Eastern Europe in Flames - GC 41-45 1.05 Beta - sj80 (Axis) vs bigbaba (Sovjets) - bigbaba welcome

[Peltonx]

65 which is a good number.

Looks like in other games come March 42

Armament pts destoryed
35ish = 300,000 - 400,000 in pool
50ish = 200,000ish in pool
70+ = 100,000 in pool

The hurt comes for Russian during summer 42 if you do good and then again when he starts the steam roller.

I think 50 which is basicly historical will not hurt much if any. 60+ will help the german down road.

Now manpower is the bottleneck coupled with a good 42.

You have taken Leningrad and Moscow, plus a good number of armaments so unless you really screw up during blizzard you have the upper hand come 42.

Put in a nice 42 summer and your in the drivers set with it being your game to lose at that point.

Nice job so far.

The pressure is now on your enemy to score some pts during blizzard.

Pelton

[sj80]

The game is progressing very fast. Here is the next update.
Turn 17 - the last summer turn in 1941.

[sj80]

Almost no action during mud turns. Unfortunatly some divs around Rostov were out of supply including one PzCorps. I dropped supply by air, it seems they lost no morale.

Action returned on Snow turns, Germany has launched "Unternehmen Wintergewitter".

[AZKGungHo]

Really excellent and surprising as well. Keep up the good work!

[sj80]

We played the last days 3 turns the day ... which is definitely too much, but game is progressing very fast.

Here is the information about Axis blizzard preparations and planned actions. Feel free to comment. [:)]

[sj80]

@AZ Gung Ho: Thanks for your comment. Of course I will continue with updating the AAR. [:)]

[CarnageINC]

SJ, have you faced the new 1.05 blizzard yet?  IMO you probably could put your armor forces away for the winter, its kinda weak now.  That being said you'll probably need them on the front [:D]

But I doubt he'll be able to reach your third defensive line if you use a semi-elastic defense.  I use one on Red, granted it was limited by HR's [:(], but his main thrust was only able to get to a max of 10 hexes.  The only down side was I had most of my divisions at 40-50% TOE.  I was able to rebuild 2 Armies and have all my panzer forces fresh for my spring/summer offensive.

Still, I'm interested to see the results of your defense, may you keep your forces intact!

[sj80]

Hey CarnageINC, keeping my forces intact is one of my primary targets. I can abandon so much empty territory to minimize Sovjet attacks in the first weeks. But at Moscow Germany will stand and fight.
At beginning of blizzard I was very afraid about Sovjet strength. Bigbaba has a strong Red Army and he knows how to handle the refit mechanism to build his attack armies.
We have no house rules regarding to blizzard.
Here is the update for turn 27 (third blizzard turn) ... everything goes as planned so far.

[sj80]

Here is the next update for Turn 28 (last turn in 1941). The most interesting area is Moscow because the OKH ordered to defend Moscow at all costs and the Sovjets are pressing hard to capture Moscow. At Moscow the main body of the Wehrmacht is located to fulfill the defense order.
All Moscow front line hex fields are at least double stacked. Both Mountain divs are splitted. I'm using the Panzer and Mot divs in the Moscow frontline, this will help to stabilize it but inflicts heavy morale losses becaue not all units can be placed in level 2+ towns. Counter attacks are not possible against 3-stack Sovjet divs in rough terrain. The Sovjet Army seems to be having real problems to break the strong German defense lines in rough terrain.

In all other areas the Axis forces are following the plan ... retreat in the area from Tulo down to Kharkov and defend Stalino.

[krupp_88mm]

you should be able to hold moscow no problem through blizzard at the cost of some casualties, well worth it i think considering the terrain is good defensive ground and taking it back is not easy,, the terrain in the south howver is good to surrender becaseu its ideal for counter attacking next season, GL

[bigbaba]

as sj8 opponent (and worst nightmare from winter 42 on):) i just wanted to make some comments.

i played a lot of PBEM so far. 2 i gave up and half a dozend of games were abondend by my opponent.

it was my first 1.05 blizzard so far what is a big difference compared with blizzard some months ago.

now i admit that the red army was a too strong monster in 42 before all the tweaks. one could overrun the germans in blizzard and/or let them get bloody heads in 42 while the sowiets sit behind level 4 forts and could not get routed because of the too high moral.

after the blizzard and the snow offensive of the axis is over i am a bit in doubt if the german buffs and the russian nerfs were balanced.

germany needed some love and the red army needed some nerfs..no doubt about that.

but in the actual blizzard situation a german player can simply give up 20 hexes and have a safe blizzard while the red army can not repair the rail fast enough to feed the attacking troops.

overal spring 42 is closer to reality then before the german buff patches so the devs did a great job here.

i simply was shocked about the huge difference before and after.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: bigbaba
but in the actual blizzard situation a german player can simply give up 20 hexes and have a safe blizzard while the red army can not repair the rail fast enough to feed the attacking troops.

I don't think that is 100% true. My Axis opponent was trading land (aka running away) and still, my long arm almost always reached and then trashed them. But of course I massed everyone at the frontline (by waves, true) and did not miss a single opportunity. I did not care at all about damaged rail lines, I do not even pay attention to them, just to offensive CVs. And as long as the CV is > 0 it's ok [:D] In the end I harvested the same tons of guards and that's what matters... [8D]

[sj80]

Hey bigbaba, there will be no Red Army after Winter 1942. Germany will finish the campaign in 1942. [:D] I'm really enjoying the game, it's very challenging.
Blizzard is running better as expected. Moscow is secured and the "steam" of Sovjet offensive lacks because of railheads far away from their spearheads.
A staged retreat in clear terrain seems to be the best Axis strategy during blizzard. Maybe it's not really realistic compared the the real situation in winter 1941/42, but bigbaba did the same retreat strategy in the southern area after Axis crossed the Dnepr near Kiev.
Most of the players which faces an overwhelming attack-force are trying to save the own forces. So there is nothing wrong about this strategy, I think.

[sj80]

Lets jump a little bit forward. Here is the update for the last blizzard turn including some statistics and comments to Axis plans for "Unternehmen Frühlingserwachen" - the planned attacks during snow turns.

[sj80]

The first snow turn in 1942 (turn 38) was used to launch the front wide offensive "Unternehmen Frühlingserwachen" to recapture the lost ground and inflict heavy losses to Red Army.
It was a complete success in the first turn. 85 Sovjet units were routed and 17 units were encircled. All German spearheads broke through the Sovjet defense lines.

I've only seen 4 Guard Units so far, two Guards Rifle Div and two Guards Cav Corps. Maybe he is hiding more Guard units behind the frontline? Maybe they are his reserve or involved in the discovered defense preparation?

I think bigbaba didn't expect such an amount and intensive of Axis attacks, because his troops were still standing in the furthest forward positions they reached during blizzard.
Hey bigbaba, how big was the chaos in Red Army after that Axis turn?

[Flaviusx]

More March silliness. Sigh.

Something is wrong here. I don't know what, but I'm definitely sold that there is a problem.

[veji1]

Indeed, One could accept seeing this in june, not march...

[bigbaba]

sj is a excellent player but i was a bit shocked about the difference between blizzard+march now and few months ago.

anyway, the war will go on and shukows NW front started few succesful counterattacks with nearly success.

[sj80]

Hey Flaviuxs and veji1 maybe the Wehrmacht is a little bit to powerful in march but you have to understand the circumstances.
Bigbaba and I are now in turn 46 (30.4.1942) and the Red Army has a manpower of 6 Mio men, Germany has 3,4 Mio men. If I want to start an offensive in summer 1942 then I had to do as much damage as possible to bigbaba after blizzard. Otherwise his men are digging over months a very depth defense line and I will face 7 Mio Sovjets in summer 1942. The successful snow turns did not shifted the game towards Axis side. These turns only gave me the posibility (hopefully) to start an offensive in summer 1942. Maybe the German strength in march is a bit ahistorical, but without that the summer 1942 will be running very ahistorical with only digging for both sides.
Furthermore were bigbaba's troops placed in the furthest forward positions and most hexes didn't have a fort level. He didn't expect such a massive attack ... as Sovjet player I would have made the same mistake.

3,41 Mio men in the Wehrmacht sounds very large but unfortunatly the replacements I got since blizzard are mostly sent to HQs and Support Units as Labour/Support Squad. The combat power of my frontline units is melting slowly down.
In the german transit pool are 2186 Labour Squads but only 769 Rifle Squads. 1462 Rifle Squads are sitting at home in the active pool and are doing nothing. There are 244k Armament points available for Germany.
Last turn I corrected the max TOE level of many Support Units by hand and it seems that now "only" 66% of my men replacments are handled in the refit replacement (I have no units set to refit on the map). Thats real good compared to the last turns, hopefully I can handle the refit problem anyhow.

There are 2 major problem for 1942 replacements:
1. Refit replacement for Support Units/HQs.
2. Too much Labour Squads and too few Rifle Squads are sent to the units.

I have 25 Corps HQs with 124% or 125% TOE, every of these HQs has round about 80 Support Squads too much. But I have 6 inf divs with TOE level <40% and round about 22 more inf divs with TOE level between 40% and 50%. For example the 123. Inf Div (37% TOE overall) has max TOE of 333 Rifle Squads but currently only 86 Rifle Squads. Which means that the combat strength is only 25% compared to its full strength.
I need Rifle Squads on the front line and not masses of Labour/Support Squads in the backyard playing cards or something else! Somewhat frustrating this situation ...

[bigbaba]

as i wrote earlier the early 42 situation now is much more realistic then before the soviet nerf/axis buffs imho. so good work here. it was totaly silly that the germans simply could not break through the red front and build pockets before because of the too high moral of the red army (no routing of units)

since its my first 1.05 game in 42 i simply didnt expect that the germans can go to full offeisve along the entire front.

with that in mind i will let ALL brigades dig behind from the beginning of blizzard, stop the attacks earlier in blizzard and fall back to fortified positions just in the last blizzard turn.