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Review of Ernst Wiltmann's DAK Campaign

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Review of Ernst Wiltmann's DAK Campaign (version 1.0)

Andrew Diekmann

Ernst Wiltmann has made one of the most enjoyable campaigns to play that
I've experienced in a long time. The campaign is difficult (impossible?) to
play well without some sound planning and prudent division of your forces.
To keep you off balance, the AI will attack (in strength) victory and/or
supply hexes that you captured and began the scenario with. This prevents
you from concentrating all of your forces on your objectives and thereby
making victory even harder. Allied air superiority is constant, as is naval
supremacy. And finally, the restrictions of unit requisitions and types add
another hindrance to your visions of conquest. Yet despite all of these
"difficulties," the campaign is winnable as I achieved 13 BVs and 2 Vs
through the first 15 scenarios. But I didn't follow the "rules" to the
letter either as I will later explain.

In many scenarios the AI controlled victory hexes are pretty well spread
out.  With the limits imposed upon the size and composition of your forces,
you are forced to divide your army toward pre-assigned targets. I usually
like to overwhelm the enemy with a concentration of force (Schwerpunkt) to
quickly and decisively crush the AI in a given area and then to proceed to
capture the next in similar fashion. In PG2 the reason is probably obvious:
your units can then support and cover each other, thus ensuring their
survival and growth in experience. It also allows a tidy rear that is void
of enemy forces to cause you problems.

In DAK, you usually can't do this. For one, the desert prevents you from
reaching your distant objectives.  Your time will run out as you are
re-supplying (especially fuel). Second, the AI will constantly throw groups
of new troops and aircraft at you. Now, I thought that if I capture as many
enemy supply hexes as possible along the way, I would reduce or eliminate
the flow of new opponents. WRONG! Ernst had designed the campaign so that
the bulk of additional AI forces appear in predetermined turns and areas.
Therefore, you will always face counterattacks usually at your flanks and
rear victory hexes.

So splitting up your forces then becomes a necessity. The real trick is
figuring what each battle group needs. You are limited to the number of
tanks and aircraft your core army may contain so I usually give most of the
artillery to the group that isn't going to receive a lot of air support.
Plus, the omnipresent allied naval ships pose a threat particularly to your
artillery. As a consequence I usually kept my artillery away from the coast
and relied upon my bombers for support there. Equally or more important is
the use and distribution of your air defense units, especially mobile ones.
You also need to examine the ground that your task group will advance
across. For example, does the terrain consist of all sand with little or no
rough/clear/hill hexes with which to completely re-supply on? If so, you
need to make sure you place troops that have tracked transport, or they may
end up reaching their objectives so late as to fatally weakening or delaying
your attack. There are numerous other examples, but the experienced PG
player would already be aware of them and the inexperienced player would do
well playing an easier campaign.

Just because you have cleared an area of the enemy, doesn't mean that you
needn't worry about an insurgent AI attack later. As mentioned earlier,
Ernst has AI units planted in unpredictable places, often in your rear
during the scenario. Usually the Italians axillaries are too slow moving and
weak to help much (except some of the Italian artillery - treat them well!).
However, they are good for defending victory and supply hexes. Even if they
are destroyed, they are great at attracting the attention of the AI and
giving your core troops at break. I usually used my new and inexperienced
units to help guard and gather experience. But they won't be able to do this
alone until they have a couple hundred experience points. Support them with
Italian units and you should be able to hold them off if not destroy them. I
preferred ATG to infantry unless the victory hex lay on good defensive
ground. There were many times when I barely captured the last victory hex
before my hold on another would have been destroyed.

Unlike some difficult campaigns, Ernst isn't providing his AI with a million
prestige points each turn. Yes, it is still generous, but he has gone about
it in a more clever way. By placing predetermined reinforcements frequently
he achieves the same goal of challenging the experienced player. The quality
and type of units that the AI receives as reinforcements are as a result
better and placed in more "convenient" (for the AI) locations than they
would be had the AI been solely left to manage the purchase its own
reinforcements. This presents the player with a campaign that is more
intelligent and tensely challenging than does simply sending wave after wave
of countless units at you.

You will learn to hate the Allied naval units more than the aircraft. They
will force you to deal with the ships or seriously threaten your chances and
units' survival. Seldom do you get enough naval and air units to counter the
threat, and even when you do it takes your aircraft away from supporting
their main objectives. In the Alexandria scenario, I immediately hit the
AI's warships with everything I could, including fighters, until I destroyed
them. I found that this in the short and long run saved you more than just
"putting up with it" and re-supplying. The Allied air units are less
difficult to deal with when you maintain a large and strong air defense
presence in your core army. Your fighters can then clean up the rest,
concentrate on tackling other planes, or escort your bombers.

When I began the campaign, I followed the rules regarding the size and
composition of the core army rather closely. But slowly I began to drift
away. Some things were unclear which I liberally choose to interpret to my
benefit. But there were also historical reasons of how I justified them.
My one main recommendation to Ernst would be to clarify his rules. As I
understood them in short is that you could purchase only the wimpiest units
of all types. You are free to upgrade, but it didn't say only the units you
began the campaign with. So I would purchase, say, a Wehrmacht INF unit and
then later upgrade him to a Waffen SS INF unit. However, you are restricted
from having two of exact same thing. This (I believe) allowed me to do
upgrade two Wehrmacht INF to a Waffen SS and Gebirgsjaeger INF, but you
couldn't upgrade them all to Sturmpioniere, for instance. Then, in addition
to that, you are assigned (given permission) to acquire other units which
otherwise would be "against the rules."  So what happens if you already have
one unit of that type and then your are assigned another by OKW? I guess it
was allowable to break the rules in those instances. And what difference
would it make if I chose to purchase other units before the following
battle, if I for some reason didn't or couldn't buy them when ordered? These
type of situations would need to be clarified. Finally, you are not allowed
to purchase any aircraft or tanks (unless otherwise instructed) and
permitted to keep only one prototype unit.

As the campaign wore on, the restrictions on duplication of units and the
allowance of retaining only one awarded prototype unit bothered me. I am
well aware of the historical reasons for imposing these rules. The German
High Command never viewed the African theatre of operations as important
beyond keeping a British army preoccupied. This wasn't because they failed
to see the value of taken the oil rich Middle East, but rather their belief
that this end would be achieved by way of Russia and the Caucasus. However,
after a series of great victories that resulted in the capture of Egypt and
the Suez Canal, I believe this would have changed the High Command's outlook
on things. This and the possibility of then forcing Turkey to join the Axis
cause would have resulted in Rommel receiving more divisions and better
equipment. Perhaps he would have been given not only more divisions, but
command on an entire army group!  And indeed, Rommel was given addition
units up to El Alamein only to find difficulty with supplies.  With the
capture of Alexandria and certainly the Suez Canal, the Allied fleet would
be trapped in the Eastern Mediterranean between the Lufftwaffe's bases in
Egypt and Southern Europe. I believe it would have helped relieve the noose
on Axis shipping routes to Africa and therefore furthered the growth of
Rommel's forces. Another observation against the strict limitation placed on
your army, Rommel's loses in armor for instance would not have been replaced
with the same antiquated tanks with which he began. By El Alamein, I don't
believe Rommel, after nearly two years in N. Africa, still had many Pzkw II
tanks! But then they had been destroyed and replaced by what was currently
in production. And Germany wasn't producing four different versions of Pzkw
III and IV tanks simultaneously! Or at El Alamein he was even given several
captured Russian 76.2mm ATGs, yet you are still not permitted anything
beyond 5cm?!

The portions of his rules, or guidelines, that I stuck to most closely were
the limits on aircraft and tanks. It wasn't until many scenarios later that
I was awarded a prototype tank (which I kept) that became my fourth panzer.
Now, well into the fictional portion of the campaign into the Middle East, I
still have only those same four tanks. I also stuck to his rule stating that
all of your panzers must be different types. This isn't that tough to live
with either, for soon there are enough different variants of very similar
performing tanks. Really, the difference between a Pzkw IVE and IVD, for
example, isn't that great. I would slowly improve them all as newer and
better equipment became available. But finally, after victory in Palistine,
I brought them all up to the best that was available.

I heavily invested very early on in AA units. I had four of them by the
third scenario. The rules state that you may not purchase any AA units of
higher than 20mm caliber. Fine! The quad 20mm gun is pretty formidable and
after a little while it is available in a mobile AA unit too! I retained my
88mm FlaK gun which you begin the game with. Fully overstrengthed to 15, it
has grown into a real monster capable of shooting down enemy planes
sometimes with a single shot!  I end up begging the AI to attack my units
surrounding it. One reviewer stated that he couldn't see how you could
survive without a massive air force. He didn't need to state that he never
buys AA guns when he plays. That much is already self-evident. AA guns work
well in dealing with enemy aircraft. Like any unit, one that is experienced
will give you the best results. For that reason I decided to invest early in
my four guns so that they would be strong by the later battles when they
prove invaluable. Except for the one "88" I kept, I tried to maintain as
mobile an air defense force as possible. That way they can travel with your
battle groups while offering protection and dealing blows to the enemy. And
don't forget, AD units also can be pretty tough when attacked by ground
units. This I would actually encourage in the early going before I updated
my 20mm's to the self propelled version. It helped build the experience
levels up more quickly. It should also be noted that I lucked out with two
of my quad 20s becoming leaders (move and shoot). A final advantage from
using AD units stems from the fact that your fighters are usually not that
strong in the early going. AD guns indirectly help your fighters garner
experience by "softening up" the enemy planes. This enables your fighters to
destroy them, reap the experience, while usually not sustaining serious
loses for which you do not have the prestige to make up. Thereby the process
can repeat; Whereas if you depend only on your fighters, you would suffer
losses in strength points sufficient to render your fighter ineffective for
further attacks against other aircraft until you reinforced it. And prestige
is scarce and too badly needed for your land forces to use on aircraft.
Aside from changes and clarification in the rules, there is only one other
aspect of this fabulous campaign and others that I would recommend changed.
Most campaigns become predictable. In the original SSI campaigns for
example, you never expect attacks in your rear after you've swept through an
area. What you expect in user-made campaigns is an AI that receives
tremendous amounts of prestige that are converted into countless waves of
new units to come at you from their supply hexes. In DAK, you come to expect
enemy forces to crop up in your rear. Soon you plan and are always ready for
it. But because the AI doesn't receive bountiful prestige in order to build
up a large number of defenders in front of the last victory hexes, you know
you are able to capture them with only a couple of units.  If Ernst mixed it
up, this would keep the player off balance. You would then occasionally
discover that you have insufficient strength to take those last victory
hexes while the rest of your army is far off waiting to fend off the
expected enemy counterattack.

Ernst has written me that he has numerous things planned for improving this
campaign including the option of playing the historical, or "loser" path.
This I haven't tried yet and therefore cannot offer comment. But whether you
follow the rules exactly as laid out, or "cheat" a bit, I am sure you'll
have a good time playing.


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