General FAQW for JTS/WDS Tips

Forum for the First World War Campaigns games series
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chee006
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Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2022 11:29 pm

General FAQW for JTS/WDS Tips

Post by chee006 »

After playing a few turns and briefly reading the manual, I have several questions regarding WDS First World War Campaigns.

1. What is the best way to fire on the enemy?
a. Should I only attack with undisrupted/non-low-ammo units?
b. Is there any difference in attacking with a stack of units or individually?
2. Should field guns fire separately at the enemy or combined with infantry? Any penalties or bonuses?
a. Can the field guns participate in the assault with the infantry, or should they be used first to soften up the enemy first before using infantry for the assault?
3. What is the best way to move field guns to the enemy unit with the minimum losses?
a. I often lose men when trying to switch from travel mode to normal mode when using field guns. What can I do to mitigate my losses?
4. What is the best scenario to assault a position? Should all units be disrupted first?
a. How would you coordinate an assault position with field guns, infantry and artillery?
5. How are MG units used offensively?
a. Should I use them together with the infantry when firing? Or soften them up first like field guns?
b. What is the difference between MGs and field guns?
c. Are MGs most useful for defensive fire against attacking enemies?
6. How are tanks used in offensive manoeuvres?
a. Should tanks move in stacks without any infantry when assaulting?
b. Should they be used separately to soften up targets first?
c. Are they effective in assaulting a position? IF so, alone or with infantry?
7. What is the best way to recuperate your unit's fatigue and get them up to strength for another assault?
8. What are your thoughts on manual Defensive Fire?
9. Are there any plans for more First Worl War titles? Middle to late period?

Sorry for the litany of questions
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Verdun1916
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Location: Hässleholm, Sweden

Re: General FAQW for JTS/WDS Tips

Post by Verdun1916 »

Well, there are no tanks in the FWWC game titles...atleast not yet. But there are in Panzer Campaigns and in Mondern Campaigns.

A general rule of thumb is NEVER EVER attack enemy infantry or mixed units with tanks or other AFV's without infantry support!!!

Why?

Tanks and most AFV's historically have extremely limited visibility, especially at close range. Beeing a crew man in a tank is a very isolated job with only one or a few vision slits/vision blocks or today camera screens to observe the world outside your vehicle. Spotting targets, especially pre-thermal sighting and observation systems, is not as easy at it might seem. Especially not in a combat environment when your tank is on the move, especially not in rough or shell torn terrain. Spotting enemy tanks, AFV's or anti-tank guns can be difficult enough, more so when they are camouflaged in a prepared defensive position. Spotting enemy infantry is even more difficult to spot if they hunker down in trenches, foxholes, shell craters or in vegitation or buildings.
Under such conditions tanks with out infantry support can easily fall victim to infantry with various dedicated or improvised AT-weapons. Especialy if said infantry is aware of the tankers limited visibility and blind spots. They can sneak up one the tank/tanks and knock them out, immobilize them or damage them in some other serious way.

During the First World War German infantry, lone individuals or small groups of soldiers managed to sneak up on enemy tanks and knock them out or severily damage them with handgrenades, grenade bundles or even flamethrowers. Sometimes even firing directly into tanks through their vision slits with pistols and rifles wounding or killing crewmembers inside. Well placed 7,58 cm leichte Minenwerfers or other infantry guns or even field guns were used as AT-guns and placed in well placed and well camuflaged positions were they could fire at enemy tanks at very close range. And off course they had the famous T-Gewehr to use the same way.

During the Second World War saw a repeat of this but to a greater extent as more dedicated infantry held AT-weapons were avalible. There are countless examples of tanks without infantry support, or where the infantry support had been tanken out, fell victims to enemy infantry managing to sneak up on the tanks and knock them out at very close range were the crew memebers inside were virtually blind with hand held AT-weapons such as molotov cocktails, satchel charges, magnetic mines, handgrenades, mines or launchers like Panzerfausts, Panzerschrecks, Bazookas or PIAT's.

And for those off us who have followed the ongoing conflict in Ukraine we have all seen, time and time again, Russian tanks foolishly acting without infantry support beeing knocked out or immobolized by Ukranian infantry using hand held AT-weapons.

Hence the need for infantry support! The infantry support will take on the enemy infantry, surpress them, take them out or simply protect the tanks from getting attacked by the enemy infantry and their hand held AT-weaponry.

This is modelled in the Panzer and Modern Campaigns series games. If you attack an enemy held hex containing infantry or a mixed stack of units with tanks/AFV's alone you will either usually be punished by taking higher vehicle losses or be repelled completely.
If we see a continuation of the First World War Campaign series I assume this will be modelled in a similar ways aswell regarding tanks.

ALWAYS support your tanks with infantry!!! ALWAYS!!!!!!! The only time you might get away with not supporting your tanks with infantry is in tank vs. tank engagements were there is no infantry on either side.
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Jules Verne
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Re: General FAQW for JTS/WDS Tips

Post by Jules Verne »

1. The more you shoot at a specific unit, the higher the chance that it will disrupt, although it is not linear and the disruption chance will decrease in comparison to how much you fire at it.
a. Yes. Indeed, you cannot "assault" with disrupted units, and low-ammo units only have 1/4 the assault power.

2. If fired combined with infantry, they will select targets at random. Not good if you want to target a specific, undisrupted unit. Good if you want less retalatory fire by less clicks.

3.+a Keep a screen of infantry just infront of the guns, and pull them onto the guns or behind when they are unlimbered. Keep elevations in mind, they might still be visibe to enemy artillery despite the screen. Another tactic is to move artillery units up along roads by night and unlimber them before day. If everything fails, try to set up a long way from enemy guns, that will reduce their fire somewhat.

4. Never assault infantry battalions that are not disrupted. Always attack lone MG and Artillery units, no matter their status. Try to achieve a 2-1 ratio when assaulting enemy infantry battalions.

5. Refer to 3. When set up, always try to target the biggest stacks, as MGs, indirect fire artillery and infantry do more damage when more enemy units are stacked together.
a. You risk becoming low-ammo with infantry if you fire together with MGs. Not good if you want to assault next turn. Ultimately, this is very situational.
b. MGs are often found more usefull in the defence, as they often take losses trying to set them up next to enemy units. Arty can often stay behind for several turns providing long-range covering fire before they have to unlimber again, so you most likely want MGs close to the front line in travel mode, always ready to deploy on the advance.
c. Yes. Especially if the MGs are of the Maxim variety, they will often disrupt the enemy closing in with opportunity fire.

6. As Verdun1916 has previously stated, no tanks are yet in the series. Armored cars are, however, and these are extremely susceptible to enemy infantry assaults if left alone (I specify infantry, as cavalry generally does not have a hard attack factor, and therefore cannot assault hard targets).
a. Try to disrupt the enemy solely with the armored cars and then assault with infantry, if the situation allows. As only the Brits and Belgians have them in France'14, however, this is rarely the way they will be used.
b. Yes.
c. Never assault with armored cars as they are currently represented. Their unit values do not lend them well to assaults.

7. Stack them on their brigade HQ if disrupted, and use nighttime hours to rest them, which means you must keep them completely inactive.

8. I have never used it, but most players seem to agree that manual defensive fire is not the way to go with FWWCs.

9. There are strong hints the next installment in the series will concentrate on the Austro-Hungarian and Russian clashes in Galicia in 1914. Here is an interesting thread in which the main designer behind FWWCs chimes in about the future of the series: viewtopic.php?t=83

(Edit: typos)
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