Newbie problem: Galician woes

[Rokko]

Hello everybody,
I am totally new to this game, in fact I only got it two days ago. I have so far played the Road to Leningrad scenario and got a draw and started a Grand Campaign 1941 game today. I have read a lot in these forums and in the manual and have gained a basic understanding of the most important game mechanics I'd say. So in my GC game's 1st turn (haven't gotten to press the end turn button yet) I basically started with Army Group North, did all the moves there and than moved on to Army Group Center and then to Army Group South. While the first two were pretty straight forward, some minor hickups mostly due to me being inexperienced or clicking wrong buttons or whatever. But in the south things are very difficult. I only noticed it when a lot more Soviet Rifle Divisions were withstanding my attacks than further north. My infantry doesn't seem to be able to break the front line along its entire length like in the other regions, unless I tolerate them suffering pretty great casualties compared to what happened in Byelorussia and the Baltics. Infantry only seems to be able to only advance one or two hexes, there are only 4 active mobile divisions active, the furthest I've gotten them in many tries is a hex short of Tarnopol through a very narrow sector where I can't even move their HQs through and the the armor strenght in the most forward divisions being halved. Also, there is hardly any airforce in the south it seems, at least all my air attacks are coming from AG Center planes and there are only some 50 fighters. Whenever I attack the Soviet airforce is there and causes up to 100 extra casualties per attack and I don't understand why my fighters do not reliably intercept them (percentage req. to fly: 10%, Ground support 0%, Ground escort 300%).
Im also a little worried that I only managed to inflict about 1800 enemy A/C casualties suffering 80 myself so far despite bombing any airfield within figher escort range and overrunning airfields within in range as much as possible.
So yeah, am I doing something wrong or are you not supposed to advance far in the south during turn 1 and destroy as many airplanes anymore with the current version of the game? A lot of the threads I've read seemed to be based on very outdated information regarding how the game works.

[rmonical]

You are doing fine.

There are more Soviets divisions in the south and they are slightly better prepared.

Look here for some old but good information.

tm.asp?m=2642052

Take a look at this AAR.
tm.asp?m=2792361

[Oberst_Klink]

Remember your objectives, Herr Feldmarschall:

Objectives
The army group's tasks were as follows: the Sixth Army was to create a hole through which the First Panzer Group would pour towards the River Dnieper below Kiev, then south along the river bank. The Seventeenth Army was to make for Vinnitsa and then continue south-east to link up with the First Panzer Group. When this happened all Soviet forces west of the Dnieper would be annihilated. In the south, the Eleventh Army, the Romanians and the Hungarians would initially protect the Ploesti oil fields, before advancing and capturing the south-west Ukraine. In this way all the Ukraine west of the Dnieper would fall to the Germans.

Gerd von Rundstedt's army group would then be in a position to take Kiev, third largest city in the Soviet Union, the centre of Slav Christianity and the capital of the Ukraine. It was also the key to the huge Kharkov industrial region, a major source of Soviet heavy industry, coal and oil.

In June and July 1941, German Army Group South was advancing against an enemy that outnumbered it in every significant way. Soviet forces south of the Pripyet Marshes outnumbered the Germans in men; numbers of major infantry, tank, motorized, and cavalry formations; and tanks, aircraft, and artillery pieces.

Also keep in mind that the Soviets had, as Rob mentioned, far better equiped Rfl.Div and more Tank Div. in the South than e.g. at other fronts.

Klink, Oberst

[Rokko]

Ok, I see. So am I supposed to just make a moderate advance on turn one until the rest of the Panzer group becomes available?

Another thing I was wondering about is how to assess the strength and resilience of enemy divisions. Most Soviet divisions up north had 2=7 on their counters, so 7 "defensive strength" right? And they mostly route or retreat from a single infantry division's attack (German IDs have like 8 offensive strength or so), but in the South Soviet Rifle Divisions with only marginally better values (2=8 to 2=11 at best I think) and they can sometimes withstand multi-division deliberate attacks. So how can I figure out how much offensive combat power I need to overcome their defensive combat power with some degree of certainty?

And yet another question: In the combat message screen the number in brackets behind the participating units are supposed to be CV as well, but they are often in the hundreds, so what is that all about?

Edit:
And how good an idea is it to attack airfields out of fighter cover range in the newest version of the game? Because I've noted that often Soviet fighters would cause quite a lot of casualties and my bombers would have to break of the attack without much to show for.

[jwolf]

On the first turn you can be very aggressive about bombing all Soviet airfields you can reach. You'll never get a better shot at them.

The Soviet units in the South are generally better led and just tougher than the ones farther North. You just have to plan around that. Experiment with the Road to Dnepropetrovsk scenario to get some practice with the opening in the South. Many players in the GC will use some units from 2nd Panzer Group to help in the South (although in the Road to D scenario you don't have that option).

[Rokko]

I have another problem that recently popped up with rail way repair units. I did a search on these forums and in the manual but didn't find anything regarding this particular problem.
My problem is, one of my rail repair units can't repair further than Vilnius, on the border of the Baltic railzone. The repaired rail line (5 hexes) has green dots with a white dotted line inside of them and they are not considered functional, I have waited another turn just to see and they didn't repair themselves. There were no partisan attacks and there is no damage whatsoever indicated in the popup window

Note: I do understand why my unit can't repair any further, because it's too far away from the next functional railway hex, but I don't understand why the repaired hexes don't become functional.

[Blubel]

You missed a hex. The railroad goes through Kaunas, I'm pretty sure you missed either that, or the hex south-west of Vilnius.

[Rokko]

Damn now I feel stupid. You were right.

[Denniss]

You are not the first and you won't be the last missing that particular hex.

You're not a real WitE player if you hadn't missed this hex at least once.[:D]

[Blubel]

I agree with Denniss. Missed that too some time ago...

[STEF78]

ORIGINAL: Blubel

I agree with Denniss. Missed that too some time ago...

+1, happened to me too!

[Gabriel B.]

ORIGINAL: Rokko
Im also a little worried that I only managed to inflict about 1800 enemy A/C casualties suffering 80 myself so far despite bombing any airfield within figher escort range and overrunning airfields within in range as much as possible.

The airlosses have bean revised, but with proper tactics you can still take out 3000 in the first turn.
Go for the bomber divsions (BAD ), they are packed with bombers and with proper igress routes the VVS would not be able to protect them .

[Rokko]

revised, but with proper tactics you can still take out 3000 in the first turn.
Go for the bomber divsions (BAD ), they are packed with bombers and with proper igress routes the VVS would not be able to protect them

Thanks, I've figured out how to do decent on turn 1 on airfield bombing already. I am now in turn 27 and struggeling through the first winter. VSS losses are about 10k by now, because the AI always seems to park their aircrafts near to the front line.

BTW, is there a way to repair the railroads in Karelia without having to link up first and sending German RR units up their?

[DorianGray]

You have quasi-control over the rail lines that get auto-repaired through some micromanagement of Finnish construction battalions and careful positioning of the owning HQs. Other than that, nothing comes to mind.

[Rokko]

Ok, I just checked in the CR and the Finns have 3 or 4 construction Bn's which are in my case assigned the Karelian Army HQ, I suppose I have to park that HQ on a railline before the Bn's move out is that correct?

Also, is it normal that the blizzard phase is the same in every weather zone? So far the weather has been always the same in every weather zone there is which strikes me as odd, because it does not seem very realistic to have Germany all muddy in October just as if it were the Russian steppe. It also appears that the weather (non-randomized at least) is the same every year, so why have different weather zones?

Oh and what casualty figures can be considered as "healthy" for the German player during the blizzard? I have been pretty shocked by casualty counts of 100.000 per Soviet turn, though I hope that most of them are recoverable in the long run. Usually I have had 20.000 to 28.000 attritional casualties per turn.

[Gabriel B.]

in february , the weather is snow in europe and crimea .
ice levels also are different , so you cant atack across major rivers until they are frozen solid .

In real life losses between 1.11.1941-1.04.1942 were 900,000 for the germans only, however since replacements
are 800,000 more than what the germans actualy got , you can aford to lose 1.2 million during the blizzard.

[Rokko]

I see, thanks. Geez I had hoped this damn blizzard would finally be over in February

[Gabriel B.]

It is . Hovever you will need to counterattack no matter how undestreght you are then.

[Rokko]

Yeah but not until the end of February right? Thats four more turns where my troops cannot withstand those Soviet 3x3 stacks. I suspect I haven't done it right. I stopped all advance two turns before the mud set in to dig in (unfortunately, my own troops don't dig nearly as fast as the Russians it would seem) and for supply lines to catch up. In the North I did not have any problems, I had lvl 2 forts along the line and one division per hex, with the mechanized forces sitting in larger towns to preserve them. In the center they simply didn't dig quickly enough (six turns and they couldn't get up to lvl 2 forts in some instances). In the southern Center (Ryazan to Belgorod essentially) I managed to dig sufficiently I thought (level 2 - 3 forts), but didn't have enough INF divisions to defend the entire steppe so I tried defending only every second hex and whenever possible in towns to reduce attrition, but once one position got attacked and defeated the other positions around quickly fell aswell.
Should I just accept that and cede ground? But whenever I retreat my troops are out in the open and suffer even heavier from attrition. The first three blizzard turns went pretty well actually, but after that they managed to pierce the line in several spots along the entire front (except for the far up North).

[Rokko]

I also have great troubles predicting where a breakthrough might occur. For instance, I have a motorized division behind a major river in a level 2 fort with a defensive CV of 12 facing three stacks with an added offensive CV of 4 (at least from what I can tell by what the game shows me), yet on the next turn the Russians attack and said division retreats. Is this displayed CV so unreliable or maybe randomized every turn?