Coolts (Axis) vs. JZardos (Ru) GC ’42 1.04.30

[coolts]

I have rather naively accepted Jasons challenge to the ’42 campaign. This is my first MP and first ’42 scenario. I’ve played a few ’41 GC’s against the AI but only today made it past the 1st winter in one of them, (previously quit when I learnt something new and wanted to try it out. Like building railroads

As such, I will be posting a couple of turns a week I hope and will be rather annoyingly asking the sages on these august forums for advice and manual explanations.

Anyway, here goes and what a mess we inherit eh? Half the army in static and the captured cities without garrisons. And not many admin points to sort it out. Der Fuhrer should have had a port-a-loo accident a year ago!

I won’t bore you with my security shuffling so here’s the first ‘worry ‘oop north’.


AGN


I’ve tried a half-hearted attack up there which failed so have railed reinforcements in to hopefully liquidate that coastal group next week. The Demyansk salient is much more worrying. I have reinforced the neck of the salient but am not sure what to do about it? Retreat? There are good forts in there and he is using a lot of troops keeping the bubble compressed.
I don’t have the admin point so to reactivate anyway, so there it stays.

I doubt whether Leningrad is an option unless he does something daft, which given that it’s the 2nd main Soviet paranoid nightmare, I don’t anticipate really.

[coolts]

AGC

The Vladmirskoe salient has been pocketed. It took a while, and I am showing my inexperience here in the most efficient use of MP’s and CV’s. It may hold, but that armour stack is sweating. I’ve air dropped supplies. Does that help their combat /defence value or just their MP’s the next turn?

[coolts]

AGS

More opportunities here and not many static units. One pocket and a thrust to Rostov, (I want to reorg my AGS to ‘A’ and ‘B’ for greater flexibility and need those Rostov towns for that to happen.



My C&C is a mess and will take a few turns to sort out I reckon.

[coolts]

AGS (cont)


My strike towards the don is what I am calling my “meat and two veg” attack! Two pockets and a thrust, (unintentional I assure you!).

[coolts]

And my appendix

What to do here? Just block that crossing hex? Are there any other viable Crimea gambits? Can he land behind me with no soviet ports? 11th army just isn’t strong enough to take Krasnodar and attack Rostov from the south IMO. I will see what he does here before removing more forces north. I was sucker punched by the AI yesterday in my 1st blizzard. I never seem to be able to take the Crimea in the ’41 GC as AGS is such a patchwork of ineffective forces.

[coolts]

And for the jedi at the back



Questions

Before I wrap up for today, there are a few queries I have;

Should I keep my airbases with the 5 hex range? By default they are spread all over the place at huge distanced form their command centres.

How close to the front should they be? Can they operate in light wooded hexes?

I hear a lot of you guys talking about the manpower pool and vehicle pool, rifle squad production, and the like. I think i see them In the event log as the production report doesn’t do turn by turn summaries. Is that right? I need a quick way to compare production vs. losses, etc.

I won’t be able to reactivate much quickly here so the battles will be highly localised I reckon, (unless he forces retreats).

Anything you guys want or think I should do /write up differently, let me know.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully part two tomorrow.

Coolts

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

How is the campaign going?  I'm in turn 6 of a 1942 GC.

I'd be curious to hear how many Russian units you've bagged, ratio of German losses to Russian, what your overall strategy is.  Are you gonna try and take Baku or Leningrad or Moscow or just kill Russians?  etc etc.

Oh and yes, the Soviet player can land troops behind you in the Crimea and keep them supplied. I did this against an opponent in Case Blue and held Sevastapol several turns before my crimes were discovered

[hfarrish]

Speaking from experience with this campaign, you are going to need to be a lot bolder in terms of encirclements to have any hope...or you need to immediately start hunkering down and digging in as hard and deep as possible. If you don't kill a ton of units (I mean in the hundreds) or have multiple level 3-4 forts with a strong reserve line at the Dnepr you will find yourself being annihilated come 43.

[Scook_99]

For the Crimea, leave a couple good German units there to help dig the forts, then leave the Rumanians there to guard. I like to swing 11th Army towards Rostov as quickly as possible and help move south from there.

Your encirclement in the north....will not hold. Any semi-motivated Soviet player can continually open up supply. It becomes a fool's game for the German, as you cannot afford the losses in the long run.

Use your AP points to activate units. Have a plan on who you will activate, as your opponent is planning on which Soviet units he is activating.

Work on Fortification lines behind your main line now. You will need multiple line of fortifications eventually.

Your main assault is Army Group South, keep it that way! Do not attack north of there very much, as that will leave less replacements for your units on the Steppes.

When you take Rostov, you will lose Army Group South and get Army Groups A and B. All the units attached to AGS will be attached to OKH at that point. Take your time and put your armies onto A and B. Since it comes from OKH, it won't cost you AP.

If you don't have massive Soviets killed by the beginning of September, think about stopping the offensive then. Digging in on clear turns will make that fall and winter a lot more bearable.

In 1941, Germans have it easy to refit units. In this scenario, try to get your units you want to refit onto rail heads.

Remember, The Soviet player has to virtually take the entire map to win. Think long term and make the enemy pay for all gains he makes. Easier said than done though.

Uhm, that's about it for now. Good luck, 1942 can be fun, and does bypass that 1st winter, but you get to see quickly what the bad side of Old Mother Russia looks like.

[coolts]

Maybe I should have been bolder, although I am aware that this is my 1st none AI game and the things I get away with against the computer may get my arse handed to me by a competent human. That explains part of my reticence.

Most of the army is static and I activated as much as I could with the AP at hand. I wish I had started a game vs. the AI to get an idea for ’42 scenario strategies. As it stands there are a few good AAR’s that I am following although all from players with vastly more experience than me.

The north is a mess around Leningrad and ‘fiva55’s AAR where he swung north to encircle and met the Finns scares the crap out of me.

I will play it cool for a few turns to get the measure of my opponent before doing anything too left field. I don’t plan to just defend for 3 bloody years that’s for sure. No fun in that!