Glvaca v Panzerjeager Hortlund (no Hortlund)

[glvaca]

TURN5 SOUTH2
The previously Build up PzC strikes East towards D & Z-town but I get side tracked and form a clumsy pocket. Bad play on my end as, obviously, the pocket will be broken.
The Rumanians take a go at Odessa but fail miserably.

[glvaca]

OOB

[glvaca]

PROD

[glvaca]

AIR
PH has started a airfield bombing campaign around now. The first results are not in his favour and I still keep a good margin but...

[glvaca]

GROUND

[glvaca]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

Soviet "single" line large defense stack isnt going to work against a human player. Might as well had no defense at all. Instead maybe the Soviets should have set up a lemonade stands every hex to at least make the Panzers stop for refreshments. Heck a single beer stand in the first hex and they would have stopped for the week You know those Germans love their BEER!!!!!

They do, and we Belgians too [;)]
you're right though, his line lacks depth but that's probably more to do with lack of units than intentional.

[glvaca]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: glvaca

TURN5 SOUTH
Most of the infantry has caught up and keeps looking for weak spots. He still keeps units on the West side of the river to benefit from the terrain..
1 more build up for 2PzG loaned Corps.
Further South is where things are happening.

In the south you should have no problem what-so-ever crossing the river. I see many weak spots.

For now...

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: glvaca

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

Soviet "single" line large defense stack isnt going to work against a human player. Might as well had no defense at all. Instead maybe the Soviets should have set up a lemonade stands every hex to at least make the Panzers stop for refreshments. Heck a single beer stand in the first hex and they would have stopped for the week You know those Germans love their BEER!!!!!

They do, and we Belgians too [;)]
you're right though, his line lacks depth but that's probably more to do with lack of units than intentional.

I can say unequivocally looking at your screenshots from turn two up that is the case with no defense in depth. I also know from playing him. Great guy but he really needs to start getting a defense in depth.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: glvaca

AIR
PH has started a airfield bombing campaign around now. The first results are not in his favour and I still keep a good margin but...

Hmmmmmm, thats a lot of fighters you lost all from Airfield bombing. What I do when playing the Germans is send all my AA back turn 1 to OKH to be sent out to my airbase HQ's. I then stack two airbases and an HQ which I stuff with flak (I have my own formula per Airbase HQ). So all my Airbases have an HQ under it with a crap load of AA. Then put those next to each other in their theater of operation. You then have a ton of flak that can activate against his bombers from each of the HQ's(plus the Airbases intrinsic AA) along with any fighter cap. I know against one poor soul I shot down like 140 of his fighters & bombers from my fighters and flak from one enemy bombing run. I will see if I can find the snapshot & if I do I will post it.

[glvaca]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: glvaca

Hmmmmmm, thats a lot of fighters you lost all from Airfield bombing. What I do when playing the Germans is send all my AA back turn 1 to OKH to be sent out to my airbase HQ's. I then stack two airbases and an HQ which I stuff with flak (I have my own formula per Airbase HQ). So all my Airbases have an HQ under it with a crap load of AA. Then put those next to each other in their theater of operation. You then have a ton of flak that can activate against his bombers from each of the HQ's(plus the Airbases intrinsic AA) along with any fighter cap. I know against one poor soul I shot down like 140 of his fighters & bombers from my fighters and flak from one enemy bombing run. I will see if I can find the snapshot & if I do I will post it.

True, and it's going to get worse. I came to the same conclusion as you are suggesting. It took me longer than it should have but I thought airbase bombing was nerved!! NOT![8|]

[glvaca]

TURN7
Sorry, forgot to make screenshots of turn6 [:@] so will do my best to summarize the 2 turns at once.

Here's a screenshot of the Hungary Marauders [;)]
The infestation has gone far wider than I had expected and I do wonder if there is any realism left with the new activation rules.
Going to post this on the tech forum later. Not complaining about PH, there was no house rules to prevent this and he does achieve his objective to keep a lot of troops occupied who could have done something more useful.
The Lvov pocket was cleaned out on T6.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Regarding the airforce: Be careful with the fighters. Their production is Germanys choke point in 1941. If you don't counter it, ignore the air war, have wrong settings and your opponent has read Dinglirs AARs about "Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich, Eastern Front edition", the Soviets can destroy 100+ fighters per turn, while replacements are only 30-40, which will neutralise the German fighter force until turn 12 or so. But current losses are a draw in the air in my book. So having enough AA gun, high % to interception, not overusing fighters for escort and making sure that all air armies cross-cover each other is important. I would also concentrate fighters in the 1HQ+2airbases stack because of 2 times bombing limit, losses of bombers (especially level bombers) aren't that important.

I don't think that airfield bombing is overpowered by the way, from my 1 game exp. the problem is that axis players think the air war for 1941 is done after T1 airfield bombing.
I am no expert regarding this but I watched 1 or 2 bombing runs on level 7 and for whatever reason many axis fighter losses were "crashed while landing", most likely as a result of fatigue and damage taken from Soviet fighters. Airfield bombing alone doesn't seem to be that effective from my experience.

One can ask "is this ahistorical"? The important question is: What had happened if the Soviets in 1941 would have concentrated their best planes against one air army after training their pilots in an all or nothing fight with the Luftwaffe. IMO rolling day and night all out attacks performed by nearly the entire Red Airforce against a single Fliegerkorps/Air army could have done severe damage if the Germans are catched off guard.


Question to Hardluck: Which is your "personal" AA gun setting for airbases? I assume heavy flak to counter high flying level bombers, leaving the light flak for the panzers/infantry to counter tac air?

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

Regarding the airforce: Be careful with the fighters. Their production is Germanys choke point in 1941. If you don't counter it, ignore the air war, have wrong settings and your opponent has read Dinglirs AARs about "Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich, Eastern Front edition", the Soviets can destroy 100+ fighters per turn, while replacements are only 30-40, which will neutralise the German fighter force until turn 12 or so. But current losses are a draw in the air in my book. So having enough AA gun, high % to interception, not overusing fighters for escort and making sure that all air armies cross-cover each other is important. I would also concentrate fighters in the 1HQ+2airbases stack because of 2 times bombing limit, losses of bombers (especially level bombers) aren't that important.

I don't think that airfield bombing is overpowered by the way, from my 1 game exp. the problem is that axis players think the air war for 1941 is done after T1 airfield bombing.
I am no expert regarding this but I watched 1 or 2 bombing runs on level 7 and for whatever reason many axis fighter losses were "crashed while landing", most likely as a result of fatigue and damage taken from Soviet fighters. Airfield bombing alone doesn't seem to be that effective from my experience.

One can ask "is this ahistorical"? The important question is: What had happened if the Soviets in 1941 would have concentrated their best planes against one air army after training their pilots in an all or nothing fight with the Luftwaffe. IMO rolling day and night all out attacks performed by nearly the entire Red Airforce against a single Fliegerkorps/Air army could have done severe damage if the Germans are catched off guard.


Question to Hardluck: Which is your "personal" AA gun setting for airbases? I assume heavy flak to counter high flying level bombers, leaving the light flak for the panzers/infantry to counter tac air?

This is all very sound advice. I would like to emphasis a couple of points stated above. 1. Don't over utilize the German fighter wing(I personally don't do interdiction missions(plus these can be abused by the Soviet player i.e. moving a unit farther in the rear over and over until an interdiction mission happens where fighters can't reach. Thus being farther to the rear the German fighters wont be able to escort the bombers all the way to the interdiction location. Thus the Soviets can have fighters set up on Airbases to intercept those bombers and get free unescorted bomber kills). 2. I try and keep fatigue below ~15-20% as a threshold for a turns missions/movement, even that to me is too high but needed sometimes as situations dictate (I have free airbases that I move then transfer the plane to them to keep fatigue down when moving airbases. Painful tedious but very effective(it also has drawbacks)). I also rotate at a minimum a single fighter squadron to reserve every turn(the one with highest accumulated fatigue) 3. The Germans can still conduct airfield bombing after turn two too. With the right settings, the correct aircraft, these Airfield bombings are crazy effective. 4. Watch the supply of your airbases. No supply, no flying air missions.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: glvaca

TURN7
Sorry, forgot to make screenshots of turn6 [:@] so will do my best to summarize the 2 turns at once.

Here's a screenshot of the Hungary Marauders [;)]
The infestation has gone far wider than I had expected and I do wonder if there is any realism left with the new activation rules.
Going to post this on the tech forum later. Not complaining about PH, there was no house rules to prevent this and he does achieve his objective to keep a lot of troops occupied who could have done something more useful.
The Lvov pocket was cleaned out on T6.

They will auto surrender soon enough if not getting supply drops from the air. Normally around turn 7-10 for surrender. Just garrison the cities (which most are) and move everyone else to he front. I let Soviets that invade Hungry in 41 to free roam. The worst that is going to happen is rail will be broken but nothing serious can be done.

Other Hungry units wont activate either(at least in the old patches they didn't)

[EwaldvonKleist]

@Hardluck: Thanks for the further comments. I love high interdiction settings on the enemy side! As Soviets I moved around the useless corps/airbases around to cause interdiction missions, but in fighter range to make them tired. After some time I stroke with my Mig 3 and level bombers, the Germans suffered
Ground support is another thing. For whatever reason allot of fighters react for every attack. If you do not intercept them, they fly useless missions, causing even more fatigue and maybe even some flak losses.
Regarding 3): What are the "right settings" to bomb Soviet airbases? I suppose good fighters, a bit juggling around with airbases and air transfer and finally taking level bombers with high cruise speed?

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: glvaca
Here's a screenshot of the Hungary Marauders [;)]

Now that's what I'm talking about!

ORIGINAL: MarauderPL

ORIGINAL: glvaca

[:D]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus



Given that they are cut-off I think it is better called "marauding"

I concur

But MarauderHU does not! [:)]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
They will auto surrender soon enough if not getting supply drops from the air. Normally around turn 7-10 for surrender. Just garrison the cities (which most are) and move everyone else to he front. I let Soviets that invade Hungry in 41 to free roam. The worst that is going to happen is rail will be broken but nothing serious can be done.

Other Hungry units wont activate either(at least in the old patches they didn't)

But the broken rail is serious. AGS starts off with about 30 construction units and you have the Rumanians. You need an auto rail repair route that bypasses Rumania as it is quicker for German arrivals and necessary for Hungarians if they are not to walk to the frontlines. If your construction units are repairing rail in Hungary they are not going to be creating the extra lines you might want from Hungary/Poland. Perhaps it is different for glvaca as he has two FBDs south from early in the game. But I am guessing his auto rail repair will be five or six hexes short of where it would otherwise have been.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: glvaca
Here's a screenshot of the Hungary Marauders [;)]

Now that' what I'm talking about!

ORIGINAL: MarauderPL

ORIGINAL: glvaca

[:D]

I concur

But MarauderHU does not! [:)]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
They will auto surrender soon enough if not getting supply drops from the air. Normally around turn 7-10 for surrender. Just garrison the cities (which most are) and move everyone else to he front. I let Soviets that invade Hungry in 41 to free roam. The worst that is going to happen is rail will be broken but nothing serious can be done.

Other Hungry units wont activate either(at least in the old patches they didn't)

But the broken rail is serious. AGS starts off with about 30 construction units and you have the Rumanians. You need an auto rail repair route that bypasses Rumania as it is quicker for German arrivals and necessary for Hungarians if they are not to walk to the frontlines. If your construction units are repairing rail in Hungary they are not going to be creating the extra lines you might want from Hungary/Poland. Perhaps it is different for glvaca as he has two FBDs south from early in the game. But I am guessing his auto rail repair will be five or six hexes short of where it would otherwise have been.

To me this isnt serious, to use alot of the extra troops to chase marauders is. You have multiple avenues of rail to Romania to get troops to the front since repair of the Lvov area rail line still takes forever to repair as is. So most reinforcements will still be going through Romania well into the future(at least that is what I do). At a minimum a few regiments can be used to block where the marauders go but the mass of troops chasing these marauders is not something the Germans want to start doing. The German side is all about being the most efficient with the least amount of troops, in this case the Soviet side would win when front line troops are chasing marauders. After the Marauders are gone put a GHQ HQ, Romanian HQ, or Italian HQ with a couple of workers in it to repair what was done.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

@Hardluck: Thanks for the further comments. I love high interdiction settings on the enemy side! As Soviets I moved around the useless corps/airbases around to cause interdiction missions, but in fighter range to make them tired. After some time I stroke with my Mig 3 and level bombers, the Germans suffered
Ground support is another thing. For whatever reason allot of fighters react for every attack. If you do not intercept them, they fly useless missions, causing even more fatigue and maybe even some flak losses.
Regarding 3): What are the "right settings" to bomb Soviet airbases? I suppose good fighters, a bit juggling around with airbases and air transfer and finally taking level bombers with high cruise speed?

Exactly EwaldvonKleist, I gave one example & you gave another great example on why not to fly interdiction. Interdiction is a bane, don't fly it if you know what is good for you as Germany.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
To me this isnt serious, to use alot of the extra troops to chase marauders is. You have multiple avenues of rail to Romania to get troops to the front since repair of the Lvov area rail line still takes forever to repair as is. So most reinforcements will still be going through Romania well into the future(at least that is what I do). At a minimum a few regiments can be used to block where the marauders go but the mass of troops chasing these marauders is not something the Germans want to start doing. The German side is all about being the most efficient with the least amount of troops, in this case the Soviet side would win when front line troops are chasing marauders. After the Marauders are gone put a GHQ HQ, Romanian HQ, or Italian HQ with a couple of workers in it to repair what was done.

I suppose I half agree with you there - it is painful to see Hungarian mobile units for their brief stay in the game chasing marauders in Hungary. But when I faced an opponent who was determined to invade Hungary I used the cavalry, security and mountain unit to block every Soviet attempt on the rails. When they went North I went North, they went South I went South etc. And when the 4th Mountain division unfreezes use that to slowly eliminate the contained marauders along with the Hungarians.

I think glvaca was caught out because he relied on the activation rules as described in the manual which are not correct. But knowing you cannot rely on a Hungarian activation means you should take the marauding seriously and use the three Hungarian non-motorised units to contain it.

My experience is I can get a bypass rail line around Rumania by auto repair before winter. This means that German arrivals can arrive at the front a turn earlier, and Hungarian unfreezers many many turns earlier. If they are working in Hungary it just will not happen.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
To me this isnt serious, to use alot of the extra troops to chase marauders is. You have multiple avenues of rail to Romania to get troops to the front since repair of the Lvov area rail line still takes forever to repair as is. So most reinforcements will still be going through Romania well into the future(at least that is what I do). At a minimum a few regiments can be used to block where the marauders go but the mass of troops chasing these marauders is not something the Germans want to start doing. The German side is all about being the most efficient with the least amount of troops, in this case the Soviet side would win when front line troops are chasing marauders. After the Marauders are gone put a GHQ HQ, Romanian HQ, or Italian HQ with a couple of workers in it to repair what was done.

I suppose I half agree with you there - it is painful to see Hungarian mobile units for their brief stay in the game chasing marauders in Hungary. But when I faced an opponent who was determined to invade Hungary I used the cavalry, security and mountain unit to block every Soviet attempt on the rails. When they went North I went North, they went South I went South etc. And when the 4th Mountain division unfreezes use that to slowly eliminate the contained marauders along with the Hungarians.

I think glvaca was caught out because he relied on the activation rules as described in the manual which are not correct. But knowing you cannot rely on a Hungarian activation means you should take the marauding seriously and use the three Hungarian non-motorised units to contain it.

My experience is I can get a bypass rail line around Rumania by auto repair before winter. This means that German arrivals can arrive at the front a turn earlier, and Hungarian unfreezers many many turns earlier. If they are working in Hungary it just will not happen.

Ah, I see. Thank you Telemecus makes sense