1.04.10 Fulkerson vs KLilly

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T22 front lines before any Soviet movement:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the ground losses so far:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the OOB:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the current state of Soviet production:

[larryfulkerson]

I've got more than enough vehicles to go around. I don't know quite how I did that though. I did make sure I moved the vehicle industry while I still could. I remember from playing the AI that vehicles are a bottleneck during the later part of the game for the Soviets.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the commanders report showing all the rifle squads. So far so good.

[heliodorus04]

A)  I'm not sure forts in the far north are helpful.  I don't ever build them as Soviet but perhaps others with more experience in them might disagree.  I would expect you need the AP (or will soon) for making corps and assigning good commanders as necessary.

B)  Still doing good with efficient re-organization of command.

C)  The Soviet bulge west of Kursk went as expected, but could have been worse, so good job.

D) Remember the essential element of your winter counter-attacks will be to MASS armor and cavalry at (armor) the point of attack or near enough behind it (cav) that it can drive through a gap in the line quickly. I see a lot of armor where it needs to be, which is good, but you could mass it a little more. I do not like the armor in the swamps north of that lake up north. Would rather see inf/cav there.

E)  What I'd like to see in your AAR is for you to start telling US what you think about the situation you see.
What's your SWOT analysis for your fronts?

Your positioning is good for a major winter counter-offensive.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04
What's your SWOT analysis for your fronts?

What's a SWOT? Sweet words off topic? Sweaty, wordy, otherwise taught? Strategy With Out Tactics?

EDIT: Kevin and I aren't really out for blood. I'm sort of beer-and-pretzel-ing this game somewhat. I still want to win, I just don't NEED to win. If you know what I mean.

[heliodorus04]

Yeah, I get that.  Don't let me ruin your fun whatever you do.

SWOT is a marketing/business term, but most of the best business heuristics come from the military.

Anyway
S-strengths
W- weaknesses
O- opportunities
T-threats

[larryfulkerson]

Um........strengths....um.....I don't have  very many evidently.....maybe the winter weather will even out the CV's soon and I'll have some strength. 
Weaknesses....right now my CV's are lower than I need them to be.  And most of my foot troops don't move very fast in the winter but I do have some descent cav units that can locomote. 
Oppertunities.....um.......the front line is a bit longer than is comfortable for the Axis I'm guessing so I'm going to try to make it even longer somehow so that gaps can start to appear in the Axis front line so I can infiltrate and try to isolate one or more divisions and kill it(them).  
Threats.....this game is starting to appear more serious all the time.  Kevin doesn't make many mistakes ( that I know about ) so I can't count on his doing something seriously badly wrong I gotta make my opportunities while I'm on the go.  Make things happen.  Yeah.

[76mm]

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but I have another question for Heliodorus and I think Larry will also benefit, so...

Heliodorus, I don't understand the point of tracking rifle squads--why is that better than simply tracking the manpower pool?

Also, thanks for the tips on the aircraft, I spent a lot of time fixing some stuff this turn, but next turn should go much quicker.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Don't mean to hijack the thread, but I have another question for Heliodorus and I think Larry will also benefit, so...
Heliodorus, I don't understand the point of tracking rifle squads--why is that better than simply tracking the manpower pool?

I'd like to know HOW to track the rifle squads. I mean I see the numbers each turn on the production and losses screens but I don't pay all that much attention to the trend(s); if there is one I'm not aware of it. Maybe I should pay more attention to some specific number. Don't worry about hijacking my thread, I'm here to learn too.

Here's the front lines before any movement on turn 23:

[larryfulkerson]

And the ground losses so far:

[larryfulkerson]

And the OOB:

[larryfulkerson]

And the state of Soviet production so far:

[larryfulkerson]

Timely recon has pointed to the possibility that I've found a rather large hole in the Axis lines. Maybe I pour a few million soliders through
that bad boy and see what happens. He'll probably close the gaps some way or the other before I can take advantage of the situation.

[heliodorus04]

Before I get to explaining much about the Rifle Squads, let me confide that my statistical tracking is completely for theory right now.  All I'm trying to do is track trends in the stats (Rifle Squads, Manpower), and MAYBE see if there is any impact in the game relative to the stats I'm tracking.  It's something I started as an exercise not knowing if it will be worthwhile tracking data.  I remember Big Anorak writing about the Axis 'shatter' threshold (for the whole front) being about 19,000 rifle squads.

I'm not even sure I'm tracking the right statistic right now.  I'll show you where I get them when I can concentrate again and make a screen shot.  I finished my last forecasting project today, and this thread provided much needed mental breaks.  And then my opponent finished a turn, so I have my own game to obsess over for a day or two.

[76mm]

heliodorus, OK, thanks. I'd be interested in seeing how rifle squads correlate to manpower in late 1941, when I typically have up to a million men in my manpower pool! That number drops pretty quickly as soon as 1942 begins, but I don't really understand why...

[76mm]

Larry, good job finding the hole, but I've got to say that he should have no problem plugging it if all you have are your plodding rifle divisions. You need to scrounge up as much cav/armor to throw up there as possible and attach it to a nearby HQ, then see what you can do!

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Larry, good job finding the hole, but I've got to say that he should have no problem plugging it if all you have are your plodding rifle divisions.

You need to scrounge up as much cav/armor to throw up there as possible and attach it to a nearby HQ, then see what you can do!

Here's the T24 front lines before any Soviet movement. You can see where Kevin has already started to close the hole using nearby assets. I'll post a close-up also, of the area in consideration after this post.