GD1938 Game 22

[cpdeyoung]

24 Jun 1940

German survival is certainly not threatened. The German armed forces are fully capable, and when the Red Army has a success we are grateful. We had to pull back from Budapest as massive German forces, and some visiting Italians are nearby.

The Luftwaffe did night bomber strikes against Odessa and the city is deeply damaged. The Red Air Forces are trying to protect assets from night strikes but our fighters are getting head faked by the shifting Luftwaffe targets.

The Soviet Union is happy for every success of its allies, and hopes the combined effort will hold off the powerful assault. Make no mistake, there is no room for false confidence.

[ironduke1955]

Warsaw is taken by direct assault though the city is a complete ruin the KV1's are pushed back again this time with greater loss for the Germans.

The Italians march into Porto but the British build up in and around Benghazi, and as intel shows a overwhelming superiority in Armor the Italians are wary of being drawn into open battle, a battle only the British would win.

[cpdeyoung]

23 Jul 1940

The Germans lost 5 PzIIIJ in the assault of Warsaw, while destroying 12 of our KV-1. Since they did not garrison the city, we recaptured it, and are covering streaming columns of refugees heading east. The Germans have massive numbers of all munitions, especially the tank killing PzIIIJs. The Luftwaffe is fielding very large numbers of Bf-109F, a superior fighter. Our Yak-9DD can do battle with them when we have greater numbers, but we know they will be a very difficult opponent if we are outnumbered. Our night bombers dropped flares over airfields near Copenhagen and saw 50 squadrons of Bf-109Fs. This is frightening production.

Italy is not at war with the Soviet Union, but there are Italian troops mixed in with the Germans, especially in and near Hungary. They have taken some casualties in our attacks.

Here is a picture of the German Polish front.

[Bombur]

France-GB turn

1-Madrid holds, Italian Atillery starts to pound the city.
2-Three U-Boats sunk near Canada. Three British cargoships sunk
3-The Luftwaffe deployed the Bf-109F in France. RAF took massive losses against. 170 aircraft, including 110 Spitifires, against 60 Bf-109F
4-No news in North Africa

[ironduke1955]

August 1940

Warsaw was retaken by the Germans grinding the rubble of the city to a finer grade, this time the Germans will try and hold the ground, Christenau has been evacuated Stalin's organs make life a living hell for the defenders so OKW has pulled out what is left of these Romanian units. And left the town to the Soviets.

North Africa remains stalemated with the Italians lacking the power to push forward, Spain the Italians commence a bombardment of Madrid.

[Bombur]

I´m going to travel tomorrow, I will be back in one week, until then, I think the Soviet player could play France-GB. If cpdeyoung sends me the turn ASAP I can play it and send my password to him.

[cpdeyoung]

19 Aug 1940

German decisions led to a month of no offense for the Soviet Union. Three hexes on our Polish front were taken. The German artillery simply destroys forts with no trouble.

-------------

Tom, please let us know if you would object to my playing the FR-GB. A word from you and we will wait till Bombur gets back. (That goes for anyone else too).

If any of the tardy players in 19-20-21 are reading this now would be an excellent time to do a turn. It has been a week or more on each of these games. Please arrange to have some one take over if you no longer want to play.

[ironduke1955]

Would be better to wait for Bombur to get back for continuity sake, if nothing else the edge the Axis has is that the allies are five major powers against three but the the allies are not as concerted as the Axis normally, actually in this game the British French and Soviets are working well as a team fairly rare.

[cpdeyoung]

I agree. Very early on I decided to cement my relations with the British and French and transferred warships, subs, and tanks to them. Our relations have been excellent, an absolute necessity when playing against opponents of this caliber.

One must not neglect to look east where our brave, and skilled, allies in China join with us in maintaining peace with Japan.

Joseph Stalin

[Bombur]

Played another turn, as I was unable to travel due to bad weather.

-The Battle of Atlantic goes on. The Germans lost 6 subs, while the British had one destroyer and one heavy cruiser sunk by the German U-Boats.
-In North Africa the British resume the air attacks against the Italians, with no losses from both sides.
-Stalemate in Spain

[ironduke1955]

No advance was possible this month the KV1 line gets thicker and deeper, the heavy tanks have a 50% hit points advantage over medium tanks, this may need tweaking its a exploit I have used my self on many occasion but to have 5 KV1 heavies defeat odds of 10 to 1 PZ111j's with only a marginally superior gun is not historical or accurate and just makes medium tanks irrelevant. The problem was not a disparity in experience in this case the KV1's having no great advantage in experience. It is simply that that Medium tanks cannot get a hit on heavy tanks due to the hit points advantage. The Panzer III J L/42 could destroy a KV1 or T34 the range was shorter but the tactics and firepower were there, so only a marginal difference in hit points is more sensible as 10 PZIIIj's attacking one KV1 Germans against 1940 Soviets should have only one outcome victory for the Panzer's IIIj's but the actual outcome is invariably a victory for the heavy tanks.

Other than the loss of medium tanks casualties inflicted on the soviets were substantial, but nothing that cannot be replaced.

Italians took Malta no progress in Spain except for incremental Damage by artillery to Barcelona and Madrid

[cpdeyoung]

Perhaps the Germans should not have chosen a path to war.

Some credit should be given to the Red Army which has new doctrines. Our KV-1s were slaughtered in the early campaign. Even in this battle we lost 4 tanks to the German's 6.

16 Sep 1940

The exhausted Red Air Force pilots dragged themselves to their planes for a strike in the middle of the front. The Luftwaffe did not rise to challenge us and we had some success. The Luftwaffe is putting on a demonstration of the use of night bombers. They have been a real pain for the Soviets. The commander of the Luftwaffe deserves great credit for the innovative use of the dark hours.

The Soviets have poured more concrete than the world has ever seen, but the Germans are very good at pulverizing it. Still troops feel much better when they have fortifications to fight from.

[Bombur]

IronDuke, could you place some reports of combat involving KV-I and PzIIIj? I think combat ratings vs. armour need a major overhaul. Tanks as a whole are too powerful, in particular against infanttry. KV-I vs PzIIIj should achieve a 2:1 kill (more or less) if we check combat values in the mod. However, if KV-I´s are surviving 10:1 odds, then we have a trouble with the mod or, maybe your opponent learnt how to use them better.

[cpdeyoung]

I have learned some new tricks.

the actual outcome is invariably a victory for the heavy tanks

Before we go too far, at the beginning of game turn 36, after Tom's attacks, the losses were 53 PzIIIJ vs 53 KV-1. I wish I were getting a 2:1 kill ratio. Of course this is from all causes, but it is certainly not out of line. I believe Tom has never taken on any Soviet armor than the KV-1. Tom has also lost 7 PzIIC and 7 PzIIID. But these lightweights get what they ask for taking on heavies.

Germany has no heavy tanks. The Soviets had some, but my Soviets never built anything else. I will go ahead an reveal that I have started building some mediums, but the Germans have never seen them. The Germans must kill the KV-1 formations with combined arms, their artillery and Luftwaffe are up to the task.

The hero tank which survived had good luck, the PzIIIJs had poor luck. It does not happen "invariably".

In game 20 very few Soviet infantry formations can cause casualties to the Japanese heavies. I agree that tanks versus infantry needs to be carefully modified.

Chuck

[baloo7777]

My two cents worth...if you start with the premise that the War began in 1938, then the actual dates that newer more deadly types of armor or aircraft, as well as newer doctrine/tactics to defeat them should also be accelerated IMHO. In more than one game of GD38, I have searched for effective fighter bombers with the ability to be FEARED by the tank commanders, and found NONE. I believe a comment was made that this early in the war effective tank busters had not yet made an appearance. I argue that given the length of war that we have been in (see Game 19 or Game 20), major countries would have advanced to better and better tank busting aircraft, etc. Anti-Tank Guns are researched and advanced like I would expect to see. I would like to see the same for air power.

[ernieschwitz]

Hi guys.

Letting you all know that both Bombur and I are monitoring these AARs.

Research is already accelareted a bit, in that you can research up to two years ahead of what is historical. Making it available on a more customizable level is a bit of a problem. In another game that Bombur and I did together, we had no limits on researching, and someone (who shall remain nameless, but who was a very skilled player) just put everything into airpower, and dominated, with 1930s tanks, and 1950s planes... That is the reason there is a limit on how much further you can research.

Dynamic research limits would be hard to implement, but if someone has an idea for how to program it, I could give it a stab...

[GaryChildress]

Is it possible to make it so that a type of research is only available starting a certain date in the game?

[Bombur]

This is already done in GD1938. What you need is to create a "1939" research and the define it as a pre requisite for the other one one want. For instance: medium bombers III. Then, when the year 1939 starts, every country will be given 1939 tech. Only then you can research mediumbombers III (assuming you don´t have other pre requisites).

[ironduke1955]

The Luftwaffe did not rise to challenge us and we had some success

The Luftwaffe did not take to the air [&:] Why ?????

The game is now entering a margins stage, a game turning on margins the Germans are trying to build a army based around these game margins, how can the Germans build a army when they are inflicted with these air attacks that are beyond logical explanation, have a look at the attached jpeg there are six Luftwaffe groups of BF109f's some 133 fighters with additional BF109D,s 139 fighters total all within range, the Soviets come in as expected but not one single German takes to the air they decide to have the month off, how nuts is this I have begged for it to be changed to 100% but apparently 75% is reasonable meaning that there is a 25% chance of a Air force belonging to a major power not taking to the air.

[ironduke1955]

I will be told that the damage was minor so whats the problem, the problem apart from the loss of readiness and subsequent loss of Action Points, also the loss of transport trucks and horses and indeed the artillery itself plus the infantry unit types all of these will have to be replaced, and of course the Soviets just gained some free experience, its a game breaker.




For info this was the force that attacked a small group of KV1's there were more PZIII's of course (Not sure perhaps a additional 6) the Soviet infantry had been decimated by Artillery and Air attacks but the KV1's proved adequate to defeat the above force.