2x3+ Team Side Game - BOTH SIDES

[Telemecus]

It is good to see the reporting engine in use in an actual game!

[Telemecus]

T040 Axis Manpower

With the arms point shortage over we turned to manpower. For the Germans this basically means which infantry divisions get lots of replacements and which do not. My old view was to just prioritise the best. A counter view was that all should be given enough for a threshold at least. In the end we went with the latter and made a special thread on the debate you can see here. https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4708381

ORIGINAL: eskuche
A bit late, but how much manpower was taken by withdrawing Finns to get back up to 75%?

I take it you mean the units that withdrew? As they were all below the 75% threshold to withdraw they were stacked up on the West Finland coast on refit hogging all of the Finnish replacements for multiple turns. So in effect the Finnish units staying at the front got no replacements. Only by putting some remaining units on refit could we at least build up the elite 2nd division. I could give more specific numbers but does this give enough sense of scale?

Now finally we have no more waiting to withdraw so in future turns replacements can finally go into the Finnish units. But they will also need some morale refitting.

[joelmar]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

I do not know why but the picture can be seen by opening the attachment but not as an embedded picture.

weird, it was correctly set yesterday and now it was back to "no embedding" anyway, I fixed it. Yes, it's cool, nice complement.

[Telemecus]

T40+ Axis Leaders

Until now Supreme Command has been making cross-command leadership decisions in isolation using the following principles.

i) As morale had no range penalty, and also as we now know no command penalty (in AGS right now very useful!), we have been prioritising high morale for high command, army groups and also army HQs. Admin/Init/Inf-Mech are only used in the event of a tie-breaker. This is because the range penalties and especially also in AGS the command penalties make other ratings very ineffective. I have made the assumption (this bit is controversial) that with so much going into good morale leaders above, we can concentrate on high averages of admin/init/inf-mech ratings only for lower commands. Usually good morale ratings go with the others anyway - but in the case of people like Hoepner I think this makes them a desirable corps commander.

ii) Generally leadership changes are left to the end of turn only if we have a lot of points to spare that will not be used and should not be banked on other things. Use by ground commanders, for example to get rid of command penalties or improve supply by HQs by making reassignments should have first call on points use.

iii) Corps leaders are the most important, and Panzer corps leaders prioritised ahead of others. However the only Panzer corps leaders left on the desired list now are mostly only the ones that are now in charge of the Panzer armies - Guderian, vKleist and Hoth. The next priority would be replacing army corps leaders.

iv) Although replacing army leaders is a much lower priority I think there is a good reason to first replace the army commander before you replace the corps commanders under them. See the pdfs attachd for details on what I am considering with 11th army now. If I replace the two bad corps commanders in 11th army it will cost 21 points. If I first replace the 11th army commander (who is also the worst at that position) with Tiemann that will cost 5 points. However replacing the two corps commanders afterwards will only cost 11 points. This is 16 points all together - five points less than not first replacing the army commander. So the main reason to change army commanders is to have a net saving on points spend on changing the corps commanders - although improving the army commander is a nice to have too. In addition if the corps commanders are replaced with commanders in other corps commands with a political score of 9, the costs go down to only ten points total. Very likely we will get much better corps commanders, possibly one of them a major general who we would have had to wait for along time to get anyway. However with a chance they might lose ratings.

[see https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4698265 for a fuller explanation of this]

v) My approach in future turns would be to repeat the process appointing Tiemann (and anyone else who gets the rank and has political 9) to another army and then replace the corps commanders under them. Usually I will try to use existing corps commanders with political 9 to again reduce the cost and hope to get more good major generals an early promotion. This is the very most points efficient way of changing the whole German leadership for much better ones. However there may be times when you need a commander urgently for operational reasons and we deviate from this plan. Just be aware we will then be paying more points net in the final result to get the leaders we want.

[Telemecus]

T40 Axis Rail Capacity

Anything that will travel by rail this turn or in a future turn is temporarily choked of replacements until it arrives at its destination. It means for example that by railing units at 66% ToE we can move 50% more units by rail than if we had first raised the ToE and then moved them by rail.

How about this picture of remaining rail capacity for pinpoint rail cap planning this turn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[joelmar]

Here is the final global map for Axis turn 40. Now on to the Soviet part.

[Beria]

T40 Soviet

Team thoughts on next steps
-set all divisions and brigades to 80% except for guards and tank to 100%
-new builds will only be artillery and tank which are light on manpower and we try to get divisional cv strengths up (at start of turn there were 1347 t34 in units and 865 sitting unused in pools. that's a lot of unused strength. the toe will be upgrading also. 392 152mm howitzers too; Tank battalions, at least don´t need infantry for them. later they upgrade to regiments for free and are much more powerful)
-merging the returning cadres (makes one decent reserve division while the other 2 go back into the reinforcement pool at no cost. when done at the end of the turn when there are no ap left, there is no cost. a bit of an exploit, but it works. otherwise those cadres sit around the rear holding precious manpower and armaments we need in the front lines. since they are not disbanded we can still fill them up later if we want to)

[Beria]

T040 OOB

OOB at the start of turn 40

some players say that the turning point comes when the russians reach 100,000 guns regardless of infantry strength. it seems about right to me

Still a way to go though!

[Beria]

Attached for information only panzer track from recon this turn

[Beria]

T40 Soviet North

Instructions given to North commander

please start moving Guards off the Finnish line and move them towards Volodga and the 4th shock army

Start of turn 40

[Beria]

T40 Soviet North continued

By the end of the turn large number of guards are on rails to be transported south. Meanwhile North West front is moving to take over the defence of Yaroslavl from Centre. The overloaded North will be a thing of the past.

[PaxAmericana]

Just read through this, and have to say, props for such a great AAR! I have been lurking for a while and finally decided to make an account to keep up with the action. I have owned WITE for a while now, but never really played it because it's freaking huge, and it kinda scared me off. But this has really gotten me interested again, so keep it up!

[Telemecus]

@PaxAmericana On behalf of all the guys in 2x3+ thanks so much! Great to see you enjoying this and now joining us here!

[joelmar]

ha those Guards in the northern salient... it fueled a few conversations in the Axis team! Even after the guards were gone, we kept wondering why in hell do they keep such a big salient and a lot of good troops there when big problems are coming further south?

I expect the Soviet team has a very good explanation, and it must have something to do with strategic objectives that the Axis guys had no idea about!

[Beria]

I think until now the first Soviet Supreme Commander just did not think to move the boundaries between the players. So a rough third of the Soviets were allocated to a north which only stretched from a bit above Lake Rybinsk to Lage Onega. It might have made sense to defend Leningrad but not once that was gone. The Soviet Supreme also had the view that Vologda was a priority for defence in the summer of 1942. With the new Soviet Supreme Commander that is no longer a priority.

[xhoel]

Fantastic job on the AAR guys, a pleasure to read and really shows the beauty of team games.

As acting Axis North commander at the time the AAR is taking place I can tell you that there was nothing that made me happier than seeing so many Guard units deployed against my forces. The whole Soviet deployment in the salient was the wrong call from my POV. Too long of a front with too many good units defending nothing but heavy woods. Those units should have moved South ASAP or moved somewhere in the center of the map to act as Stavka reserves.

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: xhoel

Fantastic job on the AAR guys, a pleasure to read and really shows the beauty of team games...

+100

[joelmar]

@Beria

Interesting. I still wonder why Vologda was so important for him. Knowing the Finns can't go far, I personnaly would have simply given up that area and retreated beyond the Finnish No Move Line on a line going from Rybinsk to Kubinskoe lake and kept only a screening force, strong enough to force the Germans to bring in substantial German forces if they really want Vologda (or go around Rybinsk to the Volga), but much less than what was used in the salient for so long. That's why I was so curious about that. Thanks

@xhoel

Thanks sir! It's a real pleasure to be part of the team and your participation was much appreciated! It's now a real pleasure to tell the tale!

[sil01]

T040 Central Commander. AGC attack.

The Germans continue the tank offensive.
How is the operation developing in the North, Center and South of the Central Section?

In the North, offensive No. 1 was terminated as hopeless. Offensive No. 4 shifted south. Here the Germans felt the junction between the cavalry armies and advanced 2-3 hexes.

In the Center, ticks No. 2 and 3 logically ended with the closure of ring No. 5 and 6. But there was no one in the ring. There were weak brigades, the Germans managed to push back 6-7 brigades using 8-9 tank divisions.
While this epic battle was taking place, the rest of the Russian army was replenished, ate porridge from the pot and stocked up with popcorn. The result of the move 39-40 in the Center is completely satisfactory.

Nothing happens in the South. In the snow, the AGC can only conduct two offensives at a time. Need to remember.....

[sil01]

T040 Central Commander. Decision-making.

What can be expected from the Germans, based on the position of the tank groups? Offensive No. 1, and, less likely, offensive No. 2. Soviet troops are threatened in zones 3 and 4. And these are the best strike armies that counterattacked last week!

Some of the generals have an opinion to take them back so that the tank mites close in the void.
But is it for this that the Homeland gathered the best troops in bits and pieces, all the cavalry corps, the guards, so that we backed up again and again?

No! Tanks get stuck in the snow, so let the enemy feel the wrath of Soviet people.
All three groups of tanks prepared for the offensive in zones 5,6,7 will be hit.
Tank groups should be defeated in their places of concentration.