defending the blizzard in 41.

[bloomstombs2]

Just want to know. Do I need to double stack units?

I plan on digging in heavily, and giving them flak guns with 88 mm for defense.

I assume the riverline will not help me, and nor will the marshes since they will be frozen. Is that correct?

Any other input would be appreciated.

[2ndACR]

Good luck......how is that for advice. LOL

Seriously, double stack is okay, but use every town and city to it's fullest. Cities get 2 units, towns get 1 unit. Try to protect as many units as you can.

Even level 4 forts will not protect you for long. You might stop the first couple attacks, but then he will crush you, and once thru your line, that is all she wrote.

[bloomstombs2]

Ok should I defend or marhes and river lines or no, should i prefer light woods to them? Im already planning to use towns and cities. Im considering using reserve units as well.

[krieger]

I'd like to recomend you reading pages 289 and 290 of the manual. For example:

22.3.5. MITIGATION OF FIRST WINTER RULES IN CITIES
Axis units located in town, city and urban hexes can mitigate the first winter rules regarding damaged ground elements and morale losses to some extent. Any units in an urban hex will not suffer damage to their ground elements or morale losses during the logistics phase. In a city hex, the two units with the highest CV’s will not be impacted. In a town hex, one unit with the highest CV is eligible to avoid the penalty, but only if die(4) is less than or equal to the population value of the town.
Game Play Tip: Axis Allies will suffer greatly from first winter effects due to their normally low experience and morale. Place them on garrison duty in town, city and urban hexes if possible to mitigate the effects of “General Winter.”

I got crazy checking each town's populations (is there an easy way?), initially try to use 1 unit until that position is threteaned, and try to get towns with a population of 4 (cause 1 unit can spend the whole winter in one of these) or at least 3, 2 or 1. Never settle too much in towns with a 0 population as it's like being in the open in regards to firtst winter rules for the axis player.

[2ndACR]

Try for the shortest line you can. Rivers offer no help. They freeze over, watch out for those lakes, I think they become passable after a few turns of blizzard.

Mountains are always good too because well they are rough hexes and they are rough to take. LOL

Marshes are bugged so right now they offer some serious advantages, will change with new patch.

And do not depend on your allies except Finns and mountain troops. Get all allied into towns and forts (non mountain that is). They take forever to rebuild and the blizzard will literally destroy them.

[bloomstombs2]

Its july , Im forming my defensive line now

[2ndACR]

LOL, getting a big head start. Key is to get a nice sized buffer zone. Then fall back and force him to burn a few turns advancing to your defense line. Only works good in the Center and south. South the best.

[PeeDeeAitch]

Some tips I have learned (the hard way), not necessarily the best advice, just what comes to me so far:
 
1 - As mentioned above, keep in mind the population of the towns, any "4" is gold, it will hold a unit nice and snug. Build your line to have as many towns as you can, and man (to raise the fortifications) of fall-back towns.
2 - Have backup troops to rotate into your line, troops out in the open (never mind the fortifications, I mean outside of cities and towns)will be hit hard and will need to recuperate on railheads.
3 - Mobile troops should be in garrisons in cities (2 units) or urban (all 3 units), but these CAN help out if close to the line. Use them as strike and pull back fire brigades, but note they need to end their turn back in the city or urban (or town if one is there). This can help limit breakthroughs, blunt attacks, or even perhaps rescue a unit.
4 - Give ground.  Pulling back your line slowly in front of the Soviets does not allow them to massively attack, it takes the bite out of the first month (at least) of the winter, which is the harshest month.
5 - Your mountain troops are gold. While not supermen, and they will wear down, a mountain division split into regiments can hold a fair width of front and keep off a lot of attacks. If there are prepared defenses for them to fall back to, they are even more effective. Even the three Romanian mountain brigades are worth their weight in gold.
6 - Try and keep a line, or at least what might pass for a line, along your front. This will make infiltrating Soviet cavalry troops less able to cut off your units.

[CarnageINC]

My advice from my pbem game is that digging in deep deep does you nothing.  In one turn he can push you out of most of your defensive positions forcing you to fall back or face encirclement for the ones he couldn't.  I spent a lot of AP building fortified positions in depth for a lot of my southern lines and I feel that they didn't really help at all.  Once he cracks part of your line and penetrates...poof...you must pull back and all that AP spent on a well dug in position gone because you don't want to be encircled. 

The only good winter defense is depth, be mobile not tied to a defensive line.  Don't do full on attacks in the snow but prepare your lines for the Soviet offensive.  Shorten up where you can and pull all your mobile units back to use as reserves, because your going to need them all along the front sooner or later.  The only attacks I would make in the snow is spoiling attacks on as many enemy units as you can.  Some people will suggest you keep attacking with your mobile units in the snow but IMO it just exposes them to enemy attacks and the blizzard to soon therefore wasting away their valuable CV that you will definitely need for fire brigade duties. 

[Flaviusx]

Carnage, the forts do help. They force the Soviet to concentrate his attacks. Once the German is out in the open, they can disperse and launch more attacks...and even hasty attacks. Cavalry really comes into its own at this point if properly used.

It's particularly annoying as a Soviet having to waste the first and best month of blizzard clearing out a strong fortline. You would have felt those attacks a lot more deeply in the open.

[Klydon]

Putting 88's in your units won't necessarily help you as the tank brigades are really not your biggest concern, but rather the infantry will do the heavy lifting for the Russians in 1941 and the cav is far more dangerous in attacking and outflanking, etc.

Several have suggested putting stug support units with the mountain troops as they will be protected by the mountain units from the weather.

Fortified hexes in the rough are brutal for the Russians to dig you out of and should be built up as key defensive points after your urban areas. Swamp/river lines mean zip with the freezing. Woods doesn't seem to offer much to the defense. Heavy woods are another matter, but there is not usually much of them where the Germans are in 1941 typically.

[2ndACR]

Yes, forts help. Just don't trust them to hold all winter. Be ready to break and run for hopefully the next defense line.

[CarnageINC]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Carnage, the forts do help. They force the Soviet to concentrate his attacks. Once the German is out in the open, they can disperse and launch more attacks...and even hasty attacks. Cavalry really comes into its own at this point if properly used.

It's particularly annoying as a Soviet having to waste the first and best month of blizzard clearing out a strong fortline. You would have felt those attacks a lot more deeply in the open.

I feel that the primary defensive line was a good thing, but once the Soviets have you moving a secondary defensive line feels like it does nothing IMO. If you were to have a secondary one it must be a solid one, not a checker board like I did. A smart opponent would use the unfortified opening and force you back out of the fortified one to avoid encirclement. My next game I'm not going to expend AP's on fortified zones and see what happens. I'm just not sold on a dug in defense for secondary positions.

[CarnageINC]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Putting 88's in your units won't necessarily help you as the tank brigades are really not your biggest concern, but rather the infantry will do the heavy lifting for the Russians in 1941 and the cav is far more dangerous in attacking and outflanking, etc.

Several have suggested putting stug support units with the mountain troops as they will be protected by the mountain units from the weather.

I quite agree with Klydon about the Soviet armor, not a big issue, the Cav is where you want to watch where they go. Be sure to have some reserves to counter any moves a concentrated Cav force can make.

Putting stug in with your Mnt Troops is an excellent thing to do. It adds that much more to their CV's.

[Encircled]

I tried with no fortified zones, and though I have survived the blizzard, I got blasted back to a line just outside the axis Narva-Pskov-Mogliev-Gomel-Sumy-lower dniepr. If there had been one more turn of blizzard, Ninth army would have collapsed and Pskov would have fallen.

Level four forts in the North held the enemy outside Leningrad for about a month, but when I got pushed out, my infantry divisons had about 5,000 men each (not attacked at all, just lost due to the weather)

I'm going to try more fortifications next time, and use the towns a lot more as defensive lynch pins, and pull back in front of overwhelming force, but I'm guessing for that to work you have to be a hell of a lot further forward than I managed.

Mountain troops are gold dust

In regards to Pz Corps attacks in the blizzard, they only work attacking from a city hex and against nothing stronger than a rifle division, tank brigade or cavalry.

If you get encircled, you have had it, as you lack the offensive firepower to break through (in my experience!)

And a quick question, how do you find out the populations of towns?

[PeeDeeAitch]

Finding the population - click on the dot, then click on the town name on the upper right of the game screen.

[bloomstombs2]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

Finding the population - click on the dot, then click on the town name on the upper right of the game screen.

click on the town name on the upper right of the game screen.

_____________________________

Do fortifications protect you from winter attritions like towns do?

[cookie monster]

nope

[bloomstombs2]

Thanks.

I was wondering how I could make them better.

Would stugs be a waste in them? mixed flak battallions with the 88s?

Machine guns?

What can I attach to these guys to stop infantry and something I have alot of.

Kinda the reason I want to put flak on them. I have alot of those. Not very many stugs. I attached most of my stugs to my spearhead panzers.

[2ndACR]

Just sacrifice a couple goats and say your prayers. Surviving the blizzard is just plain hard. Even without a single attack all blizzard long, my army was wracked with attrition losses that in June I am still trying to recover.