Previous Page Playing WinSPWW2 This game is a variant on SSI's Steel Panthers II. Game play is therefore similar, for any of you who have played an SSI Steel Panthers title before. However, WinSPWW2 is an extremely refined and extended product over the original baseline. Experienced SP players will do well to read through the notes provided, starting with the Main Screen section. All players should at least read through the following tutorial. It is recommended you play this through, especially if you are new to the game. WinSPWW2 Tutorial Introduction This Tutorial for WinSPWW2 is designed for players who are new to the Steel Panther's gaming system. It steps you through essential game play mechanics such as how to move, fire, and transport units, set up artillery bombardments, and call in airstrikes. The WinSPWW2 Game Guide (GG), found in the Game Notes subdirectory of the installation folder, remains the primary source of detailed information about WinSPWW2. References to the Game Guide in this Tutorial will be made In Italics. We highly recommend that all players, including experienced grogs print it out and keep it near. New players using this Tutorial text should print it out in its entirety in order to follow along step by step while playing the Tutorial scenario. WinSPWW2 is a very complex and detailed tactical war game, but learning the basics should be relatively easy and intuitive for most players regardless of their military knowledge or experience. Learning all of the many fine points and nuances of game play will take some time. We have found WinSPWW2 to be not only enjoyable, but also a rewarding learning experience. We hope that you will discover it to be equally enjoyable. In addition to the tutorial scenario, many scenarios are appropriate for beginners. Here is a sample of relatively small and simple scenarios to get you started: 001-Organized Chaos, 8/39 Germany vs Poland 004-Graftrom’s Raid, 3/40 Sweden vs Soviet Union 011-Gavrus, 6/44 Germany vs Great Britain 048-Seela’s Pioneers, 8/43 Germany vs Soviet Union 062-The Plains Before the Rhine, 2/45 USA vs Germany 072-Sacrifice of the Few, 11/37 China vs Japan 099-The Wiking’s Castle, 1/45 Germany vs Soviet Union 113-Langemark at Narva, Day 1, 7/44 Germany vs Soviet Union 118-Market Garden Prelim, 9/44 USA vs Germany 267-Charge to Glory 9/39 Poland vs Germany Starting the Tutorial After game start up, you should already be presented with the Scenario List.. Game Main Screen When the Intro ends you will be taken to the game's Main Screen with the Scenario List presented as the default selection. Left click on the first scenario, titled WinSPWW2 Tutorial and a brief description of the scenario will appear. Left click on Start and the Player Control Screen will appear. Here is where you can choose to set player 1 and 2 (Germany and Russia) to either Human or Computer (AI) control. For the Tutorial, leave the selection at default with you as the Human Player 1 and the AI as the Player 2. Later if you want a challenge you can play again as the Human Player 2. Click Continue. Player Control Screen The next screen gives you the options of Start Turn, Save Game, Quit Orders (which means "End Turn") or Exit Game. Note that running your cursor over these buttons provides a brief description of their function on the message bar at the top of the screen. Click on Start Turn to get into the game. Start Turn Screen The Tactical Screen You now go to the Tactical Screen and your HQ Unit (which is you) is centred in the Battle Map Screen. The game first starts at max zoom-1 on the Tactical Map, so to better see what is going on lets zoom out a bit. Click on the magnifying glass button with the [-] or press the minus key on your keyboard. Do this 2 or three times and you'll have a better view of the Battle Map. The [+] button or + hotkey will allow you to zoom back in again. The Tactical Screen is where most of the game is played. The actual playing area is composed of individual hexes, each hex approximating about 50 yards or meters. The hexes may or may not have visible borders depending on your in-game preferences (more on that later). Tactical Screen (with hex borders on, movement outline on) There are five main display sections on the Tactical Screen: The Battle Map which displays the battlefield terrain and units; the Unit Information Bar along the bottom of the screen; a mini-map in the bottom right corner that shows the overall battlefield; a set of 24 Tactical Control Buttons which you will use to provide "orders" to your units: a red message/information bar along the top of the screen. At various times, messages will also be displayed in the Unit Information Bar as well. To see different portions of the Battle Map, move the mouse cursor arrow to the top of the Map screen to scroll up or to the right edge of the Map screen to scroll right and so on. Another way to quickly move to another location on the map is to left click on that area within the mini-map in the corner. As you move your cursor over the map you will receive a description of each terrain hex tile on the red message bar at the top of the screen. This will tell you each hex's grid coordinates, relative elevation (an abstraction with no units such as feet or meters) and terrain type. As you move the cursor arrow over your units, the message bar will display the unit's roster number, its name and relative readiness status (more on this later). Now take a moment to run your cursor arrow over the various buttons on the right of the screen.
Current Nation Next Unit Help Load Bombardment/para menu Fire Area Fire Zoom Map in closer Clear dark Hexes Undo Encyclopaedia Save the game | Playback the last players turn Previous Unit Find the next Formation HQ Set Range Rally Troops Targeting Make Smoke Zoom map OUT Unit Menu HQ Menu End game and Exit Quit the orders phase
Note that as you do, a brief explanation of each buttons function appears on the red message bar. Also, note that most of the buttons contain a letter or other symbol relating to equivalent "hotkeys" on your keyboard. During game play you can activate many functions or orders by either clicking on the appropriate button or stroking its corresponding hotkey. Actually, there are more hotkeys than there are buttons. Move your cursor over the red question mark (?). The message says that this is the "go to the (in game) Help Screen". Left click it. This is the in game Help and the first screen displayed here is the "Game Help". The six buttons on the right will take you to five other in game help topics, identified when you run your cursor over them. Here on the Game Help Screen, you will find a detailed functional description of all of the hotkeys available during game play. As you will see later there are other times when different lists of hotkeys are used…. such as when you are designing your own scenario. Look over these hotkeys on the Game Notes page and remember that they are always available during game play via the Help button. Exit the Help and return to the Tactical Screen. The Unit Information Bar During game play, the Unit Information Bar along the bottom of the screen displays the current active unit's (ie: unit selected) information as follows: The selected unit's formation designation number such as A0, A1, B0 etc. (Note: The scenario opens with the A0, Command HQ unit as the selected unit. Note that it's hex is outlined in red. To select other units in your force you can either left click on them in the map or scroll through them in sequential order by clicking on the Next (N) or Previous (P) buttons or hotkeys). The unit's name. The readiness/movement status such as Ready, Dug-in, Pinned, Retreating, Routed and unit speed if moving. ENEMY SEEN: indicates the number of visible enemy units. Shots: shows the number of times this unit may shoot during this turn. If there is more than one number then that unit has more than one type of weapon available. The number of shots for each weapon posessed by the unit is listed in the order in which the weapons are listed on the Unit Information Screen. More on this later, click continue to return to the Tactical Screen. MOVES: shows the selected unit's number of movement points remaining this turn. Different terrain requires different numbers of movement points per hex of unit travel. If MOVES is not displayed then the unit may not move this turn. The second number, in blue reflects the units' movement range in water hexes. RANGE: shows the units attack range displayed in hexes, meters or yards (you select how you want the ranges reported to you in GameOptions start up screen from the Misc Tab). This range can either be the default max weapon range of the first weapon or a lower range that you can set with the Y Button / hotkey. If range is set to say 9 hexes (or 450 meters or yards) then this unit will automatically fire at any visible enemy that moves into range during the enemies turn. (this is called op-fire). Altitude: if the selected unit is a helicopter (Landed, Low or High). Turn: is the current turn number. Visibility is the farthest distance in hexes that any unit can see (due to time of day or weather conditions). Length is how many turns the current scenario lasts. Unit Information Screen To get even more detailed information about a unit, select one of your Tiger tanks and right click on it to get its Unit Information screen. Here you will learn the unit's name, readiness status, CHQ Link (indicating whether or not the unit is in contact with it's leader), amount of suppression it has, weapon type(s), amount of ammunition available, experience, morale and leader information. Types of ammunition available include HE (High Explosive used against "soft" targets), AP (Armour Piercing Shells), SABOT (armour piercing, discarding sabot penetrators) and HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank). Also displayed is an armour diagram that indicates a unit's front, side, rear and top armour ratings for both the turret and hull sections. For much more information about the Unit Information Screen and its controls go here. Before continuing, select and the right-click on one each of your unit types to get a feel for their capabilities. You can read about these in more detail in WinSPWW2 Unit Classes. Unit Information Screen for the Tiger Game Turns Each scenario and campaign or Play By Email (PBEM) battle is made up of a number of turns, each turn equaling several minutes of real time. In one turn you get to move and fire all of your units and then your opponent gets to do the same. The Tutorial scenario has 10 turns. In each turn, both you and the AI opponent may receive incoming artillery fire (if appropriate) rally your units, load/unload transport vehicles, move and attack enemy units, receive enemy op-fire, and order up artillery fire missions, air strikes, recon flights and/or paratroop drops. Game Preferences Now is a good time to change or set any game preferences and realism settings. Click the “Preferences” button on the bottom right of the Tactical Screen. This will bring up the Preferences screen. This is probably your first battle so these will be set at the “factory defaults”. All realism settings will be on. For ease of play, you may want to turn the “Hex Grid” and “ID Tags” to ON. As you play the game, you can experiment with these values. They are all explained fully in the preferences section. Preferences Screen Your Fighting Force From the Tactical Screen press the Headquarters Menu button or H hotkey. On the right hand side of the screen, in green you will find the Unit Status List that lists the units in your battle force. They include: A0 Kommandeur (Headquarters Squad – this is you!) B0-B3 Panzer IVh Platoon C0-C3 Panzer IVg Platoon D0-D3 Tiger Heavy Tank Platoon E0-E6 PanzerGrenadier Platoon w/Halftracks F0-F5 Scout (PzAufklaerer) Platoon w/Halftracks G0-G1 3.7cm FlaK 36 (Anti-Aircraft gun) H0-H2 12cm Mortar Battery I0 Kuebelwagon VB (Artillery Spotter) J0 Fiesler Storch (Spotter Aircraft) K0-K1 Ju 87D-8 Stuka ( Off-board ) L0-L1 Ju 87G-1 Stuka ( Off-board ) M0-M2 15cm Batterie (15cm Off-board Artillery Battery) N0-N1 Ammunition Supply Note: The game guide contains an excellent glossary of military acronyms and terminology for several nationalities. Each unit with a "0" designator (A0, B0, C0 etc) is a leader who plays a vital role in rallying your troops and maintaining formation readiness (but note that casualties to your command units will cause another unit to take over the command functions of a formation). The "H", "C" or "P" letters in the left hand column of the Unit Status List indicate that this leader is in charge of a Headquarter, Company or Platoon formation. All new players should take a few moments to learn more about this and the other information and controls found on this screen in the headquarters screen]. Your Plan It never hurts to start a battle with a plan. In this battle you have been told the Soviet Union forces are also going to be advancing. You can safely assume they will try to capture the objective hexes not already under Soviet Union control. It will therefore be to your advantage to capture at least some of the unclaimed victory hexes as early as possible. This will force the enemy to attack you. You will be able to fire from a stationary and possibly unspotted position against his moving units, which will be much less accurate and more easily spotted. The zoomed out tactical map shows a rough plan to guide you during the game. Phase WHITE shows your starting positions and your movements during the first few turns to capture the left-most objective groups. Phase YELLOW shows how you hold those positions while the Soviet Union attacks, and advance when the attacks weaken. Phase BLUE shows the line of your victorious advance, with the main thrust in the center and supporting movements by two Panzer IV platoons. If all goes according to plan, you will occupy the blue circled areas at the end of the game. If you have a better plan in mind, go for it. Good Luck! Battle plan Your Turn One Back to the Tactical Screen to finally play the game! Your units are spread out from top to bottom on the map, with the Kommandeur (A0) unit in the center. The Kommandeur starts out as the first selected unit when the Tactical Screen opens. You can cycle through all of your units by using the Next Unit (N) or Previous Unit (P) buttons or hotkeys. You can cycle through formation leaders by using the Next Formation Kommandeur button or "G" hotkey. From the Unit Status List or Unit Menu (clipboard icon button), if you click on any unit then you will be taken to that unit selected in the tactical Screen. Moving your units: A selected unit is either in one of two display modes: either "view move radius" or "view LOS (Line of Sight visibility). A red hex shaped border surrounds the currently selected unit. When a unit is first selected it displays lighter shaded hexes to show where it could move to given it's movement points available. Notice that the Kommandeur could move three hexes in any direction. This light area is the "move radius". To move the Kommandeur 3 hexes forward, just left click 3 hexes to the right of the Kommandeur. Now, right click on any hex on the hill just above the Kommandeur. The lightly shaded area now represents the field of vision that the Kommandeur has. Right click again about 10 hexes to the right of the Kommandeur. There is his field of vision in the direction of the reported enemy.
NEW for WinSPWW2!!! You may now reverse Vehicles in WinSPWW2 using the '8' key on your keyboard. Reversing uses 3 times the forwards move cost but allows you to keep your front armour pointed towards the enemy.
As the Kommandeur walked forward, he left his Sdk251/10 behind. To move that Sdkfz251/10 up into the same hex as the Kommandeur, select the Sdkfz251/10 by left clicking on it, the while holding down the shift key left click on the hex with the Kommandeur in it. The Sdkfz251/10 should move up and join the Kommandeur. Depressing the shift key allows units to move into the same hex as one another and must be used even when moving into a hex occupied by the enemy and/or a destroyed unit. Find Panzer Platoon B southeast of the Kommandeur. Select and move each unit as far to the right as possible. Notice that movement in dusty terrain and good visibility produces dust trails. Notice also that as your tanks moved that their remaining movement points and shots remaining numbers became smaller. Now find Panzer Platoon C and the mechanized scout platoon near the north edge of the map. You see that the PzAufklaerer units are in the same hex, but not loaded onto, the SdKfz 250/1 halftracks. To load them onto a halftrack, first select a PzAufklaerer unit, click the “L” key or the “Load” button, then select the halftrack that was in the same hex (Note that if you have several units in a hex, it can be difficult to select the correct one. As you move the cursor, pay attention to the status info in the upper left of the screen.). The PzAufklaerer is now loaded onto the halftrack. If you select that halftrack, you can see the loaded units on the bottom of the status screen. Repeat the loading process unit all the PzAufklaerer units are loaded onto a halftrack. Select one of the halftracks. Notice that it’s move radius extends right of the stream. Let the cursor hover over the stream hexes and you’ll notice that there is a ford in one hex, allowing faster movement across it and less chance of immobilization - but still a chance! You can further reduce the probability of getting immobilized by crossing at as slow a speed as possible. To accomplish this move the vehicles to the hex just left of the ford this turn (use the shift key to stack units). They can cross the stream at the ford next turn. It is time to move the Panzer grenadiers and the Tiger Platoon. This time you will let each unit stay on the road for maximum movement. But first, you need to load all the Panzer grenadiers onto their Sdkfz251/1 halftracks (and you can load the Kommandeur onto his Sdkfz251/10). Repeat the load process you used for the PzAufklaerer in group F. Now move each halftrack along the road as far right as possible. Finally, move the Tiger platoon along the road behind the Panzer grenadiers. If you happen to make a mistake and move a unit incorrectly, you may be able to use the cancel button to retrace your steps. The Undo/Cancel button does NOT work if during your move you were fired on, you became immobilized, or you spotted an enemy unit. These limitations are there to prevent cheating. You have moved all the units you intend to on turn 1. There is no real advantage to be gained by moving any other units at this time. But before you end the turn, we will set up an air reconnaissance flight to get an idea of enemy dispositions. Although any “0” formation HQ unit with a radio can perform spotting with the exception of on map artillery units , you’ll use the Kubelwagon VB for all spotting in this particular game because it makes all artillery calls faster, and allows you to adjust fire more quickly. So, left-click on the Kubelwagon VB, then click the Bombardment button or hit the “B” key. The bombardment screen opens. This is the interface through which you can perform the following actions through it’s 3 views: BOMBARDMENT VIEW: Assign artillery bombardment targets for on-map and off-map artillery units and tactical air strikes. SPOTTERS VIEW: Assign aircraft spotting runs AIRBORNE VIEW: Assign paratroop drops Initial view Bombardment menu Before we go on, you should know that the bombardment screen is much more difficult to describe than it is to use. The explanation is long-winded but once you’ve done it, the great interface will make it a breeze to use, and in most games, you’ll review the bombardment screen every turn. When the bombard screen first opens, it is set to the BOMBARD view by default. You can see which units you have available for plotting bombardments, which should be 3 120 mm mortars, 3 15cm Batterie, and 4 Stuka aircraft. Before doing anything else, click the “switch to” button in the lower right that should say SPOTTERS. This toggles the window to the Spotters view. You can see the Fiesler Storch aircraft there. Finally, click the lower right button again and it will toggle you to AIRBORNE view. You will not see any units available for plotting airborne drops. For now, since you don’t know where the enemy might be, you will not set up any bombardments. Click it twice more to take you back to the SPOTTERS view to plot the air reconnaissance mission. The map on the left-hand pane has the same zoom and pan features of the main map. If you pan around the map, you’ll notice several hexes containing a flashing yellow and orange circles with a number inside it (see below). These are pre-planned bombardment spots and were set up by the scenario author. When you plot a barrage, spotter, or airborne drop on one of these hexes, it has an especially quick response time. Look at the first unit in the right pane, where the Fiesler Storch is listed. There are 4 buttons to the right of it. The button that looks like an Eye will take you to the unit details screen where you can view the unit status. The second button is the Spotting Mission button. You select this button to set up a spotting mission on the target hex. The red circle with the cross-bar is the cancel button. Clicking this will cancel the spotting mission for that unit. The Blue “plus” symbol is the Shift button. This allows you to shift the spotting run for the selected unit. To plot a spotting run, pan the map in the left-hand pane until you see the bridge in the map. Click on the “hot spot” in the map. Then click on the “plan spotting run” button next to the Fiesler Storch. Look at the number on the far right of the row of buttons. This shows the turn delay. It will probably give you a number like 1.0. This means it will take place at the beginning of the next turn. If you want to start over, click the cancel mission button. Now, since you don’t want your spotter to get shot down before it reaches the target, check the aircraft approach direction. You don’t want it to fly in over enemy lines. In the bottom right pane you’ll see a button saying “Air Entry and Exit”. When that is toggled to “Displayed”, you’ll see a set of arrows in the mini map in the bottom-right. These arrows show the aircraft entry and exit direction. Click on the buttons as shown in the image so that the aircraft will approach from the left and exit to the right. Once you have plotted the spotting mission, click the exit button at the bottom to exit the bombardment screen to take you back to the main screen.
Ammo Resupply Your Mortar teams are sitting beside an ammo supply .To resupply a unit that has run out of ammunition, move the unit next to the ammo carrier. Let the unit sit next to the ammo supply carrier for an entire turn. At the end of each turn, select the unit, right-click to get the unit information screen, and check the ammo supply. Resupply works based on a number of variables including suppression, and number of units resupplying at once. For a full description, read about ammo resupply HERE
Save your Game This is a good time to save the game. To save a game, click the SAVE button which will take you to the Save screen. Click on an empty slot on the Save Game list. A new save game will appear on the left. The game name will be “T1 Nazi vs Sov, 8/43”. This tells you it is Turn 1 of a battle between Nazi Germany vs the Soviet Union in August 1943. You can choose to type in a new name if you want, but let it default for now and hit the key. This will save the game, and take you back to the tactical screen. Finally, on the tactical screen, click the Blue arrow , and type “Y” to confirm, to end the turn. You’ll notice a pause as the enemy forces take *their* turn. You may experience an enemy bombardment at this time. Depending on how you moved, you may be spotted by enemy units, though it is unlikely this early in the game. During the AI turn, there is nothing you can do to influence events! You must wait until the AI move is complete. Turn Two Your bombardment/spotting phase marks the beginning of your second turn. If all has gone according to plan, the spotter aircraft will make it’s spotting run now. It will fly to it’s designated spot, and will circle around that spot several times. In this case, because there is Soviet AAA present, it may get shot down. However, it will reveal valuable intelligence. Look for Soviet units marked in Red on the small inset map, and zoom for a closer view. Some of the spotted Soviet Units. You continue the movements that you began on turn 1. Now you must start to be cautious. Some of the enemy tanks and self-propelled guns have been spotted. Formation E especially must be careful not to advance too rapidly. At the end of each unit’s movement, click the “L” key or “LOAD” button to unload each unit. It’s getting too dangerous to ride around mounted in the vehicles. Here are possible turn 2 positions for your forward formations. At this point, you may or may not have any possible enemy targets on screen. Even if you do, it may be worthwhile to wait until next turn before firing. Because all your units have moved, any shots will have a severe penalty for a moving vehicle. So we’ll wait until next turn. Instead, go to the bombard screen by first selecting your Artillery Observer unit, then select the Bombard button or hit the “B” key as described earlier. Look at the first unit in the right pane, a 12cm Grw Grp (120mm mortar). There are 5 buttons to the right of the unit. The button that looks like an Eye will take you to the unit details screen where you can, for example, see how much ammunition it has. The second button is the High Explosive bombardment button. You select this button to set up a fire mission on the target hex. If this button is blank, it means the selected unit cannot fire an HE fire mission. To the right of the HE button is the smoke button. Most artillery other than aircraft is able to fire Smoke bombardments. The red circle with the cross-bar is the cancel button. Clicking this will cancel the fire mission for that unit. The Blue “plus” symbol is the Shift Fire button. This allows you to shift fire for the selected unit. Just like you previously assigned a target hex to the spotting aircraft, now select one hex –preferably a “hot spot” hex – and select one or more artillery units to bombard the hex by clicking the High Explosive button. For example, you could pick hex hotspot 9 on hex 68/29, and assign every artillery and air unit to that hex. Since it is approximately in the center of the spotted units, that would not be a bad strategy. You should see a delay of 1.0, meaning the artillery barrage will take place at the beginning of the next turn – turn 3. If you want to shift the spotting mission from the original hex, click the shift button, and you’ll see a blue circle appear on the map showing a 2-hex radius. You can click within this circle on the map to shift the artillery fire with minimal delay – usually less than one turn. Hint: Always first click on the unit name before selecting one of the other buttons. If you don't, you may be changing the wrong unit. Although it is not relevant to this scenario, you can also assign bombardments during pre-game setup if playing a battle-generated game or a campaign game. You are now done, so click the End Turn button. During the Soviet turn, Soviet units may fire on any of your units they can see. Or, your units might use Opportunity Fire, and shoot at any Soviet units that they have spotted. OP fire only takes place if an enemy unit moves OR shoots while in LOS of one of your units. OP fire does not always occur though, because it is effected by the suppression of the unit, whether it has any shots left, whether it has the right kind of ammo, and other factors. Hopefully, at the end of the Soviet turn you have not incurred any more casualties. Turn Three Now your forces have really started to taste combat. In the south, several infantry units should be visible to your tanks on the hill. Select one tank from platoon C. In the status bar, note if there are any “Enemy Seen” indicated in the lower left. Keep selecting your tanks until one tank has at least one enemy seen. Then select the “T” key or hit the “Target” button. You will see a red line draw from the tank to the nearest enemy unit. ( this example shows targeting from a Halftrack to an armoured car ) Now click the “F” key or hit the “Fire” button. Your tank will shoot some or all of it’s weapons at the unit. You can continue to fire until all the shots (or the ammo) are exhausted. Targeting an enemy unit using the " W " hotkey The " W " hotkey allows a player to specify one weapon only to fire at an enemy unit. Let's assume you spot an enemy crew but do not want waste your main guns HE ( or HEAT ) ammo firing at them and would rather just use a Machinegun. Using the " W " key you can easily specify only one of your other weapons to fire assuming they have the range to do so. To correctly utilize this feature follow these steps If you have not fired at this unit yet select the “T” key or hit the “Target” button and when the unit you wish to fire at is targeted press the “T” key a second time. Pressing the “T” key a second time locks in the target. . Now press the “W” key and you will see a sub menu appear on screen that looks like this Let's assume you wish to fire only your CMG at the crew. Press 2 on your keyboard and only the 7.92mm MG34 CMG will fire. If you have already fired at the unit you do not need to go through the targeting sequence a second time as that target has already been locked in so just press W and you will again be able to select a single weapon to fire. The “W” key allows you to select just one weapon to fire but let's assume you want to fire ALL your MG's at that crew but not your main armament. In this case RIGHT CLICK on your own unit, click on the main gun ( it will turn blue when out of service ) , press CONTINUE then target that crew and when you press the fire button all the weapons you have that are in range EXCEPT the main armament ( which you turned off ) will fire at that crew. When you are done DO NOT forget to turn the main armament back on otherwise if the enemy moves a tank in range on the next turn your vehicle will not be able to opfire with it's main gun Continue to select targets with Tank Platoon C until you can no longer fire. In the north, move your scouts over the hill to cover, while in the center you should keep your vulnerable infantry in place, but move the Tiger tanks as far forward as possible. Click the End Turn button to end your turn. During the Soviet movement phase your tanks will probably fire on several moving enemy squads and perhaps tanks. Pay attention to where any fire is coming from. Unspotted enemy units are good potential targets for your artillery fire. At the end of the Soviet turn, your artillery and air strikes will land in the area east of the crossroads. Unless it lands on previously spotted units, you won’t know exactly how much damage it did. But it will make some pretty shell holes. Turn Four - Seven First thing, take a look at some of the enemy units that should now be visible. Pan over to the field east of the cross-roads. Place the cursor over an enemy squad and you will see it’s status displayed in the left half of the top status window. In this case, the unit is Ready, and moving at 7mph. This tells you the unit moved last turn (making it more vulnerable to your fire), but it can still fire back at you. Units may be “Pinned” which cannot move and are less likely to fire back, “Retreating” or “Routed”. If you Right-click while the cursor is over this unit, you will see the enemy unit details. If you are not already familiar with a specific enemy unit type, it is always a good idea to check the details. You can see what weapons the unit has, how many men, etc. If it is a tank or other vehicle, it will also show you what it’s armor values are. Pressing " I " will bring up this screen giving you more info on that unit. Now as before, check each of your platoon formations. Let Panzer platoon C continue to defend the hill in the south and fire on any spotted enemy squads and tanks. The tiger platoon and panzer grenadiers should make a slow advance along the road, firing at any enemies that appear. The Tiger tanks will be almost invulnerable to any enemy tanks. In the north, Panzer platoon B should occupy the objectives and wait one the hilltops. During the next few turns, Soviet tanks, armored cars, assault guns, and infantry will attack all of the objectives. Continue to play conservatively. If you need to move to a better firing position, click to move one hex at a time. Fire with your tanks at any spotted enemy units. Give a priority to other tanks and armored cars, and infantry that is moving. When your units are being shot at by the enemy, they will tend to gain suppression. Remember that the suppression value is listed in bottom status screen. You can see this effect by checking the suppression before you fire on an enemy unit, and assuming you get some enemy return fire, it will usually increase. Since lower numbers are better, click the Rally button if your unit has gained several points of suppression. Reducing suppression will increase it’s chance to hit. The Soviets have several types of AFVs in this battle. One of the most formidable is the SU-152. It has a large caliber gun (though with poor accuracy) and is more heavily armored that the accompanying SU-76 assault guns, BA-64 armored cars, and T-70 tanks. Whenever possible, use the Tiger tanks to shoot at this behemoths. One more hint. Infantry – especially scouts – have better spotting ability than tanks. If tanks shoot at an enemy infantry squad and it “goes to ground” and disappears from view, then selecting a nearby infantry unit (causing it to be the “spotting” unit) will often cause the enemy unit be become visible again. Review your artillery status at the end of each turn before clicking the “End Turn” button. Make sure that artillery is not drifting over your own units, and readjust if necessary. Remember that artillery barrages may drift, so do not place them too close to your own units. Turn Eight and Beyond Unless you've had terrible luck, there should be large numbers of burning enemy tanks, and few or none of yours. If there was little activity during the Soviet portion of turn 7, it is now time to resume the advance. Remember that the northern and southern forces will advance due east and anchor your flank on the riverbanks. You Tigers and Panzer grenadiers will move along or parallel to the road, cross the bridge, and capture the remaining victory flags. If you look along the road in the Soviet side, you may see some new reinforcements appear. These are T-34 tanks, and pose a real threat to all your tanks, even the Tigers if you let them get too close. So, advance all your units, but lead with the Tigers, and kill the T-34s while as far away from you as possible. You may encounter single enemy squads and tanks in the fields. The way to deal with them is to concentrate on one at a time, using overwhelming firepower on each one to destroy or rout it before moving on to the next. You may suffer some casualties and tank losses to enemy artillery and air attack in addition to any losses from ground fire. Welcome to the war! Despite your losses, continue to push onward. By now, you should have parity in numbers and the Tigers give you a distinct advantage in firepower even over the SU-152 and T-34 tanks. As you continue to move forward each turn, your tanks may come under fire of enemy anti-tank guns (ATGs) emplaced on the opposite bank of the river. These are small-caliber and the range is relatively long for those guns, but you may have a kill or immobilization from them among your PzIV tanks. You can either keep moving and try to spot and shoot the AT guns, retreat temporarily out of range, cover your advance with smoke, or hit the suspected anti-tank guns with your artillery. Battle Results Screen When you finish the last turn (or possibly before, if you have already captured the objective hexes and destroyed the enemy HQ unit, and destroyed or routed 5-% or more of the enemy units) you will be presented with the Results screen (below ). Victory criteria are based completely on Victory hexes held at the end of the game, and the number of friendly and enemy units destroyed. A greater-than 8:1 margin is a “Decisive” victory. Between 8:1 and 2:1 is a “Marginal” Victory and if your result was between 2:1 and 1:2, the result will be a draw. Here, the score of 5331 to 1091which gives a Marginal Victory. These are, however, artifical lines. Many scenarios are simply victories or defeats where if you have more points at the end than the AI... "You win". The buttons at the bottom of the screen allow you to see the situation at the end of the game. This is the FIRST and ONLY time you can view the enemy unit side. Battle Result Screen In this case, the result of “Draw” is confirmed by the Message Screen where you are told how you performed in this battle. Note: These messages are generic for each battle type but can be customized in a User-Designed Campaign. Conclusion We hope one lesson you learned from this “simple” scenario is the importance of combined arms and sound tactics. Throwing just tanks, or just infantry, at an opponent will usually meet with disaster. Artillery and airpower alone cannot occupy ground. You need to intelligently combine the armor, infantry, artillery, and airpower to defeat the enemy. The full game guide, which should be your next stop, has some excellent hints on tactics and descriptions of the various nationalities. Click HERE for more hints on tactics in the GG. Good hunting! Next Page