GC vs. Normal Soviet AI Decisive Victory turn 53 revised

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Turn 13 South of Moscow
Not much going on here.

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Turn 13 South
My goal now here for the winter is Rostov and keeping a bridgehead until spring.

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Turn 18 start of Mud

In the north the Finns still need to form up a line, ideally using the lakes to minimize hexes. I would also like to take Cherepovets, a one point city. It is unlikely I will have large offensive forces in this area again and the Finns will not lose it in winter.

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Turn 18 north of Moscow. My goal now is to take Yaroslavl and Ivanovo, both 3 point cities before winter. I don't know if I can hold them. After winter I would think it difficult to get the soviets out of this area.

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Turn 18 E/SE of Moscow. Have you noticed my garrison mistake in Moscow (and many other places)?

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Turn 18 further south
Yes, around this time I realized HQ units do not count toward garrisons against partisans, only combat units. And mud makes is so easy to fix this problem now! So partisans have started causing mayhem. This, along with being too far advanced anyway has caused a lot of isolation issues if you've noticed. I was surprised how many units are isolated but decided to see what happens instead of pulling back and the AI did not attack so I waited and the supply lines caught up in only a couple turns. The garrison problem took longer to fix.

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Turn 18 south

No opposition outside Rostov. ...for now

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Turn 18 Crimea
I'm not sure if I can make it in time...

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Since the summer is over here are shots of losses and army sizes. Check out the soviet army.
Only 2.4 million!

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army sizes

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Turn 25
Here are going to be some winter shots of the front. My strategy was to keep as many of the best troops as possible in cities or west of x row 54 so they didn't suffer special attrition. This included all the armor and motorized divisions, AGN infantry and 6 of seven divisions of 4th army in Moscow. Since digging in is so important I had the idea of separating a division into regiments to stand behind the front line ones to dig in the next line. This saved about 8 divisions freezing down. The digging in is slower but got to level 2 reasonably well. I made sure not to stack units unless necessary and to use towns. A big decision to make is how much you want to hold ground. My two goals were to keep the two 3 point cities up north and the Rostov bridgehead. Now that it is over I would say the bridgehead was not that important. The rivers stay frozen for 8 turns after blizzard ends so you have time to get one back without penalties. Amazingly I managed to keep both cities up north too. If there is one area you really need to keep use the mountain divisions. I used them to keep the Rostov bridgehead and they did a wonderful job. Here is start of blizzard...

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Center

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south

I did make the mistake of forgetting about rivers freezing by putting Italians across one near Voronezh. Filling the resulting hole was the one time I had to commit armor in winter.

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Turn 38. These shots are the beginning of the first snow turn after all the horrible blizzard. I have read other AAR's about how weak and powerless you feel for 13 straight turns and it is so true!

I was pushed back almost everywhere like everyone else. One of the worst parts is how the soviet momentum builds. On top of simply getting stronger by having more guys and better moraled guys for winning, you get weaker and worst of all the forts start to fail. Then you end up falling back faster and faster. I wouldn't do anything significantly differently, other than not put axis allies in the line. They are good for garrisons and digging secondary lines. I think giving ground is okay, even Moscow if necessary. You can always recapture later...
Far North..

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Turn 38 center

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Turn 38 south

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Here is my turn 38 surprise for the Russians, before and after!
The panzer divisions get strong sitting there refitting for 3 months.

Before the trap is sprung...

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and after...

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Here are the armies and losses after blizzard. The soviet army has grown a lot, although I have a tank advantage and it is not like 5-6 million in some games.

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losses