Workshop for the new guys - Directive 21 (D21)

[larryfulkerson]

So I drove a Panzer division through that hole and with a little pushing and shoving the hole got a little bigger.
This is turning into a very good thing.

[larryfulkerson]

So I'm moving units and I come to the first of the Hungarian formations and it's in reserve, as is most of the Axis
minor allies. So since they can't shoot move or communicate the only thing to do with them is dig them in. That
way the trucks in the unit can be loaned to the Corps HQ and can be used to carry supplies and thereby enhance the
supply situation a tiny bit. Every little bit helps.

[larryfulkerson]

The proficiency of this German aircraft unit might have something to do with the fact that
many of Germany's fighter pilots started out as glider pilots in the 1920's and had been
flying all that time gaining experience and growing in skill. They did some TDY's to the
Spanish Civil war and flew in combat for the first time and came away as a force to be
reconed with. The Soviets are finding that out as the Soviet losses are growing at an
alarming rate. It's still turn one and I haven't done any dedicated airfield attacks yet
and the Soviet losses are already over considerable. The air lossss meter says 1.3K+ but
that's just a fog of war number. It's probably closer to half that.

[elmo3]

The Luftwaffe destroyed about 2000 Soviet aircraft on the first day of Barbarossa, and somewhere around 4000 in the first three days. Is that possible in D21? Thanks.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the first customer for the aircraft repair hangers at the airfield near Berlin because it's
a bit tired. I like to rest the planes when they drop below about 50% until they reach about 70%
and then put them back on-line. I like to fly them out of the combat area to an airfield in the
rear that has an HQ adjacent so that they can hear the stiring words of their squadron commander
and be inspired once more. It actually worked in the early war years but after the second year
of war the men became enured to misery and hardship and constant danger and the stiring words
didn't work anymore. The repair / re-committ numbers can vary of course depending on the military
circumstances and wishes of the commander. Usually those pilots that have to fly their aircraft
to Berlin usually lounge in the in-transit personnel barracks until the early evening when they
are given leave for the evening so they usually go downtown and "find something to do".

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a Stuka that is in fine shape so far and I'm in the habit of assigning individual targets for the Ju-87's and
that's mostly because it's slightly higher values for AP and AT. I like to find mechanized units for attack by the
Stuka. Either that or the BB's near Leningrad. This plane has a fairly substantial anti-ship value. It needs to
be escorted however.

[marion61]

I've scored over 3k soviet aircraft destroyed in the first turn, just letting the Air Assistant do it's job. It systemically attacked the soviet airfields and wracked up a huge score. Remember that this was with Fog of War on, so the number isn't completely accurate. If I remember correctly I lost about 200 planes doing this, but the soviet air force was gone.

I ran a test with the air assist on, and these were the results, and they can vary a bit. The other consideration is that if you let Elmer off the chain, you will have a lot of planes in reorganization. The airfields that have AA units on them do some damage, but the planes evaporate. I'd rather destroy the Soviet AF, then let my boys have a rest a turn or two since you have such high shock values to start with. You won't have much in the way of combat support on that turn either.

[larryfulkerson]

So I'm moving units, well, in this case, assigning missions to aircraft and I've come to the Do-17's and they are a
special case because I'm not making any of those any longer. So I need to base them in a quiet area where there's not
a lot of aerial warfare going on. The idea is to limit the losses of the Do-17's. I've seen players use this model
in combat where they get chewed up and useless for combat and they get parked near Berlin for the duration.

EDIT: I found two units that flew the Do-17 and I flew both of them to Budapest put them on INT missions and set them
at one-dot's for a loss tolerance.

[larryfulkerson]

I found one bomber unit that I couldn't find a good airfield attack situation for, so I started looking at maybe a
bridge attack yes? And I found a situation where there's a fairly good chance to drop the bridge. About double what
I can usually find so I'm going for it. There's only a 20%+ chance but that's good enough for a mission.

[elmo3]

OK Larry, thanks for the comments on Soviet air losses.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: marion61
I've scored over 3k soviet aircraft destroyed in the first turn, just letting the Air
Assistant do it's job. It systemically attacked the soviet airfields and wracked up a huge
score. Remember that this was with Fog of War on, so the number isn't completely accurate.
If I remember correctly I lost about 200 planes doing this, but the soviet air force was gone.

That sounds great to me. Good job.

ORIGINAL: marion61
I ran a test with the air assist on, and these were the results, and they can vary a bit. The other consideration is that if you let Elmer off the chain, you will have a lot of planes in reorganization.

Elmer likes to drive his aircraft as if they were land untis. Attacks every turn by every plane.
Almost. The units turn cherry red after a while.

ORIGINAL: marion61
The airfields that have AA units on them do some damage, but the planes evaporate.

I like to hit those airfields that don't have AA first of all and come back to the AA protected
ones after everybody else is covered. The high altitude bombers are more immune to AA fire but
not absolutely.

ORIGINAL: marion61
I'd rather destroy the Soviet AF, then let my boys have a rest a turn or two since you have such high shock values to start with.

Yeah, you have to make use of the high shock values whey they last because you wont' have this chance
to do so much damage so easily very long and only this one time for the entire war.

ORIGINAL: marion61
You won't have much in the way of combat support on that turn either.

I like to do it that way too. I like to run CS missions during the meat of the turn and then as
part of my post-turn cleanup I like to put some of the aircraft on INT missions so they can fly
during the opponents turn.

[larryfulkerson]

I've been moving units and the front lines have changed. The Soviet units are falling back, being destroyed, or pushed
aside. The are able to delay the advance however and I guess that's their point. I like to flow like water to the
path of least resistance so as to make the most progress as possible. I like to find the weak spots and press hard.
Make a hole and flow through it. Get into the backfield and surround and isolate.

[larryfulkerson]

The whole idea is to use two pincer probes to surround and isolate the entire Soviet front lines in the middle and
then destroy all of them at your leisure.

[larryfulkerson]

Okie dokie....I'm through moving everybody, I'm ready to pull the trigger. This is the planned battles and as you can
see there's a lot of airfield strikes and sometimes the odds can't be calculated but for the most part all of them are
a single dot in duration except one. And I can live with that.

[larryfulkerson]

There have already been several airfield strikes and they all seem to be like this one. This one is typical of them.
Relatively high losses for the Soviets and light losses for the Axis. Some shock bonus, huh. I'll take it.

[larryfulkerson]

In this attack the Axis suffered more losses than the Soviets in terms of numbers but I'm calling the attack successful.

EDIT: See the next post below for the Combat Chart

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the combat chart for the above attack

The Chart verbage says the attack was delayed by 1 round and I'm not sure why that happened. One of my units was
late getting to the party I suppose.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the results of some Stuka's taking on a Soviet tank division. The eight Stuka's that were damaged go back to the
pools to be fixed and the Soviet side lost several AFV's. I'd probably do the strike again because in the long run it
didn't cost me anything, yet.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the results of the strikes and I see where there were about 7 especially successful airstrikes in that the Soviet
air unit evaporated. I'm going to do another set of airstrikes to get those Soviet air units that didn't yet.

[larryfulkerson]

So the first thing I do after the attack phase is to check the condition and deployment of the aircraft to make sure they
have the proper situation. Some of them, like these two units, are tired and need a rest and some are missing a couple
of planes and some are low on supply like these two. I like to have a readiness value of about 50% before I let them
fly a mission.