Defending Mother Russia Saper vs Harrybanana (No Saper)

[Peltonx]

Good job HB. He will pocket a few, but the cost is hvy. Your building more then he can take out still.

I did as Flaviusx thinks best. I build only 4 infantry Corps during mud, then just 5 infantry divisions and 1 arty or 10 per sappers per turn.

[Harrybanana]

T57: Orel to Voronezh Area after my turn

Saper pushes forward, but this time he leaves me few good counterattack possibilities.

[Harrybanana]

I once again have more luck further South (but I forgot to save the combat reports).

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

Good job HB. He will pocket a few, but the cost is hvy. Your building more then he can take out still.

I did as Flaviusx thinks best. I build only 4 infantry Corps during mud, then just 5 infantry divisions and 1 arty or 10 per sappers per turn.

I thought I was doing OK, but looking at Kamil and Mike's game makes me think I should be going on the all out Offensive. Guess I don't have Mike's guts.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

ORIGINAL: Pelton

Good job HB. He will pocket a few, but the cost is hvy. Your building more then he can take out still.

I did as Flaviusx thinks best. I build only 4 infantry Corps during mud, then just 5 infantry divisions and 1 arty or 10 per sappers per turn.

I thought I was doing OK, but looking at Kamil and Mike's game makes me think I should be going on the all out Offensive. Guess I don't have Mike's guts.

Sappers allot better then Kamil is for sure.

Sapper had a better then historical and Kamil worse.

So your doing fine, just hang in there and you start pushing by December or next June really makes do differance. You will get same result. Its hard wired into game.

[Harrybanana]

T58:

Sorry for the lengthy delay in posting. I had foot surgery on Wednesday and the pain killers took me longer to recover from than expected as I was pretty wonky most of the time.

Below is the screenshot from around Orel after my turn. As you can see Saper wiped out my isolated units and advanced NE towards my river line. I'm hoping to bleed him some here if possible. But he appears to have moved some of his panzers out of this area.

[Harrybanana]

The Voroshilvograd Area.

Saper continues to attack and I continue to counterattack him in this area. Circled in blue is where I believe his missing panzers have been sent to.

[Harrybanana]

Saper seldom loses any battles on the attack; if I get one held a turn I count myself fortunate. But even some of his victories are pyrrhic in nature. Below are 3 examples from the last turn.

[Harrybanana]

T59: Saper moves all his mobile forces South (at least as far as I can tell), thus abandoning his drive in the Orel area. Although Saper is now concentrating all of his mobile forces into one area; he is now down to less than 1500 operational tanks, so I think perhaps it is probably a case of too little too late.

Below is the screenshot from before my turn of the important sector around Voroshilovgrad. Fortunately I had moved one of my best armies in to the neighbourhood myself last turn, so was able to make some very successful counterattacks.

[Harrybanana]

The same area after my turn. As you can see I made several attacks and all were successful. More reinforcements are on the way.

[Harrybanana]

Saper also went on the offensive again in the Taman Peninsula, capturing the fortified swamp hex on his 3rd attack. I don't mind, he suffered over 5500 casualties.

[Harrybanana]

Oops, double post

[Harrybanana]

OOB, Losses and Production.

I am maintaining my army size of 7,500,000; while Saper's slowly dwindles.

However, I am almost out of Armaments.

[Harrybanana]

One aspect of the war that I am unhappy with is the Air War. Saper continues to shoot my fighters down in droves. It is getting so bad that I may actually run out of fighters, something that at one time I would have thought impossible.

[mmarquo]

The Axis is now doomed...good job...now on the Berlin. The only thing that matters is territory and manpower centers, and he has left you relatively unmolested.

Marquo

[M60A3TTS]

Your IL-2 production looks real low which is odd because you said you evacuated the factories at Voronezh previously.

You may be deploying too many FB regiments. The newly arrived ones start with experience in the 30's and 40's. As the war progresses into 1943, I disband most newly arriving F/FB regiments with low experience so the pool stays stocked with aircraft for what should be by that time experienced air crews already deployed. I like keeping the air units in the NR to a reasonable level because they don't gain experience there. Also you should at this point only have a minimal air presence on Leningrad and Northwest Fronts as there is little action going on there. Send any excess to the NR, and then to the active fronts. Active fronts should deploy anywhere from 2-3 bases 75-100% loaded with F/FB's and the most experienced air crews. Check the air ratings on your air front/air army commanders where the action is hot. They should be 5-6 air rating to repair damaged aircraft more quickly.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

The Axis is now doomed...good job...now on the Berlin. The only thing that matters is territory and manpower centers, and he has left you relatively unmolested.

Marquo

I do believe I have the upperhand, but wouldn't go so far as to say the Germans are "doomed" yet. Saper may still have a surprise or two in store for me.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

Your IL-2 production looks real low which is odd because you said you evacuated the factories at Voronezh previously.

I did evacuate all of my Il-2 factories, but only 1 of each. It is taking a long time for them to build back up.

You may be deploying too many FB regiments. The newly arrived ones start with experience in the 30's and 40's. As the war progresses into 1943, I disband most newly arriving F/FB regiments with low experience so the pool stays stocked with aircraft for what should be by that time experienced air crews already deployed. I like keeping the air units in the NR to a reasonable level because they don't gain experience there. Also you should at this point only have a minimal air presence on Leningrad and Northwest Fronts as there is little action going on there. Send any excess to the NR, and then to the active fronts. Active fronts should deploy anywhere from 2-3 bases 75-100% loaded with F/FB's and the most experienced air crews. Check the air ratings on your air front/air army commanders where the action is hot. They should be 5-6 air rating to repair damaged aircraft more quickly.

Thanks for the tips M60A3TTS. If things get too bad I'll disband some of my low experience FB Regiments. I do have only minimal air presence in the NW and Leningrad Fronts. In fact I may now start transferring some from the Western and Bryansk Fronts to the South as well.

My active Fronts have 6 to 7 airbases with the usual breakdown as follows:

a) 2 or 3 bases loaded with 9 FB regiments each,
b) 1 WS Base with 1 or 2 recon regiments and 2 or 3 IL4 regiments. The IL4's are mostly set to night missions to supply the partisans. Not sure if it is worth supplying the partisans at this point as the German rail network is too extensive to cause any serious damage.
c) 2 bases each with 4 heavy bomber regiments. I find putting more than 4 heavy bomber regiments per airbase causes them to be overloaded.
d) 1 base with 6 or so tactical bomber regiments (mostly the crappy U2VS set to night missions). I would like to have more, but until my Il2 production gets rebuilt to acceptable levels this is all I can manage.

I do have some good quality FB regiments, but not as many as I would like. I've also noticed that in many air battles I will shoot down a good number of Axis bombers but very few fighters, while he will shoot down a large number of my fighters, but few bombers. Does anyone know if the game is hardwired for the Soviets to ignore the escorts while going after the bombers? Or is this something I can change with my Air Doctrine settings?

All my Air Armies have leaders with a minimum 5 Air Rating.

[gingerbread]

Looking very good!

Unless you have already done so, now is the time to decide on and build the support units that will be added to your first batch of Corps in '43. An Inf Corps really costs 16 AP (more if you have to build the Divisions), not 10. The SU need to gain experience and at 1 pt/turn it takes a while. As to which type(s), you can't go wrong with Sappers (sounds like a mildly annoying Coca-Cola slogan) since it's very different from the current battles to attack dug-in Germans that are supported by reserves. So 100 (at least) Sapper Regiments formed by South Ural MD that should sit there and train.

A sprinkling of Hv Tank Reg is possible (and the only way to get the heavies to leave the pool), but these are not available to be formed until 10/42. A handful of Flame Tank Bat to get those out of the pool as well, but the production is rather low. You don't want a half strength SU occupying a slot that could contain a full strength Sapper Reg. I don't like the regular Tank SU due to the vehicle requirements, but it's a matter of taste as well.

I would think that saper is even less happy with the Air War than you - the Axis numbers are decreasing and you outproduce him.

[Peltonx]

If you set things up right as per Katza advise the LW will always smoke SHC planes by 15 to 20 to 1 right into June 45.

Nothing you can do about it other then bomb hexes before assaults so when you start ground assaults there is no LW air cover.

Sapper was finished in spring when he did nothing. Then he split panzers into 3.5 attacks.

Just a classic lack of 1942 exp of which almost no one has any exp on GHC side of things.

The 1500 tanks means zip as it does during 1941. He never got an ap crunch going, the snowball never got rolling at all.