FIFTY SHADES OF WiTE: SILLYFLOWER V BRIANG

[timmyab]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower


Did your family drop the 'von' when it moved to the USA, Herr Timm?

My family have moved to the USA??? [X(] Why wasn't I told?[:(]

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: timmyab

My family have moved to the USA??? [X(] Why wasn't I told?[:(]

Sorry. I thought you already knew after you found yourself the only one to turn up to the family Christmas lunch.

[HITMAN202]

A waste in time and space seems in order, Sillyflower. Your alias is a corruption of my surname, timmyab, and Sillyyflower was besmirching the lack of von in my German heritage. His insult was not directed at you.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

You are very kind Loki.

Thought on T9

Like a dog returning to its own vomit, Brian returns to bombing my recce bases. He does destroy 1 a/c, but loses 103 bombers in the process. Long may this continue. Land losses back where I want them at 12K to 154K, with 12 communist divisions destroyed. The HIWIs I will get from this mean that net axis manpower losses are virtually nil. Air losses 87 (same old problem) to 363. I took Morvael's advice and put kluge Hans into OKH, with Kesselring taking over 4th Army.

Pelton's assessment on my progress was interesting. Mine is slightly different because P's had to be based on geographical progress, whilst I have information he does not have. At the end of T9 Russian OOB is bang on 3.9M. At the risk of getting ahead of myself, it was only 10K higher t the end of my T10. Pelton's list of Russian T10 OOBs is:

"Trend Lines of 1.08.00 +
Did not make 10 turns
Mr.X, Oshawatt, Shermanny
Turn 10
Pelton vs Pitmen Stavka OOB: 3,955,000
Pelton vs smokendave Russian OOB: 4,422,000
Pelton vs Huw Jones Stavka OOB: 4,473,000
Pelton vs rkimmi Stavka OOB: 4,548,000
Pelton vs BrianG Stavka OOB: 4,555,000
Pelton vs Chaos45 Stavka OOB: 4,626,000
Pelton vs Callistrid Stavka OOB: 4,552,000
Pelton vs Vigebrand Stavka OOB: 4,382,000"

Apart from the game vs Pitmen, I have reduced the Russian OOB to 500K fewer men. This must be largely down to AGS as that's where the vast majority of the pockets have been. It's AGC that I'm least happy with. I know that some, and possibly all, of P's games have been with random weather, but I doubt the the weather could be responsible for such disparity. I think that is because we approach the problem of the Russian hordes in slightly different ways. He puts more emphasis on taking ground in the early turns, whereas I care more about maximising enemy losses. I'm also aware that a direct comparison between our respective games vs Brian has little if any value (tho' perhaps more schadenfreude ) because P was very badly hit by mud.

All to play for. I need to capitalise on the low soviet OOB to make more ground and capture more factories.

Brian/Chaos/Callistrid/VireBrand were with random weather-the others non random.

Here the next bunch of data for turn 15

"Trend Lines of 1.08.00 +
Did not make 15 turns
Mr.X, Oshawatt, Shermanny

Turn 15
Pelton vs Pitmen Stavka OOB: 3,778,000 Resigned
Pelton vs Chaos45 Stavka OOB: 4,717,000
Pelton vs brian Stavka OOB: 4,800,000
Pelton vs smokendave Russian OOB: 4,897,000
Pelton vs rkimmi Stavka OOB: 4,967,000
Pelton vs Huw Jones Stavka OOB: 4,524,000 Resigned
Pelton vs Vigebrand Stavka OOB: 4,713,000 Germany: 1511 Russia: 687 Resigned

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: HITMAN202
Sillyyflower was besmirching the lack of von in my German heritage.

No I wasn't. That would have been rude. I just thought I now understood the cause of quality of your generalship, von T [;)]

[timmyab]

At least I've got a good excuse :p

[sillyflower]

T10 north - all I have time for tonight -provided I can find the correct screenie







A happy turn up here.

For some reason Brian reduced the garrison of Schlisselberg from 3 to 1 division. I took it easily (see combat report) and the defenders routed into L'grad which was even more helpful. As most of you know, this is a key hex. Taking it means that I should get across the Neva next turn. Its easy fall also opened up the door to the east, enabling Manstein to reach the lower Volkov and to take 2 of the ports supplying L'grad: Kobona and Novaga Ladoga, leaving only Sivirtsa able to send supplies to L'grad. The impact of this is that it will reduce his shipping capacity to very little making it pretty much impossible to reinforce or, more realistically, evacuate units from L'grad. As a bonus, 1 inf x and 1 inf x isolated and trapped. I still have troops left so I take Kolpino and Voroshilov. The former made it easier to move troops east.

It also gets me where I can try to take the city of L itself. It has 25 rail yards which contribute 12.5K rail capacity points until the city is taken. Taking that much rail capacity away will hurt B. Not next turn though. Getting over the Neva is next turn's priority. After that there is no point in delaying because urban hexes don't go out of supply now, so it won't get any easier even after L'grad is isolated, and I want that reduction in rail capacity. And the 20 factories churning out the mighty BA10 of course and the 1K or so replacemant men it churns out every turn.

[sillyflower]

Centre



At last starting to make an effort. The pesky 5 div (4 inf, 1 cav) pocket eliminated and grinding 20 miles closer to Moscow. Altho' no further pockets obtained against solid defenders, I tried to sequence attacks to force routs and/or maximize communist losses through having to retreat through a ZOC or by over-stacking. Always worth doing when pockets not feasible as losses are greatly increased and routs cause higher morale losses. See combat screen where 1 of his best units, 1st motorised xx, got hammered this way

[sillyflower]

South



The other fun area for me this turn.

The screenie shows the assault crossing of the Dnepr halfway between D and Z towns. I had thought I had gone in with an overkill attack with 1 pz and 1 inf xx. I try to do this on crucial attacks especially when trying to get a pocket going. Failure at the first hurdle stymies many a good plan. It's better to take the chances where you can rinse and repeat quite easily. Anyway, I got across and was able to press out a bit. The rest went round to the south where enemy defences were pretty weak. This does seem to be a habit of Brian's [:-]. I think he must start at the top and work down so the south end of a defence line always seems to be the area with the fewest Russians. From memory, there were only a couple of 1 CV divs in the gap between the 2 rivers SE of Z town which enabled me to pour through. Result is pocket of 2 in and 2 cav xx in the marshy area between 2 rivers SW of Z town, and 2 inf and 1 cav xx in D town itself. The latter can just walk out though the 1st pocket is secure. The small pocket of 2 cav xxs is gobbled up by 17th army -literally in the case of all those horses.

Not sure if B will stay and fight (I hope so) or fall back to the next river line where he will be out of reach of the landsers. I had intended to do another HQBU with XIV Pz xxx here (a chain no less) but they were needed to punch across the Dnepr. However, I've pulled them back ready to do it next turn.

[chaos45]

yep every 3 cav divisions you get now is 1 less soviet cav corps for winter......with my recent Soviet play I try to conserve the cav at all costs as they are your best units in the first winter.

[sillyflower]

Thoughts on T10

A good turn with all 3 AGs contributing, no doubt partly due to Kluge's more energetic leadership at OKH.

Losses 11.2K to 111K largely to killing 7 pocketed divs. Air 46 to 265 despite Brian's failure to bomb my airbases again. Hopefully just an oversight.

Now that T10 OOBs seem to be a standard measure, German is 3.3M, Soviet 3.9M which is good. L'grad is doomed, the Donbass cities are in easy reach but Moscow looking difficult after a lack of progress in the previous 3 turns. On the other hand, Brian will have to make an effort to defend it, which may create opportunities elsewhere.

I actually think that I have been most successful in the south. The north may be 'ahead of schedule', but it's the least important area and has caused far fewer casualties proportionately for it size after the first couple of turns.Its success has largely been down to Brian's decision not to reinforce it strongly, which I think was largely or partly due to the high level of Russian losses in the south at the start of the game.

[sillyflower]

Now for the most sad (geeky not unhappy) post I've ever done.

Everyone else posts details of losses, OOBs and even AP values killed once Russians stop getting freebie resurrections. I have gone beyond that, prompted by a post by Morvael in his game about how the Russians get back everything for free at this stage. As there is an arms crunch that hits the Russians when rebuilding those freebies, I thought it would be fun ( really I did!) to calculate the arms point value of Soviet losses at the end on my T10. The number is (I wish I knew how to insert a drum roll here)







In terms of arms point losses, the 5 highest scorers lowest first are:

5 76mm field guns 80,011 pts

4 45mm AT guns 87,392 pts

3 support squads 94,790 pts (very cheap but they have taken the most losses)

2 cav squads 106,313 pts

1 inf squads 339,840 pts

At the other end of the scale were labour squads: 26 lost for only 138 pts.


TOTAL LOSSES 1,240,743 points

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: chaos45

yep every 3 cav divisions you get now is 1 less soviet cav corps for winter......with my recent Soviet play I try to conserve the cav at all costs as they are your best units in the first winter.

my thoughts exactly

[HITMAN202]

I'm puzzled Sillyflower. The 1.2 mil points, what does it mean ? Also if Morveal said they are "free" rebuilds what pool of points are available and how does impact future builds ? It's "free" but it costs points ? Non sequitur . Ezcusez-moi.

[chaos45]

Hes saying thats how many armaments points worth of losses he has inflicted on the Soviets. which equals about the amount of points he Soviet player starts with in his pool if I remember right as the Soviets start with like 1M armaments banked.

The free rebuilds just means they dont cost AP if lost before NOV 1941....the manpower and armaments to rebuild them arent free.

[HITMAN202]

Thanks chaos. I'm pretty ignorant in regards to playing the Soviet side in WITE. Since I'm a Soviet NOOBIE, explain how the armament points Sillyflower refers to (100,000's in specific unit costs) relates to the heavy industry and armament "points" centered in cities ??

[chaos45]

Basically the Armaments industry the Soviet player saved generates so many armaments points per week/turn. Basically if you save it all you get like 110k armaments per week or some such. Its in the rule book how much each point generates per week.

If the Soviet player losses like 10% of their armaments industry they are still pretty much okay as it still leaves them about 90-100k armaments points being generated per week.

Then the Soviet player starts the game with right around or abit over 1 million armaments points= this is basically reserve stockpiles of weapons an such in armories at the start of the war and is pretty much used to rebuilt the Soviet army you lose in the frontier battles.

So once you know how the industry side and replacement side of the game works you can quickly work out if your making progress in reducing the enemy army or not. In general count on the Soviets Getting about 100k armaments and 100k manpower every week over the course of the war. So to reduce the Soviet army at all you must inflict an average of 100k+ losses them per week as the Germans or the Soviet army just gets stronger.

You can work out the same forumla for the Axis as well----basically axis get like 20k+ armaments and around 30-40k manpower per week depending on year and disabled returns. So if you inflict more than 40k losses on the axis per week you are net weakening the Axis army. Its why both sides can play the attrition war in the right circumstances to get an edge.

Heavy industry only matters for supply and in general the Soviets only need about 180 to conduct the war. any more than that just allows you to maintain a bloated army in supply larger than normal. The real limit to soviet army size more than anything is trucks.....as all those troops require alot of trucks to keep supplied.

[sillyflower]

Russians have over 1.1 arms point on T1, but they build quite a lot of stuff in T1 too, so the 'actual' stockpile at the start is probably 1.3M Initial arms production is 92,500 per turn (halved on each of the 1st 2 turns) but this is before any losses or evacuations so the actual figures will be a lot lower, especially by the end of the summer.

I reckon that German will be doing very well to get Russians below 200 HI factories - starting number is 236. There are 370 arms factories and I expect that G needs to kill 15% to start making a real difference. That's not to say that destroying fewer is pointless, though. The Russians will end up running out of arms points in late '41, when rebuilding resurrected units, and the longer that goes on for will depend on losses inc. temporary losses in production caused by removals so even causing more evacuation has a value.

By the end of T10, I have also captured 858 manpower centres and many more have evacuated with 100% damage so there won't be much breeding in those for a while. Each of the 3837 starting centres (but which increase to 3910 by T3 for some reason if you run the turns without moving any units) provides 50 men per week: in '41 at least. Including evacuations, by now I have probably reduced his weekly intake of men by 25% but Brian will still be getting about 150K per turn. The Soviet never has any spare manpower (until the arms points run out) and there is a later crunch in the spring of '42. The importance of grabbing manpower centres is often underestimated. To keep the Russian army size down, you need to cause as many communist losses as possible ( I did not record the figure but I think it was around 1.8 - 1.85M at the end of my turn), and to stop the civilians from raising anything but HIWIs.

[HITMAN202]

Great explanation from both of you. Sillyflower, 1.8 mill on T10 versus Brian is very good. He's making a stand in AGS not only too close to German supply lines, but also too soon IMO.

[chaos45]

yep silly has the numbers---that 150k quickly drops in 42 then 43 then 44....which is why i said average for the war lol.

Basically if the Soviet player is aggressively building his optimal force early---what I like to do they will burn out of armaments around T15 or so give or take a couple turns. I like artillery and sappers tho....a sapper regiment sent to aid a defense is +1 CV to the defense this can turn the tide of Early war battles esp with the Germans doing alot of hasty attacks.