The NO HQ BU experiment (opponents welcome)

[Psych0]

Here the southern part of that super kessel [X(]

[topeverest]

I lost Moscow and Leningrad in first season. Plus I lost way to many units in my Leningrad debacle

Mind you it was a historical first winter, so I got Moscow back - barely.

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

Well, I did say people tend to surrender if they loose Leningrad and/or Moscow - not that they should play on having lost Leningrad, Moscow, Voronezh and Rostov.

I would certainly argue that you should surrender if you have lost all four. However, I would do so because there is obviously a large gap in player capability - not because you have lost four population centers. In population, Moscow is no greater than the area from Stalino (including the cities) to the Don (some 135 pop points if I recall correctly). With 40 men pr pop point pr turn, that's about 5.000 men pr turn (or half a division) from Moscow.

Assuming relatively competent play, I believe that most players managing to take either Leningrad or Moscow would do so because they have brought resources from other areas, meaning that the German progress should fall short in those areas.

[topeverest]

Its not a secret that perhaps the biggest part of the 41 advance is two basic things - capture large groups of Russian units and move fast. Although Russian units rebuild, they do so as new units, requiring many months of rebuilding experience before they are competent. The more units are destroyed, the thinner their MLR. There reaches a breaking point. Be merciless.

Russians cant counterattack into fall unless you make a huge deployment mistake - go fast!

[Psych0]

Losses this week: 22k vs 273k (half of which captured) for 26 units destroyed, 70 vs 380 planes.

AP spend:
XXXXII Kuntze replaced by Stemmermann (bit pricey 8 AP but a MUCH better leader)
XIV Pz Von Wietersheim replaced by Von Arnim (6 AP)
IX Geyer replaced by Hell (3 AP)
OKH XXIII to 4PzG (0 AP)
4PzG Tot SS Mot to Von Manstein's LVI Pz (0 AP)
1PzG LAH SS Mot to XXXXVIII Pz (0 AP) and railed to Rumania
17A 4th Mtn to LII (0 AP)
11A 22th FsJ to XI (0 AP)
11A 72th & 73rd to LIV (0 AP)
XXXXIV 9th to XVII (1 AP) + 297th to LV (1 AP) so XXXXIV commanded by fairly useless Koch is now empty
XXXXII 900 Lehr Mot reg to LVII Pz (1 AP)
XII reassigned to 3PzG (14 AP) to eliminate Guderian's CP deficit

The remaining 16 AP spent on SU - construction crews to OKH/AGN/AGC and pioneer/Stug/Hvy Art to 18A for Model's crack assault corps.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: topeverest

Its not a secret that perhaps the biggest part of the 41 advance is two basic things - capture large groups of Russian units and move fast. Although Russian units rebuild, they do so as new units, requiring many months of rebuilding experience before they are competent. The more units are destroyed, the thinner their MLR. There reaches a breaking point. Be merciless.

Russians cant counterattack into fall unless you make a huge deployment mistake - go fast!

Germans can only go so far so fast even in a game with HQ buildup. Since this game isnt using HQ BU this go fast isn't going to be as fast as a normal game goes. Even if it did the Soviets knowing the supply chain limit could chain the Germans by the balls for a great deal of 41 and weigh him down with it in almost every part of the map except for the drive towards Leningrad.

By the way, Russian "can" counterattack(even without the +1). You just need to understand what to look for and how to set up. It is just sad that the Soviet casualties are crazy high until Sept. I don't really care myself of the casualties taken and attack anyway trading high casualties & fatigue, for experienced units. Normally by Sept 1 1941 I have 6+ Guard Infantry Divisions. (As can be seen I have another 23 other units that are within a win or two to being eligible for guard status too)

[tyronec]

Good kessel down South, though probably only possible because of effectivly the 'free' HQBuildups from the Axis deployment - so very interesting to see how the game develops as you have to try and make pockets without it.
Hope you got some fuel to those Panzers in the swamp as if STAVKA can break their supply line well enough they could be tied up for a few wasted turns.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Psych0
XII reassigned to 3PzG (14 AP) to eliminate Guderian's CP deficit

I am now a happy man [:D]

ORIGINAL: Psych0

Then a bit of a silly move of mine into the Pripyat marshes. But there are so many units (10-15) trying to escape via there that I thought to send 29th Mot from XXXXVII Pz and 3rd Pz from XXIV Pz on a little holiday in the swamp [8D]

I do not think this is silly at all. You are sacrificing the mobility of 1 motorised unit to keep many units trapped. Perhaps I would have been satisfied just by cutting the rail line from the North and not bring the panzer from the South. Very often I have seen motorised units sitting out of fuel anyway at this stage on the Berezina - why not have them out of fuel doing something useful!

[EwaldvonKleist]

The big pocket in the South remembers at mktours super super super lvov-pockets, which have been nerfed out. The difference here being that the soviet player here at least had the chance to run.
It will be interesting how far you can get without HQ BUs and whether your opponent can simply outrun you.

[ericv]

Hello pelton

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: ericv

Hello pelton

For what it is worth EwaldvonKleist has been active in the past on the Eight Player Multiplayer game, which I am also involved in, and very active on the forums giving tips and advice and has produced special guides on how supply works. He is a connoisseur of the AARs and other posters, including me, and his knowledge of them does come from reading them as a third party. I think I can safely say EwaldvonKleist is here as a bona fide member of the site.

[ericv]

Obviously i am not talking about ewaldvonkleist

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: ericv

Obviously i am not talking about ewaldvonkleist

I will bite, who then? Even if it is or is not the forum has been been a much better place with whatever cameo is in place.

[ericv]

Psych0 who else. Why would a first time player EVER play without hq buildup. And perform this well.. Personally i never had problems with pelton. He is just like the ben finegold of this game.

[Psych0]

LOL! Thanks for the compliment ericv... I think. But wrong guess. I'm just a WITE noob, not a Eastern Front noob mate.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: Psych0

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

ORIGINAL: Psych0

I don't think it will slow down the tempo so much that it doesn't feel like WW2 anymore. But that's exactly why I'd like to do this experiment. HQ BU is a ridiculous and artificial mechanism to boost the Germans operating far away from their railhead. Is that really needed? Perhaps the speed of rail conversion could be increased a little (RCC of 2 instead of 3 and max 5 hexes instead of 4?). When fighting closer to the railhead the fuel situation is pretty good and sufficient for 'kesselschlacht' warfare. But let's see, talk is cheap. Hopefully I can put it in practice.

Has this NO HQ BU not been tried before? Does anyone know the history of HQ BU? Was it originally there from the start or added later? If the latter, why exactly?

Just for discussion /.. It does give the player an option to deliver resources now at the expense of trucks and supplies to other HQ .. outside of historical arguments .. I look at these rules / features adding to the concept of a game as long as it as a decisional matrix and consequences.
One problem I see is that some of the consequences of a HQBU don't start to accumulate until a Soviet player as already resigned. Like spending AP's on HQBU rather than maybe fortified positions .. or replacing leaders, shifting units, etc ..

I think you answered your own discussion point... 'no' consequences but unrealistic advantage for Germans especially in 41. In principle I love hard trade-off decisions but HQ BU is not a trade-off at all. And as Telemecus noted it closes off AP spend in other areas significantly.

With this experiment I'd like to see what the balance is like without BUs.

I think this AAR is really interesting from the point that many, if not all German players, would never consider spending AP's on fixing the OOB or focus on support units as you have documented assuming HQBU is a far more superior value. This little experiment might just change the way the German player looks at the value of AP's. Replacing X number of poor corps commanders might be worth boosting a PzCorps one turn ..but until you are exploring this it would not be considered to this extent in my opinion.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: Psych0

LOL! Thanks for the compliment ericv... I think. But wrong guess. I'm just a WITE noob, not a Eastern Front noob mate.

As I have interpreted Pelton's AAR's and his Pdf .. Pelton espoused a more conservative opening making sure of secure pockets on turn #1 ..and then aggression Pz movements on turns 2-7 Your opening did not follow that script [;)].

Besides .. I do not believe Pelton would have submitted to no HQBU as his "right hook" strategy I thought depended on it?

[Psych0]

Sil01 seems to be busy so we'll just have to be patient. I could expand this AAR to another game I have going on at the moment which is going along very similar lines and has reached T3 now. Any appetite for that? So the fuel shortages will now start to show. This AAR is not so much about individual matches but about the overall experiment of NO HQ BU between newish players. As I gain experience it would be good to expand this same experiment to more experienced Soviet opponents. I expect that to be a lot tougher without HQ BU...

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: Psych0

Sil01 seems to be busy so we'll just have to be patient. I could expand this AAR to another game I have going on at the moment which is going along very similar lines and has reached T3 now. Any appetite for that? So the fuel shortages will now start to show. This AAR is not so much about individual matches but about the overall experiment of NO HQ BU between newish players. As I gain experience it would be good to expand this same experiment to more experienced Soviet opponents. I expect that to be a lot tougher without HQ BU...

I am very interested to see how this develops after the first winter. One thing to consider is at 50 AP's per turn and no more than 500 AP's saved in any one logistics phase-- can one spend enough on things other than HQBU's to offset the steady use by the Soviets ?

[Psych0]

Good point Crackaces. At least the first 500 AP will be no probkem but after that I'm not sure. Lots of SUs, leaders and command structure to fix before winter but after that indeed probably not enough to spend on without HQ BU.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Psych0

Good point Crackaces. At least the first 500 AP will be no probkem but after that I'm not sure. Lots of SUs, leaders and command structure to fix before winter but after that indeed probably not enough to spend on without HQ BU.

You can go mad building forts - although I think there is a coded limit on how many you can build.

And optimise supply - reassigning units to leave them always within a given number of hexes of HQ and/or to HQs as close as possible to supply. This is an ongoing process!

You can also do something similar to the airforce as you do to the army, swap old models to the frozen home command bases or to low experience units which will crash them in training, best aircraft to best experience units.

If you are delving into the Rumanian generals pool to get the best leaders there you will need to spend plenty of points.

And there is ongoing "maintenance" - when generals get killed/withdrawn, units arrive/leave etc/

In other words I do not think you can run out of things to spend points on - its just that there may be diminishing returns.