Pride goes before a Fall Blau - 42-45 GC AAR

[Tarhunnas]

Turn 16.

Mud! Not much happening. I try to rearrange my jumbled command structure, units are really intermingled, see map above.

I try to crush some of the encircled Soviets, but I am too feeble even to do that. And, I got a motorized division cut off near Tula that I was powerless to free! I feel weak! [:(]

[Tarhunnas]

Turn 17, 17th october.

More mud. The sound of shovels sticking in the wet muck echo over the eastern front...

[Tarhunnas]

Turn 18, even more mud.

Time to take stock of the summer campaign in 1942. Below is a map of the front, hex shading shows front at start of scenario, colored lines show current front.

Red = Soviet gain
Blue = German gain
Orange = no change

[Tarhunnas]

And here we have losses.

Men 2.64 - 1
Guns 4 - 1
AFV 2.9 - 1

I don't really know what loss rate I would have to inflict to keep forces equal, but suspect this is not enough.

[Tarhunnas]

And losses in units destroyed.

[Klydon]

12 armored corps? Wow.. that is some serious AP down the drain.

Perhaps a good way to take a look is to check the OOB at the start and what it is now. (and post for the rest of us to see. ).

I am somewhat surprised you did not try to wipe out the Russians west of Leningrad. That port is not tough to take and then the rest is easy there. It would free up some troops.

Overall, interesting campaign and certainly be interesting to see what happens going into winter and also what happens in 1943.

[Alikchi2]

This is a great AAR, you're a true pioneer! Keep it up!

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

I am somewhat surprised you did not try to wipe out the Russians west of Leningrad. That port is not tough to take and then the rest is easy there. It would free up some troops.

I have eliminated the Oranienbaum bridgehead, I just forgot to mark it on the map, sorry. It's described in the text above, #66.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: Alikchi

This is a great AAR, you're a true pioneer! Keep it up!

Thanks for the encouragement! I hope to carry it through to the end.

There are great plans for the 1943 offensive. We have some new tank designs on the drawing board that will enable us to take to the offensive again. A good start to the 1943 summer offensive would be to find a nice sized bulge to cut off, and then we continue from there...

It might take longer than anticipated to reach the Urals, but we will get there!

[gids]

no you wont

[Ketza]

Nice AAR. Keep it up!

[ComradeP]

I'm not too sure this is the way to go, an all across the board advance that doesn't really threaten the Soviet position in a strategic sense. This would not be how I'd fight a 1942 campaign, and just the kind of advance that's mostly possible due to Soviet defensive mistakes.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

I'm not too sure this is the way to go, an all across the board advance that doesn't really threaten the Soviet position in a strategic sense. This would not be how I'd fight a 1942 campaign, and just the kind of advance that's mostly possible due to Soviet defensive mistakes.

To some extent you are right. The strategy, outlined in post #17, was to target the Soviet army, not any strategic advances. Any gain of ground is more of a byproduct. The intention was never to advance across the board, but rather to avoid narrow penetrations that would add to negative front and give the Soviets opportunities for counterattacks. Some addition of territory is of course not a bad thing, and we have the population of Voronezh, Lipetsk, Voroshilovgrad etc firmly under our thumb digging trenches for the Wehrmach instead of being in brown uniforms and fighting it.

[gids]

well tbh i compare myself to the russians,when i started this as tarhunnas his opponent i made mistakes,didnt know what to do or where to start ,tried to smash his supply lines,used my tankcorpses ,didnt do defense in depth and i thought so badly he would go for stalingrad i bumped my defense there...and then he spearheaded tula(big stressmoment there)but im learning dont worry,the game isnt over yet,b im a bit clueless how to arrange my SU where to put my reserves how to arange my frontlines and units to get the best possible attack,and i never have enough AP :p,thank god there is mud now.

[ComradeP]

When trying to inflict losses, you should put them in perspective.

For example, the Germans produce, at best, around 100 AFV's/turn in 1942 (not just tanks, AFV's as a whole). You've lost 2321 by your phase of turn 18, so you have around 500 AFV's less than at the start of the campaign, still excluding damaged AFV's (which might reduce the operational number further).

You get about 16.500 men German replacements each turn (about 10500 regular, about 6000 returning disabled). You've lost (killed/captured) about 340500 men. So just in terms of replacements, the Wehrmacht is smaller by about 40.000 men.

As German gun production is usually not that high, it's quite possible that you also have a reasonable number of guns less than at the start of the summer campaign season.

The Soviets produce/get through Lend-Lease about 750 AFV's per turn. They've lost 6848, or about half of their production+initial pools.

Taking a low figure (to compensate in part the territory you captured) of 80.000 replacements+12.000 returning disabled each turn, the Soviets get about 92.000 men each turn. That means the Soviets have about 115.000 more men than they had at the start of the campaign. Of course, like the Axis figure they have fewer operational troops due to the disabled losses being excluded from this figure, but those men are not permanently lost.

Their gun losses probably hurt a bit.

Only counting divisions or corps, as the Soviets have plenty of brigades and they can afford to lose them, you've destroyed 1355 AP's worth of units. Through merging Rifle brigades, the Soviets can create about 50 divisions for around half the regular AP cost if the brigades were static and for no AP cost if they were not. As such, we can remove 250 AP's from the AP cost it would take to rebuild all lost units (if there would be a need to), which means they'll have to buy back 1105 AP's worth of units. Including Voronezh' Front activation, the Soviets received about 1200 AP's, so if your opponent would have the desire to do so, he can rebuild the units you destroyed.

Of course, he wouldn't be able to do anything else with his AP's, but on the other hand he most certainly doesn't need to rebuild all of the units you destroyed. With the reappearance of Southwestern Front on turn 17 and the AP's he can get in the mud, he can create some mechanized forces. With the pressure on his AP's being reduced in the winter (if he uses the mud to get his act together, your advance should be less impressive in winter than in the summer), you're facing a pretty strong Soviet army in 1943.

As a very short summary: the losses you've inflicted don't come close to the losses required for knocking the Soviets out of the war.

[EntropyAvatar]

Jokes aside, I don't think Tarhunnas has a goal of knocking them out of the war. Just inflicting more losses on the Sovs than historical and suffering fewer losses should set him up well for later. Even if the balance of forces is worse for him in '43 than it was in '42, it will still be significantly better than the actual '43. 

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

As a very short summary: the losses you've inflicted don't come close to the losses required for knocking the Soviets out of the war.

Thanks for the informed analysis! It came out about how I suspected it would.

However, my goal was not to knock the Soviets out of the war. I was of the opinion that that goal is unattainable in the game (and maybe in reality in 1942). My goal is to make the soviets bleed and maintain my position for as long as possible. I think I have done a decent job of it this summer, but maybe it can be done better. I will happily play the Soviets in a 1942 campaign against anyone who wants to make a try at a better attempt as the Germans, not now though, but in the future, I have a couple of games going for the moment.

BTW gids is my opponent in this game, I invited him to read the AAR and comment for now, as nothing much is happening during the mud turns anyway, so he won't be able to glean much useful intelligence from the AAR for the moment.

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: EntropyAvatar

Jokes aside, I don't think Tarhunnas has a goal of knocking them out of the war. Just inflicting more losses on the Sovs than historical and suffering fewer losses should set him up well for later. Even if the balance of forces is worse for him in '43 than it was in '42, it will still be significantly better than the actual '43. 

Not losing 600,000 men trying to hold on to some worthless city will do that. [:D]

[Tarhunnas]

Turn 19 - still mud.

I try to eliminate a couple of the surrounded pockets south of Kaluga, but they still fight back, the persistent b****rs. After 4 weeks surrounded, they must be prime candidates to win a prize in the RKKA weight loss programme!

Look at my truck numbers! They are still rising, and the number required is dropping. I am not reading the numbers backward, I hope?

[ComradeP]

That motor pool figure does look odd, you've gained 110k trucks. Production accounts for either 72.504 or 58.003 of that (I'm still not sure whether the modifier for how much is send to other fronts also has an effect on the production noted under the special production line in the production screen, I'll ask). Repairs of the 170.000 damaged trucks can probably increase the figure a bit, but still, it's a high figure after a summer campaign. I'll post it on the tester forum.