Axis 1941 Objective: Territory or Casualties?

[pat.casey]

Is there a consensus forming here on what the best thing for an axis 41 player to optimize for is?

I find in my games to date I can either A) try to run up the casualty count or B) try to grab territory, but the two are in some degree of conflict.

What are folks thoughts on this? Personally I'm starting to lean towards running up the casualty count, but I'm not sure I'm experiences enough to have a valid opinion.

[usecase]

Well, I guess there aren't many experts out there yet. I'm on my fourth GC as the Soviets, just turning the corner against a hard AI. I think the Axis have to focus on casualties in '41. I just don't see territory as being that big a deal. There's key industrial locations (Leningrad, Kharkov - armour, Vorozneh is good for IL2s), but it's the force ratios that are going to count in the long term.

I would expect life to get very difficult for an average German player once the Soviets deploy rifle corps in a reasonably coherent line. That said, I haven't looked at what the auto-victory conditions mean in terms of territory.

[2ndACR]

Well, as German, more territory means more to defend in the winter........good luck. You just don't have the troops to cover your frontage.

I go for max casualties when possible. I hope to hurt the Russian so bad that he cannot hurt me too bad come winter.

[CharonJr]

Yes, from what I have seen so far casualties are more important. Territory will be gained this way as well.

But I think (at least vs. the AI) I would still try to get Leningrad (for the Finns) and Moscow which makes a nice defensive position during the winter with much reduced casualties from the weather.

CharonJr

[Northern Star]

Both are important. First destroy as much as possible the Soviet army and then you will gain and defend the ground more easily.

[vinnie71]

First year its definitely casualties - but not just of men and machines. Destroying formations wholesale must be the objective because of 2 factors:

a) As time goes on until December, the Red Army continues getting reinforcements and even if they are skeleton staffed (which I don't think they are) it is easy for it to fill them up quickly

and

b) the Red Army has only a limited number of points available, so it will take time to rebuild a substantial force in winter.

Therefore eliminating all the formations that you can will help survive winter and basically facilitate your '42 offensive, wherever you think of delivering your offensive.

[Ketza]

Its a problem that exists in most of the Eastern front games I have played.

In the old Europa series boardgame Fire in the East you needed to kill a certain number of Russian combat factors to have a prayer as the Germans. Most Russians ran like hell to preserve their armies. What to do as Germany......

Its an amazing riddle that has perplexed wargamers and Generals for a long time. Its what makes the theatre so fascinating to me.

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: Ketza

Its a problem that exists in most of the Eastern front games I have played.

In the old Europa series boardgame Fire in the East you needed to kill a certain number of Russian combat factors to have a prayer as the Germans. Most Russians ran like hell to preserve their armies. What to do as Germany......

Its an amazing riddle that has perplexed wargamers and Generals for a long time. Its what makes the theatre so fascinating to me.

I'd naively think that upping the cost in rail factors to evacuate factories might help. If running away meant leaving a lot of industrial production behind, then soviet players might have more of an incentive to fight it out rather than running away and waiting for winter.

Like I said initially though, I'm still learning the game so my opinion are not backed by lots of experience .

[Klydon]

To be honest, I think you need a combo of both.

You have to push the territory issue because if you don't get deep enough, the Russian can afford to give ground again in 1942 and should the Germans not cause them heavy casualties in 1941 and 1942, then the Russians are going to be very, very nasty. If you have the Russian pushed pretty far back, the Axis can give some ground back in the winter, but will be in a position to lay some serious hurt on the Russian manpower, etc in the summer of 42. This will delay the Russians probably a fair amount and the Russians may well be hard pressed to get the Germans out of the game in time for a win. Remember, the Russians have to defeat the Germans in order to win. The Axis only needs to hold onto 142 points worth of cities in order to get a win.

The other thing the Germans must keep an eye on are ways to keep their line as short as they can as things go along. The more stretched out they are, the more I think it benefits the larger Russian army.

[CarnageINC]

My opinion is if the russians run and you can't make a high kill ratio do the same in the winter.  Try and preserve as much power as you can for the next year.  I don't know how much losses would be for the German player if he managed to avoid most combat....50% or less?  I guess the testers would know.

[CarnageINC]

same posting

[kfmiller41]

I am inclined to agree that it is to easy to run as the Russians and it would never have been tolerated by the people in charge. That being said this is a game and you have to have some latitude do I think making it more hurtful for the Russian player to fall back without making it prohibitive would help. If I knew I would not get most of my factories out of danger without fighting to keep to Germans away for a time and it would hurt me later on, i would probably be inclined to fight harder. With all the rail the Russians get it inst even an issue.

[randallw]

There is some rail balancing the Russian player must do on the first four turns, with the capacity penalty, a few cities in threat, and lots of troops to retreat and move forward.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: randallw

There is some rail balancing the Russian player must do on the first four turns, with the capacity penalty, a few cities in threat, and lots of troops to retreat and move forward.

Rail balancing usage is something you'll have to do as long as the German Army advances, which is basically all over 1941. Evacuating one of the important centers - Kharkov, Dneproprovotsk, Leningrad, Stalino, etc. - will gobble 60-70% of rail cap. Besides that, rail cap is also needed to shift your reserves to parry Axis maneuvers.

Soviet players need to delay the Germans, it's just too risky to let the Axis player do as he wish, without attriting him.

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

ORIGINAL: randallw

There is some rail balancing the Russian player must do on the first four turns, with the capacity penalty, a few cities in threat, and lots of troops to retreat and move forward.

Rail balancing usage is something you'll have to do as long as the German Army advances, which is basically all over 1941. Evacuating one of the important centers - Kharkov, Dneproprovotsk, Leningrad, Stalino, etc. - will gobble 60-70% of rail cap. Besides that, rail cap is also needed to shift your reserves to parry Axis maneuvers.

Soviet players need to delay the Germans, it's just too risky to let the Axis player do as he wish, without attriting him.

I suppose the challenge from a game design standpoint is that the historical soviets "played" very badly in 1941 while the historical Germans made (generally) good decisions. If both sides play equally well, you'd expect the soviets to beat their historical performance since IRL they made a series of catastrophic decisions.

No human player, for example, is going to let his german opponent pocket >3M troops by fighting too far forward.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: pat.casey
I suppose the challenge from a game design standpoint is that the historical soviets "played" very badly in 1941 while the historical Germans made (generally) good decisions. If both sides play equally well, you'd expect the soviets to beat their historical performance since IRL they made a series of catastrophic decisions.

No human player, for example, is going to let his german opponent pocket >3M troops by fighting too far forward.

I very much agree with that, but it all depends on the skill of the German player, to be honest, and we're all still learning how to play the game.

If the Soviets run too much they'll find they haven't got time to dig in, and without digging the very weak Soviet formations will be shredded to pieces. Not only that, they'll be hard-pressed to evacuate their factories - I gave wrong numbers for factory evac, evac'ing the Donbass industry gobbles up the whole Soviet railcap for one turn and a half - move reserves to staging areas and get those reserves to the battles.

German mechanized forces mobility is very high and they're the king of the battlefield on clear terrain hexes. When used in mass and properly refitted and rested they're close to unstoppable. Heavily committing the PanzerArmees into heavily forested, swampy regions, criscrossed by rivers that run perpendicular to your axis of advance is not a sound strategy.

Another thing I see on some AARs on this forums and on my games is that German players tend to neglect force conservation: they press the accelerator as if there was no tomorrow, not paying attention to the tear & wear they forces are subject to. A Soviet forward, aggressive defense, while very costly, makes this tear & wear to add up very quickly and weaken sensibly the Wehrmacht. I think they forget that the Soviets are the ones on a desperate situation, not the Axis.

I'm impressed on how well WiTE models the so-called "ebb & flow" of operational warfare. You can't expect the Wehrmacht to be fighting non-stop during 10 weeks and not losing their edge. After major battles you need to rest, refit and resupply. You need to plan railhead advance. You need to select your goals so that they're achievable given the capabilities of your forces.

The soundest Axis generalship I've seen so far is that of ComradeP's - I think he's doing really well his pessimism notwithstanding - and CarnageINC. They do not assign over-ambitious goals to their forces. As their games get into 1941 winter and 1942 will be very interesting to watch.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: pat.casey


Is there a consensus forming here on what the best thing for an axis 41 player to optimize for is?

I find in my games to date I can either A) try to run up the casualty count or B) try to grab territory, but the two are in some degree of conflict.

What are folks thoughts on this? Personally I'm starting to lean towards running up the casualty count, but I'm not sure I'm experiences enough to have a valid opinion.

Speaking as someone who has only played as Russians so far as is about to start a 2nd PBEM game, my advice to Germans it to ingore the north and centre and go all out for the Caucasus in '41.

Just in case my opponents are reading........................[:D]

I have to say I agree it's too easy for Russians to evacuate all their factories. No real excuse for losing any - just do some every turn. hope they fix it before I play Germans

[Q-Ball]

I don't know if taking Leningrad is possible in a PBEM, but if it is, that is one objective that it would be worth any expense of effort to get. Unlike Moscow, Leningrad will help survive winter, because taking it not only shortens the line, but provides a bunch of Finns that should be able to hold the line all by themselves as far as they are allowed to move. Effectively, it frees up something like 20-30 German Divisions.

[mike scholl 1]

What I think players need to understand is that German successes in 1941-42 were due to a combination of German skill and expertise coupled with Russian Command (Stalin) stupidity.  The same factor that really started to hamper the Germans in 1943-45 (Hitler's "genius") were hampering the Soviets to start with.

No Soviet player is going to be as idiotic as Stalin..., so it's unlikely the Germans are going to to achieve the kind of successes they did historically.  You want a real nightmare?  Suppose the Russian player really could "command the forces of the Soviet Union" from the game's deployment?  No army's piled up along the border while still re-equiping and re-training.  No airfields within range of the Germans piled high with juicy targets to be destroyed on the ground.  An intact officer corps instead of thousands of victims of Stalin's paranoia.  It could be a whole lot worse...

[jomni]

I still haven't heard of many players continuing to the end when they failed to gain much in Barbarossa. 
But I think there's still hope for the Germans winning (or at least a draw) despite not performing well in the early years.