Encircled by Enemies (PBEM gwgardner vs Chocolino)

[Flaviusx]

Yeah, I think the Soviets definitely should have retreated in this game early on and forced the Germans into stretching themselves out more. This would've created more counterattacking opportunities. Trading blows with a small German invasion force near the borders was just playing into the German strengths in this situation.

Holding on to Odessa for so long in particular made zero sense to me.

[Journier]

its a difficult situation to stretch too far, once moscow falls it hurts soviet production immensely since I dont believe resource production moves east as occurred in history. I do see events for it in the event file however but they look like flavor text.

Also difficult to keep up with pace of german panzers advance while trying to bleed away your meaningless 20 str infantry, and replace them with 36 str army's.

Russia is difficult, has anyone pulled off a meaningful russian defense yet against a human.

[Chocolino]

Gary mentioned that the Russian industry relocation may not happen correctly. I understand that Alvaro is looking at this right now.

I think that Jim Burns did a very good job at a Russian defense in the earlier PBEM - although he also lost Moscow temporarily. His opponent thinks you can improve on the defense even further - interesting read.

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Holding on to Odessa for so long in particular made zero sense to me.

It did force several German corps to stay back.

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: Chocolino

Gary mentioned that the Russian industry relocation may not happen correctly. I understand that Alvaro is looking at this right now.

I think that Jim Burns did a very good job at a Russian defense in the earlier PBEM - although he also lost Moscow temporarily. His opponent thinks you can improve on the defense even further - interesting read.

That was mere speculation on my part. Alvaro merely said he'd look at the map to assure me that the industry was located - no hint at all that something may indeed be amiss. I was just searching around for excuses for my poor performance.

[Flaviusx]

Lend lease can more than make up for lost production. The Americans by themselves can throw in close to 100 production points a turn, and I'm pretty sure this production gets multiplied at the Soviet end.

In the long run, the real constraining factor for the Soviets is manpower. It is imo too low in this game.

I do think there are things that can be done to improve Jim Burns Soviet defense in my earlier PBEM and I want to try them out but am waiting on the patch. I have a different build order than he does, and don't believe in spamming lots of mech early on.

[Chocolino]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

It did force several German corps to stay back.

It was quite annoying to deal with Odessa. I would have preferred the USSR units had just gone elsewhere. Especially so since it was not just Odessa which alone could have been taken in one or two turns. Instead all the defenders around it needed to be overcome as well. Overall they probably extracted more German losses than on the line to the east.

Only remaining question is whether extracting highest possible loss from the Wehrmacht is good enough for the USSR or if they need a different strategy. (That was a real question, not trying to insinuate that there is a better strategy).

[Flaviusx]

What the Soviet wants to do is create killing zones, areas where he can counterattack. While passively defending will slowly increase experience, the quickest way to drive it up to 50% is by attacking.

This area around Odessa didn't really provide that opportunity. No space to maneuver due to the coastline. Better, imo, to fall back towards the Dnepr, and with any luck entice the German to send the panzers past their infantry support, although in this game the south was light on panzers.

Did the Soviet ever get to 50% experience in this game?

Once you do hit this cap, then you want to start disbanding low experience units (particularly rifle corps) during the winter, and feed their manpower and production into new and better units at a higher experience level. The Soviet has to close the quality gap with the Wehrmacht ASAP. Until the Red Army does this, it is just a chewy toy for the Germans.

[battlevonwar]

Looked at the casualties aside the situation, bleak to lose so much for the Allies, no fault in surrendering at such a point with so little damage done upon the Axis.