Beethoven (Soviet) vs HLYA (Axis): '41 Campaign

[ncc1701e]

About supply to all Soviet units, don’t you think this modification will help to reduce supply? It is in the latest beta:

Soviet vehicle mobilization during the first 10 turns of the war will now mobilize 60% of the original number of vehicles. Instead of 260,000 vehicles mobilized, The Soviets will mobilize 156,000 vehicles.

[Beethoven1]

About supply to all Soviet units, don’t you think this modification will help to reduce supply? It is in the latest beta:

Soviet vehicle mobilization during the first 10 turns of the war will now mobilize 60% of the original number of vehicles. Instead of 260,000 vehicles mobilized, The Soviets will mobilize 156,000 vehicles.

That should have an impact, yes. However, we started this game before that patch. Also, trucks do not affect the amount of freight that gets delivered to depots. And any units within 3 hexes of a depot gets horse supply, regardless of trucks. Also things like air supply do not depend on trucks.

So it remains to be seen exactly how much of an impact that change will have.

[Beethoven1]

We are up to turn 5.

It is quiet.

Too quiet. (???)

[Beethoven1]

Some things to watch while we wait for it to become no longer too quiet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceRHLKJCWTM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fej6wUe0mEw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNxckympMp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBYy8n-DK8M

[Beethoven1]

End of Soviet Turn 1

HLYA has just sent back turn 5, so I think we are plenty far along for me to be able to start showing this. Since then, I have had ample opportunity to deploy reinforcements in various places and move various units around, so things are substantially different.



Here is glorious Baltic defense, which will put fear into the hearts of AGN



My Baltic defense was pretty light, especially compared to what I normally do. One bit of attempted Maskirovka I did which might be of interest is I tried to put some "deception" units in place. For example, in the very south-west, see I have a HQ (with a highly expendable leader) in the swamp hex surrounded by other swamp hexes. I was hoping that it might show up as a "(?)" on recon, and for all he knew might be some unit that could cut him off if he didn't deal with it. A good # of my other "units" in the area were, at least initially, depleted. Maybe they would have shown up on recon as depleted, but maybe not. As things have subsequently turned out, HLYA has not shown much interest in the Baltic, and the free rail repair period has ended without him getting as far as Parnu/Tartu. However, we must be perpetually on guard!

Pskov + Velikie Luki



I elected to defend Velikie Luki quite heavily, with a swarm of shitty expendable units, mostly still on their trains. Obviously HLYA could batter his way through this if he really wanted, but if so he would get stuck in a lot of combat delay which would hopefully prevent any enormous breakthrough before I could get real units in place.


Smolensk



Sacrificial units on the land bridge. I deliberately put the 2 infantry divisions in Vitebsk and that swamp hex

Was this a worthwhile sacrifice? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe. If I had not done this, however, I doubt that he would have done nothing at all to my other units. Some other units somewhere would have paid for it in some form.


Gomel/Dnieper. Note that for example I have a depleted division behind the river for "ZOC". Also further south I have a stack of 2 corps HQs "defending" the river crossing. More Maskirovka:





Northern part of the south: Everything circled is just HQs, hopefully some of which might be confused for actual units.



So basically I had no actual units here, but maybe something that would possibly mislead recon. And at the worst, maybe I would lose some leaders that I would be happy with losing, and who knows, maybe they would get replaced by better leaders.


Southern part of the south - some units to try to make it a bit harder to encircle some of the units in the southern front, but without really putting additional units at risk.



Also threatens to counterattack Romanians. Since his Panzers are still so far back near Lvov, there is no risk of them getting there. Even with 50 MP they can only get to the very edge where there is the rifle division/nkvd/etc screening. Possibly this in combination with the HQs might make him think I am committing more to the south than I actually am (so far).


As things turned out so far, I doubt my maskirovka had much effect, because HLYA did very little recon. But to the degree he did, maybe it misled him just ever so slightly. Or maybe not. Either way, I didn't really lose anything to do it.

[Beethoven1]

Flash forward to Soviet turn 5.



OH NO! Pavlov is dead

[Beethoven1]

And here is the front line on turn 5, for those who are not reading on discord.



I will eventually post more screenshots here for turn 5 etc, but gotta have some operational information security.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

WoW, HLYA has not taken Pskov or Smolensk by Turn 5. He really does sux at WITE2. ;-P Glad I am not that German player!

[Beethoven1]

As we will see, there has been some pretty brutal fighting over Pskov in particular. So far I have managed to hold on the Velikaya/Sorot river line but HLYA barely managed to get a 1 hex bridgehead across this turn. I will see if I can push it back.

[Beethoven1]

Fast forward to Soviet turn 5…

In the Soviet air phase, many hundreds of Soviet bombers took off and headed towards their targets - the airfields of the German fighter forces. Soviet bombers - mostly the powerful SB-2 bombers, but also some other kinds, repeatedly dropped enormous amounts of ordinance on German fighter airfields stretching all the way from the Baltic down to airfields in Romania.

When all was said and done, the Luftwaffe had been devastated with nearly 500 state of the art, modern Bf-109 fighters destroyed.

However, I started a tech support thread about this, because it seems like it just might be too game breaking. This is just a huge loss to the German fighter force that they would have difficulty making good. I have not saved after executing the air phase so that if we need to we can do it over, depending on what tech support says and also what HLYA is comfortable with.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=387769

I just completed the Soviet air phase, and I destroyed 448 German fighters in it.

100% of these losses were German Bf-109s. No Romanians, no bombers or recon planes etc... Just 100% pure German fighter losses.

[Beethoven1]

This is the greatest victory I have ever had in the air war. As someone who mostly just uses ground support, this sort of thing doesn’t happen much for me. Prior to this, my greatest air war success was when I managed to catch a few hundred unescorted Axis bombers which were interdicting Sevastopol in my game with jubjub. But destroying so many fighters like this is much better than destroying some bombers!

[HardLuckYetAgain]

This is the greatest victory I have ever had in the air war. As someone who mostly just uses ground support, this sort of thing doesn’t happen much for me. Prior to this, my greatest air war success was when I managed to catch a few hundred unescorted Axis bombers which were interdicting Sevastopol in my game with jubjub. But destroying so many fighters like this is much better than destroying some bombers!

Yup, CONGRATS! I showed it in WITE1 in a game. I knew 100% it was possible here in WITE2 too, I said there are ways and I know of 4 total possible and a possible 5 the Soviets can turn the Air war. My fault for not setting AS in the area. Which leads to the question, "Is AS even effective against GA attacks"? I am pretty sure it is, which I hope to set up a test bed in our game to prove out. (Once you get up we can converse on Discord for that)


Then 440+ fighters dont basic intercept the many many many many many many many many many many many many bombing runs but one time with horrid results. That is a problem.

Then either player can read the logs and see where re-basing takes place. That is a problem.

Then either player can see map info for intel which should be only through recon. That is a problem

Finally I don't mind some boasting but don't let it get out of hand and a very big head. Too much boasting turns me off on continuing any game. Yours is fine here. But again we are trying to show what ills WITE2 and this is a perfect example of some things that need to be looked at, there will be many more from both sides. Take the accolades and move on. If any of my opponents chest pound too much and it is game over, fair warning and again yours if fine here. I try and do very little boasting and I expect my opponent to adhere to same standard.

Having said that, congrats again and see if we can get to the bottom of some things in this tech link that you did. Thank you for doing the write up, which is superbly done on the link and will see what Joel has to say here https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=387769

Again, congrats.

[Beethoven1]

HLYA and I have agreed to the following plan going forward regarding the air war (feel free to correct anything, maybe I am forgetting something again):


A) I will cancel all the airbase bombing missions that I had set up.

- reasoning: it seems pretty clearly unbalanced/broken, at least as it worked out.


B) New house rules regarding air:

1) No airfield bombing.
2) No conducting deliberately failed attacks just as a means to getting planes to join a battle.
3) Until turn 10, if you want to do ground attack, the settings must be approved by the other player.
4) Until turn 10, we are going to continue allowing ourselves to freely change air doctrine settings and also to set non-default settings for air missions. This will allow a bit more time to test things out with the air war and see what counter-measures we can come up with in response to what the other player does. However, on turn 10 we are planning to switch to some stricter rules regarding air doctrine and mission settings, which will more or less mean we both have to stick to default settings (specifics pending).

- reasoning: the air war has not really been balanced for non-default settings. Insofar as it has been balanced, it has been balanced in AI-AI games, which use default settings, and balance for loss ratios etc are based on that. Players can try to figure out ways to change the settings to gain a special advantage (e.g. setting air doctrine to 300% or to low levels, or flying small missions or large missions or at a different altitude), but this does not necessarily lead to realistic/sensible/historical results, and seems to have more to do with manipulating aspects of the game mechanics which don't really make sense. If we play for a short time with non-default settings, that provides an opportunity to test things out, but at the same time should not greatly impact the longer term balance, so the air war in the long run should be more or less as it is "supposed to be."

[Beethoven1]

Start of Soviet Turn 2

There is barely any advance into the north. Not using Panzer/motorized to flip Baltic rail, despite me having basically not defended it and given it up. As a result, I might have an opportunity to move in some units this turn now to hopefully stop some of the free rail conversion from the first 4 turns. The previous turn, I had air evacuated a depleted division from the Bialystok pocket (circled in blue). It is still there now.




Barely any attack on my Velikie Luki blob (and also no move up to Smolensk or across the river). So a lot of the NKVD/airborne live to fight another day, for now at least... HLYA encircled the 4 infantry I left in my Vitebsk screen, routed the other stuff away. HLYA did manage to herd the 4 infantry hat were spread out into 2 separate 1 hex pockets, which is a pretty impressive feat... This includes rout-herding.

I am happy that VL/Smolensk are still safe with no German units next to them, so I can use their railyards this turn for unloading more troops. Mission accomplished in that respect at least.




Note this unit in Vitebsk. I had put it under Zhukov to try to get it to rout rather than retreat so hopefully it would be safe. However, it routed north-west into the pocket. Apparently HLYA was able to do this because he cut the other rail lines, and units tend to rout along connected rail lines. So you can manipulate routs and herd routs in that way. I did not know that before, now I do and will have to take that into account in future defense.



Not approaching Gomel, also he did no recon down there.



In the south he advanced and cleared forts basically, since there was nothing else there.



He killed a few of my army leaders, like 26th army... It would be nice to get Vatutin or someone for free since later this turns into a shock army. Sadly got a bad replacement instead.

Pavlov also survived btw.



I am very happy with the far south. 5 units were routed away, which could have been (at least a lot of them) pocketed or ZOC locked.



Also this unit is not ZOC locked and it has 10 movement points, so I think it can get away. Actually, I am SURE it can get away because it has 200 SMP.



Beautiful stuff. So that is 6 units from southern front most or all of which could have been doomed but are not. Losses are a bit less than a million, that is basically all from the turn 1 pockets of course.





Southern front tank division that was routed rather than ZOC locking it:



That is close to a fully equipped division. It only has 34 morale, so I will probably send it to the Transcaucasus or disband it so that the equipment goes to higher morale tank divs. But that is in the Malinovsky area that can be encircled, but a combination probably of the SW front units and HLYA wanting to farm planes led him to rout it. I will take the 9k men + 100 AFVs happily. One way to look at it is the # of men/units that are not doomed in the southern front offsets the 4 divisions encircled on the land bridge.

[Beethoven1]

Regarding the air, we are switching over earlier than originally planned (earlier than turn 10) to the standard/default/initial air doctrine settings. The reason for this was that last turn (turn 5), I tried the only other thing I could really think of to change in the settings, which was to set the air doctrine mission and escort percentages to very low values, down from 300% to 5%. My theory was that maybe that would make only a very small number of planes fly ground support in each battle, and then if the German setting were at 300%, that would mean large numbers of German fighters fly to shoot down a small number of Soviet planes. Obviously the Germans would do so, but I thought that maybe if it caused more than needed to fly, then it would mean the Germans would take more operational losses. I had thought that maybe that might set up a cat and mouse game, where Soviets and Germany both alternatively tried to guess the air doctrine setting of the other player, with the following more or less randomly occurring:

a) Soviets sometimes setting a low number and Axis setting a high number, resulting in high Axis operational losses
b) Soviets sometimes setting a high number and Axis setting a high number, resulting in Soviet planes being efficiently shot down
c) Soviets sometimes setting a low number and Axis setting a low number, resulting in small numbers of planes being shot down and small amounts of bombing
d) Soviets sometimes setting a high number and Axis setting a low number, resulting in Soviet bombing being effective due to lack of sufficient German fighters to shoot down large Soviet groupings

That was my only other real idea for how to counter the Luftwaffe via settings, when Germany uses HLYA's air setup, with well supplied airbases and with the air doctrine set to to 300%, and with it managing to intercept 100% of Soviet ground support missions.

However, instead of only flying a small number of planes, apparently the effect of setting the air doctrine to 5% was for it to fly nearly as many Soviet planes as when the Soviet air doctrine is set on 300%. The result was that the Soviet planes set on 5% got massacred pretty thoroughly by German fighters sill set on 300%:



This loss ratio seems excessive as compared to what would be realistic - of course it is supposed to be lopsided, but that seems more so than I would think is really intended. HLYA graciously messaged me about this while doing the turn, but there was nothing that really made sense to do about it during the turn - even if he had turned off the Axis ground support/interception, that would not have balanced things out, because it would have just meant he would get bombed and lose huge numbers of guns.

So that air doctrine setting doesn't really do anything much discernible when set to low levels, and consequently that is not a counter to Germany setting air doctrine to 300% (and apparently nothing that I can find is a counter to it, other than airfield bombing, which seems to be TOO MUCH of a counter to it).



Having gone through this, neither I nor apparently HLYA can think of anything else worthwhile to test out at the moment.

So hopefully using default settings will help make the air war function more closely to however it is intended with whatever are the general loss ratios intended, and then we can observe the effects of that and report on that in the AARs.