Sapper 22 Invades his Homeland

[M60A3TTS]

It depends on the strength of your front line defense. If you have a strong defense in depth, you can stay around five hexes. Here is an example where a German breakthrough has taken place but my counterattacking forces are intact.

[Tom Hunter]

Saper222 has hit me hard and surrounded a lot of my troops, and I suspect that the math of a 5.9 million man Red Army vs a 4 million man German army will not work no matter how I play, but its still a very interesting game, at least for me.

As I mentioned in T37 I have been pounding the Fins to improve the quality of the Red Army. That is because wins boost moral and create guards units. I also wrote about shifting air forces around to gain advantage, saying Saper222 had the advantage for the last few turns, and I had it prior to T35 or 34. This turn some of the work I have been doing on the airforce paid off. The Fins continue to be battered, but look what happens to the German HE111s and Ju88s. I have only just started moving for the turn, so I don't know how things will go, but its certainly a nice result to see.

[topeverest]

And here I thought I had something to look forward to in 42 from an interdiction perspective.



[/quote]

[Tom Hunter]

I was late to start training my airforce, you can start earlier and do more damage sooner.

[carlkay58]

Not really by much. The rules stipulate Soviet performance in 41 is minimal, slight increase through early 42, March 42 and later (or is it Apr?) will be normal finally.

[Tom Hunter]

Not to pick a fight, but I've boosted the over all quality of the Red Airforce by 20 or 30 experience points and a similar increase in moral. Maybe you are thinking of ground units? Those are governed by national moral and improvements are limited.

Even if the performance is limited by the rules, its still better to go into March (or April or any other month) with high moral high experience units. Topeverest should begin training his pilots as soon as possible.

[Walloc]

Actaully u are both correct or can be. There indeed and that is what Carl eludes too, hardcoded limits on number of aircrafts that is engages/flies for the soviet air units early on.

That limits their oprational use by limiting their numbers, but it doesnt necesarrily limit the ability to train(gain exp) which u can do from early on. As we dont see the specifics of how Tom does it, non the less Tom's results reminds me of mine own.
As u can only gain exp if ur moral is higher than the exp u can if u use ur soviet airforce "correctly", cycling out units to keep moral up, use night bombings and other types of attacking that doesnt crash units moral lvl. U can indeed start to train ur airforce from close to teh get go.
I've seen many that at least in their comments seem to use the soviet airforce in a way that grinds the moral of teh individual units down. If u do that u cant gain exp. If u micromanage/keep cycling units in with a moral at certain points over their exp then u can train those units by using them.
Not only that. Its my experience that moral can only go a certain distance above the exp even when resting. U wont see a exp 40 get moral 99 even if i u leave it during the entire war in national reserve. Once a unit gets higher up in exp u can start to see the potential maxing out moral too. So it becomes a self increasing system over time.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Tom Hunter]

Rasmus you have explained some things I have been grappling with. Every turn I cycle low moral air groups into reserve and higher moral group back into the battle. I try to avoid taking huge casualties unless I am grinding up the Germans because it takes moral and experience down. Sometimes huge casualties happen anyway, or I gamble and lose. I did not realize that moral and experience were linked, knowing that I can probably gain experience a bit quicker.

As a rule of thumb it seems that moral and experience do not grow if my airforce takes more than three or 4% casualties in a turn. At 2% they seem to keep improving. That is not a tactical goal, its more of a useful rule of thumb.

[jwolf]

Saper222 has hit me hard and surrounded a lot of my troops

Can you show the (ugly?) details of this?  I am curious how bad the situation is and if you are in position to rescue the pocketed units.

How many German units did you trap during the winter?

[Tom Hunter]

The biggest problem I am having is time, it took me 5 or 6 hours to make the move. Very careful thought and carefully looking at everything you do really pays as the Soviets, but it way too time consuming. Some of the very time consuming things that help the Soviets win

Before merging a unit check how many victories it has won, this gets you more guards

At the start of a turn rotate air units in an out of national reserve based on their moral and experience

Evaluate the rail net and its effect on supply while considering where to attack, defend or run

Change plane types on certain air units to keep the groups flying with optimal strength

Check locations of air recon units to keep coverage over the whole front

Review ground units for merging opportunities, looking for units with low troop numbers and large numbers of victories, so you can get guards units and make them larger

Check on generals, especially replacement generals to be sure you have adequate quality on the front

This is all done before any movement or combat or even recon, because once you start to move you start to lose the opportunity to do these things.

Once missions start, here are a few more:

Convert air units from day missions to night missions, drop supply, then convert them back to day missions to support daylight bombing. I’ve been unable to get escorts to fly with supply missions (I’m still figuring out which airbases need which planes to do what) so this has been necessary

When launching air units attacks click around on multiple airbases to get the optimal attack. Selecting a different base can cause a shift of several hundred planes in the attack

@ Jwolf I keep a save of the turn Saper222 sends, then I overwrite as I go (no redoing moves that way) so I don’t have the view from the end of my turn, this is the view at the end of Saper222s. I added some notes about how the turn went for me.

I'm pretty sure I mis understood the manuals description of the effect of snow on German movement, so I am not really where I want to be, I should have broken contact a turn earlier. On the other hand I don't think Saper222 planned to launch the offensive that he chose to launch, I think he felt (correctly) that he had an opportunity and went for it. So its a lot wilder than many of our previous turns most of which are very controlled by both of us.

[Tom Hunter]

This is where my miscalculation on the movement really hurt, I counted hexes as I moved T38, but did not screen the flanks of these armies successfully.

I’m counter attacking here to try for a rescue, and in the hopes of banging up the Germans. The big question is how much of this force Saper222 can kill quickly and how effective can I be ahead of my rail head, which is too far to the rear for my liking in this area.

I’m well aware this could be a game losing move, but I am much more interested in how the Red Army does than I am in winning the game per say. So we will see what I can get done and how the counter attacks go. When I started the game and AAR it was to learn the game, which I am still doing. However the huge amount of time it takes to play it well has gotten me to the point of regretting the $80 I spent on it. So this is more of a one time thing, and I am trying for the rescue partly because the game will be much more fun it if works than it will be if I run away. So my strategy is not driven by the victory conditions, its driven by my desire to have a good time. The attack is more fun, if it does not work a dissatisfying experience is likely to end sooner, and if it works then the experience is not dissatisfying.

[Tom Hunter]

Saper222 is going to try to win the game in the South, that has been obvious for many turns, so he has no armor in the North. Around Moscow there was very little action by either of us, mostly just moves to consolidate the lines.

Rasumus’s post a page back about the number of Germans on the map is the really important thing to think about here. With a 4 million man army Saper222 can launch a slow rolling infantry offensive in this area and advance with his rail head all Summer. It’s 30 hexes from Moscow to Gorky and I think it is very possible for him to advance that far. My best strategy for stopping that is to beat up his armies where they are weak and take cities somewhere else. That is the best strategy because of the combat engine design, winning is much more likely than losing on the attack, so that is what I am going to do.

I think that is a huge design flaw, because the Soviets are missing so many troops from their army. But I am not sure it is, because so many systems interrelate in ways that the designers clearly did not anticipate that its not really possible to know. One of the things I am doing as I play is to search for options Saper222 may not really understand, in the hopes of finding things that tilt the odds in my favor. Of course he has an advantage in this area, but I’ve already surprised him a few times, once or twice on the ground and more frequently in the air.

[Tom Hunter]

In the far North I continue to smash the Fins, they seem to be reaching the critical point of losing moral in an accelerating cycle. I’m thinking hard about putting my armored corps up here to blitz them in early summer.
The troops Saper222 threatened with encirclement all walked away, and a new shock army came up. I was disappointed that their attack on the mobile brigade failed, but they were out on the end of a long supply line and had relatively low TOE.

I notice that my higher TOE units win more even when the troop numbers are the same. Saper222 and Flaviusx both advocate stronger divisions and weak support, and this is a strong argument in favor of their position if its true. Right now its just an impression on my part. I have been trying to build fewer, larger units, as I get pushed back onto my own rail net that will be easier and I think it will help me kill more of Saper222’s troops.

The other thing to note about the attack on the Fins is I have the rail repaired right up to the front. That makes a huge difference. My truck numbers are 117k (101k) but the rail supply is still king.




Over all my strategic thinking is to try for the rescue, then retreat back onto my own rail lines during the mud.

[Toidi]

You need to be very careful in order to avoid the automatic loss by VP. 260 VP for Axis and the game is over... After losing Moscow, you cannot afford to lose too many cities...

Besides, do not fall into trap of attacking where Axis is weak. You need to fight with all your might where his tanks are - just do it skillfully, so he cannot encircle your best troops. Just keep them far enough, so they can counter attack when needed. Farming morale is fine, but once guards, those units need to be transferred where they are needed most, i.e. defense in depth for the panzers (that means having checkerboard lines 10 hexes deep)

And attack those tanks, attack, attack relentlessly. Even when you lose, just attack those tanks.

When your troops are encircled, attack weaker units. If you win, great, you just get some wounded into your pool and reduced morale and manpower of axis. If you lose, well, maybe he will get an extra morale point (which is bad), but you will get some guys into wounded category - those return back to you as manpower. Once they surrender, fraction of your troops return to axis as hiwis...

You need to wear down his tanks as quickly as you can, you need to wear down his high morale units as quick as you can. You can easily stand against 65-70 morale army. You have tough time against 90 morale units - but every loss of those guys mean loosing 1 or 2 or 3 morale points... Once Axis units are back to national morale, getting up more than to 73-74 is very tough.

And keep all your corps as strictly counter-attacking force, not too close to the front - third line - fourth line of units (that is some 5-8 hexes behind the front, depending on terrain).

Good luck!

[Tom Hunter]

So I am afraid the worst has happened, the game is getting boring.
As you all saw I attempted to fight in the snow, the upshot of that is several of my army groups have been surrounded. I think I’ll end up losing 700,000 to a million men.

That does not really bother me, and its not the source of the boredom. What you see on the map is, North of one of the pockets is a rested shock army in good supply. Unfortunately it can’t even advance to contact the germans, much less attack them.

I should have considered this more carefully before following the strategy I chose, and pulling back earlier in winter might have been more successful. All that said, the basic problem is the strategic options are limited, and they are limited in a way that is pretty dull.

I find myself in a Pelton situation, upset with a fundamental aspect of the game. I’m not going to suggest solutions, because I think the solution for me is to finish this one and not buy anything designed by Gary Grisby.
I had this problem playing the AI too, but thought a human player would be more interesting. Saper222 has made it more interesting, he plays a great game, but his skill and the entertainment it provides does not change the focus of the design.

[Peltonx]

Moral is King of the Battle Field.

How many men you have or how much equipment you have is important, but no wheres near as much as moral.

[hfarrish]

Is it possible to see a before screenshot of that region? Would be instructive.

[Michael T]

Tom, I would suggest you look at Ron Dockal's up and coming WWII Europe game when it is released. Sometime this year perhaps.

[Tom Hunter]

@hfarrish I'm afraid I don't have the before screenshots. One of my big problems with the game is the sheer amount of time it burns to play well, and adding screenshots to that has not been possible lately because of work issues.

[Flaviusx]

Tom, you are bored and disillusioned with this game in large part because you're screwed and have been screwed for quite some time. The reality is only starting to sink in.

You made a terrible mistake in agreeing to play this thing out. It was never going to have a happy ending. Resign. And play somebody at your own level next time -- whether that game is WITE or something else.