It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - Printable Version

It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - Printable Version

+- Forums (https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards)
+-- Forum: The Firing Line (https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards/forumdisplay.php?fid=1)
+--- Forum: Tiller Operational Campaigns (https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards/forumdisplay.php?fid=11)
+--- Thread: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 (/showthread.php?tid=77179)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

RE: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - ComradeP - 05-01-2026

Reminder: the result of the game between Outlaw Josey Wales and Gray Nemesis was reported in this thread, but not reported officially.

-

I'd be interested in hearing how Allied players won this scenario.

RE: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - HMCS Rosthern - 05-01-2026

Here are the standings after Round 4. Round 1 definitely skews the standings in favour of team 2. Surprisingly, Round 4 had relatively balanced results.

Note,
1. "handles" with strike-throughs are those entrants that dropped out but I did not need to find a replacement player, because timing of the dropouts allowed the tournament to still have even number of players.
2. "handles" with hyphenated names show entrants that dropped out and the replacement name (the replacement received the points from the dropped out entrant.). Thanks to the replacement entrants. cheers

Please report any errors.

[Image: IALWTTR4%20Standings.png]

RE: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - Ricky B - 05-02-2026

(05-01-2026, 07:39 AM)ComradeP Wrote: Reminder: the result of the game between Outlaw Josey Wales and Gray Nemesis was reported in this thread, but not reported officially.

-

I'd be interested in hearing how Allied players won this scenario.

For myself, I played an attrition battle, focusing on where I had the advantage in firepower, basically.

I focused on artillery and the massive number of Shermans on a limited number of target hexes, and then probing in other spots as the German forces shifted to other threats with massed infantry and armor. I figured my infantry was at greatest risk from the powerful German artillery so I tried to limit how many could be hit to just a few.

I targeted AT guns first with my armor, where the loss ratio was in my favor, but even with lost tanks the AT guns would quickly become a minor threat after a turn or two.

That was my general method - but on the east end I was more aggressive but even then it was using the special forces. I would assault with the spec forces units in a mass and generally cause 4 to 1 or better losses.

So I did very limited assaults, otherwise. I could generally pick up 40-50 points per turn using focused firepower/mass. Although my tank losses were fairly high, it was never enough to stop me except to lower fatigue. And I could usually kill up to 100 men in a stack with my massed tanks and lose 1-2, so easily a 5x points loss ratio just from that.

When my opponent fell back, I got some cheap points due to AT guns and other units being in the front line in T mode - he was using AI movement. I would have had a major win anyway but that gave me hundreds of easy points to drive things up. But otherwise the losses were much more balanced at that point, when I would come upon a defensive line, until I could adjust my forces.

So a German defense focused on falling back seems like a good strategy?

Rick

RE: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - akilpio - 05-04-2026

I think my game was quite similar with what Rick described - an attrition battle. My troops suffered heavy losses in the early phase but I was able to puncture the initial defensive line by concentrating the Shermans and a lot of artillery fire to a couple of points. Once I got through the initial line the kill ratio became very favorable. In the end the German casualties were over 39000 and 264 vehicles. My own losses were also heavy - almost 25.000 men and 565 vehicles.

Arto

RE: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - Ricky B - 05-04-2026

That is a bloodbath! We ended early being a part of it, but in my battle the losses were (allied/german) Men 5k to 22k, Guns 2 to 508!! and vehicles 143 to 78.

RE: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - Brancaleone - 05-04-2026

Without taking anything away from the Allied players’ great skill, I think that, in any case, the opponents failed to position their units in a tactically effective manner, given the enormous losses they suffered. I believe that 1,600 men with "A" morale crammed into a single hex are not easily neutralized, and that the Shermans, even in large numbers, since they cannot fire from a distance of 2 km, they must always position themselves adiacent to german infantry units, which can provide substantial anti-tank fire, if available. The 87 tanks my opponent lost were mostly the result of attacks against my infantry, apart from a few long-range shots fired by the Mk IVs and Tigers.

Ciro

RE: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - Ricky B - 05-07-2026

(05-04-2026, 06:51 PM)Brancaleone Wrote: Without taking anything away from the Allied players’ great skill, I think that, in any case, the opponents failed to position their units in a tactically effective manner, given the enormous losses they suffered. I believe that 1,600 men with "A" morale crammed into a single hex are not easily neutralized, and that the Shermans, even in large numbers, since they cannot fire from a distance of 2 km, they must always position themselves adiacent to german infantry units, which can provide substantial anti-tank fire, if available. The 87 tanks my opponent lost were mostly the result of attacks against my infantry, apart from a few long-range shots fired by the Mk IVs and Tigers.

Ciro

Each battle is relative. ComradeP asked how we achieved our wins and what I did at least, may not have translated to how you fought. I can see that Akilpio was very aggressive, hence his what I would call very high losses to win his battle, compared to my losses. And ComradeP's losses were a bit similar but lower than mine - so I can see he didn't use his armor up close as much as I did.

I don't know if you fell back early and concentrated your forces, or did it in place? I do myself on defense try to avoid the wall of units and instead concentrate, as maybe you did from the start, or maybe after falling back? I do know that the Germans, with 39,000 men, could only form maybe 20 stacks of 1600 men leaving gaps between them and likely not covering the entire front except for smaller stacks, and even at that without much in the way of reserves?

So in that situation, what I would do as the allied player as I did anyway, would be to use the Devils Bde commandos to push between stacks since they can move through ZOCs, while having massed armor facing the stacks on either side and regular infantry following up. That worked in both my games for the tourney to unhinge the German line in the east, although in both cases there I had at least one opportunity of a massed assault with the commandos against generally 2 German companies that caused over 100 German losses to maybe 30 commandos.

Anyway, just saying that as you say there may have been better defensive solutions to try but then as the attacker I would be working to still find weak points and focus on a small number of points with massed forces. That definitely doesn't mean it would work any better than what ComradeP appears to have tried in shifting major forces to the west side, too.

Anyway, I always try to focus on where I have the advantage, fall back where I don't but staying ready to advance again. I follow the principles of war that I learned in the US Marines 45+ years ago - with a focus on these 3: concentration of force matched with economy of force, along with flexibility.

Rick

RE: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - SvenDuuva - 05-07-2026

Our game ended up in a draw, but I am slightly suprised to hear if Allies were able to gain a victory without significant encirclements? My initial feeling was that most likely way to get a victory as Allies could happen, if Axis player was reluctant to retreat after a breakthrough and Allies were able to encircle several units. If Axis were able to retreat in good order, I though they should be capable of securing at least a draw. This is what happened in our match with fhil and I.

My plan as Allies was to probe around in several places and see where line started to give up and engineers were able to clear minefields. After I was able to break through in two places, Axis conducted a good fighting retreat especially once I moved beyond the range of my artillery. After I was able to move my artillery forward, Axis had been able to establish an entrenched line in mostly good terrain and man those with fresh FJ and PzG reinforcements, with 2-3 battalions in each defensive position and some reserves to switch up the disrupted troops.

For the last third of the match, the situation was pretty static, although I was able to grind out a draw just by ticking up casualties with great artillery advantage and by fire from large Sherman stacks. But I never was able to produce any significant disruption to the elite german infantry units for an assault to get through.

RE: It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Round 4 - ComradeP - 05-08-2026

Non-alt Shermans compared to the alt Shermans in the current tournament scenario are slow, have mediocre Soft Attack values and a range of 1. In fact, their Soft Attack value is the same as the value for the Stuart. With limited effort, the German player should always be able to retreat into a -40% TRENCH hex. If the German player uses the ridgeline, it's -65% due to TRENCH+elevation. That's in Clear or Field terrain. Hex fire limitations limit the effects of massed Sherman stacks as well.

Even with 1 hex gaps between German stacks, that should mean if a target hex can be fired at from 3 hexes, the Allied units in 2 hexes can also be targeted by the German stacks on their flank.

Moving ZOC-to-ZOC is a helpful strategy, but it's an obvious threat. The German player can see it coming and has time to move units in behind the potential targets. The commandos would then face fire from -40% TRENCH hexes which will, over time, murder them as they're company-sized units.

The small command ranges, which only applied to the Allies, bothered me as well compared to the "standard" command ranges in recent titles. Allied regiments get range 4 and Axis infantry regiments range 20? VI Corps has range 10? Really?

The ability to sustain losses of the trimmed and functional US infantry battalions is limited, particularly against the mostly 12 SA value German infantry units. The British troops are worse, and one of their divisions will remain Fixed for about 2/5 of the game.

It's worth mentioning that for large parts of the game against Brancaleone, not a single Allied infantry battalion was at the frontline, yet I still lost about 100 Men per turn on average mostly from artillery fire. The losses were not that stiff per unit, but I have no illusions about the ability of the Allied infantry to face nearly 3 German battalions in a hex. I tried assaulting with two infantry divisions against mostly C quality defenders. That was painful and went nowhere.

I tried to force the Germans to split their units between two flanks, moving most tanks to the Fallschirmjaeger without a range 1 Hard Attack but the offensive ability of the Allied forces was not enough to cause any serious difficulties.