2x3+ Team Side Game - BOTH SIDES

[Telemecus]

T015 Axis Mius

On the Mius Front the 22nd Airlanding Division is covering over 100 miles of the front lines between the Donbass and the Azov sea - and remarkably is still advancing. The Soviet south commander can feel confident an assault on Rostov will not be coming through here though.

[Telemecus]

T015 Weather

For the second time Rostov has to thank the weather gods for salvation

[Telemecus]

T015 Axis South Fighter Sweeps

South Axis Commander
I'll sweep the crap out of his fighters

[Telemecus]

T015 Axis Factory Bombing
Not going well...

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

T015 Axis Factory Bombing
Not going well...

Stop me if you've heard me say this before...but it is totally unrealistic for the Germans to know the exact damage % of factories being bombed. Especially given Soviet excellence in Maskirovka. The Soviets would have used the same techniques the Germans used to deceive Allied bombing (both day and night). [8|]

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Zorch
Stop me if you've heard me say this before...but it is totally unrealistic for the Germans to know the exact damage % of factories being bombed. Especially given Soviet excellence in Maskirovka. The Soviets would have used the same techniques the Germans used to deceive Allied bombing (both day and night). [8|]

I think it is a fair comment. Many have commented on whether strategic bombing like this is realistic, but I do not think too many have commented on the separate point about info feedback on it. And separately to strategic bombing I have also criticised the way the program gives instant feedback after each airbase bombing raid on exactly how many aircraft by each airgroup are ready to fly or are damaged. And in other spheres too - I think the option to turn off movement fog of war gives far more information than just a hew ruler would.

By contrast, at least until v1.11.03, our opponents who have been bombed will not be told in the battle report if it was daylight or night time bombing - something in real life they would know!

Slightly in defence of the information though - The Germans did have agents in the rear to observe bombing results in the way the Allies never really did in Germany. In the precision dive bombing raids on the Gorky factories in the real war German agents on the ground actually launched flares to guide German bombers in to the target. And Soviet factories were huge integrated operations, more the size of a city than a big building. So aerial reconnaissance could certainly find them and get better overall visual intelligence on them than they could on the equivalent german supply chain.

But yes I think if the code was open to redesign it, some more general measure of damage over all the factories of a city rather than damage of one factory in a cit would make more sense.

[Beria]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
And Soviet factories were huge integrated operations, more the size of a city than a big building. So aerial reconnaissance could certainly find them and get better overall visual intelligence on them than they could on the equivalent german supply chain.

I have wondered about this point. When the Germans had a picture of the Shorts bomber factory in flames they thought that was proof enough to know the final assembly was out of action. It might be easier to fly aerial recon of a huge Soviet integrated factory to spot damage. But you would not know if the damage was in the final assembly, damage to the manufacture of some part which would not interrupt production if it was lost, or just damage to the workers recreation area or their kids nursery school. The intelligence is easier to get, but also less accurate.

[Beria]

T015 Soviet Volga Deep Defence

Supreme Command suggests a defence in depth plan.

Soviet Centre Commander
Sir, I hate to argue, but a depth defense such as that is not going to last a turn. Our units per individual basis are quite weak and the defensive CV of the units being spread out in that manner means the fascist panzer corps will be able to smash through them all in one turn alone, with little effort. For example in the north part of Center Front alone there are 5 panzer divisions in close proximity ready to strike.

At least like this we are giving our men one more week to build fortifications, while also allowing them to build strength. Perhaps next week there will be enough CV to make a 2nd defensive line behind the Volga.

Soviet South Commander
while the defense in depth is the better way to stop German mobility. the situation in the north is different, if our units at the Volga are to weak, its possible an hasty attack from a panzer could break it! (unlikely because of high disruption for mechanize units, but it is possible!) if that is the case, the German panzers and Motorize would only need 15 MP for an hasty attack instead of the 28 MP needed for an full on attack.
and if the Germans can get just one Mot or panzer north of the Volga, we are NOT pushing it back.
and this way, troops can build level 1 forts in time for the Volga! further securing the river line.

Soviet Centre Commander
Having an all-round-weak in-depth defense with CV between 1-6 would MAYBE buy us another week, if we are lucky. However, I think you are underestimating the enemy if you think a 3 unit deep wall of very low resistance will do much. It will be one hasty attack victory after another for them, no difficulties.

Regardless, ponder we did that, at what cost? It would draw away manpower from and considerably weaken the Volga defensive line, which would now increase its fortification level slower towards level 1. We would also permanently lose a lot of men and units, not only because of casualties from battles (all losses for sure), but also because many more of our units would likely be encircled, isolated and destroyed, something we were told must not happen!

Let's be frank and realistic here gentlemen. There is no way to stop the enemy from crossing at any point along the Volga considering our current manpower and the strength of the enemy, regardless of what strategy we use, it would be folly to believe otherwise. Our concerns on the frontline at this stage are to stall the enemy while not losing more men and units to encirclements, while surviving until the Rasputitsa. This is what I've strived for.

[Beria]

T015 Soviet

[Beria]

T015 Soviet North Bombing

[Beria]

T015 Soviet Moscow

Soviet Air Commander
probably the last time I will need to air supply Moscow, Central commander can move the airbases as he wishes.

despite interception, I was able to put those troops at airhead supply
although with the manpower shortage of the troops, it wasn't hard to give then much ammo
staging air bases are great

[Beria]

T015 Soviet Tambov

Soviet Centre Commander
Supreme Commander, despite your orders of the new defensive line, with the collapse of the Southern Front I regret to inform that Tambov is undefendable, and the southern Volga front is looking very vulnerable. Most likely will have to adjust the defensive line (red line on image).

[Beria]

T015 Soviet Voronezh Pocket

An easy escape for now from the Voronezh pocket

[Beria]

T015 Soviet Voronezh Pocket Southern Pincer

Soviet South Commander
when I said about needing the panzers to get low fuel? well, no fuel, no problem.
with the south pincer contained, I might have a shot at this!
I also position troops in a way to most inconvenience the Southern pincer.

[Beria]

T015 Soviet Mius Front

Soviet Centre Commander
Should we continue defending Rostov (and Voroshilovgrad)? Those troops wont last on their own and perhaps it would be better to have them move East and North at best speed to extend the southern Volga front. There is still time if we want to do this. If we wait they could become cut off entirely.

Soviet South Commander
I strongly disagree, Rostov has the Don river behind it, now that I have sufficient troops I can fortify it, I'm also defending Voroshilovgrad because of its Industry, 3 Armaments and 4 Heavy Industry! I'm not just going to hand that over to the Germans for free considering I have the river and much space from the nearest enemy unit. Rostov also has Immense Industry! 15 Armaments and 4 Heavy Industry, since it is a Light urban hex, It can be easily defended. it already has a level 2 fort, and 4 more turns I can get level 3. The reason I'm confident with the Strategy is because the Axis committed their mobile units to the Voronezh pocket, it will take 2 turns of redeployment to threaten Rostov. And I'm also counting on the mud! it will pretty much freeze my entire front (frankly I deserve a freaking break as well), why should I give up such an advantage for little risk? the Axis has only a couple of Infantry, some Romanian to attack against my forces in the south.

Soviet South Commander
mud in central Soviet zone! if it actually happens, I swear in the name of Lenin, I will read the Communist Manifesto!

[Telemecus]

T016 Weather

Soviet South Commander
mud in central Soviet zone! if it actually happens, I swear in the name of Lenin, I will read the Communist Manifesto!

Happy reading! [:)]

[Telemecus]

For information only - Team Allocations for turn 16 attached.

To add to an air recon go at the start which ground commanders can do there is now also an Air Settings+Reserve go that can be done by anyone before ground commanders take their gos. This will always consist of three things
i) Doing some manual air group swaps and sometimes changing upgrade or replace settings. Manual swaps need to be done before any missions are undertaken with the airgroup, and settings need to be changed before it is sent to national reserve. (If you are sure it will not go to reserve or be used in movement or missions you could skip this)
ii) Send lots of aircraft to reserve. Again this cannot be done after an aircraft has moved or performed a mission (but could be skipped if you are really really sure it will not) I have made a note of some airgroups that should never be sent to reserve as they withdraw soon and we want to use them up before they go.
iii) Set all airgroups to night missions. (to turn them off from flying temporarily, in later version of the game with air group maximum ranges the equivalent would be switching their maximum range to 1 to not fly)

With the priority to get Army Group North to its new lines fast as the Finns come south North is now in charge of allocating rail cap for the next few turns. This continues the process of dis-organisation described earlier which is now leading to getting rid of any need for a Supreme Commander go at the start and substituting it for allocations made by the team jointly and by discussion - something only possible now because of the use of discord.

Headline for rail capacity is we are going to be very tight next turn and probably for a few turns. Of the 34,500 of rail capacity we have each turn in turn 16 we will need:-
2,900 approx for units already on rails from turn 15 (XXVII HQ and 7Flieger)
6,700 approx for arriving or unfrozen units (18 Rumanian division, French volunteer regiment, Onega Coastal Brigade, 108 Hn Security Brigade, VIRm HQ)
1,000 approx for 121 Hn Security Brigade (assuming rails 108 Hn Sec to replace it as garrison and 121 Hn Sec gets railed on to replace the next garrison down the line)
700 approx for 2/281Sec & 1/207 Sec (to rail them forward to garrisons, releasing those garrisons to replace other cities garrisoned by combat units)
This leaves 23,200 approx.

In the old system Supreme would have moved arriving and unfrozen units just 1 hex by rail and left them loaded at the start so we could be sure they were not left without rail cap later. And give a rail cap in allocations to each other commander. But moving over to the new system the Supreme does not necessarily have the first go. Nevertheless when any commander takes a go they may want to just load up on to rails all arriving and unfrozen units anyway just in case.

Another change in allocations is that responsibility for all garrisoning is switched to Supreme Command. Garrisons south of the Axis no move line have been the responsibility of South. North is now responsible for the garrison of Leningrad and its environs. So far garrisons north of the line other than the Leningrad area have been taken care of using German security and also the independent Croat infantry and now French volunteers regiments.

This means there are now have only five units left for garrisoning (including the two German security south of the line that need to move north). The Moscow area alone now needs seven units of garrisons. So this will mean Centre needs to garrison Moscow with at least two regiments of German combat units (and more until the security arrives) and North and Centre will need to garrison any other cities or urban areas they conquer.

One option suggested for the winter is that units prioritised for protection from weather effects can double up as garrisons. If we go with this we will then have plenty more units to garrison with, and many existing garrisons such as southern Axis allied units can go to the front. But then Supreme needs to take control of all garrisoning (North and South) using rail to facilitate this swap.

[Beria]

I would choose the Manifesto ahead of the Protocol any day! [:D]

[Telemecus]

T016 Axis FBD arrives in Moscow

Turn 16 sees a historic moment for rail repair. Having repaired their way through the Baltics through Vitebsk and Smolensk the men finally arrive at Moscow. You can now get on a train there and ride all the way to Berlin! If it were not for a few inefficiencies on turn 1, the FBD by now would even have repaired through it and be on the other side. But as no game is perfect turn 16 seems like a good target for all rail repair to arrive in Moscow.

When the logisticians said an offensive could not be sustained to Moscow they were clearly wrong at least as far as WitE1 is concerned!

Soviet South Commander
To find out where the FBD is working just check the rail line with 1 damage, for example at Moscow with 4 rail hexes with 1 damage.

[Telemecus]

T016 Axis Rail Planning

A map showing where our rail repair will be up to the probable end of mud or more. It shows what our repaired rail will be for each turn - in brown for expected mud turns and white for expected snow turns. FBD3 is at the discretion of Centre and FBD1 of South, so guessed where they would go. It assumes the dominant weather for that time holds and we clear the route of enemy control before then if possible.

I have also counted the hexes to show where units could theoretically still get an HQBU (green line) in the last clear turn turn 17 (turn 16 rail repair plus 25 hexes). And also counted the hexes to where units will be isolated in the first mud turn 18 (turn 17 rail repair plus 100 motor MPs) - this one is difficult to do and so I usually mistakes so should be taken as approximate only.

Note: the above map shows HQBU in turn 17 - but we would probably want to do our last HQBUs in turn 16 a turn before last clear weather. And that is this turn.
Unless the HQBUs are to actually fuel up units to get them home for the winter.

The difference in the terrain between Gorky and south of the Oka shows. Even if we were to capture Gorky, we would have to abandon it in mud as isolated - indeed during mud turns all areas beyond where we could buildup in clear weather are likely to be isolated. By contrast there is still plenty of territory we could hold without being isolated in the mud south of the Oka.

Our enemy has noticed the importance of Gorky - and increased its defences commensurately. Bottom line is any intention to take Gorky has died and Voronezh has replaced it as our target. And to wintering units to have a "kick-ass" infantry and motorised in 1942.