I’ve always wanted to write this review of Jorge’s campaign. The problem that kept me from writing it was due to my inability to complete his campaign. I couldn’t get the 16th scenario, which is the last scenario, to work. Well, it may not matter because I think I would’ve lost the scenario anyway. Nevertheless, here’s my review of the Reich Defense Campaign.
Before I begin, however, I want you to know that I purposely reconfigured the campaign file to follow only the toughest scenarios and to allow myself to continue the campaign in the event that I lost any particular scenario. This allowed me to see the real Reich Defense Campaign. For equipment files, I used the “Zerstorer” files.
Moving along, the campaign starts unusually for me; the player is given experienced units. The problem I have with this is that when it was time to upgrade, I found it difficult to reassign my experienced anti-tank unit. I do not like these units, but I made an exception for this one by keeping it; I did not want to lose an experienced unit.
What makes this campaign so difficult is its limited prestige points coupled with a very large opposition force. On the 6th scenario, for example, there must have been 100 opposing units. They just kept coming, and coming, and coming. I have 6 tanks and 1 anti-tank unit! Near the end, I thought, OK, I should be seeing fewer units now; I’ve seen and killed 70 units already. Is Jorge nuts enough to put 100 units on the SIXTH scenario? The answer is YES! So, I saw more reinforcements coming in. It’s a darned good thing that the opposing units were understrengthened or I would’ve had serious problems. During the course of the campaign, there were too many times when I almost lost a highly experienced tank because it ran out of ammunition! Talk about scary moments! Because of the opposition’s high numbers, each of my units gained close to 200 experience-level points per scenario. Take a look at Addendum 3, which shows the casualties inflicted and incurred after the 6th scenario. Compare these numbers with the numbers you inflicted and incurred after “Race to Dunkirk” or “Somme” (in The Gallantry of 7.Panzerarmee).
Rather than having such a large, but understrengthened opposition force, I prefer a smaller, but slightly heavier-strengthened bunch. The easiest way to do this is to remove the player’s experienced tank/anti-tank units in the first scenario, replace them with inexperienced Tigers, and reduce the quantity of the opposing units - especially in the first half of the campaign.
The other problem I have with Jorge’s design is that he assigns too many non-core unit leaders. I sometimes found myself cheering if a non-core leader gets killed; that way, my own non-leader core units will have an opportunity to acquire a leader. I don’t have a problem with his assigning one or two non-core unit leaders, but anymore than that is too much. In one scenario, I counted five non-core unit leaders. If I didn’t already have ten core unit leaders, there may have been more.
Despite the many frustrating moments of the campaign, I did have fun at times. Running around with Tigers and King Tigers, and watching them acquire leaders and high experience levels was nice. Moreover, there’s nothing like the feeling of acquiring a brilliant victory! - or something close to it anyway.
In the closing scenarios, I made a serious error in “The Battle for Berlin”, the 15th scenario. I thought it was the last scenario, so I allowed my youngest King Tiger to get killed. At the end of the scenario, I took the last victory hex, and to my surprise, I went into the real last scenario. Oh, shit!
Finally, regarding “Summer Storm”, the last scenario, Jorge says there’s nothing wrong with it, and nobody else he knows has a problem with it. The problem I’m running into is that when I end my first turn, the game freezes with a monologue box saying, “Debug Message: Too Many Units on Side 1” (or something to that effect). That’s too bad because I didn’t want to end the campaign this way. Oh, well… The reason why I think I might’ve lost the scenario anyway, as I mentioned earlier, is because there are suppose to be 106 opposing units while I was suppose to have 70-some units. When I deployed my core units, there were still 34 empty deployment hexes, so I was again seriously outgunned.
To wrap this up, while the Reich Defense Campaign has a lot of frustrating moments because of its high number of opposing units and non-core unit leaders, I think it is worthy of being played. For those of you who are playing Blitzkrieg for the 20th time, it’s time to set that aside and take this opportunity to really test your ability to build and lead a PGII army. Jorge Gabitto is your test-giver.
Below are the core units that I had at the end of the 15th scenario. They are arranged as such: unit - experience level - leader trait (if applicable).
King Tiger - 2878 - Fire Discipline
King Tiger - 2759 - Resilience
King Tiger - 2519 - Determined Defense
King Tiger - 2405 - Aggressive Maneuver
Panther G - 1152 - Liberator
JgdPanther - 1714 - Battlefield Intelligence
Waffen SS - 935 - Devastating Fire
Waffen SS - 1053 - Shock Tactics
Me-262 - 1806
Me-262 - 1529
HS-129 - 1059
The other core units I had were a rookie PSW 234/2 recon unit, two elite 17 K18 arties, and two veteran Sdkfz 6/2 AAAs.
1. Stalingrad Counterattack - last turn Brilliant Victory (BV)
2. Tunisia - one turn before BV
3. Kharkov Counterattack - one turn past BV
4. Sicilian Invasion - three turns before BV
5. Operation Zitadelle - three turns before BV
6. Orel Bulge - last turn BV
7. Dnepr Crossing - one turn past BV
8. Monte Cassino - forgot to document
9. forgot to document - three turns before BV
10. Normandy - two turns past BV
11. Red Avalanche - lost the scenario (entered with 47 unfulfilled overstrengths)
12. Battle of the Bulge - one turn past BV
13. Operation Norwind - one turn past BV
14. Budapest - lost the scenario
15. The Battle for Berlin - one turn past BV
16. Summer Storm - couldn’t get it to work
AAAs - 28 (2)
ATs - 32 (4)
Artilleries - 72 (1)
Infantry - 131 (19)
Recons - 19 (3)
Tanks - 81 (2)
Fighters - 33 (0)
Bombers - 12 (2)
Total - 408 (33)
Remember, these numbers do not include those that I didn’t kill.
1 October 2000