So I just started dipping my toes into Sealion. Working on doing one of the full campaigns but am running several test games before I settle into my 'official' playthrough.
The biggest issue I'm running into as the Germans are breaking those bunkers on the beach. Kinda hard to shoot at them when my troops dont have hard attack values. A scattering of armor and a few engineer troops, that seem to spend the first couple of turns clearing obstacles. Do I have to just sit on the beach and get my troops shot up waiting for heavier equipped troops to follow up behind..or is there some other trick to it that I'm not aware of
Assault them, preferably with big stacks. Unless you are playing with alternative assault resolution and your troops literally have a 0/0 hard attack factor, you will eventually disrupt somebody and kick them out of the bunkers/pillboxes. If you have commandos, they can move through zoc, and get around behind. I don't have Sealion, so I don't know the exact situation. (Doesn't prevent me from chiming in though.)
Yes I have seen mass assaults take bunkers after a few turns but of course there are a number of factors at work that will decide success or failure, you cant see how much fatigue you are causing to the defenders and it is easy to think you are having no effect so patience is the key you need to just keep chipping away.
Two key pieces of advise regarding assaulting bunker lines (or any main line of resistance) are around trying to assess the strength of the position:
1. Whether or not the position is held by a Company or a full battalion. In general, assaults on positions held by companies are very cost effective, whereas assaults on full battalion can be very costly, especially if it is high quality. There are 2 main indicators:
- Amount of casualties you take from direct fire
- Amount of casualties you take in a probing assault
2. Are the defenders on low ammo status? This is critical as low ammo status is a serious combat penalty. Again, there are 2 main indicators:
- Defensive fire casualties are suddenly lower than before
- The unit itself, or a bunch of its sister units, did not fire on your opponents' turn, indicating an Out of Command HQ
Two further considerations are:
3. Quality of assaulting forces: If the quality is high, you can more readily afford disruptions in your assaulting units as they will reset quickly. Low quality units have serious problems with staying power and need to be employed more circumspect.
4. Isolated bunkers: Isolated positions can usually be taken at your leasure, waiting for disruptions; even isolated high quality full strength battalions without an 'escape' hex can be hard to eliminate without disruptions.
Lastly:
5. Anti-tank guns are a particularly cost effective ways of dealing with bunkers as their use against a more fluid defence is very questionable and will not be missed there.
6. If you have loads of artillery in the area, use your hard hitting ones first, as using the lighter elements may be wasteful.
have played a few turns exploring options and trying to figure out what works...I did have the option Assault rule on..will have to turn that off in my full playthrough. And yeah...seems like tossing big stacks of troops at them is the only thing that really seems to work with the forces available, so really im focusing on the few places that are trenches and break through there.
You didn't mention there were trenches... Yes, break through there :)
Also, all the ALT scenarios are designed to use the optional assault rule I think
Agree with the comment on trenches. Your soft firepower will work on personnel units in trenches as well, so you will be able to wear down their fatigue.