Bunker Busting and armor

[Ricky B]

FYI, turn off on map results and you will get a fire results box. Each unit's fire results are calculated separately from all others, whether fired one unit at a time (of course) or a number of units at once. The advantage to firing a stack is all their fire occurs before any defensive fire, but if NOT playing with delayed disruption, you can't adjust fire targets after a disruption occurs, so the entire group may fire at a unit that disrupted on the first shot.

rick

[Tide1]

FYI, turn off on map results and you will get a fire results box. Each unit's fire results are calculated separately from all others, whether fired one unit at a time (of course) or a number of units at once. The advantage to firing a stack is all their fire occurs before any defensive fire, but if NOT playing with delayed disruption, you can't adjust fire targets after a disruption occurs, so the entire group may fire at a unit that disrupted on the first shot.

rick

See you can still learn something new everyday. I suppose that was hidden in the user guide somewhere
Thanks Rick

[Ricky B]

Nah, this is from playing the game prior to the on map results being added, so they always showed in the dialog box, and showed all the shots being taken with separate calcs !

[Compass Rose]

Rick and Darran wrote the User Guide!

[FM WarB]

So this raises the question, which causes more damage, one 4 or two 2s?

[Ricky B]

On average, the same. It could vary depending on the "rolls" for each check, but the average will be the same, long-term. One thing I have noticed is if I fire a big stack of units, the enemy losses are fairly consistent, frequently within 1 man from shot to shot, sometimes a couple. But firing a single unit can vary much more widely.

Rick

[Liebchen]

When you do assault,make sure the defender can retreat out of the hex.

This is a key aspect, in my experience. You've got to disrupt them, then smoke them out. Don't make them die in their bunkers, as they will fight to the last man.

You should try to get off Omaha beach if you want some spectacular bunkers...

Truth!

[Many Mariuses]

I haven't got the "push them out of the bunkers" tactic quite down yet. I'm just lucky to get them isolated (which I assume one does first to ensure good odds on the close combat, barring a disruption).

Ricky B, Thanks for the tip on combining fire. It might delay my inevitable carpal tunnel for a few months

[Liebchen]

I haven't got the "push them out of the bunkers" tactic quite down yet. I'm just lucky to get them isolated (which I assume one does first to ensure good odds on the close combat, barring a disruption).

Ricky B, Thanks for the tip on combining fire. It might delay my inevitable carpal tunnel for a few months

Also, there's this, from the following article here on the Blitz: https://www.theblitz.club/articles/Artic...=show&id=1

Ctrl Key to Fire

Even though the interface provides a button to switch to FIRE Mode, veteran players often find it more effective to keep the game in normal MOVE Mode. Then, when they wish to fire, they hold the Key to put the game in temporary FIRE Mode.

Faster Play with less Mouse Clicks

In most cases, a unit can fire three times per turn and often you may find you want to target all available shots at the same defending unit. To speed play and fire all remaining shots at the same target, hold the Key. You can also fire more than one unit at a time by selecting several units when you fire.

However, you still have to deal with the “Fire Report Dialog” which by default has an OK button. However, if you select “Continuous Action” using the menu item Settings | Continuous Actions, the Fire Report Dialog is displayed for a few seconds and will disappear on its own while the next shot is resolved.

Used with the temporary FIRE Mode as described in the Tip above, a player could use Continuous Action, select several units, hold the and the take all available shots from several units with a single Right Mouse Click.

[Dog Soldier]

Download the free Mius 43 game for the JT website.
Mius 43

This is a good little game to hone your skills in breaking a fortified line.

For Kharkov 42, use your excellent 'A' quality Guards infantry to smash the German front line positions in the first few turns. Notice the assault values for these units is 60% higher than the S/A values. Use your artillery and air strikes to soften up an Axis position then assault. If needed spend two turns pounding a position with artillery if it is a tough nut.
Even your regular Soviet infantry receive a 56% bump when assaulting.
The optional rule for delayed disruption will not be much of a problem since the Soviets need to assault to crack the hard outer shell on the German 6th Army to get to the soft center. Just be sure to assault with as close to maximum stacking value that you can. In K42 this is 1600 men. It is entirely possible to get two or even three assaults on a single Axis held hex in a single turn. By having the most units you can cram into each adjacent hex, if one or two are disrupted by defensive fire, you still have enough troops to pull from another hex and add to the assault to still reach close to the 1600 men maximum allowed. Quantity is a quality of its own for the 1942 Soviets.
The Germans will fatigue quickly, and take larger losses even if your first few assaults are unable to drive them out of the hex. As the Soviet player you can replace yellow fatigue units with fresh troops so all are assaulting with the same morale in successive turns. This is key as only one attacking unit at lower morale will cause all assaulting units to use that lower morale value.

You do not need to take all the German positions, just a few key ones and the line breaks.

The Soviet forces in K42 are a hammer and a sickle, not a rapier.
Artillery, air strikes, and infantry assaults are the hammer. The mobile cavalry divisions and tank brigades with their truck mounted infantry are the sickle to be used after the Germans are out of their trenches and bunkers.
Blunt trauma will send the Axis troops packing for the rear. Even if the Axis defenders hold out for two whole turns, after 4 - 6 assaults they will need to be reinforced by other Axis units. When they are forced out of the hex, they will have high fatigue, and few men much smaller units left to deal with your tanks and truck mounted infantry that chase them down in the open (non-fortified hexes) to the rear of the start lines. Now your S/A and morale are on par with the enemy. You can then engage in fire fights and come away a winner as you roll towards a break out disaster for the German 6th Army and reach the gates of Kharkov city itself.

My advice is based on the following set of optional rules which work well as a set for the K42 game. Using a different set will change your tactics and the way the game plays out.

K42 Optional Rules set

Dog Soldier