1.05.18 beta Farfarer vs Fulkerson (sov)

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS
I know this is getting old, but you don't have enough cavalry corps. Not that you don't need them, but more rifle divisions are not going to stop the opening of the Axis summer offensive by themselves. Cav corps won't either, but it's the most potent offensive force you are going to have available to at least be able to strike back at him with. Also, come April it will be time to start building some tank corps. You can't win as the Soviets with a division-based army, it must evolve to a corps-based one.

If you think you need a breather, start to withdraw the cavalry corps back from the front lines as applicable and bring them together around the Stalino area along with any guards units. If you have any units close to guards status where one more victory will put them over the top, you should see if you can get that done. Put those units on refit as you get them back.

You can start building forts from behind the Mius River in a northwesterly direction towards Kharkov. Whatever troops man that line, make sure the army HQ has like 4 RR construction brigades and a couple sappers to accelerate the fort progression. This is where you'll try and blunt his offensive in the early stages.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The ideal number of cavalry divisions is approximately zero, Larry. Any multiples of 3 should be converted over to corps, and stuffed with attachments. You should have at least a dozen such corps, minimum, and more if you've got the divisions to make them. They are in some respect your most mobile units in the game and far easier to support logistically than the mech units.

The cavalry corps will actually have stronger CVs than your early tank corps, btw.

Okie dokie everybody, I hear you. As you can see from the picture below, I've got 11 so far and I'm building them by pulling them out
of the front line and shipping them to Moscow. As I get a multiple of three of them I do a 'b' on them and make a Corps and ship it
to the front lines somewhere. I'm going to start shipping them to the Stalino area.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T35 front lines after recon but before movement:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's my moves: I pulled back in some places and advanced in the far north.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the OOB, losses, destroyed units, and production:

[M60A3TTS]

With the cav corps under so many different army HQs, you're looking at command and control/supply issues down the road.  You would have to eat some APs to do it, but I'd reorganize a couple armies to make them cav corps heavy.  Shock Armies might be best for that. 
 
Also remember to get the guards rifle units off of the line.  Consolidate them somewhere so they can get some R and R.  Here again if you can get them in one army, even better.  They will be the first ones to become rifle corps at the appropriate time.

[larryfulkerson]

@M60 dude:  okie dokie, will do.

[Flaviusx]

I actually prefer to spread out the cav corps, myself. 1 per army, 2-3 per front. (Some armies and fronts won't get any, particularly up north.) And in the long run, shock armies are better used for busting German fort lines which is properly speaking an infantry job. You might keep a single cavalry corps in such a shock army to exploit gaps, but putting all of them under a shock army, not so much.

Mileage may vary.

[M60A3TTS]

Maybe so, but perhaps we should not get too far ahead of ourselves. We may have difficulty busting fort lines until the strategic initiative has changed hands, and until we stall the 42' summer offensive, the strategic initiative stays with the Axis. Also, to put it kindly there has been a recurring theme of a lack of focus at the point of attack or defense. The cav corps in Larry's game vs Klilly were strewn all over the place at the start of the Axis offensive. So a little focus here might be a good thing.

Bottom line, Larry, it's your war, not ours. [;)] Plenty of good advice to choose from. Take what you want from it.

[larryfulkerson]

I appreciate all the good advice coming my way about this game and I can see some advantages of doing both ( spread the Cav Corps out, or making a Cav Corps heavy Army ) and I'm pretty sure there are some drawbacks to both although I don't know exactly what they are yet.  At any rate, I've decided to do both:  (1) distribute some Cav Corps to about a dozen Armies in the hot spots, AND (2) try to put together a Cav Corps heavy Army ( or two ).  That way I can have the benefits of both strategies.

My game with KLilly was a learning experience for me.  The ongoing game with KLilly is my second with him ( since we restarted when the 1.05 version came out ).  He has learned a lot too and this game is a lot rougher for me than the first one.  I'm slowly learning how to defend in depth and how to use reserve armies and how to anticipate what his Panzers might do based on what they are capable of doing.  I'm aware that the Soviets can't stop the German's in '41 or '42 and I've decided not to try to.  Rather I'm learning to build fortified hexes to slow down the progress and give up land rather than lose troops. 

I'm hoping to avoid the serious breakouts KLilly has been able to achieve. 

My game with Farfarer ( this AAR ) is coming along nicely so far and I'm hoping to slow down the breakthroughs here too.  All the good advice is designed to help in that effort and I appreciate it.  Really.

[larryfulkerson]

T36: Here's the front lines before any recon or movement:

[larryfulkerson]

I suffered some severe counterattacks in the south. I'm guessing that after pushing to the goal line Far withdrew his attackers and left
some space between us. I'm guessing that whatever attackers Far had, he STILL has them and I might ought to send some recon out
to find out where the front line is now going to be.

EDIT: Notice the significant number of routed units. I notice too that Far has left the two black SS units in Division form, which is what
you do when you intend to attack with them. I guess Far wants the space so none of my units "touches" any of his ( by being adjacent ).
So as to avoid the attrition associated with touching. So I guess I need to send out my patrols and make contact again.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the situation east of Sevastapol. I'm not strong enough to push him around and he's on the verge of having the strength to
do some pushing of his own. I'm thinking maybe I should start digging some fortified lines behind the immediate front.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like in the Moscow area. I need to ship some troops into this AO so as to start digging forts behind the lines. I'm
pretty sure he's going to try for Moscow in summer '42 so I need to get started digging really soon now. Like this turn.

[larryfulkerson]

There's a lot of SU's at STAVKA that I didn't manually buy. I'm guessing the game engine gave that stuff to STAVKA so it could be
distributed "evenly" out to the Front HQ's etc. for some odd reason. I mean I didn't order it, it just arrived un-announced. Gifts from
Stalin?

[larryfulkerson]

Here's my moves with an overlay showing my attacks:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the OOB, losses, destroyed units, and production:

[larryfulkerson]

T37: Here's the front lines after Soviet recon but before any movement:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the north end of the front lines looks like. I'm thinking that there's so little fighting going on here that I might as well put
some of these people on static mode and grow some fortified positions here. I'm depicting the fallback lines with double blue lines and
I'm planning on putting some people there to raise the fort level of those places.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm still pushing in the NorthWest Front. Also in the north part of the Kalinin Front. It's all part of my "wear-him-down-by-attrition" plan.

[larryfulkerson]

Lots of digging going on in the Moscow MD area. The Axis CV's are too high to make any worthwhile attacks so I'm digging fort lines
instead. The HQ units still on the rail are un-assigned HQ's that are in reserve. I'm going to ship them to where they are needed as
soon as they are needed somewhere. They don't have any SU's yet and are still assigned to STAVKA so far so I can give them to
just about any front they are needed in.