Defending Mother Russia Saper vs Harrybanana (No Saper)

[Harrybanana]

Vyazma Area

[Harrybanana]

Tula to Kursk

[Harrybanana]

Kharkov Area

[Harrybanana]

South

[Harrybanana]

These are my top fighter air groups rated in order of experience. I have no idea if I am doing well or not in this regard. I do know that Saper continues to win almost all the air battles; which perhaps is at it should be.

[Harrybanana]

My top Tactical airgroups

[Harrybanana]

My top level bomber airgroups

[gingerbread]

Some numbers would be interesting - OOB, losses, men & ARM.

Try to extract you remaining mountain units to be used in the Caucasus Mountains (see saper vs Kamil). You might be able to hold him at Rostov/the Don, but it's by no means certain.

[Wuffer]

"...only a few units"??

Very well accomplished, comrade!

And I disgree with Pelton, it's definitely not Sapper's inexperience in blizzard...


edit: look at the herding: last turn there was only one isolated reg S/E of V'lovgrad...

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

Some numbers would be interesting - OOB, losses, men & ARM.

Your wish is my command. The below figures are from prior to my Turn 30.

As you can see Saper still has more than 3 million Germans, while I am approaching 6 million. The German minor allies have hardly been scratced the whole game. I have bagged some German units this turn which I hope to destroy next turn; but overall I have destroyed very few units. I don't want to show my own destroyed units as Flavius and others are bound to chastize me for all the rifle brigades I have merged. I hope to have 400 rifle division equivalents by June 42. Of curse if Saper bags any during the Spring that could reduce that number.

Despite disbanding virtually all of my motorcycle regiments and setting my artillery TOEs at 50%, I can't seem to get my Armaments much above 200,000. Not shown is that I am still only building 31 T34s per turn. I am also only building 10 IL 2's per turn. Had I known I was going to hold Moscow I could have evacuated far more IL2 factories. Oh well.

[Flaviusx]

Harry is getting some good licks in, but I just don't think it is wise to push the blizzard offensive beyond a certain point after seeing what happened to Kamil. Kamil killed 50 or more divisional equivalents. It just didn't matter very much once the weather flipped over. The Red Army was simply to weak to absorb the inevitable Axis rebound.

The Red Army here is just shy of 6 million. This is pretty decent at this stage. But I'd want to get it up to 7 million going into summer, and I expect Harry isn't getting much more than 100k in replacements per turn now. That's why it is important imo to stop the offensive sometime in February and give the army a chance to grow. Between combat losses and attrition, it's hard to grow the Red Army. It's also hard to get forts going at all during the winter unless it stops and digs in and does so with several units per hex and lots of construction points.

If Harry merged too many units, of course, those replacements won't have as many places to go as he'd like.

I think he should stop after getting Tula and start rationalizing his lines going into February. His center is exceptionally weak in units. I don't see much point in shooting for places like Stalino or Kursk.

His motor pool is taking a beating, too. Fully half of it is in repair at the moment.

[Peltonx]

Good stuff Flaviusx, stopping in early February is smart. In my game I basicly stopped Feb 1st other then where I have a few chances for a huge pocket.

I had 6.5 to 6.8 million most of the summer and am going to go on offensive when rivers freeze and should have 7+ million men.

You should have saved layers and layers of forts around Moscow by now. I am kinda surpised poeple dont have 70 miles of level 3 forts by June. Its really not that hard and its the one city you can't afford to lose.

Oka north should be Verdun its not that hard to do.

Oka south simply with draw as needed.

You still have to grind west, but you do have a good OOB to work with.

Just hang on for a while.

[M60A3TTS]

Make sure you keep moving arms factories to the east. At 299 you don't want to lose any more.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Harry is getting some good licks in, but I just don't think it is wise to push the blizzard offensive beyond a certain point after seeing what happened to Kamil. Kamil killed 50 or more divisional equivalents. It just didn't matter very much once the weather flipped over. The Red Army was simply to weak to absorb the inevitable Axis rebound.

The Red Army here is just shy of 6 million. This is pretty decent at this stage. But I'd want to get it up to 7 million going into summer, and I expect Harry isn't getting much more than 100k in replacements per turn now. That's why it is important imo to stop the offensive sometime in February and give the army a chance to grow. Between combat losses and attrition, it's hard to grow the Red Army. It's also hard to get forts going at all during the winter unless it stops and digs in and does so with several units per hex and lots of construction points.

If Harry merged too many units, of course, those replacements won't have as many places to go as he'd like.

I think he should stop after getting Tula and start rationalizing his lines going into February. His center is exceptionally weak in units. I don't see much point in shooting for places like Stalino or Kursk.

His motor pool is taking a beating, too. Fully half of it is in repair at the moment.

I'm having so much fun finally being on the offensive that it will be difficult to rein myself in. But I will take your advice as best I can Flavius. The main difference between Kamil and myself at this stage of the War is that his Red Army had about 600,000 fewer men. Surprisingly, even though he did destroy the equivalent of some 28 enemy divisions during blizzard, the size of the German army is about the same. I have probably merged more brigades than I should have, but I have also built quite a few of them. I think I have about 50 of them at the moment and may build a few more. Of course I'll need to have at least 275 APs saved up by April in order to build 12 Tank corps and attach SUs to them.

In any event, my plan is to call off the major blizzard offensive in early February. Though I'll probably continue atacking in some areas if I feel I have something to gain.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

Good stuff Flaviusx, stopping in early February is smart. In my game I basicly stopped Feb 1st other then where I have a few chances for a huge pocket.

I had 6.5 to 6.8 million most of the summer and am going to go on offensive when rivers freeze and should have 7+ million men.

You should have saved layers and layers of forts around Moscow by now. I am kinda surpised poeple dont have 70 miles of level 3 forts by June. Its really not that hard and its the one city you can't afford to lose.

Oka north should be Verdun its not that hard to do.

Oka south simply with draw as needed.

You still have to grind west, but you do have a good OOB to work with.

Just hang on for a while.

I have tried to maintain the forts I had around Moscow prior to Winter; but perhaps you are right that I should start digging in more here. However, despite what I thought earlier I'm not at all sure that Moscow will be Saper's objective come summer. It will be very interesting to see where he does strike.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

Make sure you keep moving arms factories to the east. At 299 you don't want to lose any more.

I have continued to move factories East throughout Winter and will continue to do so throughout the Spring. You are right that 299 Arms factories is not much to work with. But I will have to make them do as best I can.

[gingerbread]

Once you call off the offensive, your ARM situation should improve somewhat provided you set the TOE% for the Cav to 50%.

I'm more and more questioning the value of the Cav Corps (in the bangs-per-buck aspect) - I realize that they are key to a successful 1st Blizzard offensive, in particular they are key to surrounding defenders, but how valuable is a successful 1st Blizzard?

It costs ~10k ARM to fill out the cav squads in a corps (from 50% to 100% in 3 divisions though more can be saved if an equal number of cav divisions are disbanded, but I'm not there yet...) so we're looking at 100k-140k ARM if building Corps with almost all division that survived until December.

In this game, the ARM pool did not crater so maybe Cav Corps would be the best use of ARM then, but in many games the Soviet are living hand to mouth and in those I think it's more doubtful expense.

There is of course the fun factor - it's just 1's & 0's in a computer so why care about ARM?

[Seminole]

I'm more and more questioning the value of the Cav Corps (in the bangs-per-buck aspect) - I realize that they are key to a successful 1st Blizzard offensive, in particular they are key to surrounding defenders, but how valuable is a successful 1st Blizzard?

I don't know how you quantify arms to their help in capturing units, and their additional attack ability to aid in obtaining Guards formations and drive down enemy morale (Axis still suffer morale loss just for engaging in combat during First Winter, correct?). Guards Cav Corps also give the Red Army a reach into enemy territory at times superior to Tank Corps in '42 because of their terrain advantages, as well as morale and unit bonuses to movement.
I like them.

[gingerbread]

Once the Cav Corps are up and running, I think that everybody likes them (Soviet, that is) and I don't question that they contribute to the obtainment of the effects on losses, Guards and lowered morale that you mention but I do question if it is worthwhile to pursue those effects since it more often that not leaves the Soviets with a weakened army and a wrecked vehicle pool. Quite possibly it is better to take the easy wins and ditto territorial gains and then shift to strength building very soon after the New Year celebration.

If that is the plan from the start, are Cav Corps worth the cost? That is the issue I'd like to discuss.

[hfarrish]

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

more often that not leaves the Soviets with a weakened army and a wrecked vehicle pool. Quite possibly it is better to take the easy wins and ditto territorial gains and then shift to strength building very soon after the New Year celebration.

If that is the plan from the start, are Cav Corps worth the cost? That is the issue I'd like to discuss.

Cav Corps are pretty truck efficient are they not? I certainly thought they had significant advantages vis a vis Tank and Mech Corps on that front.