Helio's Axis AAR (v Cannonfodder Soviet)

[sillyflower]

Baelfiin had been bombing Luftwaffe into the ground in our game ( currently August '42) but he self-limited to only 2-3 attacks per base per turn which is manageable since I turned off ground support a few turns ago when I had hardly a LW unit at even 40% strength. This was post-patch. Without the patch I would not have had an AF but it's recovering, albeit having to be wholly passive except for very rare offensive forays.

I don't think LW would have survived without B's generosity. I will ask him to comment on this from the baddie's perspective.

[Flaviusx]

I just have not found airbase bombing near as effective post patch. It chews through your bombers now at a prodigious and unsustainable rate, at least in 1941. I've evolved a different air strategy for 41 now anyways and it's working pretty good, at least against the AI, need to try it in a PBEM.

Prior to 1.05 the attritional airbase attack was completely viable and quite ridiculous and I flatly refused to do it. If more needs to be done to reign it in, I'm cool with that, but I'm not seeing it.

[ComradeP]

Could we please tone down the allusions to my incompetence in defense. I haven't been in Blizzard as German in 9 months. Can we at least offset them with any information about where I've done well?

Helio, if you think I'm talking about your defense being incompetence, you misunderstand my point. I'm saying what I'm saying so your defense will be adequate by the time it matters. Currently, it's not a big issue, but it will be a big issue in the blizzard.

You've done well in terms of keeping Soviet strength at a manageable level, and the general pace of your offensive was also good, although it's unfortunate gains in the south were limited.

We're not trying to dogpile you with comments about how shoddy your defenses are, we're trying to make sure the blizzard won't be a nightmare to you. It might not sound like it's constructive, but it sure as hell is intended that way.

Flavio: one thing that makes air base bombing viable for the Soviets is the enormous amount of level bombers that are useless for anything other than air base bombing or partisan resupply. Running out of Il-2's when flying ground support missions with them is quite possible, but it will take a pretty long while to run out of SB-2's or the other 1930's bombers you start with. The majority of the VVS is outdated and obsolete at the start of Barbarossa, so losing it isn't really a problem. A large part of the Luftwaffe is roughly as high tech as it will be for most of the war.

[Flaviusx]

Ah, but Pieter, they do have other uses than those. I'm going all in for interdiction spam now. No ground support. And I'm using mostly level bombers to do it. This is enormously economical in terms of air losses, too, I'm finding ground support stupidly expensive in airframes in 1941 with little or nothing in return for the effort involved. I'm just sending all tactical air to the national reserve until 1942 when it actually can fly missions effectively.

Also: fighter bombers are not bad for interdiction.

[ComradeP]

Given the choice between interdiction, with limited effectiveness, or the near complete destruction of the Luftwaffe's combat capabilities, I'd pick the latter if I would not object to it.

How many interdictions do you get where you're certain they have a serious effect on enemy MP's? I get about 4 per air command, per turn if I'm lucky.

The destruction or damaging of the Luftwaffe's transport and level bomber fleets, thus significantly reducing German mobile unit MP's, seems like a far more effective way of slowing down the Germans.

The issue of "the Luftwaffe can't be everywhere at once" is also quite clear by 1942, as I'm flying ~100 fighter ~100 tactical bomber air missions that are barely intercepted at all. In the air war, the VVS still has a number of clear advantages over the Luftwaffe that it shouldn't have.

[Flaviusx]

It takes a few turns to sort out the surprise attack mess, but by mid summer I was getting 10-12 interdiction hit at least, and sometimes quite a bit more. Later on in the year this was approaching 20 strikes a turn.

The stars of this show? Would you believe the I-153 and SB2?

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

It takes a few turns to sort out the surprise attack mess, but by mid summer I was getting 10-12 interdiction hit at least, and sometimes quite a bit more. Later on in the year this was approaching 20 strikes a turn.

The stars of this show? Would you believe the I-153 and SB2?

As an aside: Since the interdiction patch a few weeks ago, it is fewer than 5 percent of interdictions lead to a loss of MP that keeps me out of a hex I wanted. I now consider it fairly toothless (against the Axis).

[Flaviusx]

One in twenty?

Sounds like we went overboard in nerfing interdiction.

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

Could we please tone down the allusions to my incompetence in defense. I haven't been in Blizzard as German in 9 months. Can we at least offset them with any information about where I've done well?

Helio, if you think I'm talking about your defense being incompetence, you misunderstand my point. I'm saying what I'm saying so your defense will be adequate by the time it matters. Currently, it's not a big issue, but it will be a big issue in the blizzard.

From my perspective, all I've heard regarding my defense is that it's incredibly under-developed in the south.

I haven't seen it analyzed in the north (where I think it's great, but I probably built it too far east for my own good).

In the center, where I plan to phase-retreat west, I'm not sure if you think it's adequate.

In the south, all I can say is that I can feel the cold on my buttocks since it's hanging out there in the breeze, but I don't know what I should be doing and where.

I intend to give up a lot of ground in the Blizzard, the question is how can I mitigate the loss of manpower from the weather. I would rather lose terrain than men.

[Q-Ball]

I apologize for sounding critical, just trying to help. As I said, I think you had a very good summer, and destroyed more than a fair share of units. I just think you are at risk of giving back alot of those gains.

That being said, I agree that you are hanging out there in the South.

Looking North, I frankly don't think you're hugely prepared there either from what I can tell before, but the terrain is favoriable (light woods and swamps), so that helps mitigate the lack of forts. The Valdai Hills is a position that should hold regardless of whether your fortify it.

The Germans really have to plan on creating 100+ Fort Zones, mostly to "save" forts that are built (they really don't build much on their own). Don't forget to set Fort Zones to non-Refit, and 50% TOE so they don't steal all your replacements.

I still think you are going to have a rough Blizzard, if Cannonfodder is worth his salt

[Baelfiin]

Sillyflower asked me to comment on airbase strikes

I limit myself to 3 attacks per hex but I am mainly trying to generate attrition on the luftwaffe wherever I can. My losses as russian are higher now (post patch) but I have lots of planes. Overall I am not able to make as many attacks as before.
I still think there is a problem with the way the luftwaffe is transitioning fighters from F's to G's. It just seems kind of suspect to have a fighter shortage in '42.

@helio hang in there man, dont worry about holding any ground, just keep your army as intact as possible.

[gingerbread]

"I'm just sending all tactical air to the national reserve until 1942 when it actually can fly missions effectively."

Are there hidden nerfs applied to the Soviet Airforce during '41? How come these are not documented??

[Flaviusx]

Gingerbread, I myself am not sure what the deal is here. All I know from trial and error is that ground support missions in 1941 do not show up in numbers regardless of leadership ratings or aircraft availability or settings. You will at most get a dozen or so planes showing up -- not enough to make a lick of difference in the ground combat, and enough to get shot to pieces by the Luftwaffe. Fighters show up just fine if you crank up the settings, but gs planes proper, nope.

Then, sometime in 1942, the VVS wakes up and ground support missions will begin to fly in the numbers you'd expect. Mostly on the attack, though, defensive ground support seems sketchier.

I can only conclude that the code is suppressing their availability in 1941. That being the case, it makes no sense whatsoever to fly the mission. Tac bomber production in 1941 is rather limited and won't keep up with the losses incurred in these missions. Just rest and train the groups and let them reach a critical mass so they can show up and make a difference in the following year.

[gingerbread]

OK, thanks for the heads up. It's usually only the bonuses that gets documented, like the Zero's initial advantage in WitP. Maluses are left for the players to discover.

[ComradeP]

We're not sure either gingerbread, as although we have mentioned it on the tester forum (that there is a hardcoded penalty for the VVS in 1941), there has been no confirmation or denial. Still, the VVS is probably still too good at coordinating strikes in 1942 as it stands.

[heliodorus04]

Turn 22 is here, and none of you really needed to worry about a German winter offensive getting bogged down trying to encircle everything: who could forget that the Red Army can transform into a NATO defense…
We will see that CF withdrew as necessary to shorten HIS line, and ensure a minimum of units could be isolated. I haven’t done full recon yet, and this turn, my plan is to post more, because I need to talk about defense, and my last 3 turns to prepare for it.

First, statistics. I forgot to record end-of-turn data last turn. Oh well. Twice I’ve forgotten end-of-turn data. That’s the data right now I’m more interested in, but given it was mud last turn, it’s no big deal. I enjoyed my stats classes in grad school. I’m trying to see what I can teach myself (more about stats than the game).

[heliodorus04]

Stats

[heliodorus04]

FYI, the airfield attacks stopped this turn, and CF appears to have some solid agreement with the notion that the Soviet air force is capable of too much. On the downside, he’s now bombing units instead of airbases…
I’m not sure what macro-trends look like here. Let’s talk about Germany. Where did 170K manpower go on turns where I’m more or less relaxing? Okay, well, my ready manpower in the field went up only about 60K, and I have a new division this turn. I don’t pay a lot of mind to these data because I don’t know what anything means. So what dat mean?
The tank number is surprisingly hardy.

On the Soviet side, based on trend in the AFV delta, he got a good new tank division last turn. Or a bunch of brigades. Those guys will hit the front right in time for blizzard won’t they. He’ll be just under 5 million at blizzard start, I guess. I can accept, to a point, that my achievements in the summer campaign look to be a more proficient, less reckless drive across the steppe, and that I’m in line to suffer the same fate. What bothers me still is the handicap of Admin. Now, each game I get better on admin efficiency, but that’s not my point. The Germans have to pay far too much in AP for binary army to swap from front to rear, from active to support roles, and to adapt to changing circumstance in terms of Command and Control. The Soviet side gets it for free to build his army the way he likes, and then it is cheaper to keep efficient both by virtue of not having corps to spend AP on, and having divisions that are cheaper to move between armies. Rant ended. Fix it.

The plan now is to break my front down into a series of small pictures that show local forts. Whatever stuff I decide to try with a snow offensive will more or less be secondary to how I arrange my forts. As I understand it, I place a FZ in order to do two things. 1) Hold an existing fort (prevent decay) 2) enable digging past level 2, where possible. I don’t gather they bring much construction value (cv). They need to be taken off refit and set to 50 TOE (I was doing the refit, but they all jump to 87 or so TOE after the 1 turn, so I left them there till this turn, where I’ve turned it down to 50).

[heliodorus04]

Starting in the left limit of the Axis line, northeast of Leningrad:

[heliodorus04]

The three lines go along with this question: How far northwest should Finland withdraw, and when? You’ll note that I have the basic data for Finland in terms of manpower and armaments, plus it’s OOB. If you forget to look at how many bodies the Finns have behind their divisions, you use them too much. One option is to hold a staggered forward line through as much of 1942 as CF will allow me. With preparation beginning on forts whenever AP allow (and that could nigh be never, so hold me to that). But maybe I just go to line 2, or line 3 (yellow) and have as short a line as possible, dig to level 2 and when he comes adjacent, dig to 3 over time. The only reason to hold land is to deny him that rail line. Is that strategically important in 1942? Does it hurt Finland more to hold forward, or the Soviet Union to have to garrison forward? I know Finns can’t go static, so that probably means to back up and fort up over a short front… This is how I think out loud, by the way.