Moses(axis) vs. Tophat1812.

[moses]

In the center my troops smash through above Mogaliv. The rail line is out in the south so those guys will have to run for it. Tophat may try and cut me off for a turn like he did down south but you can see all the infantry I have ready to pile on.

[randallw]

He seems overconfident in the ability of the 1941 Soviet Army to make a hard forward stand.
 
If things go well you might be able to crush 70+ divisions over the first month.  Even with Soviet reserve divisions coming in you may be out ahead in pure manpower.

[krupp_88mm]

if i were you id send my center force south to try to pocket his entire southern front, and leave the northern force to cover the middle, but then again i havent played this game yet

[moses]

I've killed 60 full divisions already in the first four turns. In the game I'm playing against the German AI I've lost 43 divisions in 11 turns and I feel stressed. If I can keep this up I don't know how he maintains a defence.

It seems he's sending everything to the front. When I recon cities back from the line they look empty. For example Keiv seems to contain just one fortified zone and no divisions. It's all up front for me to kill.

[moses]

ORIGINAL: krupp_88mm

if i were you id send my center force south to try to pocket his entire southern front, and leave the northern force to cover the middle, but then again i havent played this game yet

But I've got a pretty good pocket forming in the north as well.[:)]

[Avenger]

Wow! Just wow! [&o]

Okay subscribed for sure.

[ComradeP]

Your spearheads are somewhat at risk moses, also don't make the historical mistake of assuming he's hurting for manpower currently. You can kill ~70 divisions on turn 2 depending on the pocket you made on turn 1, and in doing so you'd kill about 1 in 3.5 of the on-map Soviet divisions at the start of Barbarossa, but it won't be a problem on the long term if pockets can be prevented. I prefer a forward defence myself as the Soviets, but Tophat's forward defence is on the risky side.

[moses]

70 Divisions on turn 2??? That seems almost impossible as I had good solid pockets at start and killed everything inside. Are you talking units??

I destoyed 84 units on the first 2 turns and 130 through turn 4. This includes all the border regiments, fortified zones, etc. But 60 full on divisions at this point.

Also 7495 aircraft!![:)]

The key question in my mind is what is the advantage of forward defence. I suppose he's wearing out my armor. You mentioned my armor was at risk and in some sence that is true. I don't feel I'm actually likely to lose a formation, but there was some hard desperate fighting and some of my guys are getting winded.

[ComradeP]

70 divisions on turn 2 is the best I could do in one test on challenging (the slight bonuses to morale meant some Soviet units were tougher than they would normally be so I couldn't dislodge all of them), but adding about 10 divisions to that should be possible, as I think the maximum is about 80. It all depends on where and what you pocket. I'll try to illustrate that in my game against notenome.

Ideally, you place the enemy in a situation where, even if he restores supply, everything in a pocket is doomed. Personally, I don't really care too much if a pocket in the AGS area takes two or three turns to reduce, as it's not in the path of my advance and I have some infantry to spare.

The advantages of a forward defense are that it causes more fatique/losses to Axis units and allows you to build a defensive line in the rear. Note that by "forward defence" I don't mean "place your units in such a way that they can all be pocketed in one turn". One of the key things to master as the Soviets is to decide when to fight, and when to get the heck out of dodge.

The evidence of the possible losses, note that this was on challenging. I also believe the AI saved some units with a magic move, but didn't check at the time. My own losses are high because I suffered some silly losses when reducing pockets due to the difficulty setting, note that this is after I cleaned the pockets on turn 2 and without doing anything else, so I lost 18.000 men cleaning up pocketed forces (yes, that annoyed me greatly):



This is meant to show what's possible, not for bragging. As the first turn setup is set in stone, anybody should be able to achieve a similar result.

[Avenger]

I don't want to clutter up someone elses AAR with screen shots, but I thought I would drop in my own campaign shot to illustrate a point. This is me straight out of the tutorial into a full blown campaign on normal. by comparison I think Moses is doing great against a human.



I have totally forgotten how this bulletin board works regarding photos. Sorry, every other board I visit this is how I post screens.

[ComradeP]

He's certainly not doing a bad job, I was just pointing out the possibilities on turn 1 and 2 and that Axis spearheads can be fragile.

Avenger: the tags here are image and /image.

[Avenger]

Thank you Comrade. I edited my message.

[moses]

Here's mine to date.

It will be interesting to see the results of ComradeP vs. Notenome. Certainly the first turn results can be replicated as the Russian has no chance to respond.

I'm cautioned that the axis spearheads are fragile. To achieve 70 divisions in two turns must have required more aggression then my turn 1. Surely a human must punish such aggression.[:)]

[jwilkerson]

Hey, Welcome back to the Matrix Forums!

Yes, stories of Moses' exploits in WITP have at times reached "legendary" proportion ... such as the "God of Land Warfare - In China" !!!

I have to say Moses is a very good player ... the toughest thing about playing Moses is ... you can't "scare him" ... one of my tactics in wargames is to throw in a little "shock and awe" ... But Moses reaction to such is to perhaps back off for a turn ... and then get right back to what he was doing ... he doesn't scare away !!!

So good luck with your WITE game!

Do you think the Russians can/should use something like a NODL defense? This was a old board game tactic of making two weak rows of defenders to mitigate against breakthroughs. Yes you are sacrificing material, but gaining time. NODL => Non-Overrunable Double Line. In many of the WITE AARs the Russian defenders seem to be bunching up units in some hexes and leaving many other hexes open or weakly defended - this would seem to be inviting breakthroughs!

[moses]

Hey, good to hear from you.

The best defensive system remains to be seen. Tophats doing OK I think, but perhaps he could have dropped a step or two back.

I think the secret will be soaking up the movement points of the armor. I always want them to have to go around and always be in my zones of control.

[jwilkerson]

Yup, part of the NODL in the old FITE/SE system was to back up just enough, to absorb just enough movement before the armor hit your line, to ensure you would not lose the second line as well as the first.

Your breakthrough near Smolensk looks very powerful with your infantry so far forward!

[moses]

Returned from Christmas and had this turn waiting. My God, Tophat does want to fight!!!
Here are the shots before I've done anything. 6 Russian counterattacks inflict 1500 losses (3 tanks) on my troops but only force 1 Rumanian division to give ground. He losses 7600 men and 237 tanks.

[moses]

Center is much the same as he tries to surround my force. He attacked Panzer Lehr twice and actually retreated it in an attempt to surround my tanks. But they are supplied and look at all my infantry.

[moses]

The North is no different.

[moses]

This will be a great test of forward defence. I think Tophat is handling it with a good bit of skill. He's kept my armor on low supply with counterencirclements and is fighting fearlessly.

Can't wait till tommorrow. This next turn will be fun.