~ 1 ~

~ 2 ~

Operational Boot Camp (or what the hell I am going to do now?) ........................................................................................ 3

Introductions (or who is the guy anyway?) ............................................................................................................................ 8

On with the Show (or diary of a madman) ............................................................................................................................. 9

Can we start yet? (or come on quit teasing me and give me some meat!) .......................................................................... 20

Manually setting of Support units .................................................................................................................................... 30

Sir I am ready to fight (or what the hell are you talking so long for?) .................................................................................. 49

Up, up and away (or it's about time dude!) .......................................................................................................................... 59

We are now ready for combat (or it's about freaking time!) ............................................................................................... 74

The Big Picture (or what the hell did not start here in the first place?) ............................................................................... 75

Forward March (or Halt or I'll Shoot) .................................................................................................................................... 78

Shifting Gears (or What happened to Forward March?) ...................................................................................................... 96

Commanders Review (or great why did you not show us this before?) ............................................................................. 104

Fight Move (or blow those holes and move em through!) ................................................................................................. 111

All Aboard! (or Did He Just Say Cho-Cho?).......................................................................................................................... 131

Land Ahoy (or you want me to do what with that ship?) ................................................................................................... 137

Forward March (or Here we go again, your left, right, left...) ............................................................................................ 143

Rail Repair (or how to fix broken track) .............................................................................................................................. 178

Start Yer Engines (or Panzers Forward!) ............................................................................................................................. 187

Turn in Review (or wow lots to do?) ................................................................................................................................... 212

End the Turn (or what it's been a long time) ...................................................................................................................... 221

Wrap Up and Review (or congratulations you have been promoted)................................................................................ 228

~ 3 ~

Operational Boot Camp (or what the hell I am going to do now?)

Welcome Generals, I hope your ride was comfortable, please have a seat and no smoking in here. Before we release you to command your armies, army groups, corps and divisions, yes that will also include motorized and panzer units, but only limited skills on aircraft will be taught today.

You have all been equipped with a proper field manual and a small field guide these are key references that will greatly assist you as you develop and hone your skills further and are a wealth of information. Both of these documents are fully searchable and go into great details on various subjects so please utilize these.

First we are going to cover some basics, you are encouraged to follow along with the presentation which will be explained by an old war veteran, who always encourages the younger generals to break the mold and think on their feet, so this will not necessarily be a click this button and do this action all of the time, you can find that information in the field guide, but during the boot camp there will be some interface detail explanations as needed, again more details will be found in your field manuals. What this presentation will be, is more like a diary of the "Old Man" and what he likes to do when presented with a scenario or campaign and how he looks at things and organizes and executes his missions and runs his operations with you then being required to try out some of the techniques yourself. Without further ado please welcome Field Marshall Burkhalter.

“Good morning gentlemen, I know that your impatiently awaiting to begin pushing buttons, moving units, flying the Luftwaffe, and dreaming of destroying Soviet forces, but please don't be Dummkopf's like Oberst Klink, or you'll end up guarding prisoners of war for the duration!”

“Okay, now listen very carefully, this War in the East is large and complex, don't kid yourself, while you can get away with just pointing and clicking and beating up on the AI (or GAIA, Gary's Artificial Intelligence Adversary as coined by Bob (BigAnorak) and so lovingly referring to her like a Goddess) don't get all carried away and develop bad habits, otherwise as Oberst Klink found out last year when he challenged Field Marshall Andy Johnson (code named Sabre21) to a kriegs game, he was promptly crushed and sent packing to the rear. Now my aide General Lazov will get you setup for the first of my diary type entries.”

Greetings, okay, first things first, after the game loads and you get through the intro videos (you can skip these by hitting the space bar) you be at the main screen, for this operational boot camp please setup the interface as follows, you can cycle through the difficulty levels by simply clicking on the big button as this screen shot shows, please set this to Easy for now.

~ 4 ~

Next, right under that button is the game options button go ahead and click that, this will present you with the game options that you can set, please set yours up like this:

~ 5 ~

When done click the big check mark in the upper right hand corner. Now under the Game Options button is a Preferences button go ahead and click that. Here you can set this to however you like, for me I like what you see selected, but be warned that you may like to see the jump map and the ground elements icon dialog box so add or subtract to suit your tastes, this is what mine looks like:

~ 6 ~

Alright go ahead and click the check mark in the upper right to save your settings to get back to the main menu.

Now you can select a scenario to play, to do so simply click the big button labeled Pick Scenario, this will take you to the scenario list, for this exercise please select the Road to Leningrad scenario, this is only 17 turns long and has limited amount of Axis (all Germans in this case) units to maneuver, your screen should look something like this:

~ 7 ~

To select this scenario just click the little button on the lower left hand side it looks like a little disk and when you hover over it should display the message above, go ahead and click it.

After a few moments the map will load centered in windowed mode, for this exercise I recommend that you switch to full screen. To do so all you need to do is click on the windows maximize button, with my monitor this is a section of how it looks on my end:

~ 8 ~

Introductions (or who is the guy anyway?)

Everyone does things differently and War in the East is no exception, what works for me may not work for you, also you should have a basic understanding of how the game engine works, what all the buttons do and how to move around in the interface. I'll touch on these when needed, but I don't want to spend too much time on these, most are already covered to one degree or another in one of the field manuals (as "the Old Man" described above). So hopefully this document can help tie all those pieces together.

Another bit of warning, I started testing this game around November of last year and while Andy was kicking my rear end I learned quite a bit from him. Likewise, after playing the AI on hard as both the Axis and Soviets imagine my surprise when I first played Bob and as the Axis he did a retrograde movement of 100 miles back from the Kursk bulge and I had to chase after him. So nothing will teach you more than playing a human opponent, that being said Gary has done a tremendous job of designing and developing the AI (or GAIA as above, or as I like to call them Fritz or Ivan

~ 9 ~

depending on which side I am playing) and I also understand the value of playing against the AI if you can’t find a human to play against or choose not play against a human for whatever your reasons.

Oh, forgot about my warning sorry, I am doing this to hopefully help you out and you'll see some of the same type of semantics as the tutorial, well that is because I wrote the first half of that thing but life events prevented me from finishing and completing it on time, so this can sort of be considered where I wanted to go with it. Also, it's nearing Christmas time, I have a wife and kids (and a dumb dog) and it's snowing, the bottom line is I am doing this for fun and trying to get you to laugh a bit and with regards to the game and how to best play it. I am okay with sharing most of my secrets (not all cause I do love playing the Soviets in 1943 and beyond so I’d like to save a few if we should meet in a challenge online) anyway I am digressing, what I am really trying to say is I may not get it all right or correct and if I make a mistake or miss something or not use the “optimal” gambit, and if I do that I apologize up front so please don't be too harsh with me, life is too short.

Let me pause here for a second, I realize that some of you might want to jump ahead to the section entitled The Big Picture and take a look at that first or skip over these sections if they are too elementary for you, if so then go ahead read whatever section interests you the most. Suffice it to say that the next section is primarily setting the visual clues for the details, the Big Picture section is a great way to begin any scenario to get a look at the lay of the land, where the victory cities lie and develop a basic plan.

On with the Show (or diary of a madman)

After any scenario or campaign loads (or I am starting/continuing a new turn) what I like to do is to setup the interface so that I can read the map visually. To do so what I do is click various information buttons to give me the info I need most of the time. What I suggest you do is toggle each one of these on and off during the first few turns to get a feel of the different information that they display on the map individually (i.e., toggle on/off/on/off, etc.). Taking these one at a time the first one I like to set is the toggle enemy hexes on or off (please excuse this screen shot somehow the show admin buttons is showing) if you click this button your map should look something like this:

~ 10 ~

Next I like to set the toggle unit modes on/off to on, I turn this on because at a glance I like to see which of my units may be in reserve mode, refit mode, static mode or those that may get withdrawn from play. Again, if you toggle off the show enemy hexes and then toggle on unit modes and then toggle them both on you can start to get a feel of what these visual changes do when used in conjunction with each other or singular. If you toggle both on your map should look something like so:

~ 11 ~

Next I like to toggle on the supply status, again you may need to switch between the two modes so you're not confused on which units are in supply and which ones are in certain modes (sometimes this may not change on the first turn). I use these toggled modes as visual information or reminders on my units. If you toggle this mode on your map should look like so:

~ 12 ~

I like to toggle visual information on the map and I like to use the soft factors (5.1.3). What are soft factors, well these are more visual information that you can cycle through. Your mileage may vary but I like to toggle a soft factor and then scan the map to see which of my units are in various statuses. To access and cycle through these factors over on the right hand side of the map, to the right of the menu and next to the general information and city box (we'll get to this later) you'll see a button that is generally off by default. By clicking on this button it cycles/toggles through the soft factors which are; Morale, Experience, Supplies, Fuel, Units attached and back to no soft factors.

~ 13 ~

At the start of a turn I am interested in Supplies and Fuel of my units. Very generally all units consume supplies, fuel and ammo. We’ll get into this later in more detail, but suffice it to say that by using the soft factors you can identify and monitor each units morale, experience, supplies, fuel and attached units during the course of a campaign/scenario.

Just cycling through these for you here:

Morale

Experience

Supplies

~ 14 ~

Fuel

Units attached

Okay, you can toggle on/off the modes you'd like but for most of my screen shots I'll have all three modes on and have the soft factors usually toggled to Supplies or Fuel.

Next lets briefly click on the Info Screen tab. Again, what I typically do is to cycle through the information and the very first button is the show OOB button it looks like this:

~ 15 ~

Note: In these screen shots the red circles or squares usually mean for you to select or click on something, the gold circle or squares means I want to point some information out to you and pink circles or squares are to help breakup or identify various other pieces of information that I am trying to convey).

Go ahead and click that OOB button, doing so will bring up the OOB screen (5.4.1). This essentially is a tool to view at a glance your entire OOB. You can use the left side by clicking the plus (+) signs to see more info about your OOB and you can go directly to a unit in question by selecting it with the blue text link. On the right hand side is a global by country high level overview (or report) of the four basic elements; men, artillery, AFV, and aircraft by totals. As you can see in the image the left column represents the total units in that category and on the right hand side the total ready units.

~ 16 ~

So for example, if we take a look at the Germany one and further look at the aircraft line this indicates that Germany has 633 aircraft total of which only 490 are ready for action. These may be damaged, in training or in some other status.

Go ahead and close that and then click on the show losses button.

Clicking that brings up total losses screen (5.4.2). It should look like this:

~ 17 ~

Since this is the start of a scenario that takes place on 22 June this screen is empty, other scenarios and campaigns that begin after 22 June 1941 will have some losses built into them to reflect the historical losses and to add in actual numbers for manpower and equipment rebuilds. Generally, at the start (and sometimes at the end) of each turn I like to review the losses to see how good or bad I or my opponent is doing.

Okay go ahead and close that window and now click on the show victory screen (5.4.5) here:

~ 18 ~

Clicking that brings us to the victory screen. Besides showing (which you won’t see yet) the current victory point levels there is some hidden information here for you to utilize. Three things should stand out, 1) which cities you need to take by the end of the game (EG) and 2) which cities the Soviets need to hang on to each turn (ET) and 3) how many points either ET or EG are awarded. Also on the bottom is show the victory points scored from losses, with Soviet (SU) and Axis (AX) listed by how many of that type must be lost to score a VP. See the notes after this screen shot for examples.

~ 19 ~

Based on the VP screen we can see the further east we go as the Axis the more points we get for those eastern cities with the ultimate prize being Leningrad. For the Soviet side his most important objectives are hanging on to Leningrad, NW Leningrad and Pavlovo, each game turn he holds these cities he scores victory points. For losses the number in parentheses indicates how much needs to be lost to gain a victory point, so for both sides, they need to inflict 1000 men in losses to gain 1 VP. Each scenario will score these differently while campaigns are scored differently (see 5.4.5.1).

Okay, a couple of other points we won't go into the details of these yet but the next two items are critical in my opinion for further detailed information. These are the show commanders report screen (5.4.9):

And the show event log (5.4.12):

I usually use the event log at the very beginning of each turn to see the replacements to units, arriving units, supply status and a host of other interesting things I may want information on. Later on when I need it well cover it in more detail, but I use CR all the time to glean massive amounts of information on my units.

All rightly then, that covers most of the basics and the default or standard setup I use. The following screen shot shows my layout with these things toggled on. Please note that there is a way to modify your fonts called font substitutions, so my screen shots may not exactly look like yours or the default fonts. You can find out more from this link:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2645378

~ 20 ~

This is just a cross-section of my map layout:

Can we start yet? (or come on quit teasing me and give me some meat!)

Okay, what I do next is to scan the map visually to locate my units, the enemy units and to get a big picture of what needs to be accomplished (in a full campaign I zoom out one more level to get a bigger overview). We talk more about this later but for now scroll down and to the left to find your units, your screen should look like this:

~ 21 ~

Lots of different colors and shades going on here right, well there is a couple of things to notice; the map or terrain that the German units are in looks like a normal map, but there is also a red and gray shaded area. The red shaded area is Soviet controlled and the dark gray shaded area is off map or out of limits for both sides. Now go ahead and hover your mouse over those white on grey HQ units that have a XXXX on them just southeast of Koenigsbeg.

Your screen should look something like this:

~ 22 ~

This little hex pop-up window (5.2.1) tells us a bit more about the hex just hovered over. What we can tell at a glance is that the terrain is clear, the hex grid number for the hex is [x41, y49] there is a minor river on the NW and NE hex sides, there are rail lines that cross four of the hex sides indicated by the terms E SE SW NW, and this is an Axis Rail net (or friendly to us and usable for rail movement and supply). We can see two units in this hex indicated by the text UNIT #2 Army Group North and UNIT # 1 O.K.H., that does not mean units in the hex are # 1 or 2, it instead is the internal ID of that particular unit created in the scenario editor.

To the right of each unit you'll see some combat unit information, basically for HQ units this is: CU = Combat units attached, SU = Non-construction type Support units attached, MP = Current movement points, SP = Supply Path where number is distance to nearest railhead in MPs. There are other items that can be viewed such as victory objectives and fortification levels, more information will be said later if needed or you can check the manual. Go ahead and left click on this stack of HQ units your screen should look like:

~ 23 ~

Okay, the pink circle I drew just indicates that I selected the hex as can also be seen by the purple outline in the unit panel (5.2.3) on the right-hand side showing the two HQ units in that hex. The gold rounded rectangles on the left indicate units attached directly to one or both of these HQ (if one were to deselect one of the HQ units - by left clicking on the one you don't want selected in the right-hand unit bar, then only those units assigned to the selected HQ units will 'light-up" on the unit bar).

Over on the right-side unit panel, you'll first see that the pink line is coming from the selected hex (no this is not in the game I drew this) to the unit panel window, in this case since the hex contains two units both are selected, indicated by the white bordering box around both units in the unit panel.

Starting with the top unit in the unit panel notice the gold rectangle around the name of the unit "Army Group North" (AGN from now on)? That first line is the unit itself, the second line on the first box says "O.K.H (0/90)" this means that AGN (the top unit) is directly assigned to the O.K.H. HQ. The 0/90 means that this unit AGN is 0 hexes from its assigned higher HQ unit. Each HQ unit has a command radius (7.6), which is an over simplification, it's really a logistical and combat support as well as command and control (C2) type of range. Basically if you move out of this range (7.6.2.2) then the unit will have a red square outline around it (red is always bad) indicating it will not get the logistic and combat support it needs to operate at full capacity.

~ 24 ~

Directly under that is an image of the counter (marker or unit) with a purple rectangle around it, indicating it is currently selected and ready for orders. Now for you first test, left click someplace in the Army Group North unit box, this will deselect the just clicked unit and put a blue rectangle around it, in this case since AGN is stacked with (or in the same hex as) its higher HQ, in this case O.K.H. which is still selected and purple, meaning that AGN is a subordinate of O.K.H. Let's take a look.

Underneath the unit counter (reference the last two images) you'll see an arrow with a squiggly line and the text 100; this is the percentage of the units movement point that has been expended to this point. If you were to move the O.K.H. (only) unit to Koenigsberg (NW one hex) this number should show 94 after you move it, indicating this unit has spent 6% of its movement points (or has 94% left).

Under that text is a button that can be clicked to set the refit status (ALL REFIT ON) of the units directly reporting to that HQ unit. If you click it then a message will pop up indicating this, and after you clicked it and hover the mouse over that same button it will state "Turn formation refit status ON", likewise the button to the right of that is ALL REFIT OFF which does the opposite.

~ 25 ~

Please note that there is a lot of info in the manual on this and I'll get to it if it should come up again but for those that are curious check out sections 5.4.16, 7.6, (tables: 7.6.2.1 & 7.6.2.2), 7.7, 11, 12.2.1, 18.3 in the manual..

Let’s jump back to the overview screen shot again:

In this screen shot we can see the pink lines on the unit in the map are drawn to the unit bar panel on the right, the O.K.H. unit has two gold items and one pink, look for the gold rounded rectangle in the unit bar on the right there are three icons. First off we see a pound/hash sign with a tank icon, under that a pound/hash sign with a supply icon and a pound/hash sign with the fuel icon. The tank icon on HQ units is the number of command points of units attached and the capacity of command for this HQ unit. For HQ units the supply icon indicates the number of ground support units and the fuel icon represents the fuel dumps at this HQ. These three values represent different things for combat units and I'll cover those when we get to them.

Okay the last thing on this screen shot is the last round rectangle item in pink this has from left to right the total number of men, artillery and AFV (all types) in this unit. In our example we can see that O.K.H. has about 20,000 men and that is it, while AGN has about 21,326 men, 9 artillery pieces and 0 AFV. Before proceeding further let me show you another screen shot, first you'll need to click the name on the AGN counter so that it brings up the unit detail window (5.4.13):

~ 26 ~

Okay, this is pretty well documented in the manual (5.4.13) but I'll try to point out some other things here as well as when we need to use them.

Up in the left (the first gold rectangle) is the unit name and the leader that currently is leading the unit (in our case Franz Halder), we can assign a new leader but for now let's not and just get through this walk through. Most of these items hopefully will be self explanatory or explained well enough in the manual. So I am not sure how much I need to get into this section other then what I'll try to explain in my walk through.

~ 27 ~

For me the most important parts are the Assign/Form, Support level, and TOE followed by TOE, Supply and Supply Details. Lastly, and also very import is the Show Subordinates (CR) link.

By cycling through the Assign/Form on the HQ unit detail window we can pick a support unit (if any are available) to assign to this HQ, in our case there is none, well cross this path a little later. As you can see the Attached Support list shows 0 (as shown in parentheses) support units assigned. Go ahead and click the Attached Support link to switch to Attached Units.

~ 28 ~

As you can see from this screen there are 3 units assigned, O.K.H. is assigned to itself (it and the STAVAKA are the highest level HQ) and AGN and AGC are also assigned.

For this exercise go ahead and click the text labeled Army Group North.

This brings us directly to Army Group North's unit detail window. From here we can see much of the same but this time we can see that AGN has 5 units attached. Go ahead and click on the 16th Army text, this in turn will take you to the 16th Army unit detail window which happens to have 5 units attached per below:

~ 29 ~

Click the Attached Units text to see the Attached Support units, your screen should show something like this:

~ 30 ~

As you can see there are 14 attached support units in the 16th Army HQ. For now click on the Attached Support text to cycle back to the attached units and notice that to the right of the Assign/Form text is the text that says Support level: LOCKED.

Manually setting of Support units

~ 31 ~

In this image if we click the ADD text (signified by the red circle) the support level will be upped from locked to support level 1 and increase the support level that this HQ draws from AGN in this case, if AGN is not locked that is. In the simplest terms this HQ will try to draw support units from its higher HQ and fill them out based on the number set here. So if the support level is set to 1 then during the logistic phase when the support unit transfer segment begins the assignment of support units it tries to fulfill these based on the level set here (or in the CR), so in this case one support unit per type. To say it another way we want to assign 1 AAA, 1 Engineer, 1 Assault Gun (or 1 of whatever) to this HQ formation. Again, this is a very basic explanation for more details please see the field guide sections, 4.2 and 7.6.3.2.

~ 32 ~

Note also that you can disable the entire automated support unit transfer system in the Game Options screen with 'Lock HQ Support', which is what we did at start (normally I always play with this not checked). Also, the player can disable the automated transfer for a specific HQ by selecting the Locked button in the unit detail display, this will in effect disable the transfer of support units down the chain of command to subordinate units from this HQ; likewise if the HQ's Higher Command HQ is Locked then no transfer of support units will occur from that HQ downwards.

If we were to rewind a bit and instead of checking 'Lock HQ Support' we unchecked it then the default the system uses for Support Level is 3 per each HQ. We can manually override the Locked or system default by the above method of Add/Sub or alternatively (and perhaps better) we can control the support level directly in the CR.

So what does all this mean? Basically if you Lock the support level the auto transfer of support units system is disabled and the HQ use what they have attached to them as far as support units go and you'll have to manually add the support units from the higher HQ's down into the lower HQ's and then the divisions themselves. If you unlock the support level, then the system will attempt to move support units up and down the chain of command via the support level based on what you set that to with any of the current available support units during that turn.

We discovered many schools of thought when testing a) set O.K.H Support Level to 1, AGN to 2, each attached Army HQ to 3 and then each Corps HQ to 4 or more depending on the number of divisions within that HQ or b) set each HQ to 3 or c) Set the Higher HQ to 9 and then all of the HQ in the chain of command downwards to 0. What this will do is transfer back up the chain of command all those support units to higher HQ and then you can the following turns reset the support level to bring in the support units you want. Note that if you set a HQ to 0 it means that that HQ will send the excess supports back up the chain, except for construction support units.

I'll cover this a bit more in detail later on.

Continuing on with our example, when done your screen should look like this:

~ 33 ~

Fortunately, the Commander Report has built in functions so that you can easily set these, will talk about this later.

Now go ahead and click the X to close out this window, this will take you back to AGN, go ahead and click on the 18th Army text. Same thing here lets set our support level to 4 this time though since we have four corps HQs.

~ 34 ~

When you're done go ahead and click the X and then when you're in the AGN unit detail window go ahead and click on the 4th Panzer Group text to get to the 4th Panzer Group HQ unit detail window. You'll see you have only two panzer corps and an army level attached unit (the Totenkopf SS Motorized division). Since this is one of the spearheads go ahead and increase the support level to 3, when done your screen should look like this:

~ 35 ~

Now let's click on the XXXXI Panzer Corps HQ text. Again, this will bring us directly to the XXXXI Panzer Corps HQ unit detail window.

~ 36 ~

Now we're getting to some of the meat on the bones here. Take a look at this unit detail screen, the attached units are the 1st and 6th Panzer Division, the 36th Motorized Division and the 269th Infantry Divisions.

Go ahead and set the support level to 4 for the XXXXI Panzer Corps (my preference really since there is 4 divisions that could have up to three support units attached), when done click the X which will take you back to the 4th Panzer Group now go ahead and click on the LVI Panzer Corps and go ahead and set the support level to 3 for this HQ.

~ 37 ~

When done click the X and then from the 4th Panzer Group unit detail window click on the 4P Air Base text.

~ 38 ~

Notice this is a bit different then the land unit HQs, also if you click on the Attached Units text nothing happens this is normal. Here you'll see the attached units and the amount of aircraft elements in each that are assigned to this air base. The Assign button will assign aircraft from your national reserve (5.4.19). Clicking on one of the attached air group units will bring the tactical air display up. We'll come back to this later (or in another advanced tutorial section or you can visit section 8 of the manual if you'd like). For now close those windows out to get back to the 4th Panzer Group unit display window and then from here click on the XXXXI Panzer Corps text to bring back up the XXXXI Panzer Corps unit display window.

~ 39 ~

Looking at the gold rectangle and further within it the pink rectangle hover your mouse over the 36th Motorized Division (motorized division for short) you'll notice it turn yellow go ahead and click that text, this will bring up the 36th Motorized Division unit display detail window. A lot of the details here are covered in the manual but let me point out the following from this screen shot:

~ 40 ~

Under the combat unit name (36th Motorized Division) on the left hand side you'll see across the top the following: EXP (Experience), RDY (Ready), DAM (Damage), GROUND ELEMENT, FAT (Fatigue). So basically with the 36 Motorized Division the first ground element unit listed is a Sdkfz-231 Armored Car with 0 fatigue and damage , there are 10 ready units with an experience level of 85. To the right in the gold rectangle on top you'll see the text TOE 100/100 in this case the left side is actual the right side is ready. Max TOE can be set from 50-100% this is indicates the replacement the unit can take. Units in static mode, security units etc. can be set lower than units either building up for an offensive or those that are in the front lines fighting it out.

Motorized (Vehicles/Need) indicates whether a unit is motorized or not, in this case the 36th Motorized Division is motorized this is also indicated by the number of vehicles versus the needed amount. You'll need to keep an eye on motorized and other units especially HQ as you move them around on the map these will suffer attrition.

~ 41 ~

Under that we have a clickable text link, this allows you to reassign this unit to another HQ unit, note that this will cost AP to do so and sometimes due to a myriad of other possibilities the list may be empty.

The next gold rectangle is basically the logistics side of things; hopefully this will be self explanatory enough.

Construction Value: the construction value is added to the entrenchment level of the hex. Once the construction value = 50 the entrenchment level of the hex increases by 1 (excess construction points are carried over). Construction values are modified by movement, fatigue, experience, being adjacent to enemy, terrain, weather, static mode (section 15.3.2.1).

Transportation Cost: is the amount of rail capacity used to move the unit by strategic movement mode. Rail capacity is seen in F2 mode top right corner.

In Supply: shows the number of MP to the closest railhead.

Supply Details: brings up a unit supply detail window which provides a lot of information on the supply of this unit, we'll come back to this later on or next turn when it may make a little more sense.

Okay for this exercise we need to learn how to assign a unit from a higher HQ. Go ahead and click the ASSIGN/FORM inside the red rectangle.

After clicking that text link the Pick Support Unit Type displays, here will be a list of all the available units to attach to this unit. For combat units the max is three units. Go ahead and click the TOE text link and this will bring up the TOE unit detail window, here we can see for a 41 Jagdpanzer battalion the default OOB is 27 light tank destroyers and 10 support squads. On the right we can see the actual ground unit detail, in this case a Panzerjager I.

~ 42 ~

After looking at the above go ahead and click the X to leave this view. Now that you’re back at the Pick Support Unit Type display, using your mouse hover over the third item down, the 41 Jagdpanzer battalion. As the red rectangle shows click the text link to select this unit to assign it to the 36th Motorized Division, your screen should look like this:

After selecting that support unit the Pick Support Unit Type will change to reflect that choice. Go ahead and close this window by clicking the X, your screen should look like this before you close it:

After closing that you're screen should look like this:

~ 43 ~

Notice from this screen shot in the gold rectangle area, the just selected unit will be listed, in this case the 616 Jgd. Pz.Bn. The * means this unit was just assigned and can't be reassigned till next turn. For now go ahead and click the text link for 616th JPB this will take you to the support unit detail window:

~ 44 ~

As you can see the unit has 80 experience points with 24 ready Panzerjager I with no fatigue. If you click the Panzerjager I text link it will display the ground element detail screen.

~ 45 ~

Go ahead and click the X to leave that screen and then go ahead and click the X to leave the 36th Motorized Division unit detail. The interface kicks you out and your now looking at the map with the O.K.H. HQ selected as the following screen shot shows:

~ 46 ~

Go ahead and click the text of the top unit from the unit bar or AGN text to bring up the Show unit details window and then drill down into the 4th Panzer Group HQ, and select the LVI Panzer Corps and hover your mouse over the 3rd Motorized Division, your screen should look like this:

~ 47 ~

Go ahead and click this text to bring up the 3rd Motorized Division unit detail window and click the ASSIGN/FORM text to select a panzerjager battalion. Your screen should now look like this:

~ 48 ~

As you can see the newly attached unit is the 559th Jdg.PzBn. Click on the 559th text to bring up the ground element detail window. Here we can see that the 559 is only at 89% TOE, just because you can assign or attached units does not mean that they will arrive at full 100% TOE (especially with some of the Soviet units, where you may create one but you may have to wait one or more turns for it to 'fill out'). Your screen should look like this:

~ 49 ~

Okay, now time for some home work, close this window and close the others until you get back to the AGN HQ unit display window. Now its your turn go ahead and drill down into both the 16th and 18th Armies and down into each infantry corps HQ and set (or not if you don't want to) the support levels from one to four depending on how many active divisions in that Corps and meet me back here.

Sir I am ready to fight (or what the hell are you talking so long for?)

Okay, we still have a little bit more to review in this next screen shot so go ahead and select the 18th Army your screen should look like this:

~ 50 ~

In the lower left within the gold circle is the 18th Army HQ selected signified by the purple outline, note that the hexes outlined in blue are subordinate units of the 18th Army; the HQ due East is the I Corps HQ, the one NE is the XXXVIII Corps HQ stacked with the 58th ID. Twenty miles due North you'll find the XXVI Corps HQ. Now those yellow outlines, those are peer units, in this case either another Corps HQ unit or an 18th Army attached unit, so twenty miles southeast you can see FBD 4 (a railroad repair unit) sitting on a rail hex waiting to repair rail lines. Due south 20 miles is the 4th Panzer Group. Lastly the unit outlined in orange 50 miles southwest (10 miles SE of Koenigsberg) is the O.K.H. HQ unit of which the 18th Army is assigned to.

Now getting back to the 18th Army HQ let's look at one more thing.

~ 51 ~

We have already talked about this, but the AFV icon equals the command points, for the 18th Army HQ this is 8 command points worth of units out of 24 that it can effectively command. Essentially each combat unit has a size and depending on its size it costs various CP to have that unit attached to a HQ unit. You can reference these values for yourself in the manual in sections 7.6.2.1 and 7.6.2.2, but each brigade cost 1 CP, each division cost 2 CP for the Axis. Each HQ unit has a type, such as Corps, Army, Army Group, Front, Motorized Division or High command each based on date and time and type can effectively command a certain amount of CP.

Next is the supply icon which is represents by supply dump ground elements which contain one ton of supplies. Lastly, is the fuel supply ground elements also equating to one ton in fuel supply in this HQ. In this case we have 450 tons of supplies and 440 tons of fuel (20.1.5.1). Now to bring this full circle let's look again at the 18th Army HQ detail display.

I highlighted in gold rectangles the Supply Dump and Fuel Dumps and you can see the ready versus damaged elements. On the right side we can now understand (hopefully) that this HQ needs 97 tons of supply and has 123 tons and has 87 tons of fuel and needs 69 tons of fuel. Lastly, the Support/Need shows this unit has 465 support squads and needs 0.

Go ahead and click the Supply Details text link so we can look at this in a little more detail.

~ 52 ~

Current Status shows what is in the unit and what is required to reach 100% of the required supplies, fuel, ammo and vehicles. Under that is the range in hexes and in MP from the unit to the nearest railhead supply source. Next only HQs that can deliver supply will show these values, for now just take note of Supply/Fuel Received/Source, HQ Supply/Fuel %, Cost of Path (MP/Range) for more details see section 5.4.26.2 in your field manual.

~ 53 ~

Leaders are important for many reasons and eventually I'll get to those, but for now when you hover the mouse over the leaders name right under the Army (or unit's) name a pop-up will display showing you the currently leaders specs. For now we are not going to dismiss anyone so let's move on.

Okay, from the 18th Army HQ unit display select the I Corps HQ and then select the 1st ID in the unit detail display. What we are going to do now is just review a standard German Infantry division and it's supply details. Go ahead and review the details of the 1st ID.

~ 54 ~

As you can see this is very similar to the HQ display, but here we can see the subtle difference between a HQ and a combat unit. For example, since the 1st ID has some Armored Cars and other AFV (trucks) the Fuel/Need shows 19/40 or 19 tons of fuel with a requirement of 40 tons of fuel. In contrast we can see that the supply, ammo and support is above what is required for the 1st ID.

Now go ahead and click on the Supply Details text link and review the supply details of this unit:

~ 55 ~

As you can see the unit is loaded up on supplies, but we need to keep an eye on this as turn’s progress.

When you're ready close out the 1st ID detail display and when your back on the I Corps HQ detail display down in the right go ahead and click Show Subordinates (CR) to pull up the Commanders Report for just this HQ's formation.

~ 56 ~

Here we see the CR in action, the white units are on map and the green units are off map (or attachments), each item across the top is clickable so you can slice and dice or sort the data in a myriad of ways.

~ 57 ~

Note that when you hover over the Location (hex coordinates) the text will turn yellow and you can click it to go directly to that unit. Go ahead and select the I Corps HQ when ready. When you do the report automatically sends you to the map with the I Corps HQ detail window selected:

~ 58 ~

Go ahead and click the X to close this window. After you do that you'll have the I Corps HQ unit selected and the subordinate units and peers will have a colored rectangle around them giving you a visual at a glance.

Okay, I promised you earlier that I would explain the General Info and City display.

Hopefully most of this makes sense, but we have the Turn Date and Number, City name if we click on a city, Motor Pool (20.1.4), the first number is the total operational vehicles and the second is the need or total number of vehicles that would be need to bring the pool up to 100%, note that this value is 0%, this is because its the first turn and we have not yet had a logistic phase. If less than a third then this will turn yellow if less than a quarter then it will turn red. Next we have the Admin Points and this will shrink or grow as time and usage go on and finally we have the Weather and Ice Levels.

That takes care of some of the basics, how I set up my interface for action, some of my thoughts and should get you hopefully a good walk around so that you feel comfortable.

~ 59 ~

Up, up and away (or it's about time dude!)

Now we are ready for some action, but wait I'd like to suggest something to you, it's a very good idea at the start of your turn after you have reviewed yours and your opponents disposition of forces, and examined and setup analyzed your interface and forces to perform Air Recon as part of your first action. For this exercise I told you to deselect FOW, but even with no FOW or with it on and you can physically see the unit that is adjacent to your units, your actually units may not be so fortunate.

If we were to reference section 13 of the manual we would discover what Detection Level (DL) is. Without going into too much detail I am just going to quote the manual here:

"Each unit on the map is automatically assigned a detection level from one to ten, based on factors to include distance from enemy units, covering terrain (6.2.1) and the results of air reconnaissance. A higher detection level will increase the effectiveness of ground and air combat against that unit.

Unit detection levels will change over time and can be influenced by player actions. During the logistics phase, an airbase unit will have its DL decline by one, while non-airbase units will have their DL decline by Die(5). The DL levels of enemy combat units that are adjacent may then increase. Adjacent enemy combat units compare scouting values for the different units to determine changes in DL levels."

So how do we do this? Well what you need to do is to select the Air Recon button (or F5) and then to the left of the AI button click the button with the aircraft on it, part of the screen looks like this:

Red circle means click that first, red square means click that to review the air doctrine, close that when you're done looking at the default levels, if you want more info please check the manual at this point.

~ 60 ~

Now for our purposes just take a mental note of that gold square around that AI button were going to come back to her in a moment. For now we need to analyze the general situation. To do so click on the Info Screens and then select the OOB, the screen shot below is just a cut-away so we can at a glance see what were up against.

Since this is just a small scenario and were are basically in charge of AGN we can see we only have about 633 total planes with 490 of these ready. There are some in Finland but Finland is frozen right now.

Our Soviet GAIA player has 2,624 of which only 1,923 are ready.

Are you ready for some fun? Almost there, first close out the OOB screen and double check the Losses Screen to make sure there are no air losses yet, yours should look like this:

~ 61 ~

Okay, good no losses now we can begin. Remember the previous screens shot (remember to get back there you need to click the Map Information tab) and once Air Recon is selected go ahead and click on the AI button to let the AI figure out the best usage of the air recon units.

Well that was anti climatic wasn't it? I don't know about you but I only got one mission. Really this makes sense because we are playing with FOW off. Now it’s time to take over the reins. To manually conduct these types of mission all you need to do is be in Air Recon mode and then scan the map and right click on the hex you want to air recon.

Go ahead and hover your mouse over Kaunas and right click to perform an Air Recon mission. Once it's done all the Soviet areas should have turn a darker grey indicating usually (but not always) that the air doctrine is kicking in and no more units can be flown to the target.

Now, go ahead and select the normal mode move (F1) and then click the Show battles report (F11).

~ 62 ~

Once you click that button the map will display all the battles so far, in this case we have two the air recon missions showing:

Now take your mouse and hover over the battle marker and a pop-up window will display with a summary and if you click on the battle marker then a combat resolution window will display. In the following screen show you can see both show the losses of the missions.

~ 63 ~

Now it's time to knock down some of the Soviet planes, to do so were are going to use the Bomb airfield mode.

~ 64 ~

When you click on this button any and all air bases will have a red back ground, you should see something like this:

~ 65 ~

Darn it! Before we started our bombing run I wanted to show you something. Take a quick break and look at the Losses Screen. Our air recon mission cost us 3 fighters and only cost the Soviets 1. We'll rectify that soon.

~ 66 ~

Okay sorry about that, back to our program, now hover the mouse over Kaunas you'll see:

We can see we need to hit the 8 SAD Air Base, it has over 250 aircraft there. Okay, now scroll up and hover the mouse over Siauliai you'll see about 140 aircraft.

~ 67 ~

Scroll to Orge and take note that 39 SB-2 are here.

~ 68 ~

Keep going and look at Cesis, 211 aircraft here.

~ 69 ~

Now head up towards Talinn and check there around 140 aircraft plus this is a Port which has shipping points for this sea zone (Baltic) I'll talk Naval Transport later.

Okay, since we have FOW off we have the luxury of seeing all this wealth of information at our finger tips, be warned though that in most PBEM games FOW will be on and you will only see limited amounts of information based on detection levels.

It's a good idea to target fighter air bases first so that when you send out bombing missions with little or no escorts then your air losses wont' be so great.

~ 70 ~

Okay now I want you to hover back over Kaunas and then right click to bomb it. As soon as the combat results window displays click on the Pause text link. When the mission is done you can see the results. Your results may vary but this is what my bomb run looks like:

As you can see the Axis first turn surprise rules are kicking in, don't expect to see these types of results after the first turn or so.

I went ahead and bombed Siauliai but did not catch that in a screen shot, but my results were; Axis lost 1 fighter and 2 bombers and the Soviets lost 58 fighters and 88 bombers.

Now, go back into move mode (F1 or the move mode button) and select hex [x47, y48] and click on the 2nd LW Air Base and bring up the unit detail window.

~ 71 ~

Notice the outlined air groups and you can see each attached air group; for example, I./JG 54 has 32 x Bf109-F2 and a number in parenthesis, most are values at 4% but one the Stab/JG 54 is at 100% since it has no aircraft. These number represent the air miles flown.

Since we're in great shape as far as air miles flown and have only made two bombing lets continue on. Instead of a screen shot for each air bombing mission, I'll provide a list of airbase to bomb. I don't like the looks of Kaunas and it's airbase there still is too many planes there so let's begin by bombing it again. I got about 90 Soviet aircraft this time although there still is 32 left, let's bomb Orge and Cesis . I went ahead and bombed Cesis twice and then the map turned red this means that with our current air doctrine the bombers are out of range. Find and select the 2nd LW Air base again and you'll see the percentages of miles flown has increase.

~ 72 ~

Now locate the 3rd LW Air Base (at hex [44x, y48]) to bring up the unit detail display.

~ 73 ~

Looking at the air groups we see these aircraft have flown between 0% and up to 51% in air miles.

Over on the right of this screen shot I inserted the graphic from the right hand side unit bar panel. Here we can see that 2% of the supplies had been expended, 13% of the fuel and 28% of the ammo. Also, on the bottom we can see that no fighters are at this base but 55 bombers and 9 other aircraft. The layout is fighter, bomber, and utility (transport and recon) aircraft.

~ 74 ~

Again, we are looking at the air loss screen to see the final results of our missions so far. Not too bad we lost 19 aircraft, 10 of which are fighters and nine level bombers to the Soviets losses of 458 aircraft. Also, as you can see on the left hand side is a further breakdown of the losses by aircraft elements for both sides.

We are now ready for combat (or it's about freaking time!)

Like I have said earlier there is always more ways to skin a cat, and everybody will have their own style of play. I like to do all of the preceding to prep for my turn and get ready for the best part of the game “Ground warfare”.

Since this is a large and detailed game, and since I developed a habit way back in the late seventies when playing paper board war games, I have always started in one direction and moved in the opposite direction, usually this is north to south. War in the East is no exception; however we have a wealth of tools to assist us in analyzing the map, forces and units to achieve final victory.

First let’s open up the Victory Points screen to get a clue of what it takes to win this scenario.

~ 75 ~

This display tells us a lot of information, first we need to capture Talinn, Pskov, Velikie Luki, Novgorod, Pushkin, Leningrad, Ladeynoe Pole, Vyshny Volocheck and Rzhev to gain victory points for the Axis side. We also have to bear in mind that the longer the Soviets hold Leningrad, NW Leningrad and Pavlovo they gain victory points for the Soviet side. On top of all this the more losses we inflict on the Soviets the more victory points we gain, which is offset by the losses the Soviets inflict on us.

So far all we have done is run Air Recon and bombed a few airbases, but as you can see we already have scored 18 points to the Soviet's 1 victory point. Essentially the way this works is for each side the scenario designer setup the losses per victory points, so in this screen we can see that for the Axis to gain a victory point they need to cause 1000 men to be lost, or for every 100 guns destroyed they gain a victory point, for every 10 AFV eliminated the Axis gains a victory point. and finally for every 5 aircraft destroyed a victory point is achieved. Now look to the right and view what the Soviets gain for causing Axis casualties, it's pretty even for this scenario but others may have victory points assigned per loss.

The Big Picture (or what the hell did not start here in the first place?)

Okay, for this next section some people might be scratching their heads and asking why the heck was this portion not up front? That's a valid question and it's really just a personal preference of mine, I guess you can blame it on board war

~ 76 ~

games where we had to learn the rules via a rule book to understand how to move and fight before really looking at the map and understanding or discovering strategies and tactics and how to win. First of all take a look at the map and visually look at some of the distances we need to cover, to do this uncheck all the visual clues we had previously checked and zoom the map out and finally click the Toggle victory locations button.

In this screen shot, the pink is just showing which buttons to deselect and the red is to show you which button to select, in this case the toggle button. Also, in this shot is a gold rectangle that you can click to hide all on map units.

~ 77 ~

With all those settings cleared and zoomed out we can now see at a glance where we have to go and how far. If we zoom in a level and place the units back on the map we know see this:

I selected in pink the areas we need to capture to win victory points.

~ 78 ~

This is just more of the same further north, or where the real victory points lie.

Okay, now that we have the big picture of what we need to do and where we need to go it's to start getting there.

Forward March (or Halt or I'll Shoot)

Okay, you may or may not have turned on all the visual clues that I suggested above but all my screen shots will have them on from here on out.

Now this next subject is open to debate no matter which way you cut it. Everyone will have their own preferences on how to run the show and others will have more or less experience on the correct way to handle these things. But from my perspective these tips, tricks, and suggestions should help any newbie get the basics of this game down. Hopefully there is enough meat in here for medium to advanced players.

What I like to do in this section of the front is to open up a hole in the Soviet lines so I can get the panzer and motorized units through the gap to pocket (encircle) as many Soviets units as possible.

I am going to open up holes with a series of Deliberate Attacks for both demonstration purposes and to get a guaranteed retreat. Normally the Germans have so many bonus on turn one that Hasty Attack is the usual way to go, but you're not guaranteed a retreat using a hasty attack and may have to burn some MP to do another one. For much more detail take a look at section 15 in your field manual.

What I suggest is that you hover your mouse over the map across the Soviet front lines, what you're looking for is the type of terrain the unit(s) are in, the fort level and what kind of units are defending that hex, also I cycle through the soft factors to get an idea of the supply and or fuel levels as well. For a new beginner it is also probably a good idea to cycle through all the soft factors to really read the map and units to get a good understanding of things.

Okay, all across the line the Soviets are really weak, but we need a hole to get the panzers through so let's start with that. One obvious places is in hex [x48, y45] where the Soviet 125th Rifle Division (from now on Rifle Division) is located. This hex is clear terrain and the fort level is 2 at (0%). As per the manual (15.3.2) this indicates that this unit is at fort level 2 with 0% construction completed to get to fort level 3. See the following screen shot.

~ 79 ~

Okay, a side note here, the combat model is very detailed and I don't think I can do justice in trying to explain it so I am just going to quote the manual from page 209 or section 15.6.1.

" Ground combat is conducted by an automated tactical combat system that consists of a variable number of rounds where ground elements engage each other. In general, the computer first determines the opening range at which combat will take place. This is largely based on defending terrain, with battles in city and urban hexes commencing at shorter initial ranges."

and

"The next step is to determine which ground elements will be able to fire. There are multiple factors involved, to include the type of attack (hasty or deliberate), enemy unit detection level (DL), defending fortification modifier, attacking unit morale and supply status (especially ammo), individual ground element experience, fatigue, ammo usage and range of their equipped devices, and leader initiative and ground combat rating (mech or infantry) checks (11.3)."

~ 80 ~

There are four more paragraphs so for much greater information please reference 15.6 in the manual.

First, go ahead and select the stack at hex x48, y46 (the gold circle) that contains the 269th ID, 6th PzD and 1st PzD (the pink circle is the Soviet 125th Rifle Division).

Now deselect the two PzD, to do this you left click an empty space within the unit bar (on the right) for the unit you don't want to move or attack with. Okay, the reason we don't want to include the panzer divisions is because we don't want to eat up their fuel nor take any unnecessary tank losses.

~ 81 ~

You can tell that a unit is deselected because the white bar disappears and the background lightens, in the screen shot above I placed a pink rectangle around the units to show that they are deselected.

Please note that later on I'll discuss the details from the unit panel in the above screen shot in depth later on.

Now before we make the attack, on the unit bar click on the selected 269th ID name to bring up the unit detail display.

~ 82 ~

Look at the TOE it shows 97/97 which is pretty good, every ground element has 0 fatigue and there are no damaged elements. Now click the text link for TOE to bring up the TOE detail display.

~ 83 ~

Here we are just confirming the details for the percent of ground elements actually in the TOE. As you can see some units are at 100%, others below 100% and two are above 100%, close those displays till you get back to the 269th ID and select Assign/Form to see what support units might be available.

As we can see we have two Pioneer battalions we could assign to the 269th ID. Click on the Pioneer TOE text link to view the TOE of a unit of this type.

~ 84 ~

Here we can see the TOE is 36 Pioneer squads and 33 Support squads. For now let's not assign this battalion directly to the 269th ID. When we choose to do that, then the HQ of the Corps will, if it can pass certain checks and then allocate the support units to those combat units that are its command range.

The default attack method in move mode is the Hasty Attack (15.2.1) see the screen shot to see the icon for a hasty attack. Essentially this is a attack on the march or without any preparation.

Okay, now in order to perform a Deliberate Attack (15.2.2), which essentially is a pre-planned attack, you can do one of two things:

~ 85 ~

1. You can click the menu item for this up on the menu bar:

2. You can hold down the shift key while hovering over the hex you want to attack with the mouse.

When using either method a proper deliberate attack icon will show like this:

I personally prefer the shift key method over clicking on the toggle button.

~ 86 ~

Okay go ahead and use which ever method your most comfortable with and perform a deliberate attack on the 125th Soviet Rifle Division hex. Try to click the Pause text in the combat resolution display (5.4.11) so you can view and analyze this or use my screen shot if you don't catch it in time.

Depending on a bunch of factors you may or may not have gotten the same results as I did (Routed, see 15.9.4). As you can see from the screen shot there is a lot going on here, but the white hexagon which is where the attack took place and the pink circle are my drawings, while the red line from the 3rd LW Airbase to the target hex (white hexagon) represent the Axis aircraft flying missions to this attack and the green line coming from the pink circle is the Soviet aircraft flying into the target hex are both being performed by the air support system.

Let's walk through starting at the top and work our way across and down.

~ 87 ~

Beginning with the Combat Resolution Report (5.4.11) on top there are three main sections, the Axis panel on the left, the forces engaged info panel in the middle and the Soviet panel on the right. The grey rectangles in the Axis panel show the attacking ground and air units, the total combat value , the command modifier and the final modified combat value. The Soviet panel is exactly the same but with regards to the Soviet units involved. Sometimes if the list of units is too long a down/up arrow will display as indicated by the pink square in the Axis panel.

In the Forces Engaged panel this is also split between the Axis on the left and the Soviets on the right and then first two lines are the ground units involved and the last two are the air units involved in the battle. Please note that there are eight levels of detail which be displayed these are the Combat Resolution Message Levels ranging from 0 (don't show this window at all) to 7 (showing just about every shot fired by the units in combat) these can be set by pressing the number keys 0-7 during game play. Also, note that the higher the level the longer the report will run which could be several minutes, the default level is 1 and level 5 will show hits, damage and kills.

Underneath the engaged units is the results list outlined in a gold rectangle, and it shows the 125th Rifle Division has been Routed. Directly underneath that is the odds, to the left of which is the Pause text link and to the right is the Exit text link.

On the map you can see a white hexagon and a pink circle, the white hexagon is where the 125th Rifle Division used to be and the pink circle is where the unit routed to 70 miles away.

As I said earlier the red and green lines are where the airbases were sending air support from. Hopefully the rest of this screen shot is pretty understandable.

Let's pause briefly and closely examine the 269th ID and how this one deliberate attack effected it, it's supply and the resulting losses to this point. Please select the same hex we just attacked from and click on the 269th ID text link in the unit bar to bring up the unit details display.

~ 88 ~

Examine this unit and notice the gold rectangles showing the damaged units and their fatigue. Also note in the upper left of the counter a soft factor which is green. When done click on the Supply/Details text link to bring up the Supply Detail display.

~ 89 ~

Examine the in unit, required and notice on the unit bar (on the right side) these numbers reflect what is placed there. Also, note the difference between a HQ that can distribute supply and a combat unit. When done click on the Info Screen tab and select the Show Losses to bring up the Losses Display.

~ 90 ~

Notice that from just this one battle a few more Soviet planes were intercepted and destroyed. Now toggle to select the ground losses.

Examine the losses for the battle just waged in the pink rectangles.

Now, we really need to clear that rail line hex [x47, y45] that has the 106th NKVD Border Regiment in it. The reason for this is we are going to use that rail line eventually for one of main supply spurs going into Riga and since we only have 17 turns we need to get a move on this as quickly as possible, therefore we need to clear that rail line ASAP.

~ 91 ~

Okay, the above hex can be attacked from three directions, so how do you know which one to use? Good question, the 1st and 6th PzD will be out moving out of range of the 269th ID really soon and we need to keep the HQ that is managing the supplies and fuel and our C2 within five hexes of those fast movers, so eventually we we'll reassign the 269th ID to an infantry formation, since we now know that this is where the attack will come from.

Go ahead and select our first hex we attacked from [x48, y46] and deselect the two PzD again and perform a deliberate attack, again this is for demonstration purposes, in fact you can run this boot camp again and instead of doing deliberate attack experiment with using just hasty attacks and see if your rates of advance don't increase.

~ 92 ~

Oops, I thought I clicked pause but I did not, so like I have said there is always more ways to skin a cat, just hit either the F11 button or on the menu click the Show battles sites toggle. Well we cleared the hex and this time our result was Shattered (15.9.2). I'll show you where this unit went to in a little bit.

Okay, now we have a 20 mile gap in the Soviet line this is a good start.

Before we proceed further lets analyze the 269th ID once more after two battles. You should have the routine down by now so bring up the unit detail display for the 269th ID.

~ 93 ~

Here we can see that the 269th ID is not starting to suffer from fatigue and a few loses, note the supply, fuel and ammo expended in these two attacks.. When done click on the TOE text link to bring up the TOE detail display.

~ 94 ~

As before the items on the left are the TOE and on the right what the unit actually has. So far just the cavalry squads and light mortars have taken some hits. Also, as the gold rectangle on the bottom of the panel shows the men at full TOE and current.

Before we continue on lets briefly review. Click on the Info Screen and select the Loss Report, yours should look something like:

~ 95 ~

As you can see losses are starting to mount. Go ahead and click the air loss toggle button (down at the bottom of this display).

~ 96 ~

And so are the aircraft losses.

Now, remember when we attacked the 106th NKVD Border Regiment and we did not see where it relocated? If you toggle the Destroy Units button and then click the blue plus sign (+) then the mystery is solved:

Shifting Gears (or What happened to Forward March?)

Move your mouse to Memel hex [x45, y43] and hover for a second.

~ 97 ~

Note that the 291st ID is in this hex, now hover over Kretinga 10 miles NE of this position.

~ 98 ~

Take note that there is a river on its SE hex side and take a look at the 10th Soviet Rifle Division from the pop-up display it shows (1/1) det 7, SP 1.

What does this mean? Good question Generals, well part of the answers can be found in your field manual at the bottom of page 53, but essentially the first two numbers in the parentheses are: CV (7.1) / Fort defense modifier (15.3), and (sometimes) the percent of the units TOE is shown (reference the first screen shot for the 291 ID it shows 9/20 96% MP 16 and SP 0). Next, 'det' means the detection level for this hex, in this case 7 or since FOW is off we can see the enemy's soft factors amongst other things we can't normally see when FOW is turned on. Lastly, SP 1 is the supply path to the nearest railhead in MP or in this case 1 MP (note either of the railhead hexes directly N or NE of that position).

Please note that since FOW is turned off we can see the values, however with FOW turned on then it depends on the detection level (13.1), but in general you might not see any value other then ?/?.

Now hover your mouse 10 miles due west and take note of:

~ 99 ~

What we are essentially doing is just trying to get a feel of what is in each Soviet hex and a little analyzing of these hexes to see which ones to attack. Beginning from North to South for each of the below screen shots (you'll need to click on the Corps HQ identified in either the screen shots or mentioned in the text below that image and deselect any units it may be stacked with) we are just reviewing what is in each Soviet hex and what we have to attack it with.

~ 100 ~

The above screen shot shows the XXVI Corps (circled in pink) and it's subordinate units (with their default blue rectangles) surrounded by a red diamond and the 10th Soviet Rifle Division outlined in a pink square. One goal would be to clear this rail line and more importantly to allow the rest of the XXVI Corps divisions to slip through and form the northern portion of the pocket.

~ 101 ~

Now we're are looking at the I Corps (circled in pink) and it's subordinate units (with their default blue rectangles) surround within a red diamond and a gold rectangle where the two routed and shattered units use to be from our first attack by the 269 ID. These three infantry divisions will infiltrate into the hole opened up by the 269 ID and begin forming the inner pockets.

~ 102 ~

Here we see the XXXXI Panzer Corps (circled in pink) and its subordinate units outlined in a red rectangle. XXXXI Panzer Corps mission will be to exploit through the gap to drive and help the infantry complete the encirclement and/or create further pockets to the NE.

~ 103 ~

Our second Panzer Corps and it's subordinate units from the LVI Panzer Corps are shown above. To the east of the LVI Panzer Corps is the three divisions in each of the following corps X, XXVIII and II whose mission is to form the southern portion of the pockets.

~ 104 ~

In this screen shot we can see the basic plan forming, with the red rectangle showing some operational reserve units

Commanders Review (or great why did you not show us this before?)

Okay, generals let's take a look around the room, let's review who's who and who's is in charge of what. As your field manual states "Leaders play an important role", this is no understatement. Every single HQ (except for air base and rail repair units) will have a leader that commands and has an impact on this HQ and any attached HQ and their attached units. Each leader also has a rank and designation and leadership rating. Rank determines what type of HQ that leader can command and Leadership effects an array of factors such as morale, fatigue, movement points, attachment costs, combat values and combat abilities of any attached support units. You'll find further details in your field manuals in section 11.1

First up we have our top level command structure, here we see the O.K.H HQ and Army Group North HQ along with the leaders of both formations:

~ 105 ~

Selected in the gold rectangles for each HQ is the name of the HQ unit and the Leader assigned to it. Underneath that rectangle is a pop-up display listing each of that leaders ratings which appears when you hover over the assigned leaders name. You'll find more details in 11.2 and 11.2.1 through 11.2.5 in your field guides; however here is a brief summary; each leader will have eight (8) ratings which are; Political, Morale, Initiative, Admin, Mech, Infantry, Air and Naval, with the last four referring to combat ratings (11.2.5). Hopefully these are pretty self explanatory, there is much more details on leaders in sections 11.3 through 11.5 in your guides.

Basically, leadership influences the morale, fatigue, movement points, attachment costs, combat value and combat performance of attached units under their command. Leaders have a designation that sets the maximum level of HQs they can command which basically is the highest level HQ unit they can control (11.1.1), and leaders also have certain command restrictions (Ground/Air/SS only, etc). Leader ratings effect many aspects of the game such as the admin cost it takes to transfer a leader, morale ratings effect unit combat values in battle and recovering fatigue, imitative ratings determine the actual movement points a unit gets and the units ability to fire and hit and commit reserve units to battle, the admin ratings also effect the movement points of a unit, helping with repairing of damaged elements, supply and fuel wastage and other admin checks. Lastly there are the four combat ratings; Mech, Infantry, Air and Naval, as the name of each implies these ratings effect the ground, air or naval elements units directly by influencing their ability to fire and hit which effects the combat value and movement of units under their command.

Take a closer look at Halder, his most important attribute is Admin which is as high as you can get. Admin is very important for higher level HQ he also has a very high Initiative rating which is good for a higher HQ. Next take a look at AGN HQ leader, Leeb he has several consistent (stable) values that are quite a bit above average. Infantry, Admin and Initiative at 7. I rate my leaders on scale with an average value being a 4 to 5. Since there are only 9 possible values the average would be 4.5. So my scale is 1-3 bad, 4-6 average and 7-9 excellent. For ground leaders the only exception is values for air and naval. If you take a look at an air leader you'll find that his air value would or should be much higher than his ground leader counter parts.

~ 106 ~

These next few screen shots will show each army level command structure.

Above you'll see the 18th Army HQ leaders values along with his subordinate Corps HQ leaders values.

~ 107 ~

Spearhead of Army Group North is the 4th Panzer Group lead by Hoepner who has excellent values of 7 and his two subordinate Corps HQ leaders; XXXXI Panzer Corps lead by Reinhardt who is very stable with sevens just about across the board and then my LVI Panzer Corps lead by the famous Manstein who's values are quite near perfect.

~ 108 ~

Lastly is 16th Army HQ leader lead by Busch and his subordinate Corps HQ and their assigned leaders.

You can also get this same information (just not graphically displayed like my screen shots) via the Commanders Report (CR) which we will cover in depth later on, but here are two good screenshots of the CR.

~ 109 ~

Here you can see we're using the HQs tab and I have some filters toggled on/off on the bottom in the gold rectangle and in the upper gold rectangle is the main report. Usually this will consist of the items that have been filtered on or off in a list format and across the top of every report tab (or page) is a category type that either does a specific function (such as take you to another tab or to the map) or can be used to sort the data in alphabetical ascending or descending order.

~ 110 ~

This is from the Units tab with various filters on and is similar to the previous HQ report but each higher HQ is listed in purple and its subordinate units are in light blue clickable text that will bring up a pop-up box. Right after the Nationality column is a Location column that displays a hex grid location of where that unit presides on our map board, by clicking this the report will take you directly to the map centered on that unit.

There is a lot more to these reports and we'll come back to them later, but that is enough to get you started for now.

~ 111 ~

Fight Move (or blow those holes and move em through!)

Okay, hopefully you have enough information at your finger tips on the basic to mid-level mechanics of Gary Grigsby's War in the East now and I can send you out into the field satisfied that you will serve your country and perform your duties with honor and glory. You have come a long way and learned many things on your journey and I salute you.

Okay, for the rest of class you have not quite finished your studies, but I feel confident that you know how to find and location units and perform the deliberate attack and are ready for some more on the job training. You will conduct three deliberate attacks with three single infantry divisions on three separate hexes. If you feel the need to save your game (or use the latrine) you may do so now (the old man is not looking), when you are ready report back here for further instructions.

Okay, for the final infantry attacks to open up the front lines and move some of our infantry into position to begin encirclement and free our panzer and motorized units for exploitation we require you to make the following three deliberate attacks (it does not matter in which order also as per above the Axis has many bonus during June 1941 so using hasty attacks in open and deliberate in swamps or across rivers is a good idea):

291st ID attack hex: x45, y42

126th ID attack hex: x49, y46

121st ID attack hex: x51, y48

If you have been following along and listening to instructions your map should look like this:

~ 112 ~

Your results should be very similar, essentially your clearing out some NKVD units and Soviet fortified units so that you can move your units into position to trap about 5 infantry in the front lines and allow quite a few of the infantry divisions to breakout and begin forming the outer deeper pockets.

Find and select the 12th ID and deselect any other units it's stacked with, if you have toggle control on your screen should look something like this:

~ 113 ~

Hopefully the text within the polygons and the colored lines are self explanatory. Now without doing any moving and if you have show movement paths on then take your mouse and hover over any friendly, pending friendly and enemy controlled hexes to see the various MP needed or possibly expended to enter each of the mouse over hexes. Go ahead and select a few other units and see where they possibility might be able to go, and then once you are ready continue reading on.

Okay, now that we have a basic understanding of what hex control is (you can find more info in your field manuals in 6.3.1 through 6.3.4) and the basic mechanics of movement and fighting (at least from a deliberate attack perspective, we will cover hasty attacks very soon) and we have a basic understanding of our victory objectives to win and our basic plan to get there it's now time to set you free and turn you lose in the big bad world of War in the East.

Oh, you're still here? Okay, here we go.

~ 114 ~

Find hex [x48, y46] (where it all began) and deselect the two panzer divisions so that only the 269th ID is selected. Our goal for this division is to pin the Soviet 23 Tank Division (TD) and the 10th Rifle Corps (RC) HQ along with he 9th AT Brigade by moving into hex [x49 ,y43]. Reference the following screen shot:

Now move the 269th ID to that hex. After you move your map should look like this:

~ 115 ~

Now, before you get all exciting and being moving all the units all over the place, please control yourself General. Select the original stack where the 269th ID came from and watch the panzer light up the map with possible move to locations:

~ 116 ~

Notice that the panzer divisions can reach Riga and other points north, northeast and east wards? Riga is only 150 miles from our present location.

Now I want you to select hex [x47, y46] and only select the 1st ID, take a look at the hexes this division may enter and keeping in mind our overall plan, go ahead and move this division to hex [x49, y41] to help form the outside of the inner pocket. Reference the screen shot below and your map should look like this:

~ 117 ~

Go ahead and release and move the 1st ID to that hex. Your map should now look like this:

~ 118 ~

Notice the hexes change to pending control? Good, now select the hex where the 1st ID came from to move the 21st ID. Notice the possible hexes to move to now hover over hex [x46, y39], place the 21st ID here will help seal with zones of control the bottom pocket of units and maintain some semblance of contact with the 1st ID. Reference the screen shot below your map should look like:

~ 119 ~

Now right click this hex to move the 21st ID here, your map should now resemble this screen shot:

~ 120 ~

Notice we have a 30 mile gap between the two divisions? Quit panicking, this will be just fine General.

Alright, select hex [x46, y45] with the third and final infantry division of the I Corps the 11th ID and move it to hex [x48, y42]. Your map should look like this before you move it:

~ 121 ~

Now go ahead and move the 11th ID to that rail hex. Once done your screen should look like this:

~ 122 ~

Okay, time to spread out, to do so simply click on the build up/break down toggle button, your map should look like this screen shot:

~ 123 ~

Pick any regiment of the division by deselecting the other two (in our case I selected the 3/11th ID, you can tell this by the name which changes in the unit bar on the right) and move it 10 miles (1 hex) due east [x49, y42] and then select and move one regiment (in our case I used the 2nd regiment) 10 miles northwest [x47, y41], leaving one regiment (again in my case the 1st regiment) in the current hex [x48, y42].

Now if you have been following along and have not made any mistakes when you select the I Corps HQ unit your map should look like this screen shot:

~ 124 ~

In the above screen shot we have the I Corps HQ selected and we can see where the two breakdown regiments moved to signified by the two gold arrows extending out from the gold rectangle and now we see something new which is indicated by the two green diamonds. Both the 21st and the 1st ID are highlighted by the game system in a red outline, this tells us that both divisions are out of command and control. We need to rectify this issue immediately. To do so simply select the I Corps HQ and right click on the hex we want to move it to, in this case we need to protect our HQ unit from any Soviet units trying to break out of the pocket so we are going to move it to hex [x49, y42] and stack it with the 1/11th ID unit. Once you have done just that your map should look like this screen shot:

~ 125 ~

Okay, lets shift gears a bit and work with the XXVI Corps.

First lets select the 291st ID in Memel [x45, y43]. Since you already know how to do a deliberate attack go ahead and attack Kretinga [x46, y42] you get at least a rout if not an all out shatter (elimination) of that Soviet 10th Rifle Division. Your map should look like this screen shot:

~ 126 ~

Up in the left I cut & paste the hex info from the general info display and the unit info bar on the right to show you that when you select a city or urban hex the name will show up and if it has a port symbol that will be indicated as well.

~ 127 ~

Hopefully, the screen shot is self explanatory, the one item to take note of is the pink text and rectangle area, this is where you can select AA support units to help defend this city from Soviet air bombing missions.

Continuing on reselect the Memel hex to select the 291st ID and do a deliberate attack at hex [x46, y43] versus the 46th Fortified unit. You should be able to cause this unit to surrender. Your map some resemble this screen after you attack the 46th Fortified unit:

~ 128 ~

Now go ahead and move the 291st ID directly into Kretinga and stop (for now) the following screen shot shows that move.

~ 129 ~

Now go ahead and select hex [x46, y44] and select the 61st ID and see which hexes it may possibly enter.

~ 130 ~

Move the 61st ID to hex [x47, y37] when done your map should look like this:

~ 131 ~

Lets pause for just a few minutes and look at the map and think about what we have learned and done thus far, when your done pack your bags and meet me back here.

All Aboard! (or Did He Just Say Cho-Cho?)

Okay this is a small scenario but just for completion sake let's take a little trip. Locate hex [40x, y48] where you'll find the L Corps HQ and the 86th ID. With both of these units selected select the Rail Mode (5.3.2.1) button (or F2) to place the units on a train. Now when you mouse over hexes only the hexes that the units can move via rail are 'lit up'. Essentially, the rail hexes must be undamaged and friendly controlled. More details can be found in your field manuals in sections 14.2 and 14.2.1.

To move by rail simply select the units and then select their destination hex. In our case that will be where the gold rectangle is on the following screen shot or hex [x47, y46]:

~ 132 ~

Now before we move these units via you'll note that I pasted a cut-away from the unit bar on the right along with part of the general info display, when you place the game in Rail Mode your Rail Cap will be displayed here. In our case it is now at 9,126.

Go ahead and right click hex [x47, y46] and watch these two units move via rail mode. When they arrive at the train depot your map should look like this:

~ 133 ~

Notice that when you begin moving a unit in Rail Mode a little icon graphic representing a train is on the counter, also, from the unit panel you can see that in the unit display each unit will show On Train to indicate that the unit is entrained and the in Current Strategic Movement Points (SMP) Available, in our case it shows 62 for both units. Lastly, up in the general display the Rail Cap is then subtracted based on the unit(s) transport cost and is reflected here as 4,756 rail capacity left to move in rail mode. Again, you can find each units transport cost by bring up the unit display and locating the value on the right hand side (see other section above in tutorial).

Now let's put the game back into Move Mode (F1), once you do that the system will automatically disembark the units in the current location if they have enough movement points to do so.

~ 134 ~

As you can see in the above screen shot both units now have 47% left, go ahead and deselect the L Corps HQ. Now you can see in this screen shot the amount of MP to move into either one of these hexes.

~ 135 ~

Early on I promised I'd show you a hasty attack (5.3.1.2), let's go ahead and move the 86th ID into Taurage [x47, y45] and while hovering the mouse over hex [x47, y44] you'll note that the mouse curser changes. This is the hasty attack cursor.

~ 136 ~

Let's attack this position using a hasty attack see what happens. Your results may have been different but in my case the defenders held their positions, why is that? Well the reason is because that Soviet 90th Rifle Division is in a swamp hex, so a deliberate attack would have been in order. You may be wondering why I brought the HQ up by rail the reason for that is so that the attack could get some possible support units, mainly artillery units in the attack.

Let's do a deliberate attack now that we know better we should have just enough movement to do so. In my run through the Soviet 90th Rifle Division was routed 80 miles northeast to the town of Mazeikiai (hex [x50, y39]), as you can see the deliberate attack was much more successful than a hasty attack in this case as per this screen shot:

~ 137 ~

Land Ahoy (or you want me to do what with that ship?)

Okay, as you can see in these training moves, these may not be the most optimal use of forces but you're learning all the tools you need to fight in War in the East.

First, put the game into Naval Transport Mode (F3) and then find the port of Pillau in hex [x39, y48] and click on that hex Your map should look like this:

~ 138 ~

As you can see above the pasted graphic on the left is from the general display and the unit panel. Following the red curved line is the path needed to take to transport this unit to the port of Memel via Naval transport. Go ahead and transport the Polizei SS ID to Memel, when you do this a new graphic icon representing a ship is placed on the unit as it moves, when your done your map should look like this screen shot:

~ 139 ~

Once the unit is safely in port put the game back into Move Mode. In the image below the gold rectangle is the final destination where we want the Polizei to go, this will allow this division to gain pending control of that last remaining hex.

~ 140 ~

Go ahead and move the Polizei SS ID to hex [x46, y40] and notice in the below screen shot the gold rectangle around the command radius from the unit panel display (pasted from the right side of the screen) showing (6/5). This means this division is out of command radius. Also, in the screen shot below the L Corps HQ is now selected and the Polizei SS ID is outlined in red indicating the status that it's out of command.

~ 141 ~

Move the L Corps HQ one hex NE to put the Polizei SS ID back in command radius.

~ 142 ~

As this above screen shot indicates the Polizei SS ID is now back in command radius, this is signified by the blue outline around it and from the unit panel on the right (pasted here on left) showing (5/5).

~ 143 ~

Forward March (or Here we go again, your left, right, left...)

Okay, locate the XXXVIII Corps HQ, this corps only has one unit assigned to it, the 58th ID. Deselect the HQ and hover the mouse over hex [x46, y38]. Your map should look like:

Right click to move the 58th ID to this location. When the 58th ID moves here your map should look like this:

~ 144 ~

Select the 291st ID in Kretinga and notice the allowable hexes it can enter. Move it to hex [x47, y40]. Now select the 217th ID in hex [x46, y44] and move hover hex [x50, y40] your map should look like this:

~ 145 ~

Right click this hex to move the 217th ID here, notice the Soviet 90th Rifle Division will displace to Kuldiga hex [x49, y35]. Yours may be a little different but should look something like this:

~ 146 ~

Select hex [x45, y44] to move the XXVI Corps HQ to put the two divisions that are out of command back in command. Prior to doing this your map should look like the screen shot below, in it you'll noticed two of the three divisions are out of command radius. Also note that it is always a bad idea to leave a HQ unit alone in a hex when near the front lines, if you look at any HQ TOE you can see why it's not a good idea to do this.

~ 147 ~

After moving the XXVI Corps HQ to hex [x47, y40] both of the divisions that were out of command radius are now back in command radius, your map should look like:

~ 148 ~

When you select the XXXVIII Corps HQ you'll note that its only assigned unit is out of command. Move this HQ to the divisions location, when done your map should look like:

~ 149 ~

From this location let's try a deliberate attack with the 58th ID against that port of Liepaja containing the Soviet 67th Rifle Division and the 41st Fortified Region (brigade). One thing to note is that during normal turns a deliberate attack costs a unit 6 MP to perform, however, during the Axis first turn one of the special rules is this instead costs only 3 MP to do. Below in pink diamond is the outline of the attack and the gold rectangle is the unit Soviet stack attacked by deliberate attack.

~ 150 ~

Here are my results, as you can see the Soviet 67th Rifle Division routed to 100 miles Jelgava while the fort unit surrendered.

~ 151 ~

Now move south and find the town Ebenrode at hex [x50, y49] and deselect all divisions except for the 121st ID.

~ 152 ~

With the 121st ID only selected hold the shift key down to perform a deliberate attack due east on Virbalis in hex [x51, y49] where the Soviet 33rd Rifle Division is located. After my attack on the 33rd Rifle Division I got a shattered result as per below.

~ 153 ~

Now move the 121st ID east in the just vacated hex your map should look like this:

~ 154 ~

Perform another deliberate attack against the Soviet Rifle Corps HQ and the AT Brigade, in my attempt I got a retreat as per the screen shot below:

Move the 121st ID east one more hex and perform a hasty attack, I got another retreat.

~ 155 ~

Lastly move the 121st ID to its last hex, your map should look like:

~ 156 ~

Return back the 121st ID starting location and select the stack of the remaining two II Corps units and only select the 12th ID. Note the possible locations the 12th ID can move to and hover the mouse over hex [x54, y47] just across the Neman river (circled in gold rectangle) which is also NW of Kaunas, your map should look like this screen shot:

Now right click to move the 121st ID to this location. Your map should look like:

~ 157 ~

Select the 32nd ID, the last combat unit of the II Corps and notice the possible hexes this unit could move to as the screen shot below indicates:

~ 158 ~

Right click to move the 32nd ID into the swamp at hex [x54, y48], your map should look like:

~ 159 ~

Okay, now select the II Corps HQ itself and you'll note that the 12th ID is out of command, let's go ahead and move the HQ to the 121st ID hex.

~ 160 ~

We can play it safe or take a gamble, let's roll the dice, Kaunas is a City hex and has an AA level of 18, a fort level of only 1 and the Soviet 84th Motorized ID along with 8 SAD Air Base and the 11th Army. For this training let's try a deliberate attack with the 32nd ID. Prior to the attack your map should look like this with the 32nd ID selected.

~ 161 ~

Just hover the mouse over Kaunas as per above an notice the items in gold, the AA and Fort level in particular. When you're done bring up the 32nd ID unit display.

~ 162 ~

Note the items in gold rectangles, this tells us a lot about this units fatigue, which is low, its TOE at about 100%, you can't get any better than that, and it's Morale of 90 which is superb. Now let's take a look at the II Corps HQ below.

~ 163 ~

As you can see the II Corps HQ has a lot of artillery and engineer assets. Now go back and select the 32nd ID, while holding the shift key down hover the mouse over the 12th ID, it just so happens to have enough MP to participate in this deliberate attack, that will not always be the case so you have to set these type of attacks up carefully. When you have more than one unit selected for a deliberate attack over on the right in the unit panel the units will be selected or deselected as shown in this screen shot:

~ 164 ~

Now go ahead and right click Kaunas with both infantry divisions attacking supported by the II Corps HQ. In my case I got a shattered (which effectively destroyed the division) your results may vary.

~ 165 ~

As you can see we shattered the Soviet 84th Motorized Division and cause the 8 SAD air base and 11th Army HQ to displace. If you hover around the map you'll find this air base is now at Kedainiai a town hex 20 miles NE (or hex [x56, y46]).

Our 32nd ID does not have enough MP to enter Kaunas, but it does have enough MP to make a quick hasty attack on the adjacent Soviet 10th AT Brigade. In my situation I got another shatter result and moved the 32nd in to occupy the vacated hex as this screen shot shows:

~ 166 ~

Well since the infantry is on a roll lets continue on with elements of the XXVIII Corps. You'll find the HQ and two divisions in hex [x50, y48] deselect all units except for the 122nd ID and notice it's allowable hexes to enter. Following screen shots shows the 122nd ID selected and the desired hex to enter.

~ 167 ~

Right click to move the 122nd ID to this location as per the screen shot below:

~ 168 ~

Now select the 126th ID in hex [x49, y47] and deselect the 30th ID, we want to perform a deliberate attack against the Soviet 5th Rifle Division due east in hex [x50, y47], as outlined in a gold hexagon per below.

~ 169 ~

Hold down the shift key and right click to perform the deliberate attack on the Soviet 5th Rifle Division. My result was a routing of the Soviet 5th Rifle Division 120 miles back to Utena, see below:

This now frees up the 123rd ID to move and gain some hex ownership (you should by now have the whole select/deselect units in a hex down now so I'll dispense with that). See below screen shot, but the 123rd ID is highlighted in a pink circle, the yellow circles are potential hexes to move to, but the gold rectangle in hex [x54, y44] offers the better encirclement options so let's move the 123rd ID to that location. Your map should look something like so:

~ 170 ~

Select hex [x49, y47] and only using the 126th ID perform a deliberate attack on hex [x50, y46], my result was a rout as per below:

~ 171 ~

After the rout I moved the 126th ID into that attacked and vacated hex (indicated by the pink circle) and then in this screen shot I selected the 30th ID and am looking at the various possible hexes to move into. I think that hex [x52, y45] (the gold circle) is the better position to place this unit in (will become clearer later on). Your map should reflect this:

~ 172 ~

Go ahead and move the 30th ID to this location, also from its originating hex select the X Corps HQ and move it into the 126th ID hex. Your map should resemble this screen shot:

~ 173 ~

Locate the 253rd ID in hex [x47, y49] and move it to hex [x51, y44] this will help seal that bottom pocket.

Now select the XXVII Corps HQ unit, you'll see two divisions are now out of command range per the screen shot below:

~ 174 ~

Go ahead and move the XXVIII Corps HQ to hex [x54, y47], even though this move is to another division in another corps moving it does three things a) it centers the HQ between its two divisions, b) it places it under the protection of the 12th ID and c) we can attach the 290th ID (from the LVI Panzer Corps) latter on if need be. After moving the HQ to this location your map should look like this:

~ 175 ~

Locate the 16th Army HQ. Notice the directly attached 253rd ID is outlined in red, even though it's with in command range, this means the division will not get combat support since it's greater than 5 hexes to this HQ.

Now select the 253rd ID, and bring up the unit display.

~ 176 ~

Click the text link to bring up a list of valid HQ to reassign this division.

~ 177 ~

Select the first one the X Corps HQ, notice that if the HQ fails the roll it will cost 6 AP to perform this task, also note that you can see how many units are directly attached to the HQ in question based on attachment costs. In this case the X Corps HQ is at 4 or two divisions assigned. Go ahead and click the X Corps text link to reassign the 253rd ID to it.

~ 178 ~

When done that display goes away and it will indicate how many AP it cost, in my case instead of the full amount it cost me 3 AP meaning the HQ passed to roll. Also, on the unit display you can see the new HQ this unit is now assigned to. Close this to view the map and only select the X Corps HQ unit to see it's assigned units.

Rail Repair (or how to fix broken track)

~ 179 ~

Locate and select the FBD 4 unit in the town of Tilsit (hex [x46, y47]), and notice before you move this unit the value RRV and RRC in the unit panel display on the right when this unit is selected the map should look like this:

Now, move this unit to the town Taurage (hex [x47, y45] to repair (14.2.2) that rail line hex.

~ 180 ~

When the FBD 4 unit enters a repairable hex the RRC text value changes to a clickable text link value depending on which rail line it is on, in our case we are in the Baltic Rail Zone so the repair costs are 1 MP (non-Baltic costs 3 MP) as is shown in both the above and below screen shots from the unit panel display. For more details please consult your field manual and check sections 14.2.2.3 through 14.2.2.4 for more information.

~ 181 ~

Go ahead and click that clickable text link to repair the rail line, when done your map should show the following:

Notice how the RRC value is reset again due to the rail line being repaired and notice in the two gold circled hexes east can also be entered and repaired. Go ahead and move the FBD 4 to the next hex and verify that the text link changes to indicate another hex can be repair.

~ 182 ~

Go ahead and repair that rail line and move the FBD 4 unit the next hex and repair that also, but stop and go no further. In the screen shot above you'll note a green hexagon painted on the map, that hex you can't and don't want to enter unless you can get a combat unit there, otherwise the RBD 4 unit would be displaced.

Now toggle the Rail Damage on and view the following screen shot, the green lines are fully function for both rail and supply rail hexes, the orange ones in the pink circled area are the ones we just repaired and will become available next turn for supply and rail movement and lastly the red rounded rectangles indicate the damages rail lines on the map thus far.

~ 183 ~

Find, locate and select the 285th Security Division (SD) in hex [x43, y48]. Your map should look like this:

~ 184 ~

Go ahead and move it to hex [x50, y44] the gold circled hex in the above screen shot), when done your screen should look like this:

~ 185 ~

Now select the FBD 4 unit again and you'll noticed that it can move into the hex that the 285th SD has just moved into as per below:

Move the FDB 4 unit into that hex and repair the rail hex, your map should look like:

~ 186 ~

Continuing on with that train of thought (pun intended) find and select the 281st SD located in hex [x43, y48], now flip over to Rail Mode, entrain the 281st SD and rail that unit to the city of Ebenrode (hex [x50, y49]. Once their detrain the 281st SD. Your map should look like this:

Select the 101st RHG Command HQ, you'll note that both Security units are out of support range, but that is okay for now, reference the below screen shot:

~ 187 ~

Above we have the 281st SD in its detrained hex. Next just move it one hex due east to guard the rail hex and the town of Virbalis.

Start Yer Engines (or Panzers Forward!)

Go to hex [x48, y47] and select just the 290th ID. Let's move the 290th ID to hex [x55, y46], adjacent to the town Kedaimiai which has the 3rd Mech Corps, 11th Army and the 8 SAD Air Base. Prior to moving the 290th ID your map should look like this:

After moving the 290th ID adjacent to Kedaimiai the Soviets units will displace your map should look like this:

~ 188 ~

In the above screen shot you can see the Soviet 3rd Mech HQ, 11th Army HQ and the 8 SAD AB all displace, there are more details in your field manual on displacement in section 15.10 .

Let's zoom out one level and then find the LVI Panzer Corps HQ which is located in hex [x48, y48], deselect the LVI Panzer Corps HQ so that only the 3rd Motorized Division is selected, your map should look like this:

~ 189 ~

As you can see there are many possibilities to choose from. We could probably explore, analyze and debate several that would cover many pages and I don't have time to write that much, so I'll just be conservative and pick some locations to move our last two Panzer Corps unit to with the goal being the encirclement and destruction of as many Soviet units as possible.

3rd Motorized Division mission therefore is to begin by moving to hex [x59, y44] once there breakdown the 3rd Motorized Division, move one element 20 miles NW and send one element SE 40 miles. When you're done the map should look like this screen shot:

~ 190 ~

Select the LVI Panzer Corps HQ and notice all the units that are out of command range as per below:

~ 191 ~

Move the LVI Panzer Corps HQ to the broken down 3rd Motorized Division regiment outlined in the pink circle above. When done your map should look like the screen shot below:

~ 192 ~

Now select the 8th Panzer Division and notice all the hexes this unit can reach as per below:

~ 193 ~

As the screen shot above shows move the 8th PD to hex [x60, y46], notice how the control shifted as below:

~ 194 ~

Now move one hex NW to hex [x59, y45], and then thread one hex NE to hex [x60, y44] (shown on the map above), your map should look like:

~ 195 ~

Move the 8th PD to hex [x61, y42], then to hex [x60, y40], then finally to hex [x58, y39] (all in gold circles above), your map should resemble the following:

~ 196 ~

Now select the LVI Panzer Corps HQ and deselect the 1/3rd Motorized Division and you can verify that all units attached to this corps are in command and control as per the following screen shot:

~ 197 ~

Our last units to move are the XXXXI Panzer Corps which is located in hex [x47, y47]. Select that hex and deselect the Panzer Corps HQ so that only the 36th Motorized Division is showing its possible hexes to move into:

~ 198 ~

First let's start by moving the 36th Motorized Division to hex [x51, y39] and then to hex [x53, y37] as indicated above in the gold circles, when done your map should look like this:

~ 199 ~

Now select hex [x47, y47] again to move the XXXXI Panzer Corps HQ and move this HQ to where the 36th Motorized Division is, when done your map should look like:

~ 200 ~

After you move the XXXXI Panzer Corps HQ to this location your map should look like:

~ 201 ~

Only two more panzer divisions to move, first select hex [x48, y46] and only select the 1st PD, your map should look like:

~ 202 ~

As the above screen shot indicates move the 1st PD to the town of Mazeikiai (hex [x50, y39] and then to hex [x54, y38]. Once in that hex breakdown the division and move two element to hex [x54, y39], drop one off here and then move the other to hex [x55, y39], now go back to hex [x54, y38] and move the last element into each of these hexes that each of

~ 203 ~

the previous two regiments entered, you'll have to deselect the one you don't' want to move, and finally move this last element to hex [x56, y39], your map should look like this:

Now select the 6th PD in hex [x48, y46] and review the hexes it can enter below:

~ 204 ~

Move the 6th PD to move it to hex [x55, y38] the Soviet 67th Rifle Division and 8th Army in Jelgava (town hex [x55, y37] have dispersed. See below:

~ 205 ~

Continue moving the 6th PD to hex [x56, y35], your map should look like this:

~ 206 ~

Okay now take the middle broken down regiment from the 1st PD and move it one hex SE to hex [x56, y40] and then move the regiment to its right one hex SE to hex [x57, y40], your map should now look like:

Now let's go back and select only the 36th Motorized Division in hex [x53, y37] and move it to hex [x56, y34] and lastly take the XXXXI Panzer Corps HQ and move it to hex [x54, y39], your map should look like:

~ 207 ~

Finally, select the Totenkopf SS Mot.Div. in hex [x46, y48] to see the possible hexes this unit can move to as per below:

~ 208 ~

Note the gold path and circles for the Totenkopf to follow above. Move the Totenkopf to hex [x60, y42] and then on to hex [x63, y42], your map should look like this when the Totenkopf has entered the last hex:

~ 209 ~

Since the Totenkopf is assigned to 4th Panzer Group lets go ahead and reassign it to another HQ by clicking the text link that says HHQ:

~ 210 ~

Reassign it the LVI Panzer Corps as per this display by clicking on the text link LVI Panzer Corps:

~ 211 ~

In the screen shot below we can see the Totenkopf is now assigned to the LVI Panzer Corps HQ:

Tidying up some loose ends here.

Select the 6th PD and move it 20 miles SE to hex [x57, y37]:

~ 212 ~

Locate the 217th ID and move it 10 miles SE hex [x50, y41].

Turn in Review (or wow lots to do?)

Zoom out a level and review your map it should look something like below.

~ 213 ~

As you can see we have one big pocket, one small pocket and have a unit next to Riga and one the Totenkopf 20 miles for the Daugava Rver. Not an optimized turn but a decent one and more importantly for you to learn some basics.

Use either the F11 hot key or select toggle battles to view what we have done this turn:

~ 214 ~

As you can see we attacked all along the border, each one of the icon has a meaning more of which can be found in your field manuals (5.4.11.2). You can hover over a icon or click the icon to review the details of the battle, as per below:

~ 215 ~

You can cycle through the battle reports when there is more than one battle in a hex, also in F11 mode you can see the Soviet units that escaped the battle to fight another day outlined in the gold rectangle above.

Click on the Info Screen tab and let's review a few things.

First look at the OOB totals just to get an overall view of your forces versus the Soviets.

~ 216 ~

Now click on the Show Losses button, first we see ground losses with the totals outlined in gold and pink rectangles:

~ 217 ~

Click on the Air Losses to toggle to the air losses thus far, again gold and pink rectangles show the losses with the red circles showing the totals:

~ 218 ~

Toggle on the Destroyed Units to view the destroyed units report:

Now click the Victory Levels button to bring up the Victory Points display:

~ 219 ~

Finally the Commanders Report which reveals a few things we need to correct:

~ 220 ~

When we sort by DtHq it shows that two units are out of command. For now we can't do anything about the 269th ID, but we can move the 4th Panzer Group HQ a little close to the front to bring the LVI corps back into command and control.

Move the 4P Air Base located at hex [x46, y48] to [x50, y48] and then move the 4th Panzer Group HQ to the same location.

Okay now click on the Battles tab to reveal a report on the battles for the turn.

~ 221 ~

If you have not done so already now is a good time to save your turn.

End the Turn (or what it's been a long time)

To end the turn click the end turn button or the hot key F12 as per below:

Go ahead and click the end the turn button, an end turn display yes/no will appear select yes.

~ 222 ~

After you click yes, then the game will do the Soviet turn, when the AI is done moving and your turn begins the Show Losses display is shown with the total losses.

~ 223 ~

Go ahead and review your air losses for turn 1:

~ 224 ~

Close the losses screen and the map will be displayed with a new turn 2, you can see the handy work of our pocket below:

~ 225 ~

Click on the show events log to see the replacement, supplies and other various messages:

~ 226 ~

You'll need to scroll through the log a bit:

~ 227 ~

~ 228 ~

Couple things to note with regards to the event log. Logistics are very detailed and most of the system is performed by the game itself, but there are some things a player can mange I have just touched on a few here, and more on supply can be found in section 20. Also, there is no production on the first turn therefore none of the factories have yet begun producing any items, it takes about three turns for the production system to get up to full speed, so by turns three or four there should be less factories with no supplies. There is much more detail in section 21 of your field manuals on this subject.

Wrap Up and Review (or congratulations you have been promoted)

Okay, now for some reviewing of logistics reference the screen show below:

Here we can see that its now turn 2. Our motor pool is now at 66K with 15K and we have 21 AP. Also since we have the show supply mode toggled on we can see that the Soviets in the pocket are out of supply, while that Security Regiment is drawing port/naval supply indicated by the orange outline.

~ 229 ~

If we set the Soft Factor to Supply our map will change as per this screen shot:

Here we can see that a majority of the Soviet units themselves are suffering from different levels of supply shortages, indicated by the green, orange and red supply indicators on the left of the counters.

Now if we toggle to the Soft Factor fuel we will see the following on our map:

~ 230 ~

Again, the Soviet units are suffering from fuel shortages in the pockets and we can also see one of our RR repair units and the Polizei SS Inf Div are showing some fuel shortages.

Let's dig a little deeper, bring up the unit display for the Polizei SS Inf Div with the Soft Factor for fuel still set.

~ 231 ~

From the unit panel we can see the tonnage of supplies (168%), fuel (55%) and ammo (162%) as well as the Supply/Fuel/Ammo/Support verses the Need value in each category and lastly the In Supply status showing us the MP to the rail head.

Go ahead and click the text link for the Supply Details display.

~ 232 ~

Here we can now see in more detail the In Unit versus what is required for all the categories of supplies, fuel, ammo, and vehicles. As you can see these percentages are reflected on the unit panel. So for the Polizei SS unit it's required fuel is 39 tons, but it only has 22 tons or 55% is in the unit. Also, look at the Fuel received this unit only received 49% of its required allotment. So either not enough was produced or the leader failed in his check to distribute fuel to this unit. Also of interest is the MP to HQ and Range to HQ values.

~ 233 ~

Now with the soft factor still set at supplies go ahead and close these displays out and locate and find the 81st Construction Battalion:

Now we have not talked about these units let so let's go ahead and do so. These are units that you can't control, they are automated from HQ units and sent out to repair rail lines for you. At most, the only thing you can do is to return them to the HQ from whence they came by selecting the Return to HQ button.

Go ahead and click the 81st Const. Bn text link to bring up the unit detail display.

~ 234 ~

Like combat and HQ units these units have a TOE, fatigue level and supply needs. Click on the Supply Details to bring up that display as follows:

~ 235 ~

As you can see the unit consumes and receives supplies like any other unit. Close this display and click on the Labor Squad text link on the left hand side to bring up the ground element detail window.

~ 236 ~

Labor squads are like any other element, but their main purpose is to fill out construction units and rebuild rail lines and dig entrenchments.

Now we did get a reinforcement, 20 miles west of Koenigsberg you'll find the 96th Infantry Division.

~ 237 ~

You'll note that supply soft factor is toggled and this unit is low on supplies (60%) go ahead and click on this unit to bring up the unit details display.

~ 238 ~

As you can see in the gold rectangle above, only the Supply/Needs is out of sync for this just arrived unit.

Let's click on the Supply Details to bring up that display.

~ 239 ~

Some interesting facts here, but most of this we have covered earlier but now we can see after one turn the supply and logistic are now kicking in. Note the fuel, supply and ammo source and the MP and range to HQ and finally the vehicles received and supply consumed.

Okay now it's your turn go ahead and run a full turn by yourself, when your done come back and make some final comparisons if you'd like, see if you do better then I.

~ 240 ~

Here is the start of my turn two only 26 Soviet units destroyed in two weeks.

Now toggle the soft factor in fuel mode and put the map in fly Air Transport mode (F9) you may look like this:

~ 241 ~

All the German motorized and panzer units are outline in pink showing low fuel, since I flew most of my air missions I could only get one air supply transport mission to drop 37 tons of supply on the Totenkopf SS Mot.Div.

To fly an air transport mission you right click on the unit you want to try to drop fuel and supplies to, sometimes you may need to fly several missions to the hex to bring the unit back up in fuel and supplies.

~ 242 ~

Finish up your turn 2 and move on to turn 3. You'll note at the start of this turn those units that were low on fuel were able to receive more fuel as per the following screen shot:

This is because the HQs that are distributing supply to the subordinate HQ and from those HQ they in turn are distributing down to their subordinate units using both the logistics phase and the supply grid each turn.

~ 243 ~

Try another turn on your own, don't forgot to go for the objectives. Here is what the end of my turn three looks like and the objectives captured were Tallinn and Velikie Luki:

Here is a zoomed in close up of Velikie Luki:

~ 244 ~

And here is a zoomed in close up of Tallinn:

~ 245 ~

Here is the final map screen shot for this boot camp.

~ 246 ~

As you can see I have 7 of the objectives, there still is 11 turns left so maybe the Soviets will retake them, maybe I'll get Leningrad. Remember this was on easy setting and I did not optimize any moves. So I challenge you to take Riga on the first turn and capture as many objectives as you can by turn 6.

Well Generals, it has been a pleasure discussing the art of war to you, now you are now on your own and even though your results may vary, but you are now on your way to becoming a master of Gary Grigsby War in the East.

Written By Don Lazov @ (12/23/2010) Version 1.05