Debrief for the full game
This will be just a recap and debrief for the game as well as some advice for me to other Axis players trying this scenario.
I am quite pleased with the game in general. We started T1 with a mistake due to a miscalculation of MPs on my part, which left 1 of my regiments in the wrong place to secure the pocket. As a result, the Soviets managed to break it and cost me a bit of time. Not a big deal though as it was closed on T2 and bascially all Soviet units from T1 were eliminated by T3.
Crossing the Sorot and outflanking Pskov as well as the quick dash to Parnu and Tallinn were quite important events. I was quite pleased with my experiment of sending 1 Panzer Division and 1 Motorized Regiment through Estonia, it worked quite well and caught the Soviets by surprise.I will probably try this strategy again in the future and would recommend it to others as well.
After that, the Soviet retreat worked fine for us as Leningrad was reached relatively fast. Maybe tyronec could have held this line or that line for 1 more turn but since i do not know his army strength i cant really say if it was the right thing to do. Once Leningrad was reached, pausing for my units to recover CPP and fatigue was key. It allowed the attacks of next turn to be really powerful and enabled the pockets that were created on turn 9 and 10. The same goes for the Leningrad assault so i cannot emphasize this enough: Sometimes resting for 1 week will do more for you than pushing your units to the brink every single week without a break. So make good use of it.
Another thing to recommend is to make use of the arriving motorized and panzer divisions in a way that achieves surprise. For me that meant breaking through at Valdai and pushing north to Novgorod. Both moves were critical in securing both objectives.
Losses and replacements:
I was quite conservatives with my attacks and i like to preserve my formations. Still, it became clear to me very early that no matter what i do, my Panzer Divisions will be hovering at 55-65% TOE and many tanks will be out of service. What helps there is to try to avoid clashes with enemy AT Brigades or Tank/Mech divisions. Otherwise your losses will mount to the point where your Panzer Divisions are the same strength as a single panzer regiment.
A lot of infantry units in the 16th Army sector were also not doing that well TOE wise. Supply is key to bringing replacements to units and these formations drew the short straw there. So the other advice would be to not be overly aggressive on sectors where supply is lacking and depots are far away. That is a sure way to be left with 50% TOE regiments with which the Soviets can play ping pong during counterattacks.
At the same time, whenever i spotted a very weak Soviet division on the fron line i made sure to attack them. This keeps the enemy on the look out and also causes quite a few losses to the formation, as well as a loss of CPP, Morale and MPs for next turn. So make use of sporadic attacks on weak units even if you are not planning to exploit the oppening. Constant pressure is as important as pocket creation.
Logistics:
I was quite happy with the logistics situation of this game even if there were some shortcomings. For one, in a GC i wouldnt cross the Volkhov river because that is a useless move that really strains your supply chain and has no benefits. The same goes for trying to capture Valdai, i wouldnt do it in a GC unless AGC is having tremendouss success. However since this is a short scenario with certain strange VPs and considering how weakened the Reds were, i went for it and it paid off.
Rail repair from the FBD 4 worked quite well but i have plenty of grievances when it comes to how silly the AI is when doing auto repair. Nevertheless i managed to get the rail up to Pushkin quite fast and then was free to connect the other lines. The no super depot rule meant that forward depots were at most getting 5.5k tonnes of freight and in general during the whole campaign, i dont think we ever crossed 13k tonnes delievered by rail in a week and usual delivery was 12k. This meant that for all forward depots, nothing was left in storage after logistics making things more difficult (but more fun and realistic).
Rail Net:
This is a stark contrast to super depots where you can get 40k tonnes in Pskov in a week and have nothing to worry about.
My advice for the depot set up is this: Only build depots when needed and try to build in key locations (railyards are key). As the troops move forward, drop the priority level of depots in the rear to 1 or 0 and constantly adjust priorities. This allows the depots in the rear to push the freight they have on hand to the forward ones instead of hoarding it. For me this meant that only around 7-8 depots were on a priority that was higher than 0. Adding to that: I usually had only 3 depots on priority 4 and tried to use this sparringly. Putting Army HQs and Army Gr HQs in key locations is also quite important to increase capacity and trucks in the depot.
Another thing to make good use of: Ports. They start operating 1 turn after capture but will not receive supply by ships if you connect them to the rail net (very counterintuitive and unrealistic but thats a discuession for another time). Keep in mind that any port set to not 0 priority will get freight shipped to it, which means less freight for the forward ports as the nr of cargo ships is limited. What this means is that once you move your units past the Daugava after clearing pockets, you can set both ports in Lithuania to 0 and set Riga to 4 to maximize the supply being sent there. Once Parnu becomes operational, lower Riga to 2 and set Parnu on 4. Once Tallinn becomes operational, set Riga to 0 (it usually stores a lot of freight and you can use the air base there), Parnu to either 1 or 0 and Tallinn to 4. This guarantess you will get 10k tonnes to this port and that will help your supply situation in the area. As the rules currently stand however, i think connecting a port to the main rail net is not worth it (except for Riga).
On setting HQ priorities: The Panzer Corps were always kept on priority 3. This is more than enough for your forces to stock up on supply and not completely burn through their trucks, thus allowing them to have good MPs. The Infantry Corps were set at priority 2, although as supply got better i set one of my Assault Corps at priority 3. I only used priority 4 once during the whole game: before the Leningrad attack for 1 of the Corps. Other than that i would say keep your finger away from it, it does more harm than good.
Also make use of your transport planes and drop supplies where needed. Aim for targeting ABs to maximise what is received.
In Total during the campaign we lost 8.1k trucks. 10.4k trucks were captured from the Soviets so just from capturing we had a surplus of 2.3k. 15k trucks were in repairs by T16.
Air Game:
Tyronec didnt use his airforce for much so as the game went on i started to send the LW to the reserve too. This saved trucks and made my supply situation easier. I used the LW in the early turns to do some GS and NP. Naval patrol still takes a massive toll on your AOG even when using low intensity, so use that sparringly (it does need to be changed IMO). GS continues to take too heavy losses from Flak so i cut down on it as well. The last usage (on Leningrad) was more to see how the game would handle it and i wasnt that happy with the high losses.
Losses for a NP AD:
The most important AD the Axis will run is going to be recon. For this, absolutely do not let the AI do its thing as it has a tendency to shoot itself in the leg. My set up was 3 days a week (spaced apart), 1-2 sorties a day, minimum planes 5, required planes 5-7, Target: Interdiction: very high, Unit: low. Take care to also set up the staging air base so that it is close to the AOG on mission.
Recon set up:
In general in this scenario, the VP penalties are way too heavy for aircraft and this is the only scenario where it is this way. At 1 VP point per aircraft lost, you might as well not use the LW at all. This is the wrong incentive to give to the player as it stops being "do not abuse your air force or you will get penalized" and becomes "do not use your air force or you will get penalized). Changing the VP weights to 2 aircraft lost, 1 VP (same as for AFVs) would be better.
2
5% of the VP points the Soviets scored were from Axis aircraft losses. And this is from a game were there was barely any air activity.
Thanks to everyone for reading and feel free to ask any questions you may have. Hope this has been helpful.
