The bear and the eagle ComradeP vs JAMiAM

[ComradeP]

After reading his rather confident posts in the thread for the game against Flavio and looking at the game between him and me, I can only conclude that JAMiAM must be kind of the eternal optimist. It's very dangerous to get cocky in a multiplayer game, for both sides.

Turn 2 start:

There's only one division east of the Ulla/Berezina, which is negligible progress considering the forces he has in the area, and he has advanced a grand total of 3 hexes (hexes held by units) towards Proskurov.

I'll lose 13 divisions and some brigade/regimental size units in the Chernovtsy/Stanislav/Lvov area, which would place the total amount of Southwest Front forces that are gone at that figure, which is rather low.

He's advancing north in the AGN area, which is fine with me. At this point, I'd say Pskov won't fall until at least turn 5 if he commits everything to going east next turn. If he wants to get to Leningrad via Narva, I can only rejoice at that choice. Hexrow upon hexrow of light woods/swamps/minor rivers and a heavy woods hex seriously favour the defender.

All in all, I'm pretty happy. The only leader casualty thus far is Ivan Korovnikov, who commanded 12th Mechanized Corps.

[Flaviusx]

Just make sure to block that advance towards Narva if he wants to go that way. I think he's trying to pull the same maneuver in my game. I've got a half dozen uncommitted divisions in and near Leningrad digging, and would rather keep them there (no back door Leningrad cheese on me), but may have to send them forward to block the chokepoint if that's the way he goes. I suppose the Leningrad militia that arrives on turn 3 can take their place, but they won't dig as fast.

[ComradeP]

It will take him a few turns to get there, and if he wants to go there, he'll funnel his troops into a small, easily defended space. Even level 2 or so forts would seriously slow him given that they'd essentially be level 3 or 4 forts due to the intrinsic non-clear terrain fort modifier.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

I have noticed that if I entrain a Soviet reinforcement unit set to refit before hand and move it max towards the front, then I can't untrain if there are not enough MPs left; it sits on the tracks until next move and builds up. Is this a "gamey" move? If so, I am willing to bet that most everyone does it unwittingly, and if it is gamey then the game engine should be changed to not allow refit while entrained.

Marquo [:)]

Not gamey imho. A division will be on many trains so it's just high command sending some more to join them.

[kirkgregerson]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

No JAMiAM.

This should be an interesting game, although the reason why I challenged him is somewhat obsolete by now with the latest changes. I might very well be in serious trouble soon, considering that this is my first game as the Soviets with the latest changes.

lol, you thought you'd be in some trouble? Funny stuff. Let me reference a little Mr T here "I pity the fool" that plays ComradeP. Also, playing Sov looks like ass-kicking city again. I think if axis does not have some great first few turns, it's going to be one ugly 1942.

I'll keep close attention to this game, no offense to axis player, but I see a beating in the making.

[;)]

[kirkgregerson]

I'm still a little concerned that the sov player and maybe axis to some extent can do things which may be considered gamey to some. Disbanding units and such ... Sure it's maybe the best strategy for sov, since mechanics make it so, but was it what was intended by the developers when making the game?

Can't answer that.

[ComradeP]

lol, you thought you'd be in some trouble? Funny stuff. Let me reference a little Mr T here "I pity the fool" that plays ComradeP. Also, playing Sov looks like ass-kicking city again. I think if axis does not have some great first few turns, it's going to be one ugly 1942.

I'll keep close attention to this game, no offense to axis player, but I see a beating in the making.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. However, I stand by my original point. Just because his opening was less than stellar doesn't mean there isn't a beating coming up. There's not all that much the Soviets can do to prevent it.

With the strategic situation the Soviets face in 1941, no really serious beating of the Axis can take place until late 1942 at the earliest. The Soviets can make the Axis advance rather costly, something both Flavio and me do very well in our own ways and something a number of the non-tester Soviet players are rapidly learning, but there's no real pushing them back.

I'm still a little concerned that the sov player and maybe axis to some extent can do things which may be considered gamey to some. Disbanding units and such ... Sure it's maybe the best strategy for sov, since mechanics make it so, but was it what was intended by the developers when making the game?

Can't answer that.

Well, we didn't build the armies we start with, so in some ways a limited degree of customization is always nice, as a way of ironing out some of the flaws in it or removing the unit types you don't like.

Disbanding units doesn't necessarily create some sort of advantage, as you're removing a unit from play in order to beef up other units, basically. The total amount of men, guns and AFV's remain the same (or decreases if elements are damaged in the unit you're disbanding), but the number of on-map unit decreases.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP


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The Soviets have a "surplus" of heavy industry, so the double rail capacity that is now being charged for factory evacuation will just mean I'll evacuate less heavy industry. Mogilev's armaments will be evacuated next turn.

Is that a true surplus now given much reduced HI production per factory -40% iirc (which is rarer as I get older) ?

[ComradeP]

That's a good question, I thought everything was scaled down as in: HI supply output and resource consumption were halved, and I thought resource production would've been halved as well. If that's not the case, there's no longer a surplus. I'll ask on the tester forum, I'm either missing it or the resource production isn't mentioned in the patch notes I've read.

[ComradeP]

OK, resource production wasn't changed so Soviet players will now need to evacuate as many HI factories as possible again as resource factories can now sustain two HI factories each at 100% HI production.

The Soviets now have enough resource production to sustain HI production expansion in 1942 and their reserves should be able to compensate for the roughly 10k shortage each turn in 1943 provided the Ukraine is in Axis hands. I'll have to run some further calculations to see how long their resource reserves that will be building up in 1941 and 1942 can last after that.

For the Axis, their 1943 HI production expansion is sustainable, as it brings resource requirements up to the old level, but they won't be able to handle the 1944 expansion without using resource reserves. I'll again have to do some math to see if and if so, when their reserves run out.

[ComradeP]

Most of my rail capacity was spend on evacuating Mogilev's factories, so I only had around 18k left to move units around, which means on several places my dispositions are less than ideal.

Some fighter and level bomber squadrons are back on the map, but not many. Mostly to provide a small bit of ground support and to see if I can cause some losses to his aircraft flying interdiction missions.

Another checkerboard in the north, more troops are coming in and I need another turn or two to deploy them.

[ComradeP]

The screen in the center is especially thin, and he might even get across the Dnepr, but I'm not too worried yet.

[ComradeP]

In the south, a part checkerboard, part carpet is established.

[ComradeP]

The Romanian sector's pretty quiet, two Romanian infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade were forced to retreat with fairly heavy losses (around 4000 total).

[ComradeP]

Highlight of the turn: 3 successful hasty attacks with some of the super Tank divisions against two Panzer divisions and LSSAH. I made 4 hasty attacks in total, but the fourth one failed.

The attack against LSSAH was made by units from a Mechanized Corps led by Krivoshein. The SS did a good job with causing losses, but they had still to retreat.

As you can see, the casualties for the attacks against the Panzer divisions were closer to 1:1, one even in my favour in terms of men lost. They were made by Rokossovsky, who is currently commanding 18th Army, which will be transformed into a pseudo-Tank army for the moment.

I'll have around 1900 tanks in the pool next turn, so keeping the divisions reasonably up to strength should not be too much of a problem for now.

It feels kind of silly to launch hasty attacks on turn 2, but they can clearly work, albeit with the odds modifier. Without the odds modifier, I would've targeted some weaker divisions or waited.

The AFV losses will mean the two Panzer divisions will probably only have only a small amount of operational tanks next turn, which is good. The tanks might be obsolete, but every bit of punch you can take away from the Panzer divisions is a good thing.

[ComradeP]

As a result of the forward defence and the counterattacks, losses were fairly high, but still OK.

I disbanded a number of Tank divisions, those I couldn't get up to strength in time for them to be of use. I most certainly don't need all of them as brigades later on.

[Klydon]

He flew some serious ground support for his guys on those attacks too. 

[ComradeP]

Yup, the bombers probably go a long way to explaining the tank losses against LSSAH.

Still, it feels good to do this on turn 2.

[Encircled]

Shows what a human opponent can do

The AI rarely appears to attack Pz Divisions, even when they are ripe to be attacked in '41

[squatter]

I notice all of your attacks rely on the, as you say, 'cheesy' soviet odds modifier, or at least much higher CV inflation compared to the Axis. In fact, they would have all failed without them.

How do you feel about both of those mechanics from the perspective of playing the Soviet side?