smokindave34 (Axis) vs M60A3TTS (Soviet) 41 CG

[M60A3TTS]

For the ground phase, again we start in the north. The enemy is over the Daugava, so we should withdraw and trade space for time, right?

WRONG!

I counterattack with a number of hasty's to draw off some CPP if I can.




In the center, the panzertruppen are likewise greeted with multiple counterattacks as the defense of Smolensk begins. It's important to understand that my defense of Smolensk begins by attacking. One, conducted by Tolbukhin's 20th drives off 18th Panzer Division. Understand that many of his divisions were hand-picked for morale and fully resupplied by men and supplies before they arrived. Soviet losses were not light, but they aren't expected to be at this stage.





In the south, the trapped divisions are doomed, but counterattack where they can. Drain off the enemy CPP here if possible. A pair of security regiments will hug lead divisions. Here, the rest of the Soviet units will pull back.

[xhoel]

The Smolensk counterattack is worth it no doubt. Aggressive Soviet play in July 1941 is a pretty sight, keep up the good work.

[M60A3TTS]

Week 4 - 13 July 41

Starting with the north, Dave directed his panzers slightly northwest, but Pskov held this week. Since the Velikaya is now widely held by the Germans, the VVS will leave this area alone for the moment.




In the center, Dave's focus was getting over the Dnepr. He was successful. You should see the air opportunity here.




In the south, the Soviet pocket was digested and the Axis advance resumes.




Moving onto the ground action, the plan remains the same. Counterattack the spearheads in the north.




Hitting the Dnepr crossing in center. Pick up some interdiction to force the follow-on units to expend more MPs. Re-take two of the crossing points not occupied by German units.




Then counterattack the panzers once more.




With the Western Front now an assault HQ, I want to give at least one army an extra layer of leadership. Here Rokossovsky's 4th Army gets two subordinated airborne corps whose HQs won't disband for quite a while. Since corps aren't subject to the 1941 leader malus, these corps commanders have a normal chance (10 v 12 divisor) to make their die rolls. And if they fail, Rokossssovsky isn't a bad backup.

The corps will get their artillery SU allocation. There is a 60% ammo allocation malus for non-assault HQs which won't be applied here. Instead we get 90% of need where we really need it. Now this is a unique setup, as I don't have enough good leaders to replicate this. But at the area for my key defense, it's adequate.




In the south I have to checkerboard due to having fewer units now in the south. My main concern is will the units around Odessa be able to make it to the Nikolev ferry crossings before Dave does. We'll see.

[Beethoven1]

Do you know that interdiction is actually doing anything? I tried interdiction, and it didn't seem to do much if anything that I could tell, so I switched to just bombing units directly (which I think at least increases their fatigue/may lower CPP?). Does interdiction have some effect for Soviets if you do it right, and I am just doing it wrong maybe?

[M60A3TTS]

If you get a sufficient amount down, crossing major river hexes will cost +1 for every motorized unit that passes through the hex, not just one or more units in a hex. It can also increase fatigue slightly. It's not great by itself, but do it enough times, it can add up. I think it's just personal preference what you use your LBs for.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

If you get a sufficient amount down, crossing major river hexes will cost +1 for every motorized unit that passes through the hex, not just one or more units in a hex. It can also increase fatigue slightly. It's not great by itself, but do it enough times, it can add up. I think it's just personal preference what you use your LBs for.

Sometimes I think to myself it must be my personal preference to use my LBs to get shot down without escorts [:D]

[Hardradi]

Enjoying the AAR, especially the counterattacks. Are they an 11th pearl?

I have tried the interdiction bombing but not as focused as yours. I like it.

[squatter]

Great AAR.

I'm curious from a historical point of view, do the widespread but piecemeal attacks on panzer divisions by small border detachments and airborne brigades etc reflect the reality of the war well? Specifically in the fact that in the game they are obviously effective - ie drain off CPP.

Were attacks like these regularly made by the Red Army in 41? Were they effective in the way they are in-game? I'm aware the Red Army counterattacked regularly in 41 in reality, but I had the impression these were large scale, multi-division operations in the main.

[wpurdom]

I'd say it's as close as feasible. From comparing what Glantz says to Guderian's account of the campaign, I would say that the Soviets intended multi-division attacks, but the Germans were constantly fighting to maintain the initiative and preempt them, and the Soviet coordination was shot until November so what they got was partial piecemeal attacks that did, however, interfere with German offensive plans and slow them.

Human players of the game have too much information and get to game things out and learn too much about what works and doesn't compared to the historical commanders, particularly the Soviets who had little recent relevant experience.

To have a better simulation, I think you would have to have a WEGO system where it was a crap shoot when in the cycle the Soviet units responded to commands, plus the Soviet would have to be playing his first game and the German would have to have experience with the same system in different theatres (France, Balkans, etc.) against different orders of battle.

[Nix77]

If you want your counterattacks to be effective, you need multiple divisions. With odds less than 1:1, you'll only drain 10% of the CPP. To restrict panzer movement, odds need to be better than 1:10 to drain any MPs.

Effective strategy to spoil Soviet counterattacks is to set some regiments to reserve behind the line. The AI seems to do this quite often, and it's really disappointing to see your odds fall dramatically when even a single extra regiment joins the battle.

[Nix77]

ORIGINAL: Hardradi

Enjoying the AAR, especially the counterattacks. Are they an 11th pearl?

I have tried the interdiction bombing but not as focused as yours. I like it.

When interdiction level is only 1-19 (red star marker or (1)), only administrative movement is restricted. This is basically no effect on clear terrain and good weather, but starts to hurt on bad terrain, weather and roads. You need more than 20 interdiction level to really start slowing down motorized units (no admin movement & +1MP cost).

Interdiction needs to be a concentrated effort to be really effective. In 1941 with the VVS you might need 2 recon missions to raise the DL on day 1, then two missions per day on day 1/3/5/7 with 100 mission aircraft to raise the interdiction level to 20 (if you're lucky). That's around 1000 sorties for one hex to get +1MP for GE moto units

Most effective way might be just to hit light interdiction on rear areas away from AA where admin movement prevention hurts the Germans the most.

[carlkay58]

The real drain on the CPP is being in an Enemy ZOC at the start of your logistics phase halves the amount of CPP recovered in the turn. So you may get lucky and drain 10% when you attack the unit but the next turn the unit will only get a max of 25 CPP versus a max of 50 CPP without being in an enemy ZOC.

This totals up fairly fast during a campaign.

[Nix77]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The real drain on the CPP is being in an Enemy ZOC at the start of your logistics phase halves the amount of CPP recovered in the turn. So you may get lucky and drain 10% when you attack the unit but the next turn the unit will only get a max of 25 CPP versus a max of 50 CPP without being in an enemy ZOC.

This totals up fairly fast during a campaign.

Good point, forgot about that completely. M60A3TTS demonstrated this nicely earlier in the AAR. It's great that WitE2 encourages counterattacks, and not just running away!

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The real drain on the CPP is being in an Enemy ZOC at the start of your logistics phase halves the amount of CPP recovered in the turn. So you may get lucky and drain 10% when you attack the unit but the next turn the unit will only get a max of 25 CPP versus a max of 50 CPP without being in an enemy ZOC.

This totals up fairly fast during a campaign.

its actually even better ... 3x:

If units end the turn neither adjacent to the enemy nor in a hex that was not friendly controlled at the start of the turn then they will gain triple the number of CPPs

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: Nix77

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The real drain on the CPP is being in an Enemy ZOC at the start of your logistics phase halves the amount of CPP recovered in the turn. So you may get lucky and drain 10% when you attack the unit but the next turn the unit will only get a max of 25 CPP versus a max of 50 CPP without being in an enemy ZOC.

This totals up fairly fast during a campaign.

Good point, forgot about that completely. M60A3TTS demonstrated this nicely earlier in the AAR. It's great that WitE2 encourages counterattacks, and not just running away!

You have to have protected flanks to do this though

[carlkay58]

I will point out something about CPP as this thread raised a question in my mind and I actually looked it up in the manual. CPP is awarded to a unit at the END of its friendly ground phase. So positioning units next to enemy units in your ground phase will affect the CPP that your unit receives but does nothing to the enemy's CPP. Something that is important to know.

[DesertedFox]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The real drain on the CPP is being in an Enemy ZOC at the start of your logistics phase halves the amount of CPP recovered in the turn. So you may get lucky and drain 10% when you attack the unit but the next turn the unit will only get a max of 25 CPP versus a max of 50 CPP without being in an enemy ZOC.

This totals up fairly fast during a campaign.

its actually even better ... 3x:

If units end the turn neither adjacent to the enemy nor in a hex that was not friendly controlled at the start of the turn then they will gain triple the number of CPPs

I understand loki's quote as it's straight out of the rule book, but not the one above as stated by carlkay and earlier in this aar by M60.

According to the rules, CCP gained is calculated at the end of a player's turn, not at the beginning of his turn. Thus I cannot see any benefit in reducing the enemy's CCP by placing your next to him when his ccp gain won't be calculated until the end of his next turn. Am I missing something obvious here? I can't find in the rules anything about a 50% reduction of ccp gain by being next to an enemy at the start of your turn.

carlkay'spost above beat me by 7 minutes.

[M60A3TTS]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

I will point out something about CPP as this thread raised a question in my mind and I actually looked it up in the manual. CPP is awarded to a unit at the END of its friendly ground phase. So positioning units next to enemy units in your ground phase will affect the CPP that your unit receives but does nothing to the enemy's CPP. Something that is important to know.

loki will be able to clarify what is in the manual, but in terms of what you are saying, and how the game works, it seems to me that your interpretation can't be right.

First off, new calculations are not made at the end of a friendly ground phase. You have to click the end turn button for anything to happen, namely to initiate the next logistics phase. Then the process of saving and calculating new data can begin as the assorted routines are run. That could conceivably include saving your SMP data, but I wasn't under the impression that during the enemy logistics phase, any of your data is touched. I may be wrong about that, but that is my understanding. I suppose when a unit completes some action, the data could be written to a temp file that has the updated info that is subsequently the basis for new calculations at the start of your next logistics phase.

Secondly, all CPP calculations are based off SMP which are all reset to 200 at the start of your turn for on-map units with one exception, and it is clarifies things rather well. If a unit is routed in combat, SMP and CPP are both set to zero. If things were calculated at what you call the end of your turn, how did the game know to set a unit to zero SMP if it hadn't been routed yet?

Regardless, CPP gains for the following turn can't be calculated after SMP has been reset, only before.

Moving adjacent to an enemy unit affects what it will gain, and not reduce what it has. If I left such an impression, that was not my intent.

[carlkay58]

At the end of your Ground Phase (when you press the f12 key or click the button) the game goes through and calculates your CPP.

At this time the following calculations are made:

1. All units will gain one CPP for each 24 unused SMP.

2. If units end the turn neither adjacent to the enemy nor in a hex that was not friendly controlled at the start of the turn then you triple the CPP gained. (This is what made me wonder when CPP gain is calculated as the determination if the hex was friendly controlled at the start of your turn goes away after your Ground Phase is completed.)

3. Units attached to a Soviet Front or Axis Army set to Assault Status will gain one CPP for each 12 unused SMP.

The turn then proceeds to the enemy Logistics Phase.

You can check the manual at the bottom of page 394 for confirmation.

[carlkay58]

To put it into psuedo code:

1. IF unit is attached to an Assault HQ THEN AddCPP = SMP/12 else AddCPP = SMP/24

2. IF unit is adjacent to Enemy Unit OR hex is captured this turn THEN CPP = CPP + AddCPP ELSE CPP = CPP + 3(AddCPP)

All variables are integers so all calculations are rounded down (so 11 SMP = 0 AddCPP).