Break Through


    One of the fun things about playing WW2 games and  which keeps us campaigners on our toes is the counterattack and breakthrough. This happens when, at the end of a hard-fought battle, the enemy arrives informing you in a way only they can, of either an enemy counterattack or an opportunity for a breakthrough. An enemy counterattack can occur virtually at any time after the battle slows down. Typically it's when you are trying to redeploy your half destroyed units. This type of counterattack is really just letting you know that the enemy had more units to spare then usual, and their mission has changed from defensive to offensive. We discussed that before. In any event, whether before or after a battle, a counterattack will mean the enemy will be tougher than usual, and you won't have a choice either way to accept or decline. If it happens at the end of a battle, you might get a chance to use support units or you might not. If you do, you'll usually notice that you have about half the number of support that you would normally have on a defense or delay mission. This will make your job even harder.

    Consider the breakthrough as an optional mission, leading to either an assault or advance mission. If your force has been badly scrapped out by the previous battle, then you should probably not attempt a breakthrough action. In fact, you may be asking yourself why take it at all?  Besides gaining land, there is some debate at this point as to whether the net result means that your troops will actually gain more experience and skill for achieving a breakthrough than they would if they just fought two normal battles. Because of that uncertainty at this point, I tend to decline the breakthrough unless my core force is virtually unhurt from the previous engagement. Otherwise it's to easy to get strung out over long distances. One other caution about breakthroughs. After winning a breakthrough, the enemy can counter attack. This means that you fought one normal battle, didn't refit, pushed on with a  breakthrough, didn't resupply and were counterattacked! That would be entering your third consecutive battle without a refit or resupply. The enemy can also launch into counterattack mode during the breakthrough. These are scary thoughts and one more thing to be aware of when facing the option of being able to breakthrough.

Please proceed to

Click our unit symbol to return