Disaster in the making. Oloren (axis) vs Terje (USSR)

[terje439]

Turn 170

Overall
The Axis remain, apart from a minor withdrawal just south of Voronezh, where they leave some Hungarians behind to slow me down. This time we act like a bulldozer and force them back (not enough mobile troops to encircle them). We launch a total of 27 attacks for 9 held, 15 retreats and 3 routs. The Axis make no attacks, something I think is a mistake as there are a few places where he can attack with an unmodified CV ratio of 3-4 : 1. Losses are given as;
Axis : 39.000 troops and 118 AFVs
USSR : 107.000 troops and 479 AFVs.
Due to low CV values, some of my corps' are moved behind the front for some rest to increase their fighting ability again.
165.000 workers arrive at the manpower pool this turn, ending it at 8.514.
At the end of the turn I decide to check which of my ground units have the highest xp-levels. I did not see the result coming....

Units
6 TACs and 2 LBs go to the reserves this turn.
We form a tank corps (since I allready had the brigades there), then we spend some points on SUs.
Our forces claim a net growth of 63.000 troops this turn.

Partisans
The Axis chase away 6 units, leaving us with 20 active partisan units on the map. Our guys manage 9 sabotague missions, and are rewarded with 11 supply drops.

[M60A3TTS]

From that last screenie it seems pretty clear that you currently don't have an issue with trucks because these mech and tank corps are well below max TO&E. The ones displayed seem to average about 50%.

[juret]

haha i thought your afv losses where to high and the pools where sinking fast.

u still have
6160 t-34/42
850 new shermans
800 new t-34s

1k heawy IS-2 and almost 7000 su-76M.

thats like 16000 afv poool and make 560 afv of important kinds each turn.

Press on!

[juret]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Stop building units. You've got way too many for your replacement capacity and I especially doubt you've got the trucks to support that many mobile corps. 27 mech corps alone is way overkill, those things are serious truck hogs. That's more than double the amount of mech corps the Sovs ever fielded.

You should be using APs now for command and control and possibly even HQ buildups, although the latter may exacerbate your truck shortage.

he got 280k motorpool. thats to low u think?

[Blubel]

I would think the point is that regardless of the amount of trucks he has now, he will lose huge amounts of trucks when it gets moving fast due to his amount of tank / mech corps. Then again, there are only about 40 movement turns left,so he can lose 2000 trucks in each one...

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: juret

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Stop building units. You've got way too many for your replacement capacity and I especially doubt you've got the trucks to support that many mobile corps. 27 mech corps alone is way overkill, those things are serious truck hogs. That's more than double the amount of mech corps the Sovs ever fielded.

You should be using APs now for command and control and possibly even HQ buildups, although the latter may exacerbate your truck shortage.

he got 280k motorpool. thats to low u think?

Take a look at his TOEs. He's severely understrength. If all those units were topped off and actually moving around, he'd be hurting for trucks.

I suspect his rifle corps are also well below strength on average. There comes a point in the game where you simply have to stop building stuff if you want to keep units anywhere near their maximum strength and he's well past that. I'd rather have 12 full strength mech corps than 27 mech corps at 50% TOE.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: juret

haha i thought your afv losses where to high and the pools where sinking fast.

u still have
6160 t-34/42
850 new shermans
800 new t-34s

1k heawy IS-2 and almost 7000 su-76M.

thats like 16000 afv poool and make 560 afv of important kinds each turn.

Press on!

He needs around 11,000 t 34s (or other medium tanks) to top off all his mobile corps. That's assuming none of them have tank regiments attached.

The Su76 numbers are meaningless. It's the medium tanks that matter.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Blubel

I would think the point is that regardless of the amount of trucks he has now, he will lose huge amounts of trucks when it gets moving fast due to his amount of tank / mech corps. Then again, there are only about 40 movement turns left,so he can lose 2000 trucks in each one...

A single mech corps needs around 4000 trucks. He needs over 100k trucks just to keep his mech units up to strength. This of course doesn't include the 22 tank corps or the rest of the Red Army.

So, yeah.

The truck pool is an illusion. It's as high as it is because his unit strength is so low.

[Q-Ball]

172 Rifle Corps seems like overkill there, too. There are about 100 hexes of frontage straight-line, so max 130-ish.

IMO, Corps should never man the front-lines, it's way more efficient to use Rifle Divisions. You should have 100-ish Rifle Divisions still, but much Fewer Corps. They are offensive formations.

[terje439]

Will reply to you all in one post [:)]

Flaviusx, well, but then again there is one major difference between this game and most other played to the finnish I believe, in that I am so far behind in time and space that I need firepower, and I need mobility. If I run out of trucks at the Polish border, I will claim a morale victory at least, but I heed your advice, and no more units are built.

M60A3TTS, that is the result of a few turns on the front and a few held results.

Juret, true, but the pools have dropped ALOT in not that many turns, I needed to adress that issue, and as such, removing my independent tank companies seemed a good idea. I keptmy heavy ones ofc.

Blubel that is only a concern IF I can get things moving again [;)]

Q-Ball, sorry, but never again will I allow a division to be responsible for a sector of the front. They simply are not up to the task, and I have no illusion of an attack being made against it if I left a division at the front. The Axis would jump at the oppertunity.


Terje

[terje439]

Turn 171

Overall
We are slowing down. As a result I have no option but to reduce the number of attacks and move units to the rear for some rest and refit. Fatigue levels in the 40-60 range is no good. As a result we only manage 19 attacks this turn, for 5 held and 14 retreats. As I moved one stack one hex too far last turn, the Axis immediately make good of the oppertunity and launch an attack, scoring a retreat. Losses this turn are reported at;
Axis : 63.000 troops and 225 AFVs
USSR : 109.000 troops and 501 AFVs
With 166.000 reporting to the manpower pool, it ends at 4.920.

Units
3 TACs are sent to the reserves. As we are not allowed to build more units, we spend 50 points on SUs this turn. Alot of units are also moved to the rear for some rest and refitting. According to the ledgers, our forces grew by 60.000 troops this turn.

Partisans
23 are left on the map after the Axis force 5 of our guys to retreat. The remaining units manage 8 sabotague missions. Our pilots however can only be bothered to make 3 supply drops this turn.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

172 Rifle Corps seems like overkill there, too. There are about 100 hexes of frontage straight-line, so max 130-ish.

IMO, Corps should never man the front-lines, it's way more efficient to use Rifle Divisions. You should have 100-ish Rifle Divisions still, but much Fewer Corps. They are offensive formations.

Partially disagree. It's completely fine to dump all your rifle divisions into a corps.

However, using an entire corps for mere passive defense of one given hex is bad economy of force: split it up into 3 and use the breakdowns for to defend 3 single hexes. You can always reform the corps later if necessary.

In general (not just in this game) I'm seeing very poor economy of force in the late game from Soviets. They are not massing in limited sectors and are defending with too much in others. There's a bad tendency to spread out the Red Army more or less evenly along the front. The only way the Soviets can ever get things moving is by massing on important parts of the fron in great depth and launching attacks in echelon. Merely attacking along the entire length of the front and hoping to gradually attrit the Germans isn't enough nor particularly imaginative. This is no way to get the Red Army to Berlin in timely fashion.

Pick a good spot on the front. Pile everything you've got on it, blast a hole open, and pour the reserves through. When I mean mass, I mean mass, put more or less all your artillery and mobile stuff along with a disproportionate amount of rifle corps and drill a hole. Attack in echelon, that is to say, have forces available to launch multiple attacks on this sector of the front, and to exploit gaps in the line. If you're doing this right, you will piled up 3-4 hexes deep in the area of concentration with all your bad boys.

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Pick a good spot on the front. Pile everything you've got on it, blast a hole open, and pour the reserves through. When I mean mass, I mean mass, put more or less all your artillery and mobile stuff along with a disproportionate amount of rifle corps and drill a hole. Attack in echelon, that is to say, have forces available to launch multiple attacks on this sector of the front, and to exploit gaps in the line. If you're doing this right, you will piled up 3-4 hexes deep in the area of concentration with all your bad boys.

Then I must be doing something wrong, because this would not work for me, as a mere red hex, not "guarded" by a unit in any way, will use 50% of the units MP if I enter it. So what I would end up with is a lot of units in the rear not being able to do anything while six stacks have attacked and simply moved two enemy stacks.
My USSR forces lack MP and morale to be able to move into enemy hexes, which is why I made alot of mech and tank corps, as those were the only ones able to actually push through the enemy line.

Terje

[Flaviusx]

You might want leaders with better admin ratings to get higher movement values out of your rifle units. In my experience if you get luck with admin rolls and have some rifle units with 16 mps, these can do a lot of damage.

Even if the follow on rifle forces don't have enough MPs to attack, what they can do is this: have the mobile units clear the second line, fall back, and then move the fresh rifle units to occupy the newly cleared hexes. These will then be in the position to launch new attacks the following turn and won't be easily dislodged. The rifle guys who led the attack in the prior turn will now be in the second line. Rinse and repeat each turn, and you'll be rotating rifle corps throughout and keeping them fresh.

Eventually the German line will crack and you'll get ahead of his fort building ability.

This works best in clear weather, obviously.

[randallw]

Are there 'too many' rifle units now, to the point that some should be disbanded for the manpower?

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

You might want leaders with better admin ratings to get higher movement values out of your rifle units. In my experience if you get luck with admin rolls and have some rifle units with 16 mps, these can do a lot of damage.

Even if the follow on rifle forces don't have enough MPs to attack, what they can do is this: have the mobile units clear the second line, fall back, and then move the fresh rifle units to occupy the newly cleared hexes. These will then be in the position to launch new attacks the following turn and won't be easily dislodged. The rifle guys who led the attack in the prior turn will now be in the second line. Rinse and repeat each turn, and you'll be rotating rifle corps throughout and keeping them fresh.

Eventually the German line will crack and you'll get ahead of his fort building ability.

This works best in clear weather, obviously.

Ok, will look at my leaders again. Thank you for the help!

Terje

[terje439]

Turn 172

Overall
This turn we do not make alot of attacks, but instead try to redistribute some forces as well as resting the most vary units (some have a fatigue level of 80). We make a total of 13 attacks, scoring 4 held and 9 retreats.
167.000 workers report to the manpower pool, ending it at 5.535.

Units
2 LBs and 3 TACs are sent to the reserve.
We spend aproxomately 40 points on distributing SUs, while the rest is spent on reassigning generals in one front.
Our forces report a net growth of 69.000 troops this turn.

Units destroyed
The German 702 SP Infantry Gun Company is destroyed this turn.

Partisans
The Axis chased away 10 units leaving us with 22 active units. It was abysmal turn nevertheless with 2 sabotague actions and 1 supply drop...

[terje439]

Turn 173

Overall
We push as best we can, but with quite a few units still resting, we are only able to make a total of 18 attacks, scoring 2 held and 16 retreats this turn. Of those 16 retreats, we are only able to occupy the hex in 4 of the cases, so we are not making any headway at the moment. Losses are given as;
Axis : 57.000 troops and 158 AFVs
USSR : 94.000 troops and 314 AFVs
171.000 workers report to the manpower pool this turn, ending it at 5.494

Units
1 LB and 1 TAC are sent to the reserves this turn. Something must be wrong since only 2 units have awful morale this turn...
We reassign a few generals, but the majority of USSR generals leave alot to be desired...
According to the logs, our forces grew by 72.000 troops this turn.

Planning
I need to do something, so I am contemplating the following (see below) plan for the winter, as I doubt it is a good idea to push it before the mud which I believe will be here soon. Any input is greatly appreciated.

Partisans
The Axis chase away 5 units, leaving us with 29 on the map. Our guys manage 10 sabotague actions this turn, and we actually fly 15 supply drops, so numbers are rising again.

[76mm]

I think your plan looks awfully ambitious. I think if you can knock them back in your red attack zone, and then keep pressing south rather than southwest you'll have a better chance to induce his troops to the south to pull back.

Also, it doesn't look like you have any reserves, anywhere! I take it you are not worried at all about German counter-attacks/encirclement attempts?

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

1. I think your plan looks awfully ambitious.
2. I think if you can knock them back in your red attack zone, and then keep pressing south rather than southwest you'll have a better chance to induce his troops to the south to pull back.

3. Also, it doesn't look like you have any reserves, anywhere! I take it you are not worried at all about German counter-attacks/encirclement attempts?

1. Ok, what I thought, but needed to hear what people think as I am not at all sure what the Red Army is able to or not.
2. Ok, so rather head for area Stalino then?
3. None, although I can scavage if the need arise. Yes, ofc I fear an Axis counterattack, but the game is lost, and as of now I am only taking a few hexes per turn (not all along the front, but in total!!), so I need to do something. Damn the torpedoes etc etc, I need to make a major effort to effectively use my inititative, as of now I am merely banging the same wall over and over.


Terje