Heading East into the Soviet Union

[carlkay58]

T16 Supply Net North:

The rains are here. This makes those long red lines even deadlier to the trucks. AGC has been improving as the rail net has moved eastward but AGN is not getting closer to the front fast enough. The FBD I sent to help AGS will complete that other double line this turn so it will go north to help out AGN.

[carlkay58]

T16 Supply Net South:

The Crimea is helped by the two minor ports and next turn I hope that Sevastopol will kick in.

[carlkay58]

T16 Air Phase:

I disable all air directives at this time. I do not plan on much combat activity this turn so it is time to save some aircraft. I also delete the Naval Patrol directive. They have done their job. Note all of the defined air directives are listed but none are checked and nothing flew.

[carlkay58]

T16 Freight:

Things still look like it is working but on the edge. I will have to try and improve this as soon as possible or the blizzard weather will really be bad.

[carlkay58]

T16 Kerch:

Due to some discussions on the forum I took a quick screenshot of Kerch just after I captured it. Note the Supply and Fuel stores captured but especially the Resources!

[carlkay58]

T16 AGN:

18th Army does another assault on Oranienbaum and reduces the fort level to 2. 15th Army breaks down to regiments which allows it to pull back a corps from the front line for refit and CPP recovery. 4th PG completes the pocket of 10 Soviet divisions while advancing so the last rail line into the Leningrad pocket is under ZOC so it cannot be used for rail supply. It does not isolate the pocket but the supply going into it is extremely restricted now.

[carlkay58]

T16 AGC:

9th Army spreads out as regiments while also helping with the pocket on the eastern side of the Kalinin bulge. 2nd and 4th Army also spread out trying to free up more troops to help out the PGs. 3rd PG is pulled back to the new railhead for rest and refit. 2nd PG is still having to hold the eastern edge of the bulge with a minor penetration to the north and reforming the pocket more securely near Vyazma.

[carlkay58]

T16 AGS:

6th, 17th, and 11th Armies continue to advance eastward. The Rumanians are consolidating their control of the Crimea along with the Italian Corps. The 11th Army and 1st PG corps in the Crimea are withdrawing to help with the push on the Dnepr River bend and beyond. The 1st PG is pulled back for rest and CPP recovery.

[carlkay58]

T16 Rail Net North:

It is raining on the entire map so it can be educational to explore the Axis logistics as they currently stand and are operating. I activate the 'r' key to show the rail status. The circles are: Green (good and connected rail), Yellow (good but not connected rail), Orange (hard to see at this scale but repaired this turn and will be good next turn), and Red (needs to be repaired). In addition it shades the areas where supplies are prohibitive to deliver. This is evident in the Valdai Hills with the 16th and 9th Armies. So it will be priority to repair rail in this area. The yellow highlighted units are FBDs.

[carlkay58]

T16 Rail Net South:

This rail net is actually better than in the north. The only real area of concern is well to the rear in the Pripyat Marshes.

[carlkay58]

T16 Depot Map North:

This shows the map of the depots in the north. Currently all of them are at level 4 east of the starting border except that all of the port depots are at 3. Essentially these are the default levels of depots when they are created.

[carlkay58]

T16 Depot Map South:

The same view in the south. This is probably the best way to see which rails I have repaired. There are some depots in places that are not connected by rail such as captured ports in the Crimea. These are either ports or air bases that I have been using for air transport of supplies to the front lines.

[carlkay58]

T16 Strategic Planning North:

This is roughly the start of the rainy season so it is a good time to start doing strategic planning for what I could accomplish when the freeze starts. Here in the north Leningrad (36), Moscow (66), Tula (16), Orel (10), and Kursk (16) are within range of the current front line. This is 144 possible VPs. Realistically Moscow is probably beyond my reach and Tula is quick a reach too. Leningrad is literally in play as I don't know if I will be able to get it or not but I will definitely be trying to do so. So I will be trying my hardest for Orel, Kursk, and Leningrad (62 VPs). Unfortunately PG 2 is totally out of position for any of those targets as it is completely tied down in front of Moscow. PG 3 can be transferred anywhere fairly easily so it will have to be my mobile force.

[carlkay58]

T16 Strategic Planning South:

Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Zaporozhye are in the front lines and quite possible. Stalino would be a possible but Rostov is a bit far. Krasnodar and Maikop may be on the table as the Rumanian cavalry brigade in the Kerch Straits has not detected Soviet defenses on the eastern bank. If the AI has left that open, then the withdrawing German Panzer and Infantry Corps could be redirected and an attempt made to blitz the area. So I am looking at 30 VPs for sure and a stretch for another 30 to 40. I don't see a Sudden Victory possible by Jan 1 42 but I could definitely be prepared for a good shot in 42.

[carlkay58]

T16 Supply Depot Priority Tuning 1:

I mentioned above that I have left all supply depots on their default values. This is not necessarily the best strategy, especially when there are many different paths that can be done with your rail net. So I have decided to play around at this point in the game. I have a developed supply and rail net in a real game situation so it is time to experiment. I will do several different types of tuning to the depot network and see what the effects are. I note that this is in the start of the rainy season so some stress is on the logistical system from the weather, although that would change again in blizzard - although not necessarily for the better or worse. The first thing to do is leave it be, run the Soviet turn, and then check my freight report as my starting base. So leaving at it is gives me the following freight report:




Freight is reduced on the line but Need is not met overall. 18th, 16th, and 6th Armies are the really bad ones.

[carlkay58]

T16 Supply Depot Priority Tuning 2:

So I first go through all of the German ports and change all ports that are on rails to EXPORT. I then make sure all the Baltic ports are on IMPORT. In the South I change Odessa to an EXPORT port as it is connected by rail and has not been receiving naval supply. Priority of the Odessa depot is set to 1 as are all other export ports. That means they will take from a National Supply Source (NSS) which is rated a priority of 0 and send them to any port with a 2 or higher. All import ports (except Kerch which is the front line) are changed to priority 2. So now we run the turn again and see the following freight report:

A slight improvement but since there is only the single naval supply route marked on the supply path map to Sevastopol there should not be any real improvement here.

[carlkay58]

T16 Supply Depot Priority Tuning 3:

So we go back and build on the port adjustments. Let us look at Minsk as an important railyard and rail nexus. We change the priority there to 2 (it will not get supply from port depots but the major link here is rail anyways) and all depots feeding into it will be changed to 1. I will also change all pre-war depots to 1. Lvov is also set to 2. Odessa is another nexus to set to 2. So time to test and get this freight report:

So the ground and air units got more than they needed now. The 18th, 16th, and 6th armies are still suffering but look at the logistics net from Turn 16 and you can see why they would be.

[carlkay58]

T16 Supply Depot Priority Turning 4:

This time I go through and set all depots between my big railyards to 3 unless they are supplying a front line unit and then I leave them at 4. This gives the following freight report:

It is an improvement. The Supplies Received are higher while the Supplies Lost is lower. But notice that the change is not that great. I will also note that it may be biased towards good as the depots that lost priority could be shipping what is in them to the front easier and thus giving the front line a small but temporary boost. I shall keep this latest version and go on from here. But I think the real lesson in all of this is that none of the supply setups I used were really that much different from any of the others. I think the logistics is much more dependent on what the rail net looks like than the depot net. If my rail net was in better shape near the 18th, 16th, and 6th Armies then their logistical position would be much stronger despite what the depot priorities are set to.

[carlkay58]

T16 Files:

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Bamilus

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: Nix77

The starting number for missing medium tanks on T1 is -817, so that number has raised with over 1000 tanks... Carl has lost around 550 PzIII tanks, that sounds like a pretty high number to me?

After this I'm going to be reluctant to drive my PzDivs more than 100 miles per turn, keeping them on high CPP all the time

I do a similar supply network but not everything level 4 as Carl does.

Ya, the game is a Marathon not a race(although there are certain racing elements for certain things). Being a marathon need to have a measured approach on what you need to accomplish. Most advances, not all, I will try and leave 20 or more MP's. Refitting a depleted Division usually takes a few turns even on a depot with an HQ. So have to plan accordingly.

How do you do encirclements if you leave 20mp?

Not the easiest thing to do but can be done even if you don't close the pocket the first turn but ZOC it. (You will see this soon in my game with 821Bobo) Plus if you fatigue your unit to hell with zero'ing out MP's you are going to get routed or forced retreated by a Soviet player, especially an aggressive Soviet that will counter attack. And Soviets should be counter attacking in my opinion. If you like we can continue in another thread to not take more space in Carls AAR.