Clash of steel continued Smokindave (Sov) vs. Qball (Axis)

[smokindave34]

Some additional supply data......

[Flaviusx]

You are more than fine. Over 300% global stocks.

[smokindave34]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

You are more than fine. Over 300% global stocks.

How do you determine that?

[gingerbread]

Yeah, you're OK. 50k supply surplus after production should be enough. Production will hike each year as well.

Vehicles are still short, but numbers available will most likely catch up with need in 10 or so turns.

Excellent ARM numbers - how many Artillery Divisions are you planning to field?

[smokindave34]

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

Yeah, you're OK. 50k supply surplus after production should be enough. Production will hike each year as well.

Vehicles are still short, but numbers available will most likely catch up with need in 10 or so turns.

Excellent ARM numbers - how many Artillery Divisions are you planning to field?

Right now I have 4 artillery divisions and 5 on map artillery brigades. I stopped building the brigades and will focus on the divisions going forward. I'd like to have at least 1 artillery division per army.....I haven't built any artillery in about a month as I've been focusing on building rifle corps now that the AP cost has dropped.

[Flaviusx]

Build both. Rifle corps can't dislodge the German by themselves, you need the guns.

Just keep pumping out 1-2 arty divisions per turn.

Also, centralize them. Do not assign them to the armies. To really crack a strong fort line, you will need 3+ arty divisions per attack. (I've thrown six or more such divisions on a single attack in the past. Nothing exceeds like excess.)

I hope you saved your airborne HQs. They are perfect for this. Park 4-5 arty divisions in each, and assign those to STAVKA. Concentrate the guns where you want to wreck his line. Build at the very least 30 of these things. More is better.

Artillery has negligible CVs and therefore coordination penalties are irrelevant, hence the centralization.

Save the armies for actual maneuver units, i.e., stuff that has real CVs.

[smokindave34]

Turn 92 (3rd week of March)

I continue to average about 10 attacks per turn of which 70% have been succesfull. Q-ball now has a large portion of his panzer/motorized units on or near the front line. I counted elements of 6 panzers corps identified by recon (that leaves about 4 to 5 unidentified I'm guessing). With that commitment to the front line I don't expect any major panzer offensvies anytime soon. Additionally mud is coming soon so that is another factor.

I was able to convert two tank corps and one mechanized corps to guards status in the last month and have been adding all my tank/mech corps to attacks to try and get wins. Over the last two turns the amount of "easy" wins has gone down dramatically now that the panzers/motorized units are at the front line. I've been able to mass 6-7 corps and artillery on a few occasions and push back some panzer divisions. However I'm getting concerned that my progress west is way to slow. I really haven't been able to push the front line more than a hex in most places. To help I've focused on building more arty divisions that last few turn and now have 10 total.

My manpower pool is still way up there (over 1.2 million). When the mud hits in two turns I plan on spending all my AP's (throughout April) to build new divisions/brigades to try and bring down the pool. I'm considering sending these newly built corps up north since Q-ball's line there seems to be 1 division deep. He will have to send panzers up to support and this should stretch him out even further. Also, the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts are at about half capacity.

Here are the screenshots....

[smokindave34]

Bryansk Front:

[smokindave34]

Tamboy....

[smokindave34]

Rostov...

[smokindave34]

OOB:

[smokindave34]

Production numbers:

[gingerbread]

At this point, I don't think you should be overly concerned with progress. Causing casualties is the name of the game - the German numbers are very high!

Pz in the front can be seen from another aspect - they can't (if you zoc them) react as reserves. Pour on the artillery!!

[smokindave34]

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

At this point, I don't think you should be overly concerned with progress. Causing casualties is the name of the game - the German numbers are very high!

Pz in the front can be seen from another aspect - they can't (if you zoc them) react as reserves. Pour on the artillery!!

I agree. Q-balls OOB is high indeed. I track it each turn and his numbers have gone up in 5 of the last 8 turns. I can't seem to get than number below 3.8 million. My strength will continue to grow as the game progresses into '43 but that is a lot of Germans to grind down....

[smokindave34]

T99:

Q-ball and I progressed through the mud turns of April very quickly. Here is a summary of the Red army as we enter May '43:

I was able to get my OOB up by 450K during the mud turns. I built 12 new divisions and 6 brigades. I now have a total of 67 rifle corps of which 10 are guards status. Even though my numbers went up by almost a half million my pool continues to hover around 1.2 million. I'm getting on average 85K new men each turn. The Central front arrives in two turns and with the additional AP's I plan on rounding out my artillery divisions (I have 16) and building lots of new divisions/brigades to get men to the front. I'm not concerned with having too many units as of right now since I can barely keep up with my manpower pool as it is. My lowest infantry TOE after the mud is 78%.

I also have 5 mechanized corps (2 of which are guards) and 18 tank corps (8 of which are guards). I'm happy with these numbers for now as I won't be pulling off any grand encirclements in '43. I'll focus on building rifle corps and arty.

One area where I believe Q-ball is thin is up north. I suspect his line is one infantry division deep. I've rebuilt the 23rd army with 4 rifle corps and the 27th army with three rifle corps and a tank corps. They are backed up with 4 breakthrough artillery divisions. I'm hoping to make some headway here in the summer. I also have the 44th army (Rotmistrov) with 3 tank and 1 mech corps heading to this area. If I can slowly grind down the forts in May I may be able to punch through a bit in June and force Q-ball to divert resources up to this area.

[smokindave34]

Moscow:

I'm susceptible to an encirclement of Moscow. I'm going to need to re-inforce the areas I have identified in the coming turns. Q-ball's army is strong and I suspect another major offensive in the summer.....

[smokindave34]

Tamboy:

The strongest part of my front. The Voronezh and SW fronts will continue to grind away.

[smokindave34]

Rostov:

Lots of axis armor/mech units in the Don river bend (along with forts). I suspect Q-ball is hoping that I'll go for an encirclement here (my own personal Citadelle) and I'll burn out on the forts/panzers. I spread out my air units in an attempt to keep Q-ball thinking he is in for a major attack here.

[smokindave34]

Production numbers...

[smokindave34]

OOB:

My OOB went up by 450K while Q-balls has stayed consistent at 3.9 million over the last month. One area of concern is the large number of axis armor! This must be the reinforcements for citadelle but that is a LOT of panzers to knock out.