Turn 001 22-June-1941 to Turn 028 31-December-1941: A Retrospective on 1941 Strategic Bombing of General Industry
Heavy industry was one of our lowest priorities for the strategic bombing campaign - we expect it destroyed just over 135k in supplies of which about 45k will actually be in 1942*. We did this by bombing the following heavy industry factories (with number of turns in which they added damage in brackets): Voroshilovgrad (2), Novorossiysk (8), Lipetsk (6), Ivanovo (13), Voronezh (2), Penza (6), Dzerhinsk (1), Rybinsk (13), Kerch (5), Taganrog (3). However many of these raids were top up raids or much smaller in scale compared to our priority targets. Many raids occurred shortly before factories were overrun or evacuated (at Taganrog, Kerch and Voroshilovgrad). Inter-command co-ordination is a key challenge in a team game, but in a single player game many of these could have been avoided.
Our lowest priority were the arms factories we bombed (with number of turns in which they added damage in brackets): Novorossiysk (3), South Stalingrad (3), Kerch (1). We expect between 5k and 6k of arms points were lost as a result*.
Some raids on resource factories were made but this was not pursued.
The graph below shows the impact of the 1941 campaign on Soviet heavy industry. The bulk of lost production of supplies came from the overrunning or damage of factories by Axis ground forces or their evacuation by the Soviet Union. The graph only depicts the effects of the 1941 campaign which could be augmented by action after 1941. Nevertheless the effects of the 1941 campaign we expect to last well afterwards. Only by the middle of 1942 will all damage be repaired. The remaining 160 strong heavy industry should each produce 650 supplies weekly in 1942, 775 in 1943, 850 in 1944 and 900 in 1945 - unless I have missed an update to the manual! This means the Soviet Union would produce just over 100k in weekly supplies from mid 1942 and eventually reach a weekly production of under 150k in 1945.
It is unlikely that the reduction in supplies will have a great effect on the Soviet war effort in 1941. The much reduced size of their armed forces and the damage to their industry will mean they are likely to need less in supply than they have. Any impact therefore will only be accumulated later when their industry and armed forces approach the limits of what they can supply. However the loss of arms points in 1941 could well have exacerbated a choke point.
Within the supply chain of resource factories feeding heavy indutry feeding arms factories only the choke point need be targetted. Bombing the others can be redundant. In other AARs Soviet sides have evacuated sufficient heavy industry that resource factories are their choke point. As resource factories cannot be evacuated and only repair 1% a turn this can be highly effective. But in this game the number of heavy industry factories evacuated should mean this will not be a profitable strategy here. We have assumed long term heavy industry is more of a choke point based on the 3:2 ratio assumed for arms to heavy industry. In addition heavy industry only repairs at 2% a turn compared to arms industry at 3% a turn making bombing here more effective. But we will have to see still if this was correct.
On the other hand the men and material committed to bombing general industry has not been significant. It consisted almost exclusively of Level Bombers and some other types of Rumanian bombers, and only at the end of the turn after other combat missions were complete. Few aircraft were lost and the only remaining impact would be higher fatigue levels in the next turn. These have rarely been high. Thus a small but significant impact on Soviet production has been gained at an insignificant cost.
*The losses evacuated factories would have had if they had not been bombed are not included in these figures except for Penza and Ivanovo where their evacuations were caused by strategic bombing.
The spreadsheet with the data and calculations for these figures is attached. Corrections and suggestions for improvement are welcome.
