Razing the Reich

[Peltonx]

Well, looks like I touched a nerve in the AAR.

A couple of quick comments - 75% of disabled Germans return - true, to some degree, they actually all return in time, just not as German. The game distributes the return to the appropriate nationalities according to 21.1.10.1 - Rumania 10%; Hungary 9%; Finland 4%, etc.; Germany the rest (about 75%). Hence why you see my minor allies in the front per Tarhunnas advice. As per his advise "it is important to get your minor axis units engaged in the fighting as much as possible without making them carry the weight of actually holding the hex outright." They have a boat load of support units which show up and fire even if your doing the soaking attacks. Kinda why your losing more men every turn.

So your wrong as long as the minors are part of the fight close to all the Germans return as German. This is old news for guys that have played past 1942 unlike yourself.

MT - it is not 100% in 100 turns; eg 1% per turn; but as the number of men left unreturned goes down; 1% of the remainder is less. In theory, they'll never all return unless you played an infinite number of turns.

However, in practice, as your starting pool is 1,000,000 disabled at this point in our game; you will in practice see them return.

So wrong again.

This is not an experiment for me.

As far as ungrades go and your armament slide to 0, you have more up grades coming. I am guessing ( not really) that the SHC like the GHC does upgrades the hole war. Your delaying the completion of the upgrades. Kinda like borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

The disbanding has little to do with rifles. Part of the set-up, sure my rifle ready squads has been increasing not decreasing the last 3 turns.

What I am doing is the counter to the soaking attacks, thats why it is requiring more and more attacks ( men/guns/afvs/ammo ect) to take 5 hexs and I am losing less and less each turn.

Ok the teacher is done teaching the student.

Thanks for letting me in and sorry I upset you so much.

This is a game try having some fun I am





Have a great game and happy hunting

[Michael T]

One cannot debate irrational people. Only the end result will be proof.

[Flaviusx]

*eating popcorn*

Michael, for whatever it is worth, I am somewhat skeptical about this attrition strategy you are running. You're going to be facing some hefty armament costs down the line. It might be best to accumulate a healthy pool in anticipation of those October arty division builds. 30 or 40 of these things are going to cost a fortune to fill out. There's also a lot of TOE changes ahead generally. Your rifle units over time are going to get a bunch of firepower upgrades, particularly the corps sized units. Lots of AT stuff, too. Just look at the October rifle corps for example, and compare that to your present one.

Now, if you are building up a 20kish surplus each turn, maybe that's good enough. But I'm doubting it.

[Michael T]

I am monitoring the situation closely. I am aware of what you are saying. But I stand by what I am doing, even if I tweak it back a bit to ride out this black hole thing. I have a pile of 122mm How and 76mm FG in the pool. They are the upgrade ARM hogs for the Inf Corp. I lose very few ART in my attacks. Losses are almost exclusively squads and light support weapons.

Considering the alternative in this situation, which is sit tight and watch his OOB and ARM/Manpower pool grow to disheartening levels I prefer mutual destruction for both sides. Because if I sit tight I may end up facing 4 million plus Germans dug in with maxed out pools in reserve against 9~10 million Russians. It would take many turns to grind them down. This strategy I have invoked should mean I will face around ~3.3 million Germans early 1943 with no reserve pools. Perhaps I will be down to 7.5~8.0 million Soviets. I am betting his back will break before mine.

Another thing is his lack of aggression (as he is so afraid of material loss) has handed me the imitative. This means he cannot afford to have weak hexes in his line. He must defend to the max. This increases his attrition. It also lessens my attrition losses as I can afford a weaker front line in some areas. This is a benefit of an aggressive approach on my behalf. Last turn was somewhat of an aberration as I really pushed the envelope and made some attacks that I would not normally have made.

Bottom line is after 7 or 8 such turns of the 'Stalin' strategy I would much prefer the current status quo than what it would be had I sat tight. It is the path of the lesser of two evils in 1942. Of course this strategy would be suicidal in a 'normal' game but this game is not 'normal'.

[randallw]

Humm, this armaments and disabled pool stuff is too complex for my tiredness to sort out. [:'(]

[KamilS]

With whole respect for Your skill I agree with Flaviusx.

Keeping Pelton's OOB in check (thanks to loses and necessity to keep forces concentrated at the front-line) comes at the price of jeopardising future offensive, offensive that will require loooots of armament You currently use up in suicidal attacks.

In my opinion Your strategy will prolong the war, but I guess wasteful attacks are only way of having at least some pleasure from this dull game.



One more remark.
I am far from being specialist, but I think few creating several mech corps is good idea. They provide Red Army with additional support that can be flexibly deployed in different parts of front each turn - apart from increasing chances of successful infantry assaults they put considerable amount of mental pressure on defender creating illusion of being endangered everywhere.

[mevstedt]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Pelton :

I am playing you not other people.

It seems I am not so fortunate as Pelton [8|]

You should not take that personally I believe. Most of us know this game is (or should be) a win for you so it's just the normal "everyone likes an underdog" thing.

[Michael T]

Well, when it was me V Pelton I figured I had his number easily. Pelton plus a team of advisors who visit this AAR is another matter. My reports will have to be censured again. There has been a very sudden change in much of Pelton's deployments and game play last few turns. He must be getting some considerable advice. My cards will be held close again now. My openess here has damaged my cause, not fatally. But I won't make that mistake again.

[Klydon]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Well, when it was me V Pelton I figured I had his number easily. Pelton plus a team of advisors who visit this AAR is another matter. My reports will have to be censured again. There has been a very sudden change in much of Pelton's deployments and game play last few turns. He must be getting some considerable advice. My cards will be held close again now. My openess here has damaged my cause, not fatally. But I won't make that mistake again.

Oh please. After all, we got probably 10 of the 15 current pages of this AAR of how you are kicking Pelton's tail and at lot of it is you took note of what he does and figured he would try the same thing on you and adjusted accordingly. (No harm in that; blame is on Pelton for being so very predictable).

Now you are the one in uncharted waters and to add to that, apparently Pelton has changed his game up considerably. He has said as much. This has led to a situation where you are not quite as sure of what the outcome of the game will be. I highly doubt the changing fortunes of war is because you have given him some secret inside information as far as how it relates to where you are at, what you have or anything else you may be doing. There have not been a lot of screen shots here and a lot of them you have edited anyway. Pelton actually has some experience as a Russian, so he has an idea of what you have and don't have, etc.

One last point and this is not a shot at you or Pelton, but rather at the game itself to a point. I don't like the massive retreat. I think sudden death victory conditions should be in the game. I have stated this before and I will make the point again. As much as I would like to see a good game between you two, I am sort of hoping that Pelton's strategy of retreating to Poland and now this doesn't work because a lot of Germans will absolutely adapt that as part of their strategy.

[Michael T]

I think you misunderstand me Kyldon. I will still win easliy, I have no doubt. But I am not going to give Team Pelton a leg up by being so open anymore. There is a difference between playing a player and knowing his weaknesses and playing a team privy to information I put out there. The shop is closed. Followers can expect a censured map and data that is already available to Pelton. That's it. I would be a fool to openly discuss strategy now when team Pelton can analyse it and pry open any weakness. No way.

[juret]

how did pelton change hes gameplay? whuts the difference?

from my understanding u2 have a long inactive front againt eachother. i suspect pelton use 3 divisions per front zone hex. but havent seen pics from the game for some turns now..

[carlkay58]

He has gotten some advice from The Unknown Player. Essentially using minor allies stacked with Germans to increase the SUs available for the defense and to spread the losses better away from the Germans. There seems to be some other things that it can do and it seems to be a new twist that the Axis can use to defend better and get some relief for German manpower.

[Flaviusx]

I don't think there's any great secret to Pelton's defense, he's just setting things up to maximize reserve activations. This is why you are not seeing him attacking at all -- he needs to save the MPs. He's probably also breaking down many of his mech divisions into regiments.

Properly done, reserves make a German defense very difficult to crack, especially with a 42 Red Army. Individual German reserve activations are far more likely to happen than Soviet ones thanks to superior initiative ratings. The Red Army makes up for this by sheer numbers. But regimental breakdowns go a long ways to increase activation opportunities for the Axis.

This takes some time to set up, get the right leaders in place, and probably also involves changes to corps attachments to keep everything under command limits. (I have never really agreed with the rule that breakdowns require more command capacity to manage, but that's another rant.)

It's just going to get harder and harder to dent this sort of defense before Red Army 2.0 comes online.

The ideal time to crack this will be during the 42-3 winter season. Frozen terrain will unmask the rivers he's hiding behind and this is the time when Red Army 2.0 will finally be coming on line.

This isn't anything particularly new, btw. Bob pioneered the technique a long time ago. It went mostly ignored until we saw more games going past 41. Pelton is perhaps taking it to the next level by turtling up so early and hard is all.

[Seminole]

My reports will have to be censured again.

There is no reason for an AAR to be 'real time'. But there is less reason for a censured AAR.

The point of an AAR is to learn from actions after they've happened. We don't need to see them as they happen. Run 10 or 15 weeks behind the action, longer if you feel justified.

It's more than just a 'look what I did'. It's supposed to be: Here's what I saw, here's what I did, here's why I did it, here's how it worked out.

[Michael T]

Good points Seminole.

Look guys I am not panicked or doubting my superior position. I remain very confident. Pelton no doubt expected 1942 to be a quiet pool building year once he went turtle. I decided not to allow him any peace and try to be pro-active. It is an incredibly difficult task to try and achieve anything with this 1942 Red Army. No one should mistake that. However it would appear I am having some effect on his OOB and pools. Now that he has stepped up his reserve defences I just need to be a little careful in what attacks I make and try to keep his OOB's and pools steady and not growing, and limit my own losses while trying to get my Army ready for the real offensive in 1943. It is an adjustment of my 1942 strategy. I am not throwing it out just yet.

I just don't want to undermine my own cause by divulging too much and essentially prolong the struggle any longer than what it is going to take. I am somewhat rankled that an individual(s) would involve themselves in this game in a clandestine way. I wouldn't mind if Pelton came up with his own ideas, but when individuals seek to offer him potential 'silver bullets' then I think that’s a little unfair and something I would not endorse. I respect others would disagree but that’s my view of it.

People can choose to take Pelton's rant's, dodgy figures and flawed analysis as they see fit. I think generally 10% of what he says has merit the other 90% is fluff and bluff. He is a ok guy but he is prone to exaggeration and irrational rants. We all have our imperfections

I will produce a report soon. It will be lagging a bit.

[swkuh]

Can't see anyway that Axis can do much against Soviets from this position, but obviously, Soviets will be punished as they roll over the Axis line. They will roll over them. At some point Soviets will get a mobile game and that will be interesting to see.

Perhaps the futility of Axis assault on Soviets at the get-go makes anything East of Poland worthless to hold. A strategic point.

Pelton seems to be trying to make a point about game design, not about Soviet strategy or tactics. A creative effort, but... really?

Pelton, prove me wrong; Michael T stay in there and prove you're right.

[mevstedt]

ORIGINAL: Klydon
One last point and this is not a shot at you or Pelton, but rather at the game itself to a point. I don't like the massive retreat. I think sudden death victory conditions should be in the game. I have stated this before and I will make the point again. As much as I would like to see a good game between you two, I am sort of hoping that Pelton's strategy of retreating to Poland and now this doesn't work because a lot of Germans will absolutely adapt that as part of their strategy.

This is part of the reason I'm keeping an eye on this game. I don't really want Pelton's strategy to work because the result will be that the game can be considered broken to the point where there is no point in playing it unless it gets fixed. Hopefully this is not the situation we end up with.

As for his strategic adaption, from what I've been able to see it's pretty much what carlkay and Flaviusx says, he gets the minors to commit more to the battle and seems he has broken down various panzers to increase the chance for reserve activations. Not much of those are anything that is up to you, you're either going to have to come up with some counter to it or just be patient and wait for the real deal aka Red Army 2.0.

[mevstedt]

Seeing as I can't sleep I might as well just throw some stuff out here for you Michael in order to maybe help you come up with some new ideas. It's just sort of a different perspective, kind of like brainstorming.

When I notice alot of reserve activations I usually attempt to pick out some units off the sides of the real assault area and then step in and attack with single rifle/tank brigade on units that I have no real intention of moving, just in order to trigger reserve activations. I have no idea how helpful those can be in your case as I haven't tried this before 42/43 winter but it is something to consider.

Then it is also a case of the situation on the northern half of the board. If the GHC is diverting losses onto the minors then you could consider attempting to grind the germans on the northern part of the map instead.

Another kind of tactic I use sometimes is to have two frontal sections I am considering attacking but only attacking one of them until I notice alot of reinforcements, reserves and so on. If the situation seems to be different at the other section then I start to pound there instead in order to force the opponent to relocate units. Not sure how well this can work however since Pelton may have enough panzers deployed in all 3 army group sectors. You should be able to tell more with some recon.

Last ofcourse, patience is the key. If you're attacking where Pelton wants you to attack then you are going to end up taking higher losses. There is a quote... Can't really remember it correctly right now but the essence is "fight on the ground of your choosing, not your enemies".

[BletchleyGeek]

One piece of advice.

The best counter for the reserves are spoiling attacks (hasty attack by worthless Rifle Divs, which are promptly withdrawn), remember that hasty attacks are as likely as deliberate attacks to spring up reserve activation, and the attackers losses might be - proportionally - lower than those of a mass failed assault. Crank up the ground support and escort levels for inflicting maximum pain.

Nonetheless, the Armaments throughput issue is still there. I'd suggest to limit offensives to particular sectors, concentrating sapper regiments as necessary, to keep things interesting and bound the ARM expenditures. That will surely rile him. Also keep shuffling your mass behind your lines, eventually you'll be able to have enough units on the map (if you don't already) that you'll be able to do like a Spanish bullfighter, goading the bull with the red drape, to get the stiletto on the back of his neck when he turns to counter that perceived threat.

If you moved ARM factories in 1941, they should be soon coming on-line with full production, so while you'll have to be a bit more careful with your offensives, your ARM output will be increasing by the end of 1942. However, full front attacks just for the sake of attacking, doesn't seem to me to be very wise.

[Michael T]

After running some tests I have come up with some mitigating effects for the reserves. Which I will bring on line next turn. Meanwhile this turn (59) I inflicted 27K of Axis losses (around 20K German) for 73K Soviet. There was one horrible battle where I lost 12K to less than 1K in round one. But I 'won' in the end This stratgey does require some intestinal fortitude and one winces just as the results come up……. but its war after all.