infantry units but a lot of tanks.  Let the tanks attack the tanks,
artillery and anti-air and let them move on.  There is the speed that you
are lacking.  Let the infantry and artillery basically mop up the
remains.
   --- gitplayr 

[In response to my then core composition of 2 fighters, a level bomber,
1 artillery, and the rest a 2:1 infantry to armor ration --- ]

By the low countries everything should be tracked. Trucks are for
supply units. They get combat soldiers killed.

Your air corps seems very, very small to me.

I want mobile troops, so I go about one to one.
I do not purchase infantry but I try to upgrade
one to Bridge Eng. after each battle. I prefer quality
over quantity.

A little unsolicited advice about equipment.
Before 1941 I stay with PzIVd for my anti-infantry tanks,
and the Czeck Pz35 and Pz38 for my anti tank tanks.
Those distinctions are important.  [I agree; realizing this once I received
your comments made a profound difference in my game --- Jenkins]

Attacking engineers and pioneers are never cought in a rugged defense.
Attacking engineers and pioneers ignore defenders entrenchment levels.
Read those two lines again.
That means you don't have to encircle and starve out all
entrenched defenders or send your men on suicide missions.

   --- DSHORT@nova.wright.edu

I have a one to one ratio of infantry to armor.  I think that works
better.  I do a blitzkrieg with my armor,artillery and air force.
That usually clean out the path to all cities(I don't take many cities
with armor tho.)  The key here is the speed at which you wipe out
the opposition.  My infantry just leisurly moves up and take the
cities.
   --- John [full credit unavailable due to my newsreader]

AT guns are pretty useless on the offensive, but....I try to get a couple
early in the campaign and nurse them along like my favorite children.
Never attack tanks with them, use them on defense.  Use them against
weakened tanks and INF to build up their experience.  Get them up to 15 ST,
5 Star status which is fairly cheap to do.  Then when available upgrade
them to Nashorns, Elephants or Jadgtigers/panthers.  These damn things are
nearly indestructable and with enough experience will still get the first
shot off.  They are indespensible in the later scenarios when you are
outnumbered by the allies.
   --- Bill Saurwald 

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* 3.C *         How the Allies gain Prestige
                ============================

[These comments are in the strategy suggestion, because they, I believe
present information which should effect your global strategy for seizing
objectives in all offensive scenarios.  They were in response to my comment
that I run out of prestige.  ---Jenkins]

You're running out of prestige because your not taking
your objectives quickly enough. Tha allies get a boodle of
prestige every four turns or so. That boodle is pro-rated
by how many victory objectives they are still holding.
If they start with three and still hold three they get
the full amount. If they hold two they get 2/3's the amount.
If they hold one they get 1/3 the amount. Thus the better and faster
you start capturing objectives ... the easier it gets to capture the
others. Time and prestige are closely related.
   --- DSHORT@nova.wright.edu

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* 3.D *          One person's blitzkrieg strategy
                 ================================

Offense is the name of the game.  I use a road warrior like technique for
Major Victories.  Form up your units with the last objective in mind.
Concentrate your units on one or two roads leading nearest to the
objective.  I like to have one main spearhead with a secondary spearhead
of minimalist forces w/o air-cover.  Each spearhead is organized with
tanks in front, then arty, followed by pioneers.  I pack my units in
like sardenes, so we are a bristling, armored fighting machine.  Lead with
fighters to clear out enemy planes.  Don't lead your task force too far
though.  Sometimes you can intercept enemy planes over your own forces,
so in the next turn you can protect the forces beneath you from enemy planes.
After the fighters, attack with your stukas.  Take out enemy tanks
and arty first.  If its early in the game and you don't have air
supperiority yet, don't stray from your escort fighters.  (i.e., always
have at least one escort fighter adjacent to your bomber.)  If you don't
have a target adjacent to a friendly escort, return to base or rest over
a friendly in the rear.  By resting over a friendly, you can use a bomber
for air support!  After the air attack, unleash your arty.  If you have
room to manuever after the attack, advance forward.  If a particular arty
unit doesn't have a unit within range, it can either overstrength or
advance.  After the arty, attack with your tanks anything on the road
except entrenched units in cities.  Finally, advance your pioneers.
This is a very reliable technique for winning Majors.  Probably not the
best, but it works for me.  In the first Invasion of Russia, my arty
never stepped off the main road.  They would just shoot, advance, and
stop for the next turn.  Mind you, I use halftracks for all of my
units.  I don't like to walk and I don't like to be decimated by being in
trucks.  (I do use trucks, but only for units which are WAY in the rear.)
Do like the book says.  Ignore non-objective cities and airports unless
they are in the way.
   --- Unable to provide proper credit due to my newsreader


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* 4   *     Additional Tactical Info
           ==========================

* 4.1 *         FORCE BALANCE
                =============

        Playtesters have found that a range of approaches work, but
there are a number of consistent factors.   The largest parts of
 core groups tend to be tanks, infantry, and aircraft.  Tank
strength is typically from 25-50% of the core group, generally
increasing over the war.  Infantry strength is typically from
20-30% and slowly declining on a battlefield where only veteran
infantry can effectively defend themselves.  Some players use
paratroops, others don't.  The proportion of engineers and
pionieres (who are very costly in terms of prestige) to other
infantry also varies widely.

        Air strength varies the most of the "big three" types of
forces, from a couple of fighters up to over 30%, with the "big
wing" proponents using one or two level bombers and the rest
split in varying proportions between fighters and tactical
bombers.  Some players prefer the greater ground attack ability
of dedicated tactical bombers while others prefer the added
anti-air capabilities of fighter bombers, particularly when
facing strong enemy air opposition.  Aircraft first become
available in Warsaw (although the first fighter-bomber is not
available until Norway).

        Some players' core groups include up to 10% each of artillery
and anti-tank units, while others use none or rely on auxiliary
forces.  Self-propelled artillery is more useful on the advance,
but towed artillery, if entrenched and protected against air and
ground attack, suffices on the defense or for slow-moving
attacks such as those through mountainous or other unfavorable
terrain.  Artillery, like pionieres and engineers, are magnets
for enemy air attacks--so use of these troop types necessitates
a strong air force or air defense.  Few playtesters used more
than a single anti-aircraft unit or more than a few air-defense
units in their core groups for the 1939 campaign, largely
because they are not necessary if you control the air as the
Axis tend to do in the early war.  Air defense units are also
often available as auxiliaries. Even players de-emphasizing airpower
found a small fighter force useful for picking off isolated enemy
bombers, forcing the enemy to escort his bombers, and for reconaissance
The main alternative to air reconaissance (other than turning
"Hidden Units" off) is Recon units.  Players who use them usually use
no more than one per spearhead for scouting purposes.  Late in the war,
they have to be used more carefully in the face of increasingly powerful
enemy units.