Planning

Welcome ! This is where we will discuss strategy. I hardly know anything about tactics, so I think you guys will need to help me out lol

 

Guess that makes two of us.

 

For starters
What units do we have?
What do we know about our enemies?
And is there anything relevant about the terrain?

 

Well, There's around 100,000 free french after Dunkirk. They would probably be spread out a bit, but the bulk of them would rpobably be spread out in North Africa.

The terrian is hot, vast, and sandy

 

See here. You'll have to decide amongs yourselves who controls what, and what they are to do with that.

Nothing. Well, they're a bunch of fascists and they're on the left side of the map. That's just about it.

Basically, terrain in North Africa is quite simple in tactical terms. There's a narrow strip between coast and desert where all fighting takes place and where all strategic objectives are located. The further you move inland, the greater the risk that you'll run out of fuel, have to ditch your heavy equipment, and have to walk home, which isn't good for morale. The further you move out to sea, the greater the risk that you'll get stung by jellyfish.

On the map you can see a coastline, some towns, some roads and a big swathe of desert. It's pretty self-explanatory: since beyond the roads there's just desert, it is possible to move troops there but it's slow and generally without reward.

For the record, I'm not on your side here (I'm a neutral observer), but I hope this helps to clear up some confusion.

 

The french alos have colonial troops, mainly infantry. The Uk has the 8th army

 

Stix, you seem to be the only one with any real knowledge of tactics and strategy. I dont know where that leaves me and blaster. Perhaps we can research and organize ?

 

No doubt both of you will have some insight, though maybe it will only show once the battle starts.
It is actually here at the start that you will have to help out the most due to my lack of knowledge.
To phrase my previous questions more specific;
I've seen the unit list, but how many men/vehicles does this actually amount to? (I have no idea how many soldiers/tanks make up these divisions)
How fast can we expect them to travel on average (in the desert)?
Do we start out on a location of choice on the right of the map?
What are the firing ranges of our units?
What are feasible times to expose our units to desert travel (both time of day and duration)?

These are things I simply have no knowledge of, so I'm hoping the 2 of you do.
As for the strategical part, I have 1 more question; can we get a bunch of wood, a few gallons of paint, basic tools (saw, hammer, nails) and some rope?

 

The basic unit in this game appears to be the division, with only a few HQ units present. A 1942 Commonwealth infantry division at full strength would count about 15,000 men, whereas an armoured division would field about 10,000. Both division types had between 3000 and 4000 vehicles at their disposal. Infantry divisions consisted of up to three infantry brigades with much motorized support but no tanks; armoured divisions counted three or four armoured regiments with a total of about two hundred medium tanks plus infantry support.

I do not have hard numbers on this, but realistically the very maximum range of a division travelling by road is something like 20-30 kilometers a day (unless they are motorized, in which case they might make it 50). In the desert, count on a fraction of this speed. Since your first turn lasts a month, though, you can move your troops anywhere until they encounter enemy forces.

Alexandria is the HQ of all Commonwealth forces in North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Your troops are likely to be stationed west of it.

At the scale of this map, firing range is irrelevant. Hexes are 10km by 10km in size. If an Allied unit encounters an Axis unit within one such hex, contact will probably be made by scouting parties, but firing cannot begin until either side decides to launch a direct attack, since the effective firing range of direct-fire weapons used is a tiny part of the size of a hex. The only unit that could potentially fire beyond a single hex is heavy artillery.

Turns last 24 hours, so time of day is also irrelevant. You can move your unit a day's distance per turn, whether you do it by night or by day. As for exposure, it depends on the type of unit, but in all cases it would take a sacrifice of epic proportions and the discarding of all heavy equipment to spend more than three days in the desert.

Hope this helps...

CSP: you'll have to stick with the OOB Christian provided, since the Free French simply didn't play a bigger part in this battle. The aim of this game is not to allow players to magically conjure their own favourite units into a time and place where they historically were not present.

 

Umm, thanks ... ?

 

Not that I'm complaining or anything, but when was it decided we'd get a 4th teammember?

 

Just trying to make sure you have what you need to play this game properly. Without this kind of information I daresay you three will have a very hard time against the Axis team.

 

But Roel. Its a nice gesture, but its really up to the team to get such matters. If you give us info and are not on the team then thats cheating. No outside help except for rules, which is Christains responsibility. Your giving us less work to do.

 

Fair enough, if you stick to providing facts that could be googled, clarification of rules and such, and do the same for the other team (should they require it), I don't really mind.

Back to the actual planning.
It seems we only have Armour and Infantry, no Engineers or Anti-tank guns are provided.
This could be a serious weakness meaning that during actual battle we will have to be careful to preserve our Armour as much as possible.
As without engineers repairs will be impossible or slow and without Anti-tank our own tanks are the only means of eleminating the enemies tanks.

 

Not to mention that our tanks are slow and gas guzzling or are unreliable in the desert theatre

 

Thing is, the other team has David and Man on it. Like me, they do not need Google to get the kind of information I just provided. They probably know it off the top of their heads. I'd hate to throw you guys into the ring without some preparation, and arguably I'm only making the game more fair.

Unless you guys mind my meddling, in which case I will stop it right now.

 

It may be hard, but it makes it fun. Me and blaster want to get info, even if it is googled.

You'll have to be patient till next week

 

I'm standing by for anything I might need to do.

 

Due to the new topic about the current situation posted by Christian, I suggest we go heavy on the AT capability and armoured units, as that's pretty much the only major threat the Axis forces pose right now.

 

Well, I'm not confident in the AT capabbility of british tanks. Better just to hide them.