Has anybody started a new game as Soviets against the Axis AI

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: DrewBlack

here you go..

Ouch this is goin to hurt about 21 divs surrounded, can rescue about 4 if im lucky. I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!

How did it play out?


Leo "Apollo11"

[Karri]

ORIGINAL: DrewBlack

Hi

here you go..

Ouch this is goin to hurt about 21 divs surrounded, can rescue about 4 if im lucky. I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!

Seems to me you could attack those hungrains and romanians and cut off the panzers...

[PMCN]

Based on the pictures, the russian has a fair number of ways to mess over the panzer spear head but the primary thing it has accomplished is to cut off the rail link to kiev. And the Germans will be able to eventually push their line through to the panzers on the other side of the Dniepr. For me I would hold the Germans in check, go for a cut off attempt (the security division..the HQ then the brigades) with the view of pulling back tho the river line seen on the right side of the map as soon as I got as many people as possible out of the area around Kiev. That is far far too many troops to abandon without a serious attempt to break them free. I would also use the motorized division to cut the break through in half. It should be possible to mess with the Axis advance at this point but they have achieved a break through over the Dniepr which is a pain for the Russian defence.

[CheerfullyInsane]

ORIGINAL: Commanderski

....The AI doesn't garrison cities. I know that because I have quite a few partisan units popping up so decided not to take advantage of that situation, at least not yet...

The AI is exempt from the garrison-minimums in the game, so it doesn't need to. Unless of course you're thinking about a para-drop. [;)]

As for my own game, I'll agree that the ´41 Axis AI has improved many-fold.
I set it to 125% Axis - 80% Russian across the board....I have a feeling I may regret that. [:D]
Turn 1 went as usual, since there's very little to do for the Russians except run.
Turn 2 started with Axis armor adjacent to Mogilev(!). I know this is fairly standard for H2H games, but I've never seen the AI move this fast before.
Frontline and losses Turn 4 (before Russian move):





Not much further south but Romanians and some screening Sov cavalry.

[Commanderski]

In my game I am in Turn 8. The AI encircled me in 2 places in the South. The bottom one was more or less my fault as I thought I had one more turn to move them out into a line. I may still be able to send a relief force to get them out. The top one was a surprise.

[vinnie71]

Have started a game as Axis againt Soviet AI and am at the end of my trials (ie the blizzard of '41 [:D]). I have to admit that the AI has improved a lot with the Red Army slipping wherever it could. I had tried several large pocketings but it either moved through an unguarded hex/area and in one case even concentrated two armoured divisions as a relief force to punch through. Therefore I'm resorting to smaller overall pockets all the time, or else bring together 2 Panzer Armies to carry out large envelopments.
 
Of even more interest was its behaviour during the blizzard. First of all I had two weeks of probing attacks in different parts of the line. Having overconfidently pulled out the bulk of my LW recon forces, I failed to detect a large movement of troops from the north to the south of the front. Then the attacks started in earnest, with the AI trying to envelop the frontline cities like Orel, Belgorod, Kharkov and the Stalino complex. To stop it I had to commit divisions which had been sent back to rest since the AI was attacking with large stacks repeatedly to break through. Sometimes the same division came under attack twice (on rare occasions thrice) by multiple stacks of divisions, tank brigades and cavalry formations. These attacks were not haphazard all along the line but concentrated in the area below Moscow. It has also barely attacked in front of Moscow, even though my forces at Kalinin and Vyazma are both quite vulnerable if the AI punches through the centre. (I have fortified the area heavily, starting 3 weeks before the onset of the muds which may be why the AI is avoiding the area)
 
Another interesting tactic is that cavalry formations were infiltrated between my divisions (I don't keep a continuous line but set my infantry divisions in alternate hexes, counterattacking with formations based in cities if a crisis develops). They were trying to bypass defenders to break out in the open. only a few managed but the precious panzer forces had from time to time go out in the cold [:D] chasing fleeting Soviet cavalry. Also the new rule which cuts down German effectiveness in winter means that one has to attack with stacks in order to stop a single soviet division.
 
BTW the Finns were not the veritible gods of war. They rarely managed to route soviet forces and their attacks seemed straight out of a WWI instruction book. they could not effect any encirclements and now in '42 their army can barely hold its own. Hopefully the soviets would not attack this quarter in spring coz I would have to redeploy some of the fresh German units to bolster them.
 
All in all it was enjoyable. Now in March '42 and just waiting for the mud so that I can set up my forces to exact some payback...

[Commanderski]

Also in the Center is where the action is going to be. The AI has it's sights on Smolensk and then probably Moscow. It tried to encircle it but backed off a little and left an opening so I was able to maintain contact with them for now. As you can see to the right I have a strong counterattack force waiting. I need to use them soon before they get withdrawn to reorganize as Brigades. Combined they are over 100,000 men and over 3,000 AFV's 1,000 of which are T-34's, KV-1 and KV-2. I'm hoping to get a clear shot at the AI if it continues East but I may advance towards them if they encircle Smolensk.

I'm going to use a detail 4 level and hope to record the action on Fraps. That should be quite the battle.

[CheerfullyInsane]

Updated screenies (mainly an excuse to play around with GIMP [:D])

End of Turn 11 (after Russian moves) 120%-80% on all points.
Not sure what they've done with the AI, but these guys are pushing!
Leningrad is gone, Moscow looks like it'll go too. The lack of a Lvov pocket means very little progress in the south though.
No major pockets so far, but that's more due to the fact that I give up ground readily. The AI is certainly trying to create them, but the layered defence makes it pretty hard. OTOH the armies in front of the spearheads have been hammered to a bloody pulp.
And with only 40 APs a turn, there's still a lot to do re. reorganizing the Red Army. While most of the armies are sorted re. SUs there's a ton of horrible leaders still around......Not to mention the need to upgrade some of these bloody biplanes[:)]


Losses & Pools.
Apologies for the messy presentation. Still learning to manipulate images.