Timmyab (Sov) vs 821Bobo (Axis)

[timmyab]

You have the same approach as me by the sounds of it. Isolate armor if possible, if not then force it's supply lines through ZOC, across rivers and through marshes.
Keep your cavalry on the flanks of likely penetrations and at low TOE. No point in wasting cavalry elements, it's their mobility that's important not their strength.

I think Silly means that it doesn't matter that I lost a lot of cavalry divisions because the game's over.

[RKhan]

I'm curious about how you seem to split up your armies such that they don't stay in command range of the front. I have been keen to get as many chances for SU allocation as possible, even brining forward STAVKA where it is safe to do so.

Is this simple expediency on your part given the the confused early mix up of Soviet units? Or are you not that bothered?

I'm also curious about the comment that the game is over. Given that the game is almost always going to end in German defeat in a historical sense, what does it mean to be over?

I have held my opponent even further west than you, but we are both noobs and playing German is less forgiving. I expect my less than optimal play is mostly still in the future. I guess I play to win but I have a very situational concept of "win."

I am very envious of your limited counter strikes. I don't have +1 or the experience so I'm stuck defending for now.

[821Bobo]

I must admit that surrendering was a cowardice. I should probably stick with the Soviet side until WitE2.
Regarding my "poor" flank security. It's easy to criticize but Tim always needed at least 1 or 2 successful counter attacks and then unit with enough MPs to cut my spearheads. I am not silly and was aware about the possibility of being cut off. Problem is that the counter attacks were successful all the time. On multiple occasions Tim was able to dislodge whole corps. I am blaming the +1 rule. With +1 good Soviet player knows that the attack will be successful with 100% certainty. Axis player have no such assurance. To counter his expected counter attacks, I had most of the time some units in reserve mode but I got zero activations. Probably because the engine knew it is lost case anyway.

[timmyab]

ORIGINAL: RKhan I'm curious about how you seem to split up your armies such that they don't stay in command range of the front.

I keep them close if possible but I'm not too worried about it. Most benefits come from a unit's immediate HQ.
Frankly I don't like the senior HQ rules in the game. They're not much more than fluff (imo)

ORIGINAL: RKhanI have held my opponent even further west than you, but we are both noobs and playing German is less forgiving.

It is easier to play the Soviet side on the whole but as you play more battle hardened Axis players you have to be extremely precise because your defense is only as strong as it's weakest link and a veteran player is sure to find it if it's there. Suddenly your otherwise impeccable defense has got two PGs behind it Basically you have to know exactly what the Axis player is capable of. This means that in order to defend against a good Axis player you need to be a good Axis player yourself.

ORIGINAL: RKhanI am very envious of your limited counter strikes. I don't have +1 or the experience so I'm stuck defending for now.

You don't need +1 for most attacks to succeed. Starting odds of 1.5 to 1 should be enough even without +1. Don't counterattack for the sake of it because you'll weaken your army.

[timmyab]

@Bobo
It certainly is difficult to balance just how hard to push when you play the Axis side. Push too hard and you risk getting cut off, not hard enough and you risk falling behind on a tight schedule.

[chaos45]

+1 for soviets basically = auto game loss for germans under the current patches.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: chaos45

+1 for soviets basically = auto game loss for germans under the current patches.

I agree, more than the debate about mild/original winter rules this one is too one-sided at this phase of the war.

My core logic with the Soviets in 1941/2 is that if I can set up an attack at about 1.6-1, I'll win around 90%. The real constraint is if I can cope with the consequence of actually losing which can be deadly in terms of defensive strength. With the +1 rule, this really means if you can set up an attack at .7/.8-1, you have a pretty sure win.

While its true that the German Pzr divisions were badly configured for defensive work, they weren't that vulnerable and the nature of IGOUGO removes much of the command co-ordination problems the Soviets faced in reality.

The problem with no +1 and mild winter is it leads to a weak winter offensive. Less important for terrain recovered, more in terms of creation of Gds formations. But across a longer game that combination seems to work quite well, so ...

[timmyab]

I'm not convinced of the all conquering power of +1. It's certainly a threat to players that overextend their spearheads, but that's as it should be. If it was an option I would turn it off for the first 24 turns and 75% of my attacks in this game would still have succeeded. Most of the 25% of +1 offenders in this game were not critical attacks anyway, e.g the two pz corps retreats in the North. Those attacks were not critical, just a bonus for me. Same with the attack against the 17th army bridgehead across the Dniper. Not critical, just helpful. Maybe two critical attacks in this game relied on +1 and would not have been tried without it.
+1 is not a game winning rule. The real offensive power of the Soviet armies (and the Axis too) comes from attacker CV inflation. You can almost guarantee x2 or x3. Defenders usually stay at x1 or a little over.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: 821Bobo


Regarding my "poor" flank security. It's easy to criticize but Tim always needed at least 1 or 2 successful counter attacks and then unit with enough MPs to cut my spearheads. I am not silly and was aware about the possibility of being cut off. Problem is that the counter attacks were successful all the time. On multiple occasions Tim was able to dislodge whole corps. I am blaming the +1 rule. With +1 good Soviet player knows that the attack will be successful with 100% certainty. Axis player have no such assurance. To counter his expected counter attacks, I had most of the time some units in reserve mode but I got zero activations. Probably because the engine knew it is lost case anyway.

I get what you are saying Bobo, but the German has to expect that and adjust his play accordingly. Narrow fingers 2 or 3 hexes wide are always going to be vulnerable in clear terrain and bigger holes need something in the middle of the neck of the thrust to prevent pockets from being possible to create just by knocking back the outer units. If you look at my AAR vs Brian G, you will see that where I didn't/wasn't able to follow these rules, my armour almost always got cut off - and Brian didn't have the +1 advantage.

[RKhan]

Any turn updates? Please.

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: timmyab

I'm not convinced of the all conquering power of +1. It's certainly a threat to players that overextend their spearheads, but that's as it should be. If it was an option I would turn it off for the first 24 turns and 75% of my attacks in this game would still have succeeded. Most of the 25% of +1 offenders in this game were not critical attacks anyway, e.g the two pz corps retreats in the North. Those attacks were not critical, just a bonus for me. Same with the attack against the 17th army bridgehead across the Dniper. Not critical, just helpful. Maybe two critical attacks in this game relied on +1 and would not have been tried without it.
+1 is not a game winning rule. The real offensive power of the Soviet armies (and the Axis too) comes from attacker CV inflation. You can almost guarantee x2 or x3. Defenders usually stay at x1 or a little over.

The attacker CV inflation mostly stems from the fact that the engine is biased to the side with more elements and since the attacker usually brings more elements to bear (especially the Soviets) it leads to those gigantic CV rises. The +1 rule adds to that problem. By my experience you can win the majority of your attacks as the Soviets in a +1 setting at 50% of the German defensive CV. When you face a Soviet player who is aware of this and ready to make the most out of it, it becomes a threat to all German players, not only those that overextend. With the +1 rule all clear terrain hexes are hazardous to German players, forcing you to stack your units two or three divisions high - and even then they are not completely safe.

[timmyab]

ORIGINAL: RKhan

Any turn updates? Please.

Game's over mate, Bobo surrendered. I did mention it in post no.60, but perhaps should have made it clearer.

ORIGINAL: SigUp
The attacker CV inflation mostly stems from the fact that the engine is biased to the side with more elements and since the attacker usually brings more elements to bear (especially the Soviets) it leads to those gigantic CV rises. The +1 rule adds to that problem. By my experience you can win the majority of your attacks as the Soviets in a +1 setting at 50% of the German defensive CV.

Whatever the cause of the inflation I don't like it. When attacking I try to get 1:1 starting odds and assume x2 attacker CV inflation. With the +1 rule this gave me 100% victories, without +1 it would have been more like 75%.
Initial odds often look lower in the screenies than they did from a CV count. I'm not sure why that is, but from just counting up CVs all my attacks here were very close to 1:1 starting odds or above.
Actually when you look at the turn 14 front line verses history Bobo is doing no worse than the Wehrmacht did. Yes the +1 rule is tough on the Germans but so was the real war, they bit off more than they could chew and got their asses handed to them.
If there had been more infantry supporting 1st PG, instead of 17th army bashing against the lower Dnepr, I think this might have been a different game, with the Donbas industry overrun and everything to play for in 1942.

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: timmyab

When attacking I try to get 1:1 starting odds and assume x2 attacker CV inflation. With the +1 rule this gave me 100% victories, without +1 it would have been more like 75%.

Herein lies the issue. With the +1 rule you can get like 75% victories at 0.5:1 starting odds. For example any German division in clear terrain, you can move it with - depending on strength - three to six rifle divisions. And in the past some players used this fact to launch mass attacks on German divisions every turn that kept German morale low leading to a snowball effect down the road. It would be one thing if the +1 rule only hurt German players that overextend themselves. However, that's not the case. You can't stack them all two or three high.

[timmyab]

To be honest I think that mass attacks in 1941 would be a tactical error against a good opponent. Counterattacks should be purposeful and efficient. MPs should mainly be used for retreating or digging. Losing attacks are a particular danger and even 25% would be too many for me.
As I've said here already I'd be happy to forgo +1 in 1941, but that makes the mild blizzard too easy for the Axis and the standard blizzard without +1 is too hard on them, so there's the problem.
My solution would be to make the first winter roughly half way between the two current options and scrap +1 altogether.

[RKhan]

Thanks timmyab, my bad. I was only reading the turns, not so much the commentary. Surrender seemed a bit premature, but no one should put this much time into a game they are not enjoying.