GC 76mm (Sov) vs Ketza (Ketza Welcome)

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
But you are doing the right thing now in being bold and going for pockets.

Don't fret about having bulges at the end of winter. You don't have to stay in them

haha, actually I'm not being bold, I'm running for the Crimea and he put his troops in the way... But I wouldn't call myself timid, just painfully aware of my weaknesses. But my manpower pool is finally being fed into units (down to 350k from a high of about 1.1 mln), so hopefully my units will become strong enough to do something. At the moment I'm amazed how many of them are still 1 CVers.

I didnt show the CVs in that screen shot because all of those units are ridiculously weak. While I'm not sure he'll be able to close the pocket securely (possible, knowing him), I'd be surprised if he can't pull those units back out, and at least he would have levered me off of the Dnepr very easily. All in all a good move on his part. I kind of saw it coming, but just couldn't get enough troops to the area to defend adequately.

The only bulge I had after the winter had been pocketed by Ketza by the first turn after the blizzard...I thought I'd have at least one turn to pull units back towards my line, didn't think that his blizzard-battered troops would be able to pull off that kind of pocket. I didn't lose that much, but it was still an unpleasant surprise.

I really think that the black/white/night/day difference between blizzard and non-blizzard performance is artificial, especially when coupled with historical weather. OK, but no more whining from me, at least for a couple of turns.

[76mm]

Can anyone tell me how many panzer divisions the Germans have in 1942? I really want to know what all of them are up to!

[76mm]

OK, in the Kharkov-Kursk area I count 6 panzer divisions and 7 motorized divisions.

In the south, I count 6 panzer divisions and 4 motorized.

How many are there?

[Klydon]

For your guys that are 1 point units (and have not been getting hammered), I would be interested to know how good their commander is. When I was playing around with the 42 scenario, I had a good number of units like that while others were fine. The more observation I did, the pattern seemed to be the crappy commanders had crappy troops. Put a good commander in there and the units started increasing more. 

[76mm]

OK, good point, will check. At the beginning of the blizzard I assigned good leaders to most important armies, but since then I've formed another several armies and I haven't checked their commanders.

This is one of those times when it is frustrating playing a server game, because I can't go back and check right now.

[76mm]

I've checked the weaker armies, and most of them have a 5 or 6 in command, which can't be improved very much. I've also checked the strongest armies, and most of them seem to have the "name brand" commanders (ie, the ones I recognize, Rokosovsky, Kanev, etc. etc.). So I guess it depends on how you define a "weak" commander, but for the Sovs I don't think I can call a 5 or 6 weak (maybe mediocre).

[Klydon]

Perhaps it matters what the 5 or 6 stat is? I am not talking about infantry ratings, but perhaps check admin and moral maybe. I had one army that I could not get most of the units out of unready for the most part and the commander was bad, although he had a 4 infantry rating. Changed him out and over the next two turns, the troops got better. Nothing else changed. They were still next to Axis units (defending behind a major river line) and still around 5-7 hexes from a rail line. 

[76mm]

I should have specified that I was talking about the inf rating; actually I didn't even look at the admin rating, etc.

[76mm]

Finishing turn 40 soon, will post screenies. But in the meantime, I wanted to ask what setting to change to increase my counter-interdiction effectiveness. Interdiction is just killing me, in the south many units are interdicted 2 or 3 times in a move!

In the air doctrines screen, I see settings for "interdiction attack" and interdiction attack escort", but no "interdiction defense" or "air superiority"...is that "fighter intercept", or what?

Also, I've got "recon escort" turned on, but my recon flights are not escorted, and I am losing massive numbers of recon planes. What is going on here?

[76mm]

Here is the end of Turn 40. Not much happened elsewhere on the front, he pushed back some hexes here and there, but I reoccupied many of them.

In the south, I'm not sure how, but he managed to form an impenetrable ring about the troops north of the Crimea, which sucks. The good news is that most of them were bridages rather than divisions.



The overall defensive set up is pretty simple--a carpet anywhere from 3-5 hexes deep, sometimes with strong fortifications, sometimes not yet. In danger areas (ie, in front of his panzers), I'm in the process of deploying a checkerboard behind this main line. Near Moscow I've got 3-4 defensive belts, generally with strong forts.

The main area I'm worried about is the south, because the fortif is very weak in that area, so most of my reinforcements are going down there at this point.

I'm still counting the panzer divisions...There are at least 4 in front of Orel, at least 2 (and maybe as many as 6!) in front of Kursk, 2 in front of Kharkov, and at least 5 in the south. No one really knows how many there are?

[Aditia]

Hi, I think interception values increase the likelyhood of air superiority missions and thus interception of interdiction flights. Not sure tho

[Klydon]

Ball park 19 panzer and 13 motorized/SS. (Loaded up the 42 campaign). That does not count non German divisions and does not count the German brigades. 

[timmyab]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

Finishing turn 40 soon, will post screenies. But in the meantime, I wanted to ask what setting to change to increase my counter-interdiction effectiveness. Interdiction is just killing me, in the south many units are interdicted 2 or 3 times in a move!

In the air doctrines screen, I see settings for "interdiction attack" and interdiction attack escort", but no "interdiction defense" or "air superiority"...is that "fighter intercept", or what?

Also, I've got "recon escort" turned on, but my recon flights are not escorted, and I am losing massive numbers of recon planes. What is going on here?

Interdiction is a beast for the Soviets at the moment.Far too much I think.I recently abandoned a campaign game solely because of it and wont start another one until it's sorted out.On one occasion a single division took 6,000 casualties in one turn, that's mental.I didn't find any effective way to avoid it.
To simulate movement at night, I think it would be good to have a "Stealth movement" option which would reduce movement allowance by say three quarters or two thirds, but make units almost immune from interdiction attacks.
My Soviet recon aircraft also have a tendency to get murdered at the moment, escorted or not.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Klydon
Ball park 19 panzer and 13 motorized/SS. (Loaded up the 42 campaign). That does not count non German divisions and does not count the German brigades. 

I'm very sorry, I could have looked at the 42 campaign myself, but thought that one of the grogs on the board would know off the top of their head (along with commanders' names and birthdays, date of formation, and historical TOE % as of March 1942. Anyway, thank you very much...

19 is more than I thought, there are several missing, very scary.

ORIGINAL: timmyab
Interdiction is a beast for the Soviets at the moment.Far too much I think.I recently abandoned a campaign game solely because of it and wont start another one until it's sorted out.On one occasion a single division took 6,000 casualties in one turn, that's mental.I didn't find any effective way to avoid it.
To simulate movement at night, I think it would be good to have a "Stealth movement" option which would reduce movement allowance by say three quarters or two thirds, but make units almost immune from interdiction attacks.
My Soviet recon aircraft also have a tendency to get murdered at the moment, escorted or not.

I haven't heard that they are working on fixing interdiction, is it in the works? I typically lose 500-1000 men per interdiction, and I've been interdicted up to three times on a single move, seems rather excessive.

Good idea on night moves, that would be cool. Would also be cool if a unit could help limit the effectiveness of recon by going into "hide mode", in which it would not entrench, but would be much harder to find (ie, if a unit was hiding in barns, woods, gullies, etc. rather than out digging entrenchments, seems like they'd be much harder to find).

[76mm]

I've finished Turn 41, I think this is the last turn of snowy weather, should be mud and then occasional clear turns until mid June.

North of the Kursk area basically nothing happened, literally not even an attack I don't think. From Kursk to Kharkov he mounted a number of shallow attacks, I think mainly because I had placed really weak units in many of the hexes facing his units. Until now, I have been advancing back into these hexes, but I've been sustaining losses of 3-10X in these attacks, and can't really afford that, so have decided to have a bit harder crust on the frontline. Here are some screens of the OKK area, showing combats and fortif:

Orel-Kursk:


Kharkov:


As you can see, most of my units are pathetically weak, not sure when they are going to beef up at this point (see note below re manpower pool). The good news is that hopefully the fort levels will be bumped up a bit by the campaign season, so he will have to slog through a bunch of crap to achieve a breakthough. The key to success in the summer will be to be able to determine which attacks are feints and which are main thrusts, and deploy reserves accordingly.

More bad developments in the South: he as broken into the Crimea, I don't see how, below I have attached the combat reports showing the overrun of my two forts.

South area:


Here is his attack on my northernmost fort:


Here is his attack on the soutern fort:


While the forts were not adequately garrisoned (the encirclment screwed that up), I was surprised that in both attacks his CV basically doubled, while mine were slashed. The relevant Sov commander was a "5", not great, but in many parts of the front as good as I can do. Anyway, I have to say this kind of pisses me off, I thought he might have been able to take one fort, but both? With the arrival of mud, I might be able to delay the end for a while, but not for long.

I have been meaning to mention that I still hold Odessa, for what it is worth.

A few other things I've been noticing about the campaign that I wanted to mention:

PARTISANS: I've got lots of partisan units--63. There have been limited attacks, but partisan supply seems broken. I've set lots and lots of transports and level bombers to night flights and yet this turn I received a grand total of 2 partisan supply flights; in previous AI CGs, I've had lots more flights. I've been mentioning this for some time in other threads in the forum--this seems broken. If any devs are reading this AAR (they should be, one of the few to make it this far), please comment.

MANPOWER POOL: The whole manpower pool is very confusing; in December it was at 1.1 million, then by January it dropped by several hundred thousand men, and stabilized at 300-400k. This turn about 450k men were added, dropping the pool to 74k. Why is this so uneven? Doesn't really make sense to me... BTW, strength is up to 6 million.

INTERDICTION: I've been paying more attention to this in this game and others that I'm playing. It is brutal, perhaps too much so. Losses are almost always above 500, often 1000, and occasionally 1600-1700. These figures can account for between 10% and 20% of unit strength--can that be right? Seems overpowered to me. I will try to change my air doctrine settings next turn to put interdiction at 150%, see what effect it has on him.

[fiva55]

Yeah the halving of CV is pretty annoying, check this out.



Interesting AAR btw, good luck resisting the Germans. [:D]

[76mm]

Ouch, that must have stung...

I forgot to post my "panzer count" for last turn (listed as panzer/mot divs):
Near Orel: 3/2
Near Kursk: 3/4
Near Kharkov: 1/3
South-east: 3/3
Crimea: 3/3

Several panzer divisions are missing--an entire panzer army. That can't be good! I think I have some muddy weather coming up so am probably not too concerned at the moment, but the panzer count will be critical for the summer season. You can probably see that my front line is made up of a carpet of generally crappy units, and fortification should be at 2-3 by the season. So the front line will probably buy me 1-3 turns as he chews through it, but to contain any serious attack I will also have to commit reserve armies, which generally are higher quality. But threat-assessment and timing will be critical--sending the reserves to counter a feint could open the way for the main attack, whereas delay will mean that he achieves a breakthrough that could have been stopped.

[76mm]

Have just finished Turn 42, mud turn. No screenies because not much happened. He pushed me back one hex in the Crimea, but I took it back. Am hoping to at least hold on to Sevastopol and Kerch, so am moving troops there. I'm sure he could take them if he really wants them, but if I can drag things out long enough, I expect he will want to deploy his troops in the Crimea somewhere more useful.

He seems to have pulled back most of his panzers, I presume he is reorganizing for the summer offensive. Will be very interesting to see what he has in mind...

Things should be fairly quiet for the next several turns, so I'll be busy with reorg issues, redeploying troops, etc. Next step: fix my air force!

The partisan supply bug seems to have been fixed--lots of supply flights and lots of blown track. I will try to take a screeny next turn. Not particularly damaging to him at this point I suspect, but still very gratifying!

[76mm]

OK, just finished Turn 43, mud turn, so not much happened. I am still in the process of untangling/redeploying my armies, will posts some screenies with all of the pretty colors in a couple of turns once I am finished.

I spent this turn looking at my air forces, which I hate to say I generally ignore. I filled all of them up with air units a few turns ago, and have been getting new air bases. But when I looked at what fronts had what air assets, it was a total mess--some Fronts (Leningrad) had as many as 8 air bases, others (Kaliningrad) had zero. So I've cross-leveled, so that almost all of them have 4-5 air bases.

I've also assigned most of my Stavka air bases to various fronts, but am keeping 1-2 Stavka air HQs so that they can provide air support to my shock armies, which I keep under Stavka control. I want to put the best aircraft into these "shock air bases", but I have no idea which ones are best. I have determined that biplanes are worse than mono-wing, and if a bomber looks like it is made out of cardboard it might not be worth much, but not much beyond that.

I have also tweaked my air doctrines:


Some of the settings might be a little unusual (or not, I don't know), but my theory is that I want a war of attrition, so I want as much in the air, all the time, as possible. I am actually thinking about increasing interdiction to 300% and fighter intercept to 200%, but will probably wait a few turns to see how the current numbers work out.

Does all of this make sense? Please provide any words of wisdom on all air topics, I really have no idea what I'm doing.

Other semi-random thoughts:

Air recon seems much better, not sure if it is the weather, or what, but this turn I got many, many recon flights (not as if they do a good job of IDing anything, but at least they're flying...). Air recon is critical for interdiction missinos, because if you have not ID'd a unit, you cannot interdict it.

Recon results show that he's got panzer groupings sitting on rails near Byransk, Kursk, and Zapo, but of course he can move those halfway across the map in a single turn, so it doesn't matter much. And I think Ketza is too smart to simply park his panzers where he plans to attack in several weeks, so I would almost think that he is LESS likely to attack in these areas. But we'll see.

During the air recon, I did lots of air recon in the north, just south of the Finns. I don't have any plans up there, just did it to mess with his head. I'll try to do this every turn in some random area, so maybe when I do recon in prep for my first major counterattack (god knows when), he will disregard it.

I have been evacuating factories steadily this whole time, and finally finished this turn. I've evacuated everything from Stalingrad but the tank factory, I figure I'll have at least one turn's notice to get that out if he comes that way. Also, I have not evacuated ANYTHING from Moscow--I think I can hold it.

I have a grand total of one (1) guards division, along with one guards arty regiment and several guards air units. Also, rather bizarrely, I have an "elite" RR construction brigade which, according to the commanders report, has earned one victory (no losses).

Also, just in case anyone is curious, here is my production screen; my manpower pool is down to 37k, the lowest it has ever been as far as I know:


That's it for now, I look forward to getting your feedback on air stuff.

[76mm]

Another question: I have not been upgrading aircraft--should I be? If so, from what to what?