Der Ivan kommt!

[Huw Jones]

ORIGINAL: MattFL

Nice update, keep 'em coming.

As for the encircled MOT division in Estonia, he'll definitely get away and my guess is if HJ wants he could try to encircle or zoc lock your 2=5 and 5=5 in the process potentially drawing you into a fight with some of your best units that you don't really want. But this requires a totally wasted turn or even two of PZ Division movement into an area that PZ's shouldn't even really be in delaying any real attack on anything meaningful. It's shocking to see your High CV soviet units in and around that area. It almost forces him to rescue that MOT unit or face serious attack and possible disaster if he remains encircled as you have the CV there to put a real hurt on him. So all in all you have put him to a decision. Of course another option for him is to just ignore your big CV Units and try to smash through the PSKOV line to the western hex of PSKOV while flipping hexes for his infantry next turn and then put you to a decision of whether to pull your big CV units out or risk getting them caught out there even if they rout the MOT unit.

So right now he has a difficult decision to make but my guess is that next turn you'll have a difficult decision to make. If I'm SHC in this situation, no way I risk losing my best units in a stand up fight with panzers in Estonia. The threat of it is enough to make him act, then the right play is pull them back to safety.


In the south, German Panzers seem to be attacking towards Bucharest. [:D]

Clear the ground for the Inf.
Hoping the Soviets will move units there.
Leaving the soviets wondering what's going on.
That sort of reasoning.

No plans on visiting Bucharest, jaja.

[SparkleyTits]

Best to show your opponent early on that you will not go down quietly!
Give em hell comrade

Sorry to message you on here Dinglr but I've been trying to PM you bud, could you make some space in your folder for a quick message please mate?

[Dinglir]

Inbox is less than one quarter full, so you should have no problems sending me a pm.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

Dinglir
In order to do this, I have gone over the Air Regiments type by type, noting how many replacement aircraft is available and setting up the correct number of Air Regiments to receive replacements (ordered by experience). In the instances where I have to few replacement aircraft available, I have set the most
experienced Air Regiments to automatically upgrade the aircraft type.

I noted before you posted this might be a bad process as it ends up leaving a tail of near empty other airgroups - is this a change of policy or are there different reasons here?

The idea is that all those empty or near empty Air Units will be sitting in the National Reserve waiting for aircraft numbers to be available for replacements.

I have never tried this particular strategy before playing as the Soviets, but I would like to try actually making my airforce capable from the beginning of the game. I guess that having four Air Regiments of 15 fighters is better than having six Air Groups of 10 each. This game, I set out to test my theory.

I suppose you already know that for me it depends on the air doctrine - i would ask but assume it is too sensitive to reveal here. Clearly having ten in an air group of maximum size 20 would be useless if your percentage required to fly was 55%, and dangerous if close to that?

[Dinglir]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
I suppose you already know that for me it depends on the air doctrine - i would ask but assume it is too sensitive to reveal here. Clearly having ten in an air group of maximum size 20 would be useless if your percentage required to fly was 55%, and dangerous if close to that?

At this stage of the game where the max numbers of a Soviet Air Regiment was 40, I set the required to fly at 40% (ie 16 aircraft), and the only sent Air Regiments forward that had at least 24 aircraft in them.

Once the Soviet Air Regiment size was changed to 20 aircraft, I reset my number to another figure.

[Dinglir]

Turn three.

[Telemecus]

On the quiz I will stick my neck out and add Usvyat to your two suggestions. If I have remembered correctly your accounts of centre over the past few turns then the mobile units will not be awash with fuel there? I am really bad at reading screenshots when they are in a map mod but I would write off Vitebsk or getting far past it.

[821Bobo]

Looking at the defense I would say Smolensk is doable. Why is there no unit?

[MattFL]

For your quiz, so hard to say without seeing the German side of things. But he has a lot of options for sure, particularly at PSKOV where you have sort of split the difference in your defense leaving lots of units to begin the process of defending the Lenningrad while leaving a lot of units at PSKOV. In the center, I just don't see him getting very far at all, his infantry seems to be nowhere in sight.

My guesses are Gorodnok only from your list and i'll add Rudnya if he plays it aggressively and has 25-30+ MP in his pz divisions. Bogushevsk, Vitebsk, Liozno encircled if he's aggressive and has the movement. Basically pincer attack along the north shore of Dnepr and just northeast of Vitebsk to encircle or ZOC lock the landbridge.

At PSKOV, i'd push around the left flank of your PSKOV defense through the gaping hole at Porkhov. If he can move the 1=2 and 1=3 just to the south of Porkov, it's off the races and he should be able to loc your PSKOV defense. Can't see his movement, so not sure if he can do this, but it looks simple enough. From your perspective, i think you should have either committed to defending PSKOV to prevent him from doing this (really just 1-2 more divisions in place remove this risk) or pulled back to your planned line in front of Lenningrad. Leaving half there and half at Lenningrad seems a mistake to me and the massive hole between Porkhov and Dno should be exploited. You're playing with fire there....


If you're fortunate enough that he doesn't press you in either PSKOV or Smolensk area this turn, i'd run for the hills next turn. But really, particularly at PSKOV, i think you've stayed a turn too long already....


But Huw's advance has been pretty slow up to now on all fronts, so i can't really say what he will do. I only know what i would do.

[EwaldvonKleist]

My guess is the towns you (Dinglir) mentioned+Usyvat.
Thanks to you I now know some random villages in the middle of nowhere I never wanted to know. Although I was able to use wargaming geography knowledge in some "City, Country, River" games.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

The Germans can pretty much “hasty attack you to death”. The additional loses prior to Sept 1st, the bombers, artillery, Commander roll for Germany and the failed roll by the Soviets combined to make a bad day for that Soviet Division. What can you do about it? Not much. Even note the 2 engineer factor reducing the fort to zero. You would think the Soviets are a bunch or “Morons” looking at this combat result.

[Dinglir]

ORIGINAL: 821Bobo
Looking at the defense I would say Smolensk is doable. Why is there no unit?

At the end of the turn, I was pretty certain that Smolensk wasn't doable for the Germans, and I decided to move the division there to another position where I felt it would be of more value.

[Dinglir]

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

My guess is the towns you (Dinglir) mentioned+Usyvat.
Thanks to you I now know some random villages in the middle of nowhere I never wanted to know. Although I was able to use wargaming geography knowledge in some "City, Country, River" games.

I'm so sorry if I have inflicted increased knowledge of Russian Geography with this quiz. It was never my intention, and I hope you can find it in your gracious heart to forgive me.

Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants according to WitE.

[Dinglir]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

The Germans can pretty much “hasty attack you to death”. The additional loses prior to Sept 1st, the bombers, artillery, Commander roll for Germany and the failed roll by the Soviets combined to make a bad day for that Soviet Division. What can you do about it? Not much. Even note the 2 engineer factor reducing the fort to zero. You would think the Soviets are a bunch or “Morons” looking at this combat result.

Are you in any doubt? Of course the Soviets are morons led by an even bigger moron. That dude sitting behind the keyboard controlling their every move is more Pavlov than Zhukov if you ask me.

The main purpose of leaving the division there was to slow down the Motorized Division in crossing the Dvina river (the two divisions were adjacent but on either side of the river). As the Germans spent MP to actually do the attack, from that objective the fight was a success.

The secondary purpose was to see if the German mobile divisions attacking swamp hexes would take casualties higher than normal. As it turns out, virtually the only battle cost for the Germans was to their stores of ammunition, as they had to shoot all those Ivans.

The question is if I paid to high a price in casualties. I probably would not do the battle today, if I had the same choice knowing what I know now, but that's a process I refer to as "learning"

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Dinglir
Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants according to WitE.

They are Potemkin villages though! [;)]

[EwaldvonKleist]

Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants

Never trust Soviet numbers [:D]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937)

Don't shoot the messanger-and the statician.

[Dinglir]

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants

Never trust Soviet numbers [:D]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937)

Don't shoot the messanger-and the statician.

It actually helped when Stalin executed the statisticians that showed that the purges and the collectivization had made the Soviet population decline.

The next survey showed that the Soviet population had risen rather significantly....

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants

Never trust Soviet numbers [:D]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937)

Don't shoot the messanger-and the statician.

It actually helped when Stalin executed the statisticians that showed that the purges and the collectivization had made the Soviet population decline.

The next survey showed that the Soviet population had risen rather significantly....

Intersting cause and effect - kill more people and more are alive ...

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

ORIGINAL: 821Bobo
Looking at the defense I would say Smolensk is doable. Why is there no unit?

At the end of the turn, I was pretty certain that Smolensk wasn't doable for the Germans, and I decided to move the division there to another position where I felt it would be of more value.

Smolensk is very doable. I am afraid with your defense Smolensk will be taken along with 4-5 hexes east of Smolensk if he goes hard after the Center.

Curious why so many units at Mogilev and below?

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

The Germans can pretty much “hasty attack you to death”. The additional loses prior to Sept 1st, the bombers, artillery, Commander roll for Germany and the failed roll by the Soviets combined to make a bad day for that Soviet Division. What can you do about it? Not much. Even note the 2 engineer factor reducing the fort to zero. You would think the Soviets are a bunch or “Morons” looking at this combat result.

Are you in any doubt? Of course the Soviets are morons led by an even bigger moron. That dude sitting behind the keyboard controlling their every move is more Pavlov than Zhukov if you ask me.

The main purpose of leaving the division there was to slow down the Motorized Division in crossing the Dvina river (the two divisions were adjacent but on either side of the river). As the Germans spent MP to actually do the attack, from that objective the fight was a success.

The secondary purpose was to see if the German mobile divisions attacking swamp hexes would take casualties higher than normal. As it turns out, virtually the only battle cost for the Germans was to their stores of ammunition, as they had to shoot all those Ivans.

The question is if I paid to high a price in casualties. I probably would not do the battle today, if I had the same choice knowing what I know now, but that's a process I refer to as "learning"

Oh, I am in no doubt that the Soviets are Morons. But don't be hard on yourself, you are very capable player.

In your 2nd paragraph you hit exactly why I would do it again. But I would put the PM divisions(if they were available) in that hex instead of a decent division. You will take more loses but why not? You will do about the same amount of loses to the Germans but take a couple more hundred loses yourself and serve the same purpose.

In your 3rd paragraph, don't get your hopes up on causing any higher loses this early and against Moto units.

In 4th paragraph, I don't think you paid too high a price (although I think the loss rate is lopsided personally). I would recommend you still do these defense battles to burn up German MPs in the right places. I know I took on another game and I am forcing the Germans to burn through MP's by staying close. I am losing a lot of units but, as you mentioned, it is burning German ammo, fatiguing them, and a few other things. Which in turn causes them more loses.