Pelton vrs Dinglir, CG 41-45 Bitter End (No Pelton)

[Dinglir]

He didn't.

When he broke through my Osinovets defense he attacked straight up to the Finnish no attack line. He then moved Finns through the gap created by the Germans.

What i don't understand is the absolutely lousy detection levels I am getting in Leningrad after the city has been cut off.

[M60A3TTS]

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

The requested numbers are:

17 Cavalry divisions
13 sapper regiments and 24 sapper batallions
53 Admin Points

I am not expecting to win this campaign under any circumstances, as Pelton is far more experienced than I. I will continue to put up as good a fight as I can, and then we will see how far that gets me.

As for Moscow, I plan to attack it come winter, hoping to take it back. Of course, the Population in the city will be damaged, so I can not use it for a long time.

In the south, I hope to use Odessa and the Crimean bridgehead as bases for northwards attacks. If I can threaten the German rail lines, I can force a battle more on my terms than has been happening so far.

A number of things, some of which bear repeating.

You need to disband the four BAK headquarters if you haven't done so. That's 40,000 men that could be slinging rifles or digging trenches. The IAK Commands should also go if possible.

You're way too low on sapper regiments. A bare minimum would be 100 by years end. Preferably 150. The blizzard offensive in whatever form you manage is your best opportunity to get wins and guards status for these units. Don't wait, build at least 30 on your next turn. When you form a cavalry corps at the start of blizzard, give them 3 each. 1st Shock Army can take 5 cavalry corps, that's 15 sapper regiments alone.

Don't prioritize adding new VVS regiments outside of a little extra recon. The air regiments you will need down the road are tac bombers, but they aren't going to be in a position to help until next summer. Therefore you don't even need to start forming them until early Spring of 42. The F/FB regiments you start the game with are sufficient to see you all the way to 1945.

Not sure whether you are playing mild or regular blizzard. Unless it's regular, you are not going to retake Moscow, because Pelton will keep strong panzer forces garrisoned there and fend you off without too much difficulty. You won't make much headway attacking from the south either, supply is not good coming out of the Crimea, so your ability to keep high CVs in that area are problematic.

Look to send troops that could use wins to the Finnish sector just before blizzard. Any Finnish unit that is not at least division strength can be beaten back, especially after the rivers freeze. And he doesn't have enough Finnish divisions to cover the whole line. Keep doing what you're doing to get wins. Pile on where it's safe to do so. You may have opportunities now near the Valdai Hills if he leaves single divisions vulnerable. This first part of the war is as much an exercise in farming wins for future guards units as anything.

[Dinglir]

That's probably good advice M60 (I write probably, because I'm not experienced enough to weigh all of it).

On the use of BAK's, I'm accepting your argument and conclude that my air strategy this summe rhas not been perfect.

You are probably also right regarding the use of sapper regiments, however with 150 of these it equates having three in every army along the front, with 50 to spare for building corps units. Those corps should all be cavalry corps as I understand the current thinking on player doctrine. Unfortunately, that sounds a lot like an "über" unit to me. One which you should build as many as you can of, because it is just better.

For many reasons I do not really like the idea of building endless numbers of cavlry corps each with three sapper regiments, and consequently I will try not to do so, because I would otherwise just tire of the game and quit.

But for now, I am enjoying the game and learning a lot.

[Dinglir]

Turn fifteen.

[Stelteck]

Keep up the fight good job !!!

[Dinglir]

Turn sixteen.

[chaos45]

Cav arent an Uber units....and historically the Soviets did field alot of cav up until late 1943+ on and even then they kept cav corps in use until the end of the war. So nothing un-historical about it. The big difference game wise is historically the Soviets got most of them destroyed in 42-43.

You can choose not to play with cav corps if you want, but with Pelton having Moscow your chances of winning are already getting slim, so I would use whatever you can to try and turn the tide.

Some people complain far to much about Soviets, when what we have been seeing is the good German players do very, very well in this game....often far better than historical. So any edge u can use as the Soviets against skilled German players is required if you wish to make a game of it and not just lose.

[M60A3TTS]

You said you want to expend 8AP to build 8 air transportation regiments, to provide supply in the muddy season. Some perspective...

The Germans start with 7 JU-52 regiments with a max size of 40. That's up to 280 aircraft. Each aircraft has a max load of 3309. That equates to a theoretical lift capacity of 463 tons. According to Pelton, with that he can fully supply roughly 2 panzer divisions.

You are going to build 8 transport regiments each with a max size of 20. That's 160 aircraft each with a max load of 6617, that's a theoretical capacity of 529 tons. Your proposal would give you a lift capacity 10% greater than the Germans which will supply 2.2 tank divisions. You have a giant pocket with dozens of units trapped. In a nutshell, there would be little value in even attempting a resupply. You're just throwing away supplies that in a longer game do matter. Practically speaking, the only real benefit of air transport is supplying partisans or armored spearheads on the attack.

[Dinglir]

Turn seventeen.

[Dinglir]

Chaos: I guess you are right, but I'm just "uneasy" with the logic you present. If I build 150 Sapper Regiments, I have enough to assign three for each army all along the front and still have 54 left for building Cav Corps (equals 18 fully loaded corps). Meanwhile I have Zis-30 elements that are basically useless as they cost one admin point for a unit of four elements. Same arguemtn can be given for lots of other Soviet support units. Historically, I also think the idea of sticking three sapper regiments on the same units is just wrong. The first sapper regiment gives the unit certain capabilities, such as attacking fortified positions or crossing rivers quickly. The second doesn't simply make the unit twice as effective at those tasks. Finally, I am also new to this, so a large part of my strategy is trying out the different units in order to get a "feel" for what they can and can not do. But by now, I am building more sapper regiments.

M60: Good points. I haven't actually done any math on the transport capability of the transports. I do guess one difference between what I am doing and what Pelton is doing is that I will be transporting supplies for my cavalry, while he transports fuel for his panzers. But I will still take your advice, and with the weather forecast for turn 18, I have found better uses for my transports than was initially intended.

[Stelteck]

Ride to victory !!!!

Great marshal Semion Boudienny support it !!

[chaos45]

From looking at the recent turn the concern you should have is 1-2 CAV divisions have very little actual combat value...so even weak german units can defeat 1 Soviet cav division in 1941. Its why the Cav corps are so necessary as they can actually hit 4+ CV so 1 cav corps is something that the Germans need some decent forces to counterattack in the winter.

I will say you are doing well at trying to exploint his very spread out positions....however you have alot of forces cut off in the south so if he can liquidate them, which looks likely your army will still be very weak come spring 1942.

[chaos45]

The Sapper regiments arent necessarily just providing an assault bonus vs forts...its also giving capability for your units on defense, and its pure raw Combat value bonus. Each sapper regiment is alot of combat engineers which basically equates to combat infantry squads for providing CV for attack and defense.

Thats why everyone stacks Sappers not for the assault bonus, as for the Soviets its so slim that all your really wanting to do is pile on CV for odds...and thats where Sappers shine, is it adds like 1,000 combat engineers for each regiment to the corps lol.

[M60A3TTS]

Don't know how accurate that weather forecast is, but if turn 18 is coming up, you are likely getting mud.

Also, try to get out of the mindset that all armies get this and that. Divisions have TO&Es. Armies get support units based on need. There are times when I have stripped entire fronts of their artillery support units and airpower when they are sitting idle. There is nothing unrealistic about that, support go to commands that need it.

[Dinglir]

About the weather: Apparently, the only effect the blizzard itself will have at this point of the game is an increased cost in MP to move and a reduction of aircraft available for missions. The negative effects on CV will not be applied until blizzards in december (according to the manual). With this in mind, I think mud is actually as not very different from blizzard at this point in time. The division of attacking CV by 8 should mean that my cavalry "might" stand a chance against the Germans attacking them this turn.

Question: I understand a printed CV of one means "Somewhere between 0 and 1". If a German unit has it's attacking CV divided by eight and needs two to one in order to win, that implies that the printed unit CV must be "somewhere between 0 and 16" in order for the Germans to expect a win (give or take leader modifications). Does anyone have any idea of the actual combat value of the cavalry divisions?

As to the application of support units to my armies, I am actually not (much) in that mindset you are talking about. I like the idea that all armies have a "base support unit alloment" if they can be attacked (when I thought the Finns would never be able to attack east of Lake Ladoga, I stripped the local army of everything). I use one Sapper Regiment and two artillery regiments as base for that. Those armies I design for attack generally have about 6-8 support units of various kinds. I keep changing setup in order to find the solution that works best for my playstyle.

[chaos45]

Soviet Cav divisions in 41/42 are still very weak. Most will be 1 CV until they get experience/trained up. Ones that are full strength or overstrength and trained will hit 2-3 CV as a max. Its why for them to be effective u have to organize them into corps as they then become at least 4 CV and if full strength, fully trained, and good morale...and good support units can reach even higher CV with 6-7 being a good cav corps after awhile....then for the rest of the war they should gradually increase in strength as the ToE adds more tanks and support troops.

[sillyflower]

If I were Pelton, I would just isolate your cavalry thrusts then kill them the following turn. Dead easy (if you will forgive the pun) even in mud with 1 german inf xx not least because your isolated divs will have a DV of 0.5 or less. The discrepancies between attack and defence values (without terrain modifiers for terrain/forts) is very high especially for cav and armour units. This only becomes clear when using the alt CV option.the 'normal' figure is just the average of the 2.

[Dinglir]

Turn eighteen.

[Stelteck]

At this point of the game you are very close to autovictory for german. You may consider that your only objective now is not to lose early, so defending rostov, maybe voronev (if still possible) at all cost and triple the numbers of troops assigned to these objectives now, removing entire armies from others fronts.

Voronev looks hard to defend, but rostov looks possible if you man the entire don with heavy defense. Put zuikov in charge.

Armies in center or north are now useless if the game stop because you lost voronev and rostov in the 4 turns of snow.

I think you can remove one army from north, NW, Reserve, Center front and from Crimea. They do not defend interesting objective now. You will be able to return them in 1942 if you want, when loosing rostov will no more be so important.

[Dinglir]

Stelteck, I do not doubt that there is some logic in what you are saying.

However, I play to win the game, not to avoid losing early. I realize that the chance of me actually winning might be remote, but if I discard the north and the center it would certainly be non-existent. Furthermore, as I took up the gaunlet of playing Pelton, I decided that it should certainly be a learning experience if nothing else. So, I will plan my play accordingly and try place myself as well as I can for my upcoming winter offensive (even though that may never come to happen).

I do not feel at all certain that Rostov will fall unless I move everything to that area. I will certainly strengthen the defenses, but it seems that the Germans have no Panzers in the area - and with only two turns of mud remaining, they have no chance of moving any here either. Rostov itself will be a tough nut to crack, resting on a major river that will be partly "iced" when the Germans reach it. This will make Rostov hard to encircle and with the fortification modifier of the city, I doubt the Germans can take it in a frontal infantry attack. I actually have a gut feeling, they may not even try.