German 1941 GC - normal - Finished (DV - T56)

[randallw]

There's different parts of winter; sometimes it's just 'ice' and other times 'blizzard'.

[CharonJr]

Thx

Concerning the weather till the beginning of February it will be blizzards anywhere. But the next turn should have some snow in the western areas and the Krim.

I agree with not having to repeat history. But pulling back the mobile units home does seem a little to heavy.

Abd my offensives are mainly done by the Finns - who dont care about the weather. On the Krim I had enough forces to push the few Soviet units back and getting a good start for the drive to Baku seems valuable enough to me to allow my forces to get roughed up a little bit;) Other than that I am only doing small scale attacks to keep the Soviets from advancing too fast, again with superior numbers. IMO it all comes down to risk vs. reward and if I do attack I try to stack the deck heavily in my favor

Well, 1 more month to go, then we will see if I was able to hold, but I don't expect to lose very much ground now, the early success in lowering the number of Soviet troops surely did help. But it gets harder each turn with nearly all my reserves comitted now.

CharonJr

[CharonJr]

T33:

LVII Panzer reach Orel. My only remaining "reserve" is XL Panzer in Moscow now.

With the arriving infantry I am fainally able to pull some mobile units away from the frontline around Voronezh, but I doubt that they will get much rest.

With the hordes of Soviets I am facing to the west of Voronezh I decide to start moving some units into the second defensive line running a bit farther to the west. But I will try to hold the first line (at least in some areas) till the 2nd line has some forts

The Romanian cav corps around Kharkov is send NE to help digging.

I try some deliberate attacks on the Soviet line around Orel, hoping to force them to disperse their units a little bit.

In the north the Finnish attacks continue on the Soviet line.

The weather at the Krim will change to snow next turn, I will try to see if there might be any additional fairly easy gains in for me in my way towards Baku which is on my list of objectives for '42.

No fort levels this turn in order to show you the current supply levels of my units - not pretty despite airsupply.

edit: As can be seen the HQ supply levels are decent, but few supplies are getting through to the units. Nay idea what causes this? Low motor pool or general problems with the blizzards?

[british exil]

Charon you'll probably find the HQ staff hogging the supplies and having a cosy Winter while the Landsers and Pzr Grenadiere are freezing and starving.

Thus no supplies. But you seem to be pulling off quite a good show. Keep up the good work.

Mat

[CharonJr]

I just wish I had any idea why this is happening...

[randallw]

Try the supply details link for each unit, see if something there is obvious.

[CharonJr]

More supplies are used than received and only 30%-50% are received, but I have no idea why. Distance to HQ and rail is 2, MPs are 6 (the HQ sits right on the rail).

CharonJr

[CharonJr]

T34:

The overall number of Soviet attacks went down this turn, this might be a good sign that they start to run into some supply problems. I was only forced to retreat twiche to the west of Voronezh.

The 4 fresh infantry divisions and 5 Ju-52 groups I got this turn will give a nice - and much needed - boost to my frontline.

In the north the Finns continue to harass the Soviet units, forcing 6 to retreat and 2 to rout.

After 2 attacks the Soviet infantry division defending the lvl 3 fort to the east of Kerch is forced to retreat (no more blizzards here, just normal winter which allows my units to recover some of their CV). A third attack by my Panzers forces them to rout, allowing me to move 25th Mot right into Kuban.

FBD1 has reached the Krim, too, but it will take quite a number of additional turns before I will be able to rail in additional units (which is not that bad since I cant spare any units at the moment anyway), but FBD5 is starting to move towards the Krim anyway.

It will be interesting to see how the AI reacts to this new front. IMO it was a mistake to only guard the passage with 1 rifle division.

Almost all my remaining fortified zones are disbanded this turn, I hope to prevent having too many unready units next turn since I already had to remove about 6 unready infantry divisions from the frontline.

The major pullback around Voronezh is nearly completed, now I will have to see if the new line is able to hold.

For some reason (end of the blizzards at the Krim?) I have even been able to regain some forces during this turn, but not surprisingly the Soviets gained more. But I think/hope I should be able to get through the winter with more than 3 million men.

And a look at the disabled levels shows fairly nicely how hard the blizzards have hit the German army, I am nearly at the same level as the Soviets now.

A large map for a general overview this time:

[CharonJr]

And despite the blizzards the win/loss ratios of my corps commanders aren't bad at all IMO:

This reminds me that I want to change some of those, especially since I am nearly at max APs again.

In addition this shows quite nicely that I rarely use panzers for offensive attacks - except now to throw back penetrating units or getting attacked since they have to anchor the frontline.

[janh]

Great AAR, like your style!  I see a huge threat to Rhezhev -- the forces you pointed out.  Against a human player, I would definitely also expect an effort to pocket your exposed balcony at Rostov...

Given your strenuous supply situation, have you withdrawn had any "Verlegungen" of units to Germany for a urgent rest & refit period during winter?  I recall that the Germans did so with a number of formations on regular basis, switch them out to French or Germany until they got replenished in spring. 

Also, how is your air situation holding up?  What are you doing presently with your air assets?

[CharonJr]

Thank you, and no, all the units are needed at the frontline here, no Vewrlegungen to a nicer climate since I have nothing to replace those units. Currently the only units not at the front (or near it) are 1 corps holding Leningrad and 1 corps in the Stalino area in addition to the mobile reserves at Moscow and Stalino.

I hope that my Rhezhev line will hold till I am able to move up some new divisions from the rear.

Concerning Rostov I would be more worried vs. a humna, too, but lvl 3 and 4 forts make me feel comfortable vs. the AI. And giving the AI something to worry about in the south should help here, too.

In the air I am basically just doing supply/fuel missions and supporting my ground attacks - except for too many damaged transports (due to fighters not willing to escort them - bad rolls) - the situation is fairly good.

The Soviet air juggernaut is starting to wake up a little bit with some airbase bombings, but nothing too heavy yet (will likely change with better weather). But I should be able to overrun some Soviet airbases during the '42 offensives.

[randallw]

It won't get easier for the Luftwaffe from here.  The growth for the Soviet Air Force will go through 1942.

[Balou]

Awsome AAR, lots of valuable information and comments, thanks. If you find time, a couple of questions regarding micromanaging:
1.support units: do you use/assign them ? If so, what priorities ?
2.leaders: did you change them, based on what ?
3.air recon: did you draw additional recon units from your nat. reserve ?
4.SU AC-losses (yes, you routed a lot of SU-airfields): but beyond that ?
5.HQ buildup?

[CharonJr]

T35:

Something unexpected happened to the south of Tula, 5 Soviet brigades (3 tank, 2 rifle) rushed west and cut off 3 of my infantry divisions, but in doing so they set themself up to be isolated. And the attack displaced IX Korps HQ, no more supply hogging for this quartermaster...

To the south of Moscow my lvl3 fort fell to a lucky attack by the Soviets, the time of resting for XL Panzer is over now. At CV 11, 94 morale/XP and 45MPs 5th Panzer has no problems in throwing the Soviets back, but I lost my fortification.

Most of my Panzerkorps south of Tula (at least most of their units, usually there is still one right at the front somewhere, especially some units trying to isolate the breakthrough at Tula) are away from the frontline for now, but I expect they will be needed again shortly.

3 newly recruited infantry divisions arrive at Torzhok and 1 around Orel. 2 additionol divisions and 1 HQ arrive in the theater and make their way to Vilnius by rail, heading towards the front (most likely to Rzhev) on the next turn.

Around Novorossiysk I can see about 2 Soviet corps now, but I think that they will need more than this to stop my advance here. Kuban is secured by another infantry division and a heavy Soviet rifle division is forced to retreat by my armor. About 320t of fuel are dropped directly at the armor. No more blizzards here till the next winter.

In the north Finnish forces manage to force 10 Soviet units to retreat and 2 to rout.

It seems like the Soviets are starting to feel the pain, too, they only recovered 30k men while Germany managed to get +20k (and those are still blizzard turns, but I will surely not complain).

Since the turn 34 (beginning of February) Germany seems to regain more men than it loses due to attrition.

[CharonJr]

ORIGINAL: Balou

Awsome AAR, lots of valuable information and comments, thanks. If you find time, a couple of questions regarding micromanaging:
1.support units: do you use/assign them ? If so, what priorities ?
2.leaders: did you change them, based on what ?
3.air recon: did you draw additional recon units from your nat. reserve ?
4.SU AC-losses (yes, you routed a lot of SU-airfields): but beyond that ?
5.HQ buildup?

1. No, I leave those totally to the AI (basically the only thing I did was setting my mobile corps to refit mode for priority replacements - and I emulated ComradeP's dismissal of the small flak companies). The only thing I do is trying to attack the hardest targets first for each corps/army to potentially get the largest number of support units.

2. Yes, I change them mostly based on their ratings, anything below 6-7 mech/inf has to go. In addition I try to replace leaders with poor non-combat skills if there are better leaders around and I have APs to spare. Currently I only replaced some leaders since I am afraid of too many losses during the winter for new leaders on the one hand, but didnt want to waste too many APs (by having reached 500 AP) on the other hand.

3. No, I still have 5 recon groups waiting to be assigned, I even put some into the reserves or disbanded them. I think I am actually not using enough recon.

4. Put those in the last report since the question about air came up earlier. I have no idea if those SU losses are high or low, but beside turn 1 bombings and some overruns I have not focused on SU air at all.

5. No, I was tempted to use it a few times, but the penalties looked too high for me. My armored corps were fairly mobile for most of the time anyway due to me giving them fairly excessive rests.

edit: And thank you

[Balou]

Thanks for your reply. I mentioned SU AC-losses because someone (BigAnorak ?) mentioned somewhere that SU AC - and mostly tac bombers - will start to become a huge problem later on. Of course, given your postion by now, inflicted losses and so on, 1942 could be a piece of cake and War in the East will be over for the Soviets before the skies fill with IL2 and the like. T23 says 8000+ AC (4 times your airforce), and these pilots are not sitting just around, I guess a lot of them are flying training missions. Worried ?

[CharonJr]

A little bit, mainly because I have no experience what those planes/pilots are capable of, but judging from what the Luftwaffe is able to do (not that much) not really worried, but this might change

[stewartbragg]

What TOE replacement level did you set your units on? 50%, 60%, 70% or higher? I'm asking this as I usually do 70% and 100% where I plan to attack in the Spring.

[CharonJr]

All are still at 100% at the moment, will most likely dial down AGN when the weather improves since this front will remain fairly static.

[randallw]

The modern Soviet fighters decently match up with German ones, but training in the national reserve brings experience up very very slowly, so your side ( Axis ) will still have the experience advantage.