First try

[Arstavidios]

Soviet tanks are becoming a luxury. I'm making deliberate attacks on soviet tank units whenever I can. This should take many teeth out of the soviet winter couter offensive. I should be able to field plenty of soviet equiped tank units in 1942. where can I see what's captured? I did not find that so far[&:]

[Arstavidios]

At the begining of turn 18 it looks like there's been a massive epidemic of dissentry all over the map.
Well mud has turned in.

The last few turns have been quite costly with axis losses starting to rise due to a number of frontal attacks against fast deepening soviet fortifications.

In the north my troops have been making slow progress towards Leningrad. An assault on the central hex was repulsed with the attacking divisions quite cut up.

[Arstavidios]

In the South, after the panzer breakthrough towards Moscow I swithtced the effort to the sides in order to enlarge the salient and straigthen the line.

I'm also pushing North in order to eliminate the salient around lake Ilmen and possibly keep pushing toward the finish lines. However the arrival of bad weather probably puts an end to this. I may still occuppy a few hexes and possibly clean up the line here and there. I started to duild fortified areas in the zones where I was not advancing just in case. Can't hurt. I have to start thinking about how to organoise my defenses for the coming winter.

I may still have a few turns available for some additional attacks until december so I'd batter make the better use of them.

Meanwhile I'm going to start digging. Where are those dwarves when you need them? All drunk down in the moria
Oops wrong game [:D]

[Arstavidios]

In the south, my forces are at the gates of Stalino. A couple of turns away from Rostov.
Whether trying to take Rostov and trying to keep it is a good idea or not is an interesting debate.
Panzer Gruppe 1 is quite oversized with as many mobile forces as in the other 3 Panzer groups.
So they take a lot of room in the frontline, and keeping them there is not going to be a good idea.

So I need to get more infantry to the front line. It may also be a good idea to build some reserves.
I don't know if dismounting the motorised infantry into foot infantry is a good idea. This would make me more front line infantry.

I could also turn some units into static mode.

Also wondering about withdrawals. What happens if a unit in static mode is withdrawn? Do you save the trucks against the same withdrawal in mobile mode?

What happens when a unit is withdrawn for a refit wheras it's still full? Do you lose the benfit of the refit against the same withdrawal of a depleted unit? There's a minimum strength requirement for withdrawals, but what happens to what's above the minimum requirement? Is it lost? is the excess recieved in pools?
Same thing for the trucks?

[Arstavidios]

The rumanians a re holding the gates to the Crimea. However it looks like German Firepower will be needed to open them.Withe need of infantry in the frontlines it's most like quite a few of these guys will end up in the trenches before the en of the winter.

11th army is cleaning up some of the mess trapped along the sea but it looks like the Ai is conducting evacuation operations.

[Arstavidios]

losses

[Arstavidios]

Soviet numbers reached a low mark a 3 700 000 men in August and 2000 tanks in October.
they are now increasing regularly turn after turn. Large pockets are necessary to capture large numbers of soviet troops. However as you advance into the country you outrun your lines of supply and the front widens, soviet trop density also decreases with most front line units being understrenghth brigades. So the catches are meager.

Time to start bracing for what's up next. So far results look pretty much historical. AI is doing a decent job.

One thing that couls de improved is that it has a tendency to abandon large cities then are threatened with encirclement or when there are encircled and the troops try to leave. It might slow down the axis to leave troops there even though they're sacrificed as the assaults will take some time. But then sometimes the Ai stays sometines it leaves.

[karonagames]

One thing that couls de improved is that it has a tendency to abandon large cities then are threatened with encirclement

Yes, that has niggled at me throughout testing, GAIA is good at "Looking over her shoulder" to see if her flanks are threatened so she pulls back, but she definitely needs a routine to leave a rearguard in cities.
Joel has noted this, so we may see some improvement down the line.

[Arstavidios]

After four turns of mud came cold weather.
During the mud there was little fighting.
Afew attacks to improve the line.

The first turn of cold weather I lauched some attacks, but then with fast growing soviet number i decided it was a better idea to dig, dig dig.

So here's the Von Fubar Winterlinie

[Arstavidios]

All hexes are occupied by a german division and a fortified zone.
In the South I stil have many armoured or motorised divisions on the front As I don'have enough infantry.
There's some reorganisiation going on all around the front with units moving to dedensive positions.

In the North each corps leaves 3 divisions in the front with the fourth in reserve in a fortified zone with the corp HQ.

I'll try to extend this progressively but I don' have enough German infantry divisions to cover the whole front and there are some withdrawals and few reinforcements.

In the south I have plenty of German allies coming to the front and many motorised units , so I can have two combat units and a fortified zone per hex with a second line of motorised units units.

In the centre I have a screen of 1 division and a fortified zone per hex. I'm extentigg AGN front to allow me to put a few divisions in reserve in the centre.

Panzer corps are grouped with all three divisions in one stack and in reserve dehind the line. That makes 5 corps in reserve for the whole of AGN and AGC. I should be able to scrape together a dozen infantry divisions to put in reserve. Axis allies cannot go there. thay would be useful to bolseter the line.

Some partisans are starting to pop up. So far I only have security troops as garrisons. But those fast rumanian cavalry brigades might prove particularly useful in that role.
I wonder if fortified zones in a hex protect the rail from partisan attacks. This could be useful to protect a few key points on the network, though costly in admin points. Most of those points will end up in fortified zones any way. Each one is about 1800 men strong. Those this is not insignificant in terms of manpower. This is about a reinforced batallion with some mortars and machine guns. And my understanding is it also helps with the digging.

So far I've left them assigned to OKH; I don't which level is best. Army, Army group, corp, OKH, just a waste of ressources?

They will be good to prepare fall back positions if needed. So far I only fortified the fronline. plus a fex hexes to protect hQs in case there's a breakthrough. With oa fortified sone they shoud not just fly away.

Truks sunk in the mud at a rate of around 5000 truks a week. as my forces did not move much or fight the situation stabilised with cold weather. I now have about just enough truks for my needs, with no unit in static mode so far.

soviet numbers are now 5.5 million men with 4000 tanks growing rapidly as there is vritually no fighting.

losses have 3.5 million men for the soviets against 600 000 for the axis. I'm losing about 20000 men every turn due to attrition fron what I underwstand.

Do the soviets also suffer attrition? How do you see that?

[karonagames]

Do the soviets also suffer attrition? How do you see that?

They do, same rules as the Axis, but If think the casualty summary you see is always after their attrition has been calculated. Around this stage of the campaign I would guess that they are losing 25,000 to 30,000 men per turn.

[karonagames]

For a first try, you are doing extremely well - way, way better than I did in my first try! Your winter preparations sound like they are they best you can do in the circumstances. You do have some re-inforcements in the pipeline, and the first couple of turns of Soviet attacks should show where they are needed.

[Arstavidios]

Well, those fast growing soviet numbers are making me nervous. when I saw my truks sinking into the mud by thousands every turn I thought it was batter to stop and start digging.
My front line division have a combat value of only 4 now [X(] even though all my troops are about complete. I don't like to suffer casualties. so I tried not to be reckless exceopt in the first few turns when there was a wild panzer rush.

Fort levels are going up, and there are a few reinforcemnts on the rail.  I'm sending them maainly to the centre at the momenT. I have some reseves in the North and south.
AGC need some reorganisation as the panzers where at the front when I called the offensive off. I'm gradually replacing them with infantry. Rumanians and friends also provide good numbers, and average troops are better than no troops.

The red army is already two million men stronger than at its lowest point. Looks like Untergefreiter von Snafu ins going to keep shovelling for a while to keep warm.
I was thinking about switching to the soviet side to see how it works, but getting the soviet offensive will also be interesting. So I'll keep with germans for a while.
Or maybe it woulb be interestiong to switch this game to pbem and see how a human would do but I don't know if it's possible.

So far the situation is looking rather realistic  and the AI is doing a reasonable job so I'm expecting some serious german ass kicking to start soon........

I'm going to need all those troops.

[Arstavidios]

Well, The AI lauched its first turn of winter offensive and it's been well, awfully painful.
losses were 122000 for the AI.

Some places which had time to dig resisted well others did not. So I have a big number of holes along my lines.
I'm not quite sure as to what to do next and how to handle that. However my defensives dispositions were not complete with many troops not yet properly deployed and units not yet put in reserve mode.

A few more turns of such a bashing and the German army will be gone.
Ouch.

[Arstavidios]

however, I somewhat neglected a number of dispositions and especially the placing of reserves. Also need to get a look at leaders, support units, and air force more in detail.
I might redo the last turn which I rushed abd whereI neglected plenty of the preparations to see how much this would change. Playing too many turns in a row is not good as you end up screwing many things
I think a little manual reading is in order now.[:D]

Anyway looks like the AI is up for some serious human as kicking. So I'd better take it seriously, if I don't want to see the red army in berlin for summer 1942.

Basically here my defenses were made of a continuous line a divisions entrenched with a fortified zone in each hex and some minor allies added up in the South.
I have a few extra infantry divisions  and siome armour that I can make use of. I'm going to make a few experiments  with defensive tactics.

At the gates of Crimea the Rumanians did fairly well in entrenched positions.
So after experimenting various offensive tactics I'm going to have a go at the defense.

[Arstavidios]

An other dumb question about reserves.
As I was attackind I did not go very much into the matter.
What happens if you put your frontline units in reserve mode?
Do they support each other?
Is it a bas idea as they will expend all their ammo and will soon be reduced to throwing snowballs at T34?

[Flaviusx]

Any unit in an enemy zoc is prevented from acting as a reserve.

[Arstavidios]

Ok.
Going through the battles I noticed that although my dispositions were rather similar all alonfg the front, one german infantry division and a fortified zone results varied quite considerably against quite similar soviet assaults.

One of the corps that did badly was transfered was transfered from 17th to 6th army the previous turn.
Some divisions were moved around and with the bad weather conditions they may have been aversely affected.

There was also less air support during the later soviet attacks.

The resulst was some modified comabt values of between 80 and 120 for some divisions and modified CV of about 30 for others a few hexes down the line. I suppose there's also some random elements thrown in in the soup and it's the combination of many factors.

So it's time to learn the art of surving a soviet winter counteroffensive as I suspect a human player will pull some some nasty tricks out of his fur cap

[karonagames]

You have to accept that units will retreat, which is why I will be interested to see if you think the fortified zones are a worthwhile investment - personally I never used them.

In the north the terrain will help you, and often the SU cannot occupy a hex they push you out of. You should re-occupy it even though you will not be entrenched. AGN should expect to lose 3-6 hexes.

In the Centre, the terrain helps a little bit, but you should expect to lose 6-10 hexes.

The south is a problem as the terrain is all clear, and if the AI gets lucky with its die rolls it can do double attacks which really hurt. You could lose 10-12 hexes. If you are forced to commit the Axis Allies, the front can collapse, which is what happened in my first game. If it goes bad, try building "hedgehogs" around Ztown and Dtown. If they get threatened with Isolation, you might want to use HQ build-up. I can't confirm it works as well on defence as it does when attacking, but anything is worth trying if it gets desperate.

Low CVs might mean low ammo. Work on your supply line to these units and/or top them up with supply drops ( don't use AI supply drops as it is not working properly).

You should check out my Field marshal noob AAR. When you get to March there is a chance to regain some lost ground. In the south I managed a good pocket which repaired a lot of the damage the Reds did to me in the south. The trick is maintaining enough combat strength to be able to counter attack

[Arstavidios]

I found the captured equipment.
I'm a bit disappointed at the numbers, especially withe numbers of units that surrendered. I think this should be be toned up somewhat.

I may be wrong but from what I understand the Germans captured and used large numbers of soviet artillery.
so a few hundred guns captured seems to be on the low end. Yet I'm capturing some stuff. So it's more a matter of adjusting the thing to a more reasonable level. I suppose someone must have the actual numbers somewhere

For exemple only 36 76mm AT guns captured does not seem quite correct. I would have expected a couple of additional zeros to the figure.

How about Russians that served as auxiliaries in the German army? How are they handled. Large numbers ended up as labourers later in the war, so mostly support squads. But this freed up german troop for frontline service. I think the overall figure was well into the million range, so that's not an insignificant matter.