Chaos(SHC) vs Pelton-T131- Game Over-Soviet victory.

[chaos45]

Mud continues everywhere.

Finland Surrenders finally as Soviets troops are about to march into their capital.

Soviet Rail engineers are still working non-stop to repair the trashed rail network behind the lines. The weather forecast for next week is snow as all fronts gear up and prepare to resume the offensive. The Soviet rail effort is massive involving 70+ rail brigades all of them have been deployed rebuilding the rail network every turn during mud.

The German army has apparently taken the last month to hurriedly rebuild the destroyed armies from the end of summer and the German OOB has rebounded astoundingly fast. From a low of just over 3M the German army is fielding over 3.1M men now with just a 4 week respite. Seems alittle fast for the Germans to be able to rebuild and re-man formations to me but its a fantasy game. Esp since the Germans also lost 4 more divisions in pockets over mud season......

E-stalin is determined to wipe out all the new fresh fascist quickly reinforcing the German lines lol.

[chaos45]

T126- First snow turn...Pelton runs Kiev north and holds in the south----right next to my 40+ mobile corps again.....So I launch another pocket operation if he is going to just let me take POWs.

Wasnt quite able to pocket the 20 or So axis divisions along the Dnepr...but most are in Zoc's from both sides so escape is extremely unlikely for the elements of almost an entire Axis army. Also made a small pocket of 2 divisions in front of Kiev with 2 shock armies working together. Unless I get extremely shocked by remaining axis capabilities...Im guessing in a couple turns it will be another 10-15 axis divisions to Siberia.

[Hermann]

There are great historical records about population. Remember each year there are x amount of citizens born. That's called a year. At 18 years of age they become a draft. that's a set number. Each nation should always get a draft year each and if they run out of men theyre screwed - no more. A draft base is usually 18-45 years old. by calling up a draft you allow yourself more men - Hitlers final draft in 1945 was the 1930 year. this should affect base morale and experience.

[Peltonx]

Remember you only need 13 more VP's by April 44 and games over so running is not really an option which is why I been fighting forward as needed.

The swapping bug fix working amazing well as all the units us captured were back at FULL strength in 5 turns - its amazing how many men/guns/tanks were stuck in pools.

Which is why a few 12 turns ago you capture a stack or stacks of men and there were hardly any guns or AFV's

My army basicly got zero guns or tanks or rifle squads for the first 7 months during 1943.

I have no LW because I had to turn production off tring to save armaments which did not work as swapping bug was to far into the swapping retion to help as in past games.

The need 3x bombing hexes is silly over powered by 43 for Russia and way way silly over powered for LW in 41.

AS chaos has stated in his emails to me

The key is over time its an insane tool if used right and there is zero counter as AA seems to be about usless as it is with WitW.

Hopefully this will get changed before 2.0 release.

[chaos45]

wont say AA is useless as even with no luftwaffe Im losing 200 planes a week lol.....so if you actually had even a few fighter groups my losses would be much higher im sure....also max effort cants be sustained forever at least for the soviets the mud gave all my airgroups time to refit and rest for a max effort on the first snow.

I do agree it might be a tad to much...maybe 2 per hex? would be the first step in toning it down.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: chaos45

wont say AA is useless as even with no luftwaffe Im losing 200 planes a week lol.....so if you actually had even a few fighter groups my losses would be much higher im sure....also max effort cants be sustained forever at least for the soviets the mud game all my airgroups time to refit and rest for a max effort on the first snow.

I do agree it might be a tad to much...maybe 2 per hex? would be the first step in toning it down.

It causes a snowball effect which is always the issue with Germany 41 and Russia 43.

The extra routes and heavier then normal loses add up over 10+ turns.

The issue is you only need to do it 3 hexes wide and 2 deep and units are basicly useless and take huge loses as you hit them over and over just for fun.

WitW does the same thing but its easyer.

[chaos45]

T127- Cherkassy encirclement battle continues...think i locked up the germans in the new mass prison camps pretty nicely this turn. Will post some pictures after the battle resolves.

In pockets T127-
Germans- 14 inf div, 1 pz div, 1 mot bde, 1 inf reg
Axis allied 1x hun div, 2x rom div.

Most are trapped right along the dnepr, with 2 small grps- 3 inf div/1 inf reg encircled to the NE of kiev.

[chaos45]

T126 First Snow massive soviet attack punches the German lines endangering an entire German army with encirclement.

[chaos45]

T127 German forces attempt to escape, however the trap is closed and a couple outside divisions forced into the pocket as well by clever soviet tank corps assaults.

[chaos45]

T128- Liquidation of yet another German Army begins.

[chaos45]

T128 OOB- first time German army drops below 3M

[chaos45]

T128 total losses

[chaos45]

T128- destroyed axis units--alot of good SU are destroyed in the pocket as well. 4 German divisions and a security regiment are still pocketed and wiped out on T129 so a massive haul of axis PoWs and weapons.

[chaos45]

T129- Is a slow week as I was finishing off the pockets in a blizzard and thus my infantry needed to catch up to the new frontline. German forces retreated 1-2 hexes all along the line and Kiev fell to Soviet forces.

the remaining 4 div/1 reg become POWs and the soviets rest the offensive forces saving trucks and letting the infantry and artillery reach the new frontlines.

My shock armies of cav corps are doing a good job of keeping up with the retreating germans and keeping them Zoc'd each time they retreat. Again IMO cav corps from late 1941 on are a must buy in large quantities for the Soviets. They have decent CV, are fast moving, and dont cost a ton of trucks. At this point they dont hit as hard as my tank/mech corps but having 25 corps of semi-mobile forces in addition to my 30+ tank/mech corps has been a huge benefit in supporting the offensive and keeping up without burning extra trucks when the Germans retreat.

As you can see from the main map the advance continues all along the front....next stop is Minsk in the center and the Dvina in the north is slowly being given up from the center to the west. In the far south my forces are almost to Odessa-1 hex away.

[Peltonx]

We at 152 VP's so I am forsed to Hold at all costs until April 44 [&:]

It will be over in a few turns.

[chaos45]

After a week to refit and replace T34s which have a combat expectancy of about 1 battle....the Soviets resume the offensive in middle of a Blizzard.

The Objective of this offensive was to Recapture Odessa and once more wipe out the entire southern wing of AGS. The blizzard slowed the soviet tank column and a massive German flak concentration blew the red airforce from the sky but the offensive still rolled forward.

Pelton apparently figured out Flak works and in one sector I ran into something like 500 flak guns on each bombing raid pretty much stopping the red airforce cold in that sector...over 300 Flak losses in one week of operations.

However the 12k soviet tanks easily rolled over German lines routing an entire panzer army and encircling 1 entire German army north of Odessa and virtually encircling a second German army just to the NE of Odessa....very few German units should escape from the almost encirclement due to Zocs on both sides so most units will only be able to walk 1-2 hexes at most.

A ton of elite German units and panzer divisions were routed by the offensive as well so German counterattack potential not to mention morale should be in the dumpsters as I also continued to rout these units several times in the turn.

As to AFV loss rates---even with winning almost every combat losses seem to be about 7-8:1 Soviet to German AFV....this is honestly within historical realms so currently I have no issue with it. The germans do seem to take very low AFV losses even when being badly defeated, their loss rate probably needs slight increase as otherwise short of massive encirclements the Soviet player will most likely never reduce German AFV totals.

[chaos45]

T130- Here is the fresh winter Blizzard offensive of late 1943- intended objective was to rip apart AGS once more, encircle and destroy the southern end of the German lines and recapture Odessa.

Soviet Tank/Mech forces had spent the prior week doing nothing but refueling, rearming, and replacing equipment preparing for this assautlt. 1 tank army was still tied down screening the new front line as the blizzard had Delayed the infantry from reaching it last week. A large chuck of the frontline about 9 hexes is held/screened by the cav corps that are harassing the retreating German formations.

T130- Kicks off with the 2 shock armies concentrating and punching an initial 30-40 mile hole in the German defense lines. After the initial breach is made the slower moving tank armies pour in to widen the breach and truly defeat the German defenses. The next tank corps are then moving in to surround the rocks/SS panzer and elite panzers so the next attack just routs them and I dont have to deal with them anymore. After that the remaining tank armies pour through hasty attacking the shattered German divisions with the end result of the complete rout of 1 german army, encirclement of a german army, and defacto encirclement of an additional german army. Effectively once more decimating AGS in 1 week of operations.

[chaos45]

T131-Going to do North to south then OOB/losses/notable units...and then comments.

[chaos45]

T131- Center

[chaos45]

T131-upper south