1.04.10 Fulkerson vs KLilly

[heliodorus04]

Part 1 of my sitrep/advice for Fulkerson





In the North, I’d try to consolidate your defense toward the yellow lines in preparation for Snow turns. Notice how the German has a bulge forming near the Cav division at the NW corner of the lake. He’s actually threatening to unhinge the defensive line north of there, and you are letting him by not anchoring the defense to the lake. Consolidation allows you to defend better by reducing the amount of hexes in total you need to defend, allowing either defense in depth or hedgehog strongpoints.

The red arrows represent POSSIBLE counter-attack opportunities come blizzard. This is one of the least important areas of your current war, though. You are going to have a harder time attacking up here because of the Finns and because of the rail line situation.

I’m not sure what’s going on with all those HQs on the rail line to the east. Ensure that your Army HQs are within 5 of the divisions in it. That is the optimal soviet command organization. It ensures no penalties for distance to the HQ and it allows for the possibility of Support Unit commitment to combats.

If you have HQs that have very few divisions assigned (say 3 or 4) I recommend consolidating your units into HQs so that you use fewer HQs where possible.

For example, Army HQ1 is using 7 CPs for 3 inf divisions and an inf brigade
Meanwhile Army HQ2 is using 4 CPs for 2 divisions

Consolidate these combat units into one of those divisions, leave the other one empty of subordinates. So one of the HQs will have 11 CPs used, and the other 0. This helps manage your front geographically making it easier to keep units close, and keep a geographic plan (i.e. defend these 7 hexes of my perimeter) intact.

Double-check the Army HQs before you consolidate, and consolidate into the Army with the best Support Unit situation.

Then take the other Army HQ and either Disband it or place it elsewhere in the front. Disbanding will do a couple advantageous things for you.
It sends all SUs in the Army to the superior HQ (a front or STAVKA) making it easy to redistribute elsewhere.
It sends all sorts of support units back to the pool where they can help elsewhere (they will be re-allocated automatically and more optimally than now).
It frees up manpower for more combat-oriented purposes.

Disbanding can't be done willy-nilly, though. Don't disband everything. I'd start by disbanding 1 out of 2 empty HQs (so leave 1 empty, disband another). This gives you room to change your mind or reinforce an area with new divisions that can go into the new HQ.

Double-check the empty HQs for GOOD leaders. You don't want good leaders in empty HQs.

An Army HQ should have 15 to 20 CP worth of combat units attached.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
One of the most interesting things in your game is how your Axis opponent didn't re-prioritize units such that he could have a unified front.

By that, do you mean that he has left one hex gaps in his line?

No, I mean he was absolutely fine pushing AGC to the Ural mountains, while his AGS didn't cross the Dnepr in places. This huge gap between AGS and AGC can be exploited for major territory gain from the Bryansk front northward. I think, at least.

Ah! I assumed the glaring gaps in the German front were not real gaps but gaps in intelligence coverage, and that there were some German units there that weren't spotted.

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

Ah! I assumed the glaring gaps in the German front were not real gaps but gaps in intelligence coverage, and that there were some German units there that weren't spotted.

I'm sure you're right, but there is still a giant bulge in the German lines simply due to the distance eastward that AGC has covered. That bulge presents the Soviet with VERY good counter-attack possibilities that can simultaneously threaten the panzers of AGC and also at the same time re-take Moscow and the all-important manpower center it represents.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

Ah! I assumed the glaring gaps in the German front were not real gaps but gaps in intelligence coverage, and that there were some German units there that weren't spotted.

I'm sure you're right, but there is still a giant bulge in the German lines simply due to the distance eastward that AGC has covered. That bulge presents the Soviet with VERY good counter-attack possibilities that can simultaneously threaten the panzers of AGC and also at the same time re-take Moscow and the all-important manpower center it represents.

Agree completely.

About the gaps, there might be German units there or not, I just assumed it wasn't as empty as it looked on the map, but maybe it is.

[heliodorus04]

Here's moscow


A more complicated picture made up of 3 elements.

Yellow lines: hinges of your defense.
Red lines: Phase lines of east/west defense
Purple: Blizzard counter-attack goals.

Let’s start with the yellow. These are the anchors of your defense during the snow turns, the last turns the German has to do anything useful until May… While the rivers will freeze and become less useful, they will (probably) be some help to you in defense. It’s fine if the German pushes into the gap between the north line and the south line. What’s important is that he doesn’t unhinge these anchors, especially near the lake (north side) and the western-tip of the south side.

The phase lines are suggestions for creating a weak, thin line in the center between. The idea is to encourage the German to move eastward between the anchors by making the phase lines easy to attack and dislodge, while discouraging the German from attacking the (hopefully reinforced) strong defenses at the anchor’s western edge. This is a bit of a gambit, and he might not take the bait. But if he does, you can visualize how you’re setting him up for isolation and destruction. If the Germans fill in the area between the anchors, then you can possibly counter-attack him as shown, hopefully bag a lot of units in isolation, and re-take Moscow.

To do that, though, you have to start preparing for winter counter-attacks now. The purple lines will require reinforcements to conduct such an attack. I recommend diverting some armor and some cavalry (don’t ask me from where) into the areas north and south of each anchor line. You don’t need to do much with it right now, but have it ready to first defend the anchor lines, and second, be in good order for Blizzard counter-attacks.

Blizzard counter-attacks generally roll well when you start with Armor & Infantry doing deliberate attacks, break a line, and then drive through it with cavalry (which is a better blitzkrieg tool for the Soviets than tanks because they don’t need as much fuel and they move incredibly well in bad weather).

But a more serious concern, and a more immediate one, is re-organizing this horrible command structure. And this is the kind of ‘big, multi-turn problem’ that the Soviet player must learn to manage if he’s ever going to be successful fighting the Germans. The simplest way I can think of to tell you (Fulkerson) to manage this is just to do it North-to-South. Delineate what each Front is responsible for, and within that Front, make a mental note of what each Army should be defending. Then move divisions, and re-assign divisions so that they fit with that plan. Even when you get a good, efficient command structure based on geography, the Germans can still screw it up by penetrating deeply between a couple armies such that divisions get scattered and are no longer close to their HQs. When that happens you need to carefully consider whether it’s better for you to move the division back to his HQ. This costs you (negative) supply, fatigue, and prevents you digging in the further you have to move. It gains you (positive) Admin Points. If you have the AP to spare, and you are more concerned about saving movement points to dig in, then switch the out-of-place division to his nearest HQ.

By the way, because this thing is something the Soviets need to do each and every turn (because you’re always being pushed somewhere), this is why I recommend leaving Army HQs at 20 CP. This leaves room to bring in under the wing, so to speak, new divisions as necessary.

Another things that you can try to remedy here is to also consolidate airbases and airbase HQs logically to support their fronts. Don’t worry about spending AP on airbases right now, just try to keep them within 5 of their HQs and within 10 of the front.

Finally, where the heck is Reserve Front?

[heliodorus04]

Central Plains 1




So here I am showing a little bit of the lines from the prior point so you can link the idea mentally with this portion of the map. Not going to talk about it much in this post, but I will in a second one to follow.

Right now, let’s look at the black lines leading to Kursk. If I were a German, this is what I’d be trying to do to you between now and the snow, and I would specifically be using the armor SW of Kursk (where the SS are) to cut off a shit-ton of units. If he can isolate those Western and Bryanks front units, your game is essentially over, as I see it.

I grant you that your German opponent doesn’t look very well prepared to execute that attack right now, but maybe he can, and if you’re wrong, you lose. Right now you gain nothing by having a large bulge in your lines.

Consolidate eastward. Now the next post, using the same screenshot but different lines.

[Tarhunnas]

Nice plan!

I might add: Try to park counterattack-forces in woods or swamp. They are much less likely to be spotted there. If the jerries spot masses of tanks and cavalry on the flanks, they might be less likely to fall for the ploy.

[heliodorus04]

Another picture



Let’s start with the yellow line: Simply the anchor line from the earlier screenshot. Whatever you do, prevent the German from going North/South across that line.

Now let’s simply look at the double-lines and their color. Simply put, these are dual lines of defense for each Front (or STAVKA in the case of white).

Going from South to North:

White Lines (STAVKA mass of units): Assign STAVKA units to Southern, Southwestern, and Western Front army HQs as much as possible. Prepare your 2nd line of defense first using unready units, units with low morale, cavalry and armor. The idea is they move east a bit, start digging in while also recovering strength/fatigue for the upcoming Red Army Counteroffensive (and it WILL happen).

Blue lines (Western front): Consolidate eastward in good order (build 2nd line first as above).

Pink Lines (Bryansk Front). Note that I left a large bulge here. See if you can create 2 lines, but here I don’t want you to give up ground terribly easily. If you can maintain a bulge there, you have a jumping off point for the Red Army Counteroffensive (that WILL happen). It’s more important to NOT get isolated than create a bulge. As you consolidate defenses, make mental notes of where armor and cav can be moved from other areas to this area.

Green lines (Moscow Front): Most important goal for Moscow front is to not allow the anchor line to be breached, and secondary goal is to support the preparation of the Bryansk Front bulge. You can probably incorporate a LOT of those STAVKA units to other Fronts. And you should think about either individually re-assigning all of the Western Front units (bright blue) to other armies, or the larger cost step, but easier, is to assign the HQs from Western Front to more appropriate Fronts (but this is pricey, and before you do that, you definitely need to have all Fronts with as good a leader as they can get – if you MAKE an admin die roll for transferring an Army, you will save a ton of AP, which will make you very happy.

Now, not discussed yet is mud.

I realize that I’m directing you to move your entire bulk of defenses in the mud. Normally this is a big no-no for the Soviet, but you don’t have much choice. The key strategic decisions are sort of as follows (thinking out loud here).

Digging in. You can’t dig in much in Mud. I would not expect many forts to get past level 1. But the fact is that when Snow hits and the Germans can launch their mini-offensive in preparation for Blizzard, you need to be as ready as you can be with lines of defense and forts. So if you don’t start trying to build those lines and forts, you’re going to feel very much like summer has started in December.

To manage this, I would move, as I said before, Unready, cav, and armor units the furthest to the rear.

I would move front-line divisions backward only as much as is necessary to avoid encirclements. I have to leave this up to you, though, because I can’t see fort levels (nor do I need the map cluttered with that info). Just pay attention to your distance to railhead for your HQs and distance to HQs with your divisions. Don’t ever get out of supply if you can help it.

If your rear (second) line is emplaced, then arrange the forward line and leave it once you’re happy with how it’s arranged. The goal will be, when snow hits, for the Second line to become the first line, and the units formerly up front will occupy those second line positions in strength (if they are in good order and ready) or they will retreat further to the rear and start building the next “second line” (if they are unready and weak).
Make sense?
I need to get on with my schoolwork…

[larryfulkerson]

Great advice and I thank you guys muchly.  And Kevin is playing a different game as the Soviets and he's going to eventually stumble upon this same advice as well, and I'm pretty sure he's going to thank you too.  See, these are the kinds of things that need to be put into the Wiki or into a PDF article or something.  Really good substantial advice on how to play the Soviet side is rare.  I see lots of posts about the Axis side but precious little about how to play the Soviet side.  Until now.  Thanks.    

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines before any Soviet movement:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the ground losses [ I'm showing the ground losses, OOB, and production screen data primarily for the developers ]

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the OOB:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the state of Soviet production for T20:

[larryfulkerson]

Looking at the zoomed out view of the front lines I can see how I'm mixing my fronts and there's a lot of Stavka units that need to be given a dedicated HQ unit to supervise them etc.  I'm going to get busy and see if I can't straighten that out somewhat.

[larryfulkerson]

I've been analysing my front lines and looking for places to attack and I've found a problem area in the more northern area. I'm going to need some logistics to keep pushing and that means rail and there are some places where there is very little rail to be had. Here's one:

[heliodorus04]

Already I see massive improvement in Front cohesion.

Something to notice from the nazis:
Note how certain sectors have every-other-hex defended (notably around Bryansk Front).
You can expect less pressure there, and thus don't need to form such a very strong line.
Where you have every hex defended by the Germans, or even stacks of units, you're going to be pressured, and prepare your defenses better there.

Last point, back to commander replacement:
Start with the Front commanders.  Emphasize high admin for Fronts, then high morale, then high Infantry if possible (you rarely have such luxury of choices).

After you're happy with Front commanders, pick out armies for commander replacement based on:
a) Where you need to hold the line
b) Where you have a lot of units attached to an HQ (it's simply an efficiency move to have heavy-load HQs use good commanders)
c) Start thinking about possible counter-attack HQs.  Don't need to be replaced immediately, or perhaps at all (if commander is decent).  But when Blizzard hits, your first order of business is going to be ensuring you have the optimal commander in place for attacks.

One other aspect of the game for less experienced players of any side:
Think of the game not from the perspective of divisions, but from the perspective of HQs.
For those of you with business and marketing backgrounds, do a SWOT analysis for every army.
S:  Strengths - what are my strengths here in this HQ? Do I have divisions with strength 3? Do I have armor?
W:  Weakness - what are my weaknesses here in this part of the line? How many Unready units do I have?  How divided is my command by last turn's German moves?
O: Opportunities - what can I improve with this HQ now, and what is the next 3 turn-outlook?
T: Threats - what can I NOT let happen?

I look at HQs, assess their capabilities, and make a plan accordingly.
I look, literally, at EACH HQ to see how its units are laid out on the map before I ever move anything.
I often get caught up in one particular Front and see only it's situation.  Zoom out and see how the Fronts are connected at their flanks.  You often see different German opportunities/Soviet threats when you do so.

Good luck, Fulk.  You're doing good so far with the new info.

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

I've been analysing my front lines and looking for places to attack and I've found a problem area in the more northern area. I'm going to need some logistics to keep pushing and that means rail and there are some places where there is very little rail to be had. Here's one:

Definitely an accurate assessment.

That's why this far-north, after the Finns are linked up, becomes a far less important front. Where your arrow points to the axis of advance from the North of the lake generally Southwest, this would be an area for Cavalry to attack from.

Attacking with Cavalry there reduces the pressure on your supply for attack purposes. They can start from the swamps and get a few turns of move SW. At the same time that's happening, I would expect units south of the lake to be driving westward to link up with that cav and open a shorter supply route (that doesn't need to go north of the lake).

It's a 'spoiling attack' that achieves little in the way of territory gain, but a good possibility of encirclement, and a good way to reduce the threat on the northern flank of your general Moscow defense area. It's not a major threat to the Germans. The major threat will hopefully be coming from south of Moscow. Supply is more forgiving there.

[Q-Ball]

There is some very solid advice here.

I look at your front lines, and how long they are. This is a bad thing for you in the Summer, because you have so much to defend, but a very good thing for you in the Winter, because the Germans can't exploit gaps, you can. For you, the longer the line the better heading into the Blizzard.

I love the fact that you are holding the Southern Dnepr, that is major trouble for the Germans, because when that sucker freezes, that's just a huge front to defend.

[76mm]

heliodorus, how do you track rifle squads? I don't see them on the production screen?

Also, how do you check aircraft each turn? It seems like it would be extremely tedious and time-consuming to check every air unit on every air base every turn, and then assign new aircraft--are there any shortcuts?

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

heliodorus, how do you track rifle squads? I don't see them on the production screen?

Don't toggle the production info to show only units in production. It removes all of the various infantry-type units from the pool (I guess because you don't produce rifle squads, you produce rifles).

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Also, how do you check aircraft each turn? It seems like it would be extremely tedious and time-consuming to check every air unit on every air base every turn, and then assign new aircraft--are there any shortcuts?

Here's my methodology:
I do it via the commander's report. I turn off all selections and then I check each type of aircraft, and each specific model of aircraft. By selecting the type, and specifying the filter to show only SB-2s (for example) then I can sort all the SB-2s by number of damaged planes. I compare Ready aircraft to Damaged aircraft, ignoring reserves. If 51% or more of an air group is damaged, it goes to NR.

I don't consider it time-consuming at all because after a couple of turns, you notice that all of your heavily damaged aircraft are already in the national reserve, and you skim over them to the units in the field.

The series of clicks is as follows:

Commander's Report>Air Groups Tab

Check "None" so nothing is displayed. Now turn on only Fighter Bombers (or whatever).

Now sort the list of fighter-bombers alphabetically by aircraft type (I15-types will go to the top). Now, in the column of alphabetically listed aircraft, click one type of aircraft. This removes all aircraft except the selected type. If it's a huge list of aircraft, sort the aircraft by the Damaged column. Compare damaged to ready, move as necessary. (You will have to click on the hex number in the Location column, which opens the specific airbase's interface screen: select your damaged air group, click it to reserve, and re-open the commander's report)

Now click on the aircraft type in the Aircraft column so that you turn off the filter, and are again seeing all Fighter-Bomber aircraft. (Note that if you needed to sort the last type of aircraft you reviewed by the Damage column, all your aircraft will be sorted by damage now. To revert to seeing an alphabetized list of fighter-bombers, click the Aircraft column to prioritize the sort function back to the alphebetical list of aircraft.

Select another group of aircraft to examine, filter it so only they are shown, repeat as necessary.

I promise, after a few turns, you get the hang of it and it's a simple sequence of review. It takes less than 10 minutes for me to sort through all my aircraft this way. This is my 'beginning of turn' part of aircraft management.

At the end of my turn, I simply click on airbases on the map (highlighting airbases, but I'm very good about not stacking airbases with anything else so they're easy to find).

If an airbase has room and/or need, I use the Assign function, pick a type of aircraft and sort the list by Experience. I assign air groups to bases if they have more than 50% undamaged, and if their experience is equal to or greater than Soviet national morale (45). If experience is equal to national morale, then the training function of the abstracted National REserve has done basically all it can do to prepare your air group. The rest is done as a trial by fire.