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

[stewartbragg]

You still playing? We are anxiously waiting!

[CharonJr]

Got derailed by my lousy pocket skills and asked for some advice in the War Room.

Will make my remaining moves now. There should be an update in about 1 hour.

I am anxiously waiting if the pocket will hold, too;)

[randallw]

I just noticed that the computer hasn't lost corp HQs to disbandment.  You are playing the full campaign, right?

[CharonJr]

Yes, are the Soviets supposed to lose corps HQs?

[CharonJr]

T41:

In the north the Vyshny Volochek salient is widened, adding to the threat of a pocket to the NE, but for now the Soviets in the swamp are too hard to dislodge.

From the salient down to Moscow the Red Army is still being slowly pushed back.

In the center I am a little bit impressed by the number of Soviet units around and this strengthens my belief that I need some pockets here.

I form the Lipetsk-Voronezh pocket as planed, but it is not very secure. I should have been a bit less ambitious in the size of it and have used the remaining MPs to widen the hexes I control around the pocket. Some allied units are brought in to help with clearing the pocket as fsat as possible since my armored spearhead will be isolated when the mud hits.

The armored spearheads are supplied by air and will try to help with clearing the pocket while moving closer to friendly lines. The airbases around there are moved a bit closer to the front while still staying on repaired rails.

In the south XXXXVII Panzer rushes into the salient to protect the eastern and southern flank while III, XIV and XL Panzer (will still have to move their HOs as I just saw) head further south and reach the Black Sea around Novorossiysk and try to isolate Krasnodar (unlikely to hold). Romanian and Hungarian MTN units are moved into the salient as well and provide some flank protection to the west.

My 2 rail repair units manage to fix the line up to Kuschevskaya.

XXXXVI Panzer remains around Rostov for now as does XXIV Panzer around Tula (no armor remains to the north of Tula).


Despite losing about 90k men the Red Army continues to grow while the large number of German attacks along the whole front takes it toll on the Wehrmacht. Especially the armored rushes at the end of the last turn seem to have damaged a fairly large number of AFVs.

IMO this shows quite clearly that more pockets are needed (at least during snow) to wear down the Soviets.

[janh]

Beautiful right hook...  By mid-summer, the Russians are probably crushed without hope to recover.  I think you are probably soon beyond the critical threshold when AI will be unable to stop and the campaign will turn into a clean-up operation.   I doubt even a human player could still turn it around in this situation... Great AAR!

[MattFL]

I have followed your AAR with great interest as I'm playing the same GC and am a few turns behind you. I noticed that my German army is just totally dissipating through the winter so I was looking at your troops totals and losses and comparing them with mine. One thing I noticed that maybe you or some others here might be able to answer is that i notice in turn 32 you have a total strength of 3.1 million men in your army with 970k casualities. In my game, I am at turn 32 and I have 1.3 Million casualites but my total army strength is only 2.3 Million. So my question is why am i missing 470k trooops??

For the soviets, it is also a difference, though only about 100k more troops for them in my game than yours (i.e. at turn 32 you had killed 5.4 Million, i had killed 5.1 million, but in my game the soviet army has about 450k more troops than yours, giving them an extra 150k.

I'm sure there is a logical reason for this, but it escapes me...the Soviet thing isn't concerning, but the German difference has me scratching my head as to where the Landsers are?? I did take some huge losses due to being undersupplied when the Russian winter offensive started, but this doesn't explain why I'm short so many troops. Any ideas?

[CharonJr]

I hope that I will be able to finish this campaign before the blizzards hit again, I just cant stand the waiting

Concerning the number of troops that is a very good question and basically I have no idea. Has there already been a large difference in earlier turns? We are talking about 30 full divisions here.

I cant recall seeing any huge gains. Maybe disabled troops? How do the disabled/captured/killed numbers compare?

And does Germany gain manpower from captured citied? This might be another reason.

[CharonJr]

Just took a look at the scenario setup. Germany starts with about 3.3 million men and gain about 19k from production each turn (so about 600k till turn 32) plus the divisions arriving as reinforcements. Your total number of about 3.6 million seems way to low.

I only gained 17.6k men on turn 43, so the "produced" men seems to decline over time (or maybe it is weather related), but still, you should be at around 4 million total around turn 32.

[CharonJr]

T42:

Great fun, mud all over the place and while the Lipetsk pocket held (due to AI mistake) I have huge problems in making any real headway in clearing it out due to the mud. I need deliberate attacks very often and mainly am only able to advance 1 hex with most units.

But with some careful pushing back of Soviet units I am able to unisolate my armor bringing them from CV 1 up to CV 9 again which enables them to do some attacks of their own.

I try to keep the number of hexes the Soviets can retreat to as small as possible in order to force surrenders, but due to my limited MPs this is hard. But in the end I still fail to clear the pocket, about 9 Soviet units are left inside it and again I am unable to make this one very secure. And without having saved up my ground support aircraft for the later attacks I think I would have done even worse.

With my railhead having reached Lipetsk I am cautiously optimistic that the supply situation during the next turn should be better.

Due to my problems in cleaning out the pocket most of the front will stay quite for now. I only attack where I have large odds in my advantage (3+:1 in good terrain as a rule of thumb) since I still try to prevent the Soviets from getting too many high level fortifications.

With the growing number of Soviet forces on the eastern flank of my breakthrough to the south of Rostov XXXXVI Panzer moves in to bolster the defenses, but I do not place them directly at the frontline for now. In addition 3 fresh infantry divisions are railed in, 1 Panzerdivision should follow on the next turn.

The weak pocket around Krasnodar held as well, allowing my to occupy the town without any problems.

The large number of units to the south of it causes me some headache, with my current supply situation I am in no position to do much about them. But luckily for me the AI has removed all its units botteling up my forces around Kuban and I start to move them east.

Novorossiysk is defended by 2 units and a lvl3 fort, it will be hard to dislodge those, but the units to the north of it should become isolated on the next turn.

Contrary to my expectations the attack on Novorossiysk manages to force the defenders to retreat instead of only weakening them and lowering the fort level. With a port in my possession this far to the south and the railhead approaching from the north my supply situation should be good for the upcoming drive to Baku.

With 1. Panzerarmee reunited and 2 corps of 2. Panzerarmee in the south as well (will try to get all of 2. Panzerarmee down here before the mud ends) the main forces I want to use in my drive on Baku are in place.

Once the small pocket to the SW of Rostov is eliminated I will start to move those MTN divisions south. I will rail the German MTN to the south as well.

I need to remember to assign 2. Panzerarmee to Heeresgruppe B next turn and essentially turn all of Heeresgruppe B into my Baku strikeforce.

Germany gained about 10k men while the Red Army lost about 180k in addition to about 2.5k guns due to the AIs mistake in not opening up the pocket

[CharonJr]

Update delayed till tomorrow due to watching Breakthrough (follow-up to Corss of Iron) on TV, cant remember the details here, but IIRC it was worse than Cross of Iron

[british exil]

ORIGINAL: CharonJr

Update delayed till tomorrow due to watching Breakthrough (follow-up to Corss of Iron) on TV, cant remember the details here, but IIRC it was worse than Cross of Iron

I turned it off, to return to the forum hoping to find a update. Steiner part 1 was better.
[&o] If you managed to watch the whole film including all the adverts.

Mat

Oh btw really enjoying your AAR.

[CharonJr]

Hehe, I always tend to find things to do during the adverts, and yes, I remembered correctly, it was worse

And thank you

[MattFL]

ORIGINAL: CharonJr

Just took a look at the scenario setup. Germany starts with about 3.3 million men and gain about 19k from production each turn (so about 600k till turn 32) plus the divisions arriving as reinforcements. Your total number of about 3.6 million seems way to low.

I only gained 17.6k men on turn 43, so the "produced" men seems to decline over time (or maybe it is weather related), but still, you should be at around 4 million total around turn 32.

I was digging into this a bit more and, while i don't even pretend to fully understand the production system what exactly the "pool" means vs "built", I have a pretty strong theory what the problem is. Is it possible that because my units haven't had full supply, have been constantly in contact with the enemy across the entire front, and because I've had some rail lines cut that my manpower is building up in the pool but not being assigned to front line divisions as replacements because the situation of these units has prevented the replacements from reaching them?

If i look at Germany only in the production screen for turn 32, Manpower in the special section shows as 871k in the pool and 374k built. It shows 12.6k rifle squads in the pool with 5.8k built. Many of my infantry divisions are at 20% of TOE right now. I loaded my game back to turn 19 and looked at these same numbers. In turn 19 manpower had 23k in the pool with 223k built and rifle squads had ZERO in the pool with 3.5k built. So if I'm reading this correctly, i have a huge mass of manpower available that isn't reaching the front lines and when this god forsaken blizzard finally ends and i get some separation from the ruskies for some rest and refit, my front line ranks should swell with replacements. Seems like a reasonable theory to me given how these numbers look in Turn 19 vs. Turn 32....So i guess one bright spot on the horizon is that i have 12k+ rifle squads ready to be dispatched to the front if I'm reading this correctly and 871k men built and ready to go....

Your thoughts?

[CharonJr]

Yes, as far as I understand the production system you are exactly right. The units in the pool are ready to be send to the units and blizzards as well as being too far away from railheads prevents those reinforcements from reaching the units. The low TOE number show that few (if any) reinforcements are reaching the front.

So getting closer to the railheads and the end of the blizzards should show remarkable improvements in your TOEs.

[CharonJr]

T43:

2. Panzerarmee is assigned to Heeresgruppe A (this is my southern AG, not Heeresgruppe B, it controls all the units south of Voroshilovgrad - it is at 102:108 now and should be filled up to max with another armored division and the 2 German mountain divisions).

Heeresgruppe A consists of 1. and 2. Panzerarmee, 6. Armee and 11. Armee in addition to Luftflotte 4.

Heeresgruppe B (79:108) is in control of the front between Voronezh and Voroshilovgrad. I will add some infantry divisions from OKH to 17. Armee once I have the time/rail cap to move them further south. It is in command of 2. and 17. Armee in addition to some Romanian forces.

Heeresgruppe Mitte (68:108) controls the front between Moscow and Voronezh. It consists of 3. Panzerarmee and 4. Armee in addition to Luftflotte 2 and lacks army HQs to add further units with a full chain of command. XXVII Korps (OKH) is placed directly under HGM.

Heeresgruppe Nord (97:108) controls the front in the north down to Moscow and consists of 9., 16. and 18. Armee in addition to 4. Panzerarmee and Luftflotte 1. I will move the Luftflotte and Panzerarmee over to Heeresgruppe Mitte. With the terrain in the north 3 infantry armies look more suitable to me. I Korps (OKH) is assigned to 18. Armee.

Some limited progress is made with the salient to the north of Vyshny Volochek, but due to the combination of mud and woods it is hard to get anywhere.

The Tambov pocket is eliminated, 8 Soviet units with 35k men and 0.3k guns are captured.

XXXXI, LVI and LVII Panzer are replaced by infantry at the frontline and move back for some rest. Parts of XXXIX Panzer will have to stay at the front for another turn till the infantry reaches them.

XXIV Panzer moved back to Tula and should get on the rail to the south on the next turn. Getting XII Infantriekorps to the south as well will be more difficult since I have to move in replacements for them first.

Around Novorossiysk XXX Infantriekorps starts to take over some of the positions held by armor. XIV, XL and XXXXVIII Panzer are getting some rest while III Panzer still has to stay at the frontline.

In the meantime XXXXVI and XXXXVII Panzer secure the railline leading to Krasnodar, allowing the railhead to be pushed forward.

Overall my attack in the south seems to have thined the Soviet lines considerably, it is rare to see a depth of more than 1-2 units along most of the frontline. It looks like the AI moved some troops to the east.

And I am starting to worry about my motor pool again, with a couple of additional mud turns this could get a little bit ugly.

Despite the losses the Red Army was actually able to improve its overall strength. Especially the gun factories seem to hum along nicely now - despite losing 1.2k guns the Soviets regained 1.2k guns.

The Wehrmacht is still suffering from the weather, despite just losing 2 AFVs to combat it lost about 70 since the last turn.

The production pool is fairly low - likely due to most of my units being close to rails and thus able to get their reinforcements nearly as fast as they are produced - which means that I will see no large jumps in TOE here. But since next to no divisions are below 50% and the TOEs up to 106% distributed fairly evenly among my divisions this is no big surprise.

[CharonJr]

T44:

In my deliberate attacks along the whole front I can see that the Red Army seems to improve since I get way more "hold" results now. Might be the larger number of guns they should field by now or my forces slowly getting exhausted due to the attacks during the mud. Yes, in most cases where my attacks failed FAT was between 50-60, it looks like I have to slow down till the mud is gone.

My forces managed to crawl another hex north around Vyshny Volochek, but I will need more units if I want to advance much further here.

Patisans are becoming a problem and I have dispatched a single infantry division to deal with them - will split them up later.

The units of 2. Panzerarmee still in the north have gathered around Tula and I should be able to rail them south on the next turn.

To the NE of Krasnodar infantry starts to over securing the rail line from the mobile forces which move back to get some rest, too (with a TOE of about 80% they are at the lower end of my mobile forces).

The German Gebirgskorps is assigned to 11. Armee (Heeresgruppe A) and reaches Rostov by rail and the newly arrived 22. Panzerdivision is assigned to III Panzerkorps. And when the newly arrived MTN division will be assigned to XXXXIX Gebirgskorps Heeresgruppe A will be at 108:108 and ready for the drive towards Baku once the mud is over.

Newly arrived Hungarian divisions start to take over security duty from German combat units in the south. I will need those to replace Heeresgruppe A's units currently at the front once the drive to Baku begins.

Overall I need to shift my units slightly to the south in order to free up more of Heeresgruppe A's units.

I expect the next few turns to continue to be fairly slow (have to get rid of FAT), unless something of interest happens I might skip the reports for some turns.

The Soviets keep getting stronger and for the moment there is not much I can do about it - +50k men and +650 AFV!

[randallw]

The Soviet Corps HQs are supposed to disband in 1941; why they aren't showing in the losses screen is an oddity.

[Mynok]

Good heavens! German infantry are certainly a different animal in 42. Look at those pitiful CVs.

[CharonJr]

Actually I think those CV could be better if you dont push them as hard as I do during the winter/mud turns. Some started at a CV around 12.