41-45 GC AAR notenome (sov) vs 821Bobo (axis) no 821 past first page.

[notenome]

Flav, I can't exactly reinforce my brigades as that would divert reinforcements from the frontlines. What can I really use my brigades for until I'm allowed to merge them into corps/divisions? It seems that even a mediocre amount of digging is better than nothing, no?

[Flaviusx]

If your stuff is on the front lines, it won't be getting much in the way of reinforcements anyways. Refits are very sketchy on the front.

All I'm saying is plan on having to reinforce these fronts come March. Yes, even with brigades if that's all you have that's fresh. You're not familiar with March madness, I take it. (It's been toned down, but the transition to snow can still be ugly in 42.)

A lot of Soviet players used to the old style fort rules have a tendency of tying down too much of the Red Army in the deep rear in 1942 digging, and this doesn't work anymore, can indeed be disastrous.

[Peltonx]

This is a good 1942 defencsive line. From 1942-45 as Russian you better have everything up front. Strong front line with reserves near by. If you have lines of defences you make pocketing units easy.

xzr8421 defence in 1942 was perfect other then his breakthroughs, which vs lesser Germans broke there backs and he won.

I am sure Flaviusx 1942 defence is a little different, but vs good shc players they stack the front. If the front is broken your toast, game set match you will not recover.

The few games I lost I was uable to crack the lines in 1942, sure I got pockets but never broke out.

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[notenome]

821 had some time on his hands so today apparently is going to be a daily double.

Here is the situation after recon:

[notenome]

And here we have the Shock breakthrough. There are clearly three options: swing left towards Kaluga and beyond, swing right towards Orel and Kursk, or forge ahead and risk an elongated flank on both sides. What would you do?

EDIT: I should mention that those gaps are really there, 821 doesn't have enough units to plug the holes at the moment.

[Flaviusx]

I would go west and north. South leads nowhere, no clear stopline, and you don't have an anvil to your hammer. North allows you to work in conjunction with your strongest and best Fronts and keep the pressure up in that area. It also diverts reinforcements there rather than south. He'll be counterattacking down south, or will want to, but if you can create a mess up north, that will complicate things.

The reason I say west and north is because Bryansk is a nice place to anchor your line come spring. It also denies him a major rail nexus. I wouldn't push past Bryansk though. Your present location is not a good place to stop.

You have enough cavalry there, I think, to threaten both areas. You'll need to insert some rifle armies as flank protection, though, south of this. Those tank brigades aren't going to cut it when snow arrives.

[Peltonx]

Hes in trouble. If you have allot of cav in breakout area you can have some fun. Cav for the win.

[timmyab]

Yes, North West is probably the way to go if you can.Trouble is that if your opponent knows what he's doing then you'll find very strong enemy forces in the light woods around there.
Also push as hard as you can just North of Kaluga.
I'd be looking to reclaim the arc of good defensive terrain from North of Kaluga down to Bryansk.
To protect the Southern flank of this salient it's vital to take Orel and the surrounding light woods hexes before the Spring.This Southern flank will have to be held in great strength when the thaw comes.

[juret]

i think bryansk to

[notenome]

End of turn screenshot. 32 retreats this time around but some incredibly costly holds. It simply is impossible to hit two stacked German division. And reserve activations from even mediocre minor units can have a devastating impact. Irritating.

Performance in the Shock breakthrough is alright, but not great. Looking at the morale indicators, I think 821 brought up some armor that was resting in Germany to contain the breakthrough. I tried to hit one of them but I think its going to take deliberate attacks from cav corps to dislocate them. We need to encircle some more Axis units, 3 surrendered divisions is just not enough. I have 3 more armies coming up, but its going to take them a while to get there.

We're up to 18 guards divisions (not including 3 guard cavalry divisions inside regular cav corps). There are 10 more guard candidates by W/L records waiting.

I also included the squad production vs losses, our production outstrips our losses considerably. German OOB is pretty much static, I guess that at this point in the Blizzards you have to try to keep the Axis where they are instead of wearing them down further.

[Flaviusx]

He withdrew with alacrity, it was never going to be easy, nor was your army in brilliant shape. If he's using reserves now, that means his line is stabilizing; I'm doubting you'll get many units pocketed. You may have to settle for simple grinding.

You don't seem to be creating many zoc locks with your ordinary rifle attacks.

[Seminole]

I would advise getting out of that scary bulge while you can. It looks right now like he could pocket all your cavalry corps as soon as the snow comes.
Don't underestimate the German rebound in CV (and reduction in your CV) that comes with the snows.

[Flaviusx]

He's got a couple more guaranteed blizzard turns left I think. But I'm leaning towards withdrawal myself, tbh. He's got the penetration contained and even backstopped with reserves. And the lack of flank security is most worrying, that screen of tank brigades is not going to cut it.

The key decision here for the Axis was leaving Moscow. That freed up 2 (maybe 3) entire panzer corps, shortened his line, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of that stuff got redeployed into this area to stop the cavalry. The presence of reserve activations in the battles is a bad sign, too.

[gingerbread]

Your RR repair is not keeping up - are you leaving room for the RR Brigades in the hexes they should work on? I can see that some rail hexes behind the front are stuffed with other units...

[notenome]

He's getting reserves in the South, just to be clear Flav, all his units are set to reserve mode. As for the Orel bulge, he doesn't have reserves there. So much so that he brought up a sec regiment to try and fill in the line. He pulled what he could scrap and send it there. I thought about evacuating the bulge but I'm confident that it will actually even out as it comes into contact with the armies attacking south of Moscow. In the two blizzard turns I have left in January I think the northern flank will be straightened out.

ginger- yes, RR repair keeps up at the 1 hex per turn rate, but our advance during the Axis retreat was about 2-3 hexes per turn, so we ran into supply dificulties. That's one of the benefits of the shock bulge, as its angle of attack moves perpendicular to our supply lines.

[Flaviusx]

Well, you can evaluate the situation at the end of Jan.

Where did he send that Moscow garrison to?

[notenome]

He spread them around. One is in Kaluga, some went back to Germany, I think, most are still behind the main line n front of Moscow, acting as reserves but without much success. Pretty sure some of the troops he sent to Bryansk are from there as well. Also its important to note that most of the infantry near Bryansk are regiments, and the two divisions are at about 7k men or less.

One question, should I treat mobile divisions any different than infantry when I attack them? Or is the 3-6 to 1 ratio good enough in a deliberate attack?

[Flaviusx]

If they are low on AFVs, they're basically just motorized infantry. Perhaps with higher morale than the average landser.

[Fishbed]

No plan at all to switch the penetration to the south and try to surround Orel with some fresh troops? That PzDiv could be a nice prize to end the blizzard...

[Seminole]

He's got a couple more guaranteed blizzard turns left I think.

I wasn't sure what turn he was on, just saw that the 'shoulders' of his breech are manned by extremely weak units, and the March recovery of CV by a panzer/motorized unit in winter quarters would be more than he could expect to break through in the event they pounced in snow. The 'deeper' he goes, the more tenuous that situation gets. If I was the German I'd have that bulge reduction as my primary March objective.

I still maintain focused attacks to raise Guards eligibility needs to be the priority. Not just to hit the limit available now, but to instantly hit the limit available in the summer (when he can expect to have fewer opportunities to build wins). You also want to get every cavalry unit Guards status so they can have higher morale and therefore even greater enemy ZOC penetration abilities.

ZOC locks and encirclements are nice, but to a degree require a compliant (and stubborn) opponent.

Focusing attacks also helps reduce those murderous holds.