Operation Blue - thinking about buing Gustav

[Hochmeister]

Guys, right now I am at Operation Blue mission and playing this campaign on general difficulty. I want go through nonhistorical path for this (my second) campaign.

In this mission I would like to buy and use Gustav gun, quite useful for this mission, I probably don't need it, but I just want to have fun. On the other hand I am afraid, that if I buy this luxury, then I won't be able to finish Stalingrad and have enough prestige to go the nonhistorical round.

Now details of situation:

1)general's traits - Panzer general, Industrial connections, master of blitzkrieg, no overstrength

2) amount of prestige : after elite replenishment - over 5500 prestige, after normal replenishment - over 6000 prestige
- On scout car I have hero with trait : double prestige for capturing flags/ objective
3) composition of my army or rather corp: 99 slots used out of 107

Infantry: 3 pioneers with basic transport, 4 fallschimjagers (one with basic transport, other three none), one brickenpioneers

tanks: 3 panzer IV aus G, 3 Panzer III aus J, 1 SdKfz 251/16 Flamm,

Recon: SdKfz 232 8 rad

Anti-Tank: two 5cm Pak 38 (Sf)

Artillery: one 15cm Nblwf 41, one 15cm sFH 18 (both with transport), Karl-Gerät.

Anti-Aircraft: two 88 mm

Fighters: 3 Bf 109G

Tactical bombers: two Bf 110G, two Ju 87D

Plane recon: one Bf 109 PR

Strategic bombers: 2 Do 217 E

4) my skill - not great not terrible.

So I would like to know, if I can buy Gustav with clear mind or if it is foolish to buy Gustav in this situation, when I want later go nonhistorical path and should focus on strenghtening other parts of my army.

Thanks for advices in advance and sorry for my english

[Lamp Cord 훏훠]

I bought it and it made every scenario after that much easier. With the exception of Sealion and U.S. East Coast because you can't deploy there. If you get it, reserve a fighter to cover it at the end of every turn and never leave it in reach of enemy arty or ground units. You don't want it to take any damage because it can't be repaired.

It can basically wipe out or completely nerf almost any enemy ground unit in one shot. This includes U.S. super heavy tanks. It's practically a tactical nuke.

I had significantly more prestige than you and could still afford the non-historic path. If I were you I'd get it anyway and just try to capture, capture, capture in order to afford non-hist path. Plus, if you really needed to I think you could sell it and get your $5k back. Not sure though, never tried that.

[Accolon]

The Gustav Gun is not needed as long as you have the KARL. I am at the last mission of blue before I switch to the non-historical path to win the war on Generalissmus with 16k prestige after i bought both Karl and Gustav. (8k total). That is possible on that difficulty level only with War Trophy. I my eyes if you play with the standard setup 50% random, etc. you can easily win on General Difficulty as long as you have one of the powerhouses.

[Accolon]

Originally posted by Hochmeister:

Guys, right now I am at Operation Blue mission and playing this campaign on general difficulty. I want go through nonhistorical path for this (my second) campaign.



Now details of situation:

1)general's traits - Panzer general, Industrial connections, master of blitzkrieg, no overstrength


Infantry: 4 fallschimjagers

I checked your units and I wouldnt take 4 Fallschirmjäger anyway. I guess your a german so I would pick 2 Grenadiers and you have 6 core slots left to pick more artillery which is not enuff. The 15cm Is a must have from the beginning. Better 2 of them. They support vs EVERYTHING.

Good luck. :-)

[Hochmeister]

Well I have already done the mission before you wrote answers and I did not buy Gustav for this. I felt in my guts, that I really need: 1) more powerfull antitanks who could be used not just as support, but as tank hunters too.
2) another plane recon
3) and one more artillery+ upgrade nebelwarfer to more mobile wufrahmen 40 - I bought stug III (low on slots)
4) another tank, ( but I bought it just because I needed one unit to guard the town west from Rostov
5) another antiair canon

Well I used that many fallschirmjägers, because there were 3 air transport available. It was actually really valuable. thanks to that I was able to conquer towns faster. If the air transport wasn't available, then yes, I would have two grenadiers and two fallschirmjäggers instead.

And no I am not german, I am czech. :)

Now I have over 7500 prestige for Stalingrad (after replenishment and disbanding that one tank). So maybe now it is better time to buy Gustav, maybe, I'll think about it

Anyway thanks for advices.

[Hochmeister]

Originally posted by Accolon:

The Gustav Gun is not needed as long as you have the KARL. I am at the last mission of blue before I switch to the non-historical path to win the war on Generalissmus with 16k prestige after i bought both Karl and Gustav. (8k total). That is possible on that difficulty level only with War Trophy. I my eyes if you play with the standard setup 50% random, etc. you can easily win on General Difficulty as long as you have one of the powerhouses.

Originally posted by Pro-Change Party:

I bought it and it made every scenario after that much easier. With the exception of Sealion and U.S. East Coast because you can't deploy there. If you get it, reserve a fighter to cover it at the end of every turn and never leave it in reach of enemy arty or ground units. You don't want it to take any damage because it can't be repaired.

It can basically wipe out or completely nerf almost any enemy ground unit in one shot. This includes U.S. super heavy tanks. It's practically a tactical nuke.

I had significantly more prestige than you and could still afford the non-historic path. If I were you I'd get it anyway and just try to capture, capture, capture in order to afford non-hist path. Plus, if you really needed to I think you could sell it and get your $5k back. Not sure though, never tried that.

Another question, It seems to me that I didn't make good job with right spending of prestige. How did you spend prestige throughout campaign? I heavily focus on keeping experience (when it seemed to me that I have more than enough prestige) and upgrading units in this campaign. I didn't take big loses overall, yes some units did suffer lot, but compare to my first campaign, that happened just rarely thanks to keeping eye on having artilerry's/antitanks' support.

[Magni]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQRW0RM4V0k

It's a giant ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ railway gun, just pick it for the laughs if the other reasons aren't enough.

Besides, the historical campaign path is more fun anyway,

[Hochmeister]

I heard that, Magni, but I played historical path in my first campaign, so now I want to do the non historical path.

[kverdon]

I actually found you can repair Gustav or Karl if you have a Field Repairs Hero. I lost a point to counter battery fire and next scenario I applied my Field Repair hero and after one idle turn I was back to full strength.

[Lamp Cord 훏훠]

Originally posted by Hochmeister:

Another question, It seems to me that I didn't make good job with right spending of prestige. How did you spend prestige throughout campaign? I heavily focus on keeping experience (when it seemed to me that I have more than enough prestige) and upgrading units in this campaign. I didn't take big loses overall, yes some units did suffer lot, but compare to my first campaign, that happened just rarely thanks to keeping eye on having artilerry's/antitanks' support.

How I manage prestige:

1) I always use experienced replacements except for throwaway units like recon planes. By the time I get to US pretty much ALL of my Pioniere and Arty are 5 stars.

2) I try to use replacements as little as possible during the scenario so I often have to take damaged units off the front line and hide them till the end of the scenario to save prestige.

3) I do a ton of recon so that I don't leave my units vulnerable to counterattacks. This includes splitting recon planes and trying to cover all reachable map. I also protect them heavily with Arty and AA. This saves me a lot of prestige.

4) I protect my air force early with liberal use of 88's and Anti Air Veteran. Once they have shredded enemy air for 2-3 turns I bring in my fighters to finish them off then my bombers can attack with impunity. I often finish a scenario with 0 damage on my bombers which further saves prestige.

5) I do a LOT of encirclement. Not just for the prestige but also to limit damage to my units in combat as they are often fighting against highly suppressed enemy units.

All of these little things add up.

[Hochmeister]

Originally posted by Pro-Change Party:

Originally posted by Hochmeister:

Another question, It seems to me that I didn't make good job with right spending of prestige. How did you spend prestige throughout campaign? I heavily focus on keeping experience (when it seemed to me that I have more than enough prestige) and upgrading units in this campaign. I didn't take big loses overall, yes some units did suffer lot, but compare to my first campaign, that happened just rarely thanks to keeping eye on having artilerry's/antitanks' support.

How I manage prestige:

1) I always use experienced replacements except for throwaway units like recon planes. By the time I get to US pretty much ALL of my Pioniere and Arty are 5 stars.

2) I try to use replacements as little as possible during the scenario so I often have to take damaged units off the front line and hide them till the end of the scenario to save prestige.

3) I do a ton of recon so that I don't leave my units vulnerable to counterattacks. This includes splitting recon planes and trying to cover all reachable map. I also protect them heavily with Arty and AA. This saves me a lot of prestige.

4) I protect my air force early with liberal use of 88's and Anti Air Veteran. Once they have shredded enemy air for 2-3 turns I bring in my fighters to finish them off then my bombers can attack with impunity. I often finish a scenario with 0 damage on my bombers which further saves prestige.

5) I do a LOT of encirclement. Not just for the prestige but also to limit damage to my units in combat as they are often fighting against highly suppressed enemy units.

All of these little things add up.

Hm, I do all of that, except I neglect to some degree the second one, because either I wasn't sure until last one, two turns, if I need those damaged units or I tried to finish the mission faster, so I needed to split my forces on fronts and couldn't afford to retreat them from the front. And fifth one too, again because I wanted to finish mission faster to get the bonus prestige. But I do the encirclement, if it is fortified strongpoint.

[Hochmeister]

Anyway so conclusion, I bought Gustav in Stalingrad mission, where I could afford it with clear mind. Very useful for this mission. But damn, this mission must be really hard without big boys Gustav and Karl-Gerät. I mean sure you can go heavy arty, but that would require hell lot of infantry to protect them.

[w.f.schepel]

Honestly, all you need is some units to surrender. You can liberally use replacements soon enough. Trophies of war is by far the best trait to get A LOT of prestige. (And as an added bonus, you get nice equipment.) Even without trophies of war, bombers combined with encirclement is really powerful. It just removes enemy units from the fight without killing them. This is why scouts are really powerful. Flexible command is another nice trait to have for this reason.