GC 1941: Beethoven (Soviet) vs jubjub (Axis)

[Beethoven1]

jubjub suggested that the reason for the interdiction not being ineffective was perhaps flak.



Close-ups of the two screenshots:





There was not much flak in either of these two. Just 12 flak in each of the battles, and in the 2nd battle only 3 bombers were lost, but it still had no effect from 100 bombers interdicting. They were also right from the front, I don't think I was particularly flying over flak in other units to get to the bombing missions.

FWIW most of the missions were flown out of Smolensk/Vyazma (the nearest airbases for the various different places bombed). All the bombers have as high experience/morale/etc as it gets for Soviets, because I have been sending anything under 50 of either of those to national reserves every turn.

Another explanation could also be the weather (Hardradi also suggested this), since it is raining. If so, maybe it is still worth doing interdiction in good weather, just don't bother when it is raining though.

[Beethoven1]

Axis Turn 2

The results of the devastation are in. In total, the Soviets lost 615,000 troops. An additional 150,000 troops are also isolated. The isolated troops include:

a) 23,000 men in a small pocket near Riga with 1 border guard, 3 infantry divisions, and 1 AT brigade. These should all be easy to un-isolate next turn, though ultimately they will be doomed.

b) 34,000 men in a small pocket on the land bridge, 4 infantry divisions and 1 airborne brigade. These I highly doubt will be broken out.

c) 37,000 men in the southern front units that are always doomed if Germany doesn't unlock the southern front. There is also 1 southern front infantry division of 10,000 men which is ZOC locked and doomed in a future turn (again to be expected), so let's call that 47k men. These are 4 infantry divisions, 1 mountaineer, and 2 border guards.

d) But in addition, there are about 73,000 men of the Southwestern Front who are not isolated, but close enough that they will ultimately be doomed (2 mech, 3 airborne, 3 infantry, 2 border guard, 2 tanks).


a) and b) don't actually seem all that bad as a price for defending forward as aggressively as I did in the north and the center. And c) goes with the territory and there was no way to avoid those regardless of what I did. But d) is worse, and to a large extent probably could have avoided. I would estimate that maybe only 20-30k of those were truly doomed regardless of what I had done.

We can also do some math here to figure out how many of the 615k losses roughly were from the troops pocketed on turn 1, and how many losses I took in combat other than in the turn 1 pockets. Since I have 150k isolated in this turn and 23+34k+37k = 94k of those are from new pockets, that means 150k - 94k = 56k of the troops isolated on the first turn are still isolated. 520k troops were isolated on turn 1, so since 56k troops isolated on turn 1 were still isolated, that means that 520k - 56k = 464k of the total 615k losses I took these turn were from pocketed units. That means the rest of my losses were 615k - 464k = 151k losses from non-pocket combat this turn. That is a pretty significant toll from standing and fighting relatively forward, in particular when you also add in the 23k+34k+73k = 130k who are now either pocketed or doomed. Although of course if I were not losing those troops now, I would lose many of them in subsequent turns when Germany would be able to fight with higher CPP, and not need to rest as much etc.



Only 5 generals were killed, and none of them were good ones. Maybe it would have been different if I had not wasted AP on leader changes to protect the very best leaders, maybe it would not have, we will never know.



Pavlov was also executed.





North:

jubjub managed to find the one place on the riverline that I did not have ZOCed. I only had a depleted AT brigade in the yellow highlighted area, and since it was depleted it would not have had a ZOC, so he could cross more easily. I didn't have quite enough units to be able to stick a non-depleted unit there, and so jubjub would have been able to cross at the blue hex without it costing a lot of extra movement points due to the ZOC. I was hoping that jubjub would not be able to tell from recon that this unit was depleted and so wouldn't realize that he could cross there. This seems to be what enabled the Riga pocket that you can see:



It will be a shame to lose those extra units, but it is really not very many men and it looks like they can re-connect for at least one additional turn quite easily. Overall, it looks like the north is now pretty much 1 full turn behind schedule, as germany can have advanced basically this far on turn 1.

Whereas on turn 1 there were only 2 German units north of the Daugava/Dvina, 6 different motorized/Panzer divisions now crossed. So either jubjub changed his plans to send more units north than he was intending earlier after seeing how forward my defense was and the opportunity to encircle a few units, or else he was being very conservative with his advance to the north on turn 1.


Here is another version of this same screenshot, where I highlighted all the depleted units and battles that were shattered results. You can see there are quite a few depleted + shatters.



Most of the other battle results were routs, with the very occasional retreat. Overall across the whole map, there were 44 routs, 11 shatters, 20 retreats, 3 scouted, and 1 holds. Also 53 surrenders (those would be mostly the turn 1 pocket battles).



Now here is the same thing for the center.

You can see, there are a LOT of depleted units. It seems like the new combat system in the new patch may be resulting in Soviet units not being able to fight at all in the early turns relative to the earlier patches. I could and would fight with unready units, but it is simply not possible (technically) to fight with shattered and depleted units. They can't even function as speed bumps, since they won't even rout, they will just be displaced. One of the hexes even has 3 depleted units on a single hex, and there is also another depleted unit just to the north that I cut out of the screenshot:






All quiet in Gomel/swamps/Kiev:





Sadly, the south was not similar to Gomel/Kiev in that respect:

I had 3 layers of defense, plus the forts as speedbumps ahead of those 3 lines of defense in depth, but 3-4 lines of defense is not enough. If Germany would have advanced just one or two hexes less, I would be able to retreat most units out, but Germany advanced just ever so slightly too far. I could try a counterattack on the 2 regiments in the 5=5 stack, but probably too many of the units outside are depleted, and even if it worked it would probably just end up dooming even more units. I might still try it, will have to look at what is possible when I can see the MP (post air phase):



Initially I thought the issue in the south especially may have been that I was not getting combat delays with the new combat system causing more routs and defeats in hasty attacks with >10 to 1 final CVs. However, jubjub said that in fact most battles were getting combat delays:



Also remember that Germany almost got through my land bridge defense, despite it being 5 layers deep.

So the reason for the minor disaster in the south seems to have been a combination of bombing apparently reducing German MP as much as I had hoped and Germany simply having too many MP. I didn't really want to defend as far forward as I did, but there were a couple of straggler divisions without MP to retreat further that I wanted to try to protect. In retrospect, it looks like that was a mistake.

What I probably should have done is to get whatever units had sufficient MP to the black area and put a couple of speed bumps there. Even if you don't defend at all, pretty much the furthest Germany can reach in one turn from Proskurov is the red area. Meanwhile, the blue circled hex was 9 hexes from the nearest German unit at Proskurov, so any units that could reach there could have been transferred to reserves/theater boxes.

As far as I remember, most or all of the tank units (which are now seemingly doomed) had enough MP to get to the blue hex, but I left them there to try to protect a couple of retreating infantry units. Unfortunately, this is a server game, so I cannot now go back and check, but I think if I had just tried to get everything out that I could have, I would have only had to abandon a couple of divisions to certain destruction. I also had rail capacity to be able to move some more units out by rail, though I am not sure exactly how many that is. I don't think that more than 3-4 units were truly doomed if I had truly just gotten everyone out that I could get out. Many of the units defending there were not retreating at all, but were moved in to try to help defend from the north and east (all of the airborne and probably at least half of the infantry).

But, after I played a game where I totally abandoned the south ("the southern strategy" AAR) against Bread, people said I shouldn't have done that and should have at least tried to put up some sort of delaying defense. So I did try to do that here.

My conclusion is that it is probably better to simply retreat and/or transfer everything possible on turn 1 to theater boxes, at least if the Germany player knows what they are doing like jubjub does. I think I had it pretty close to right in my "southern strategy" game.

However, at least it is not my 60+ morale units that are doomed there, I made sure those got away. There are a couple units with morale a bit above 50, but these are not my really high morale units.



Further to the south in Bessarabia, things went a lot better, and basically as expected. Though it is not good to lose these units in the southern front, there was no possible way to save the ones that I will lose. Meanwhile the extra units that I moved in along the Dnester river (circled in red) accomplished their intended purpose of preventing the Romanain armored division from being able to advance along the blue arrow and link up with the Germans. This also ensured the the two unnits in the yellow highlighted hexes could not be encircled and were routed away:





Another quick look at a little bit of the Baltics after looking at my options there.



Ideally I would like to fight here to at least put up a speed bump, but with 3 of the units there depleted, and 6 German motorized/Panzer divisions having now crossed the Daugava, there is not much real possibility to do so. Again, I can't fight with depleted units, whether I want to or not. The 3 units to the back circled in red are not depleted in part because they had not had a chance to make it to the front, yet so they didn't see combat yet (also applies to the 1=3 security unit). Also, some infantry has pretty much reached the front, and while I would like to put speed bumps against Panzers, there is not much point speed bumping if I will get attacked by infantry rather than Panzers.

Anyway, so of the 5 units with some sort of actual or possible exposure to combat last turn, 3 (60%) are now depleted.

However, Virtsu is 9 hexes from the nearest German unit, and on a connected rail. So any units that can reach that hex (which includes all of the depleted units) can be transferred to reserve/theater boxes. So I guess I will have to do that rather than fight, there is really no choice.

[Beethoven1]

I come bearing fresh news from the front from turn 6!

Comrades,

Generals Zhukov, Rokossovsky, and Malinovsky have launched a tremendous counterattack upon the German host that has been floundering near Smolensk, failing to move a significant distance in the direction of Moscow.

(I have some divisions that have Malinovsky as their Corps commander, Tuchachevsky as their Army commander, and Zhukov as their Front commander - talk about stacking good commanders!)

Although the weather was rainy and light mud covered the ground, making attacking more difficult and resulting in a combat penalty to the attacker of (I think) 25%, our elite Comrade Generals were not deterred. Nor were they deterred by the fact that the light forested terrain provided some cover for the Germans and made it a bit easier to defend. Despite all this, our Comrade Generals pressed forward with the assault.

They attacked with 9 divisions of the Western Front amassing 118,954 men, 1353 guns, and 1405 armored fighting vehicles with more than 60 combat value (it would have been more than 80 if not for the mud if I have the math right).



The Germans had pathetically attempted to fortify the hopelessly weak 17th Panzer division with three attached Stug Battalions, but it was easily overwhelmed by the Soviet assault, which had been preceded by aerial bombardment by the VVS. The 17th Panzer division was so badly beaten and mauled that it retreated not just 1 hex, not just 2 hexes, but three hexes. The 17th Panzer division lost fully 15% of its men, while the attacking Soviets suffered only 2% losses of their men. The Germans lost more than half of their artillery pieces, while the Soviets only lost only 6% of theirs. And the Germans lost fully two thirds of their Armored Fighting Vehicles, while the Red Army attacking force lost less than a quarter of its AFVs. After this drubbing, it is expected that the 17th Panzer will be incapable of performing effectively in combat for many months, and perhaps even for the rest of the war. If it does show up on the front line any time soon, it can expect another drubbing.

In addition to the losses just from the battle itself, the Germans are expected to suffer additional retreat losses for having retreated so many hexes (I guess this happens in the logistics phase or something, idk?).

As a result of this tremendous victory, the morale of the attacking Western Front divisions, many of which already had very high morale even beforehand, has been increased and is now even higher, and it is expected that as a result of this victorious combat experience and increased morale they will perform even better in their future attacks. There are even some who have begun talking about forming an elite "Guards" army, although this is still in the preliminary planning stages.



Meanwhile in the south, Generals Vatutin and Batov have also launched a successful counterattack, although it was smaller in scale than the Smolensk region counterattack. They have horribly mauled the Romanian Armored division, which has lost more than half of its tanks and is unlikely to be fit for combat for many months (to the extent it was ever fit for combat in the first place). Thanks to assistance from General Budyonny's highly prized cavalry, this successful attack has not merely defeated a single Romanian Armored division, but also has resulted in the encirclement of two German Panzer divisions (the 9th and 16th Panzer), along with the supposedly elite Wiking SS division - which is another of jubjub's lies, since if it were so elite, surely it would not have been encircled. As Vatutin and his Southwestern Front mechanized forces come to the aid of the beleaguered Southern Front and mass near the Crimea/lower Dnieper region, the encircled German forces now face total destruction.





Though some may claim that it is actually our Red Army troops that are being encircled by the Germans in this area, these are lies and fabrications, and any who have been spreading such rumors have been engaging in un-Soviet behavior, and will be dealt with accordingly. In addition to that, any reports that in the Axis turn 6 the Red Army suffered 170,000 casualties from combat and a further 120,000 Soviet troops are cut off are likewise lies and fabrications of the most ludicrous variety. We send our congratulations to Comrade General Vatutin and Comrade General Batov and their men, along with and await their future victories with bated breath. We are also pleased to report that the morale of two of the three attacking divisions was raised as a result of their successful attack in the south. After all, whose morale would not be raised, having encircled two Panzer divisions and an SS motorized division?

Accordingly, it becomes clearer with each passing week that the war is rapidly turning in our favor and jubjub's Wehrmacht is now on the back foot.

[Beethoven1]

When I was attacking the 17th Panzer division near Smolensk, I kept hitting print screen repeatedly to take screenshots. As such, I could take those to make an animation, a live shot if you will of the 17th Panzer division getting whacked so hard that it lost 2/3 of its AFVs and retreated 3 entire hexes. I could really watch this all day:



I find it is good to focus on just watching this, rather than thinking about the 177k losses I took this turn from direct combat and the 120k isolated.

This animation is just so soothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1eIWEa5ffQ

Let's watch it again:



If you listen closely, I think you can hear the whack and also the thud.

[Beethoven1]

Axis Turn 3 (June 29, 1941)

Soviets took 220k losses this turn, which doesn't seem particularly bad to me given that I started out the previous turn with 150k isolated. I have 90k isolated this turn, most of whom are the troops in the south that were doomed-but-not-yet-isolated last turn.

In the Baltics, the Panzers spread out to grab a variety of territory in different directions. I deployed my reserves near Narva spread out a bit so that I would have an option of potentially moving some of them forward, depending on what jubjub did. He clearly did not send everything into the Baltics, so I now have the option of moving some of those divisions forward, either to try to get in the way of that Panzer division, or maybe to put something in Tallinn. He could have gotten Tallinn undefended last turn. I am actually not sure if I will put any troops in Tallinn yet, but I do have the option now.

It is also notable that he routed all the (generally low quality) troops near Riga that he isolated on turn 1 rather than re-isolating them. They were just getting in the way (I tried to put them in the way as much as possible).

He also went up to Pskov, but not over the Velikaya (probably not enough MP).



Velikie Luki fell (not particularly surprising given how lightly it was defended). However, it looks like there are now Germans actually in the city, so I may be able to walk back into it at least for one turn. Losing VL is a minor annoyance because I now can't unload any of the Moscow militia using the VL railyard, but I would rather lose it than have my line broken through in the Smolensk area and then have Germany racing forwards into Yelnia/Vyazma like can happen in many games.

You can also see two new divisions deployed behind his lines. I may make mischief with at least the rifle division. The tank division is not actually a reserve division, it is a scheduled division that is supposed to deploy in VL, but it deployed near Idritsa instead since VL was taken (you would think it should be to the east). But that tank division only has 5000 men and 150 trucks, so it is eligible for potential human sacrifice.



In Smolensk, jubjub apparently went with a plow-through-the-wall approach, but halfheartedly. Either that or maybe the combat delay stopped him from going further even more than I thought it would.

The bad piece of news here is that German infantry has caught up. The good piece of news is that now that they have caught up, they don't have admin movement to go further. Another good piece of news is the German Panzers/motorized here have been fighting pretty continuously for 3 turns now, so they should be fatigued and generally low on CPP etc.



Still no real sign of interest in Gomel, there is just that one Panzer division to the north. They didn't even bother to take back Bobruisk. Soviet propaganda is trumpeting the fact that Bobruisk was liberated and held as a fabulous victory.



My low quality units I left around Vinnitsa to ZOC his mobile troops were routed out rather than being isolated also. He also didn't advance as far as I think he could have, which I am happy with, because it means less admin movement next turn. Maybe it also means some more CPP, but all I really want here is to delay long enough so that I can deploy enough low quality units to at least have a continuous line on the Dnieper, so this serves my purposes I think.



On that note, I have all these reserves. I can't deploy the orange ones until next turn, but that is 1 cavalry I can deploy this turn and 17 more I can deploy next turn.



Also the green highlighted units are the only reserves I deployed in the south. A tank and a mech (my only tank/mech reserves) and 2 AT brigades. The AT brigades will be used for sacrifice, the tanks will be used to counterattack and destroy Panzers. Finally, it is worth noting that basically all my troops in the south are on 65% max TOE. Over time, more tanks will gradually be migrating to the south, since that is the best tank country.



I am also generally moving my good generals towards the center/north, but Purkaev is still stuck in the swamps from way back on turn 1. I had assigned him to an army in the swamps ONLY because the leader had a low political rating and so I could afford to, and because this would make sure that Purkaev would not get assigned by the AI to an encircled army and then get killed as a result. Also, all of my construction units have been sent to the center/north, because digging forts in the center/north means you can actually somewhat hold ground, whereas digging forts in the south means that you are digging a fort, then retreating before it is completed, and then digging another fort, then retreating before it is completed, etc.



The plan at this point is basically for high quality troops (by Soviet standards) with good generals and fortifications to defend in the north/center, while we simply delay and retreat in the south (but without abandoning the south, and maintaining a line of defense with the ability to counterattack with tanks to keep Germany honest).

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 3 (June 29, 1941)

In the north, unfortunately my recon didn't fly. I think that is because I re-based the recon planes further back (sort of had to to stop them from being potentially overrun). It appears, however, that his mobile forces are spread out rather than concentrated in any particular place.



Ideally I would have liked to be more aggressively defending in Estonia, but I don't have that many troops and lack of recon makes that dangerous. In Pskov, notice that my troops are not defending in the forts, they are defending behind the forts. If I defended in the forts, I would have fewer hexes covered and he could just go around them. Whereas this way I can at least assure that jubjub will incur some combat delay in attacking the forts and then ZOC movement penalties crossing the river. I think my defense should be enough to avoid everything getting wiped out and causing some delay in the advance, which is the main goal here. It is possible that if Pskov itself is attacked head on it might fall, because it has only one division in it (albeit a strong division with high morale and defensive CV of 30). And if that does happen, it will probably be with a deliberate attack, eating up more movement points. While I would like to hold Pskov, the more important thing is establishing a solid defensive line in general over the next few turns.

If all the mobile forces were concentrated in one place, this would be more dangerous, but that is also partly why I left 2 units out a bit in front in Estonia, in the hopes that German attention is somewhat split between Pskov and Estonia.

All of my infantry reserves (about 13 divisions) are being deployed in the north again and will arrive next turn, because although I am still skeptical that he really wants to go for Leningrad, there is a full Panzergruppe up here and, with infantry due to start arriving at the front next turn, I need to take that seriously.




South of Pskov, I scouted with a tank. Without recon I ran into an infantry unit, sadly he seems to have protected his flanks here. There was also a unit in the red marked hex, because the hexes didn't flip when I moved next to them from ZOC.



However, his flanks were not so well protected near Velikie Luki. My recon did fly there, and scouting didn't turn up unexpected ZOC. So a Panzer and motorized division were encircled in Velikie Luki The tank division that cut him off was the tank division that is supposed to deploy in Velikie Luki on turn 2. However, since Velikie Luki had fallen, it did not deploy in Velikie Luki itself, and instead deployed around the hills to the West of Velikie Luki (yes, to the west, not to the east). I might have had some other units that could have also done it if that tank division had not spawned to the west of VL(I had some tanks around Pskov with higher MP), but am not 100% sure. Those other tanks also would have been less expendable, this was a pretty expendable tank with very few men, vehicles, and AFVs. Worthy of sacrifice.



Meanwhile at Smolensk, the Voroshilov offenisve achieved fantastic success, pushing back the Germans on the land bridge and encircling a Panzer division. Extensive defenses (By which I mean, preparations for the great offensive which will cross the Dnieper) were re-established along the Dniepr.



The most useful unit in the Red Army, yes that 1,805 man strong Rifle division's position is circled in the screenshot. It took up a key position holding the encirclement of the Panzer division, and has been ordered to destroy the Panzer division next turn.



I had considered pulling back more from the Dnieper, but didn't do so because:

a) While the infantry is definitely starting to catch up, it does not appear to be all the way there yet, and many/most units will probably not have MP to attack across the Dnieper (if I am wrong about that, this would significantly change my calculus).
b) Taking back land on the land bridge allowed me to actually end up making my line straighter, so that I could have depth in every direction more easily.
c) Germany is not yet across the Dnieper and, if I stick around, will have to expend significant MP both in attacking across the river and in crossing it. And once they are across, they will have to attack other units behind in order for any other units to be able to cross without the ZOC movement penalty.
d) The center has fewer mobile divisions than usual. All of PG4 is in the north, some of PG2 was sent south way back on turn 1, three units are encircled and won't receive supplies/fuel this turn, And pretty much all of the remaining divisions attacked last turn and have been attacking in previuos turns as well, and will be low on CPP and supply (relatively), and high on fatigue. I would not be surprised if Germany rests the mobile units in the center this turn (except for breaking out of encirclements), although that is not assured.

I will probably have to retreat next turn though, even if (in some ways, ESPECIALLY if) he rests his Panzers.



Further south, I am able to get away with a lighter defense, partly due to the swampy terrain, and partly due to the fact that he simply has not advanced into the basically undefended terrain, but mostly because that is not the main route to Moscow. I also flipped back hexes near Bobruisk (the great Bobruisk offensive) so that he has to expend more MP to reah the river, making it less likely jubjub either can or will cross here this turn, even if he wanted to. Some part of the defense here is also a bluff with depleted units. In general though, you can see that most of my defense is not a bluff with depleted units in most areas:




In the south, my defense is not exactly strong, but I do at least have a defense (and with a continuous front line). There are a lot of routed/depleted units up around Cherkasy and Kiev that didn't get un-routed last turn, need them to at least become unready so they can be deployed in defensive positions.



I scouted jubjub's units, which seem to consist mostly of divisions which are still pretty strong. There will be opportunities for counterattacking later, but at the moment he is still too strong and I am too weak. As the line solidifies in the north and center, I will start transferring more troops south and start being able to do that more over the next 5 turns or so.

I may need a few more units along the southern Dnieper next turn, in which case I will probably rail some low quality units south from the center, in particular if I retreat from the Dnieper next turn in the center. I also built forts in Cherkasy and Kirovograd in previous turns.


Further south, same general story. I am not sure if I retreated far enough in this part, and apparently from the screenshot I forgot to move a HQ. Hopefully it does not have anyone important in the HQ:

[loki100]

really good thoughtful updates ... always like it when someone sets out their logic rather than just dumps a load of maps and tables [:)]

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: loki100

really good thoughtful updates ... always like it when someone sets out their logic rather than just dumps a load of maps and tables [:)]

I am glad you like it. For similar reasons, I have enjoyed reading your AARs as well!

[Beethoven1]

Loki had really great timing with that comment... because... this update for Axis turn 4 is ONLY going to have maps, no real textual description of my thought process etc.

The reason for that is partly because this was discussed somewhat in the earlier real-time updates, but it is also because I did have some stuff written, but I can't share what I have written yet for certain reasons of operational security. However, I will post what I wrote up at a later time.

So never fear, Loki, although this update will be less thoughtful, other future updates will be more similar to e.g. the previous one.

So for now, just some broad overview maps, where you can see the devastation wrought by jubjub on his turn 4:


Axis Turn 4 (July 13, 1941)

North:



Center:



South:

[Beethoven1]

And now for a short trip a few turns into the future, to turn 7...

Soviet Air Phase Turn 7

All of my level bombers had been under Kharkov Air Command on turn 6. I had just deployed a lot of them to Crimea at the end of turn 6, for a special mission... the bombing of Ploesti! CaptainZero had given me the idea of bombing Ploesti.

But unfortunately, at the start of turn 7, all my level bombers had disappeared. Initially, I thought that they had been transferred to reserve, because they were invisible on the map. I was disappointed, because this meant I could not bomb Ploesti, and with the Axis about to break into Crimea and presumably overrun it pretty quickly, it was now or never.

However, when Kharkov Air Command disbanded, it apparently re-assigned them to Southwestern Air Command, but at the same time made them appear invisible on the map so that they did not show up in the SW Air Command AOG. Once I figured out that they were actually still there, but invisible, I realized I could still bomb Romania's oil.

According to this thread, bombing the oil in Ploesti/Romania will probably have absolutely 0 effect on Axis oil/fuel availability:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5107581

I was sort of vaguely aware that it might not really have any effect before reading thatt thread, but I thought it might eventually have some effect (maybe in 1942/43 Axis would run low on fuel a bit earlier than otherwise).

So it may be/probably is a total waste to do this. Nevertheless, it is historical, and IMO Soviet players should have some incentive to do this, and so I am gonna do it, even if it is effectively only role play. Maybe in a future patch some sort of effect will be added of Germany's stock of fuel running too low in 1942/43... That certainly seems like it would be more realistic than there being absolutely no effect whatsoever of the bombing... I can only hope...


And so, on August 3, 1941, hundreds of Soviet level bombers took off from Sevastopol and south out into the black sea. They were headed for Ploesti, as well as nearby oil production facilities in Campina, Brazi, and Dacia Romana.

Soviet bombers bomb Ploesti:


They were flying on carefully planned routes, going south first before going west, taking a longer route rather than the most direct route, so as to stay clear of Axis fighters.

Soviet air commanders were confindent that due to these routes and due to lack of radar Axis fighters would not detect the raid and be able to detect it over the ocean (though they might near Ploesti itself). Moreover, BF-109s shouldn't really have range down there.

And so the Soviet pilots were quite surprised when an armada of 36 Bf-109s intercepted them over the middle of the Black Sea. Not only had they detected the raid, but they also had scrambled 36 fighters and gotten them all to the right place to intercept a moving target over the middle of the sea, nearly 100 miles from land, all without radar etc:



Additional fighters intercepted them over land, which seemed more plausible at least:



Over the course of the week, many additional raids were conducted. Raids continued to be flown every day until every last one of the 300+ Soviet level bombers that was in range of Ploesti was shot down. Not a single Soviet bomber would survive the bombing of Ploesti.



According to bomb damage assessments from recon aircraft, oil production in Ploesti had sustained about 50% damage. So the German oil stock should drop more quickly, and to a lower level now. Whether that has any effect whatsoever on the German war effort in this game can only be changed if a future patch changes that and makes it have an effect:



In addition to this, we did two other raids. First, we bombed the Totenkopf division near Pskov:

I would have liked to have bombed some of the other mobile divisions, but I figured it probably would not be worth it because they would probably be turned into useless interdiction missions. I bombed Totenkopf because at least if it turned into interdiction, it might cost a unit or two 1 or 2 MP on this hex heading towards Valdai. Sure enough, it turned 3 of the 4 bombing missions into interdiction. 1 of them actually even had +1 interdiction effect, so this hex will be interdicted, not that I expect that to have any real impact:



I also bombed this one swamp hex near Smolensk which had 2 motorized divisions on it. I figured that if it changed to interdiction it would actually be somewhat useful, since this was a swamp hex and was where the german advance along the main route to Moscow was furthest. 4 missions of 100 bombers were launched, 2 of which turned into interdiction. Despite having 100 bombers in all the missions, both of the 2 interdiction missions added +0 interdiction, so they were utterly and totally useless. Apparently Soviets need even more than 100 bombers to get any interdiction effect whatsoever on even a single hex. The ones that actually remained ground attack were fairly useless also, killing a total of 25 Germans and 1 gun between them with 200 bombers. At least the ground attack ones disrupted a small number of German elements though (total of 87 elements, although most of these were AA) and might lower the bombed units' MP very slightly:



Since the only somewhat useful bombing mission (ground attack) is now very often totally useless, I think what I probably will do from here on out is pretty much to park my level bombers and wait. I may still use them very occasionally for ground attack, mostly in the rare condition where if it does interdiction it might actually be slightly useful. That probably won't happen often though, since interdiction is only really useful in bombing rough/heavy forest/swamp terrain or potentially a 1 hex wide river crossing. And if there is ever reason to use them for naval interdiction I will use some for that, though I don't particularly expect that to happen too much. I could also use them for ground support, in which they are actually useful, but I don't want them to fly without getting escorted and get massacred as a result, and am too lazy to try to manually manage them and make sure they are always at the right range.

Most likely, some sort of patch will at some point come out before the game is over make at least one of these missions that level bombers can perform more useful, at some point. So at this point, I think I will pretty much just stop using my bombers. If a patch comes out that makes them useful, then I will have some to use. But even if no patch comes out, by not using my bombers I won't really have lost much of anything other than some ground attack missions which are turned into interdiction missions which provide +0 interdiction.

And what is more, I will be denying German fighters some easy kills by not flying my bombers, so their new pilots should gain less experience.


I also lost 65 recon planes, mostly to fighters like this:



In a previous patch, recon planes used to not really get intercepted like this, I remember CarlKay saying that you should even order fighters NOT to escort recon planes in order to avoid operational losses. That seems to have changed, and losses are high enough against German fighters that it seems not really viable to run un-escorted recon any more, if the results are going to be like this. And even if they were escorted, I doubt it would turn out all that well against German fighters. In practice, Any significant enough number of Soviet fighters that would actually be able to protect recon planes against German fighters are rarely going to be able to escort recon flights any distance behind the lines, so in practice this probably means I won't really do much more recon (unless something changes).


Total air losses come out to 489, most of which are level bombers lost (pointlessly) bombing Ploesti. Meanwhile the Axis lost 8 planes and 2 pilots (lol)... But even if loss of oil production has no actual effect on the game, maybe it will enrage jubjub and make him become obsessed with Crimea, much as happened to Hitler.



And with that, don't expect updates about the air war in the foreseeable future, because other than fighters and IL-2s providing ground support, the rest of the Soviet air force will pretty much sit in reserve and build up its stockpile in hopes of a future patch that makes it more useful at doing something or other besides giving German fighters free kills and raising their experience.

On the other hand, bombing Ploesti was some good historical roleplay.

[Beethoven1]

This game went into hibernation after the real-world Russian invasion of Ukraine started. I stopped playing WITE2 altogether at that point for a while.

However, we were on turn 12 by that point and I had already written the AAR. So I will go ahead and post that now. Apparently I had only posted through turn 4 (thouht it was more) previously, so there is quite a bit of AAR to post.

We are not currently resuming the game because jubjub had sttarted some other games in the meantime, but if he has time and interest to resume it later, we can do so. Also hopefully posting the rest of the AAR from the Soviet perspective might help jubjub to judge whether he thinks it is worth continuing.

As a note, at this point the patches are significantly updated from when we were playing these turns. This turn 4 was still on the artillery patch!

So, without further ado...






Soviet Turn 4 (July 13, 1941)

My defense is starting to solidify somewhat in the north, thanks basically entirely to the fact that I deployed all my reserves here last turn. They were deployed and then I gave them air supply on an airfield, which did a very good job of giving them enough supply to raise their CVs to passable levels. The most likely avenue of attack is along the blue lines, so that is where my defense is deepest. Roughly the new units are highlighted, you can see that they are almost the only units with any sort of passable CVs.



I considered retreating more (what most players do most of the time here). After all, I am defending to a significant degree in clear terrain and light forest, so why not retreat back to the heavy forest and swamp at Luga? I didn't for two reasons:

1) There is a chokepoint between the rough terrain and the heavy woods circled in red. Basically the German advance has to go through there, or else it will go through bad terrain. So I should be able to put low quality expendable troops in the chokepoint and generate combat delays to stop the German advance from breaking through.

2) In the new patch, I think it is a lot more possible for Soviets to lose Leningrad, because Germany can rout Soviet units, including ones defending in strong terrain in forts. In my mind, the only sure way to stop that is to make sure the grind towards Leningrad begins as far away from Leningrad as possible. In particular, I need to buy time for enough reserves to deploy and get supplied, and for all the construction units Soviets get on turn 4 to deploy, so that forts can start actually getting dug. By defending now on bad defensive terrain, I can hopefully ensure that when I get pushed back towards the good defensive terrain in a few turns, that I can actually effectively dig forts by that point.

Another 16 divisions of reserves are coming next turn. That sounds like a lot, but is only 1/3 of my massive turn 4 reserves this, and I am more concerned that it could be too little than that it could be too much.

Whenever the line truly solidifies, if possible I will start sending weaker divisions away to reinforce further south, while strong divisions sit in the forts and get pushed back towards Leningrad as slowly as possible.




In Velikie Luki, I retreated into the heavy forest. My defense is a lot lighter there, but the terrain is much worse for Panzers. I somewhat doubt that jubjub really wants to go in there with his Panzers. If he does, I will swarm them with infantry over the subsequent turns, and it will use up trucks supplying his troops in the bad terrain.

At Smolensk, like in the north, I am trying to hold my ground as much as possible. The reasons for that are similar, and it is not actually just for the sake of holding the city of Smolensk itself. What is at least as important as Smolensk itself is all the swampy terrain nearby. This is the best defensive terrain on the direct route to Moscow until, basically, you get a few hexes from Moscow where there is lots of heavy woods terrain. The terrain around Vyazma/Rzhev etc is much more light forest. Which is better than clear terrain to defend, but is nothing compared to heavy woods/swamp. So I want to hold onto this terrain as long as I possibly can. And in particular, I want to hold on to at least some of it over the next 1-2 turns or so, because then I will start getting more reserves and more construction units which can build forts. And if I get forts built, even the clear terrain between Vyazma and Rzhev becomes at least somewhat defensible. Whereas in the first 5 turns or so, Soviets have almost no capacity to build forts, that will change particularly over the next 2 turns.

There are two obvious routes of attack (the blue arrows). The northern route goes through the light forest hex which is highlighted, but has swamps directly to the south and heavy forest to the north. Fortunately, I have managed to build at least a level 1 fort in that one light forest hex. So I am stacking 3 of my strongest units in that hex, as well as other of my strongest units in the swamp hexes below between that and Smolensk, and the line of heavy forest hexes to the north. Ordinarily I would be very wary about stacking multiple units on a hex with Soviets at this stage of the game, but I think I have enough depth and good defensive terrain that it shouldn't come back to bite me. If I am wrong about that, it could be bad...

However, my STRONGEST units are not in that line at all, they are the 8=33 and 5=24 mountaineers further back circled in red. They are sitting in heavy forest/swamp terrain to serve as a last failsafe in the event of a breakthrough, and to start digging forts in that next line of defense. They are also there for use in potential counterattacks, if they are needed later on, and are building CPP. They have the best possible commanders. Malinovsky is their Corps commander. Tolbukhin is their Army commander. And Zhukov is about to be their Front commander. And they are on an assault front.

The other avenue of attack is the southern one to Yelnya. In that area, my defense is weaker in terms of CV, but it is also deeper. The combat delay should be sufficient to stop a breakthrough for this next turn, but after that the defense will need to be stronger. That is why there are another 12 or so reserve divisions being deployed in this general area (I worry that it might not be enough).



Further south towards Gomel, my defense is much, much thinner. Jubjub has not shown much interest in pushing down here so far, which gives me the luxury of hopefully being able to get away with a light defense on my southern flank, for now.



Also note the two circled/highlighted units... Those are my strongest tanks, and they are pretty darn strong. They don't even have full CPP, the CPP is only about half because I delayed making assault fronts because of wanting to make sure leaders did not die on turn 1. So these will get even stronger. And when an appropriate occasion arises, they will be ready to come out and counterattack, commanded by Tolbukhin as their army commander, with Zhukov soon to be their front commander. Maybe I should even bring up Batov from the south to be their corps commander... hmmm...

I forgot/wasn't thinking about interdiction missions during the air phase. It would have probably been useful to do some interdiction at the Dnieper crossings in retrospect



South:

We are starting to form up at the Dnieper. I am hoping to be able to delay for at least a turn or two at the Dnieper, but we will see how much is really possible. Probably not too much, I expect I am deploying another 20 divisions in the south that will arrive next turn (mostly cavalry, however).

My army is a mess organizationally, with some of the "Western" front in the south because I want Vatutin to be in Zhukov's assault army, and because the 26th Army happens to be in the south. I want to put Rokossovsky in charge of the 26th Army in particular, because in 20 turns or so it turns into a shock army. So I put that into the Western Front in preparation for Rokossovsky (whom I do not yet have as an army commander) so that he can also be under Zhukov's front.



I would have liked to have defended further up somewhat, but that just doesn't seem to be viable. If I defended at the Ingul river, that would only be 5 hexes from German Panzers. 5 hexes only cost 15 MP or so, and they surely have at the very least 30 MP and probably up to 40 or so... So I don't see how I could do anything to defend up closer. The only way I could do any more would require that I have some depth here. But that is not possible unless I want to lose Moscow and/or Leningrad. And even if that were possible, it would just result in everything routing, not accomplishing very much of any obvious value.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 5

There seem to be one and a half Panzer groups or so headed north from Pskov. Until they go elsewhere, I have to take the threat to Leningrad, as well as Valdai, seriously.

In the Leningrad area I do not want to retreat any more than I have to, any sooner than I have to. In this current patch (note, referring to old patches 1.02.06 and 1.02.08 which had the strong artillery), I think Soviets can definitely lose Leningrad as we have started to see in some other AARs, because the Axis ability to rout Soviet units is a lot stronger, and it is very difficult for Soviets to stop a determined Axis advance. I think Leningrad can also fall in 1942, if Axis simply grinds forward enough with infantry attacks.

In my opinion, that means it is important to stop/slow down the Axis advance in this direction as early as possible, so that they have to grind forward through a LOT of territory to have any chance at Leningrad. I think I should be able to hold Leningrad in 1941, but my reason for committing a lot to its defense is at least as much to try to make sure it will stay in my hands in 1942 as well, and ideally not get cut off.

My ability to avoid retreating should be aided by the rainy and muddy weather. It is also aided heavily by the large number of fresh reserve divisions highlighted in green. They were also air supplied on the airfields near Lake Ilmen, and these additional units are allowing me to start stacking multiple units in some hexes.



The most likely direction of attack is the black line, which goes through a chokepoint between the hills circled in blue and the heavy woods to the north. I am starting to stack multiple units in front of that, which does mean I have less depth, but I think that should probably be ok for now given the weather.

The other main possibility is an attack along the red line. The defense is not very favorable for defense there, so I can't really stack as much, consequently I have more depth. I do however have stacks of 2 divisions on some light forest hexes forming my 3rd/4th line of defense. It should be impossible to get through this in one turn in particular with the light mud.



In the center, I am also somewhat defending now to be in a better position to hold Moscow in 1942, but less so than in the north. The crucial difference is that in the north, if we get to 1942 with Leningrad under serious threat, the supply will probably be bad, whereas that should not be the case for Moscow.

I have mixed feelings about my defense here, and I am not sure if I really did the best thing or not, what I did is somewhat risky. I was partly thinking I might be able to get away with this due to the weather next turn, whereas if it were clear and with no light mud.



I am not retreating as much as I could or possibly should, mostly because of the terrain. It seems like it is just good to delay things as much as I can while I have this heavy forest/swamp terrain, because another 4 hexes back or so, and it will be all gone and I will have worse terrain to defend.

First of all, I was tempted to counterattack the 3=7 motorized division. I could have brought a pretty large amount of CV against it, so I "should" have won if I had tried it, but this would have lowered the CPP of my best defending divisions. Sometimes German motorized divisions in particular also seem to get freak hold results, and if that happened it would be disastrous. Also, if I don't attack quite yet, there is a high likelihood I can counterattack next turn with more CPP, and perhaps against a Panzer division rather than a motorized. In the back in the red hexes, I have some of the best units in the Red Army. Two very strong mountaineer divisions are sitting in the swamps (the last real terrain chokepoint) and behind them is the monster 33=41 stack of my two best tank divisions and my best mech division. As long as jubjub doesn't advance far enough to actually be able to attack and defeat these units, they can be used in counterattacks next turn if need be.

In the highlighted hexes, I left 3=22 and 3=23 divisions in heavy forest where there was level 1 forts, moved up a weak division (1=2) into a light forest hex, and have a 6=21 division left in the swamp north of Smolensk.

Since those heavy forest/swamp hexes are ZOC blocking the best route of advance for Axis units along the blue arrows, he either has to attack them, or else they will limit his movement. If he goes around them, he can pocket them (and in the process lose a lot of MP from ZOC movement), but by themselves those are not many divisions. And if he attacks them, there is a high likelihood they will rout, which in general is the expected result of any German attack at this point.

I also have some lesser strong points marked in black. I was a bit concerned in particular about the 4=19 hex which I had triple stacked mostly because it actually has a level 1 fort. However, STAVKA member Bread assured me that it would be safe, and those divisions would probably end up just routing, so they would not be herded into a pocket with the highlighted divisions.



As I am writing this though, I have received an ominous message from jubjub...



That could be bad, very bad, or not actually that bad, depending on what are the units "in the bag" and how far along "so far" is.

But jubjub seems to like sending ominous messages. Last turn he sent this one, before NOT taking Smolensk...



So this message about the 8 in the bag is probably just a nothingburger, or so my trusted military advisor Grigory Kulik assures me.

In the back near Vyazma, I have an entire army of depleted divisions sitting on or near the depots. They are all under one general. If I could rename my armies, I would rename it the Depleted Army. Mostly because of this, it feels like I don't really have enough troops on the direct route to Moscow, at least not troops which are well equipped enough to put up a decent fight...

Here's the depleted army:







My defense further south continues to be lighter, as jubjub still has not shown any interest here and many of the motorized units are stuck in the forests to the north of Smolensk.



And in the actual south, my defense is not that impressive. It is at least something, though. But honestly I am not really sure what, if anything, I am accomplishing down here. I might be better off if I had abandoned more down here, since my Leningrad and Smolensk defenses are both still too weak. But it does look like I should be able to actually form a basic continuous line on the Dnieper, for the 1 turn or so of delay that is worth. But after that, there is not much more to do but just keep retreating.

I do, however, have some tank/mech divisions which are steadily growing stronger under Vatutin and Batov. At some point or other, they will counterattack.

Differently from previous turns, I am leaving a small amount of cavalry and airborne in front of my main line.




In the far south, unfortunately jubjub took Kherson last turn (although it WAS defended by one division. So I just want to try to delay the Dnieper crossing here as much as I can, since this is the only real defensive line, until, well... it is the only real defensive line until there are not really more defensive lines... So a couple of cavalry and AT brigades rush in to try to ZOC lock his leading units. Again, I am not sure this will really accomplish much though, since I can see infantry coming up behind on recon which will have admin movement and probably just rout them away, ominously including the airlanding division coming up from near Odessa.

But what else is a Soviet player supposed to do in the south? It seems like either you can totally abandon the south, or you can have some low quality units try to get in the way a bit like I am doing here, or alternatively you can try to put up a defense with your actual good units, in which case all of your actual good units will be destroyed, and in addition to that you have a good likelihood (at least in this artillery patch, though not necessarily in previous patches) to lose Moscow and/or Leningrad as a result of wasting too many troops in the south.

At any rate, I am trying to not totally abandon the south, while continuing to prioritize the north and center. But I am still not sure this is really the best strategy. Total abandonment might be better. Maybe we can draw more conclusions about that after another 10 turns or so.






I'll post 1 turn a day for the next week or so until we get to turn 12, to spread it out a bit.

[Stamb]

glad to see you back in the game!

[Killmaster851]

Update coming soon

[Beethoven1]

Axis Turn 6 (July 27, 1941)

In Estonia, German infantry approached my troops, which have had a turn or two to get somewhat prepared and supplied, fortunately. I was mildly concerned about the possibility some Panzers could show up here, but that now looks unlikely owing to the push we are about to see north of Pskov. All AGN Panzers/motorized except one are accounted for. So I may pull off a division or two here to help over there, I just intend to roach out the swamps in front of Narva as much as I can. Those are MY swamps, can't just give them to jubjub.



In the area north of Pskov, the light mud didn't obstruct the German offensive as much as I would have liked. There was some fairly serious herding going on here, by the looks of it. 6 divisions plus an airborne brigade are pocketed, with no real possibility of breaking them out. I was anticipating some units could be pocketed, but this is definitely more than I would have liked. Circled in blue, I marked the hexes where those units started (in addition to some that started in the encircled hexes). In one of the hexes, 2 divisions retreated the wrong way into the pocket, in another, a division 2 hexes away managed to somehow retreat twice the wrong direction into the pocket.

I am not particularly a fan of herding as a game mechanic, it doesn't really make sense for whether or not Soviets take historical casualties to be determined by how skilled the German player is at subtly manipulating retreat paths. That said, I can't blame jubjub for doing it, it's all you can do as Germany. But it is annoying playing as Soviets and seeing your troops all retreat the wrong direction, something I am sure jubjub knows all too well from his game against HLYA.

Re-constructing a defense here will now be difficult, because the front is wider than last turn and I now have to protect both towards Novgorod/Luga and Valdai, and I have fewer troops to do it with owing to the encirclement. And yet, I can't afford to retreat here, or elese I expect I will lose Leningrad (with this patch) in 1942, or maybe even in 1941. Fortunately I sent another 4 reinforcement divisions to the map here this turn, but that does not even offset the losses, and I had too few troops here even before to make the defense foolproof. So with 1.5 Panzergroups here, it looks like I will need to keep feeding reinforcements here for somewhat longer.




In the center, I forgot to take a screenshot at the start of the turn, but all I had done here was air-transported a division to evacuate out of Smolensk and counterattacked 1 Panzer division.

6 divisions were encircled at the start of the turn (3 in Smolensk, 3 in the other pocket). This wasn't particularly unexpected, and is the price I pay for not retreating more here and trying to defend for an extra turn or two in the better defensive terrain here.

7,776 men of the 5th Moscow Militia Rifle Division were evacuated by air from Smolensk.



This leaves a small garrison of barely more than 11,000 men surrounded in Smolensk. 11,000 men for a 1 turn delay of the fall of Smolensk seems worth it enough to me.



Jubjub had wanted to surround Kiev before attacking it so as to get POWs, but when he decided to do that he probably thought he would be getting 3 divisions, and probably at least somewhat more than 11,000 men:



Sadly his pocket in the north more than makes up for that



Still nothing here...




I also forgot to take a screenshot in the south before doing any moves, but I hadn't moved much. The Germans slowly approached the Dnieper and Kiev.



My garrison at Kirovograd, the "9th Fortified Region" which I had paid 2 AP for, surrendered to a single German regiment without inflicting a single casualty.



But the 2 AP I spent on the fort was worth it, I think, because the population dropped from 10 to 5 as a result, with extra population evacuated thanks to the fact that there was actually a battle. I think you end up getting an extra 50 manpower per turn as a result from this or something like that (estimated it a while back, so don't remember the exact figures), so it will not take many turns until the extra manpower I have evacuated exceeds those 332 losses, and every turn after that for the rest of the game I will be getting a small amount of extra manpower. It adds up over time though. Hopefully.

And as an added bonus, the railyard is damaged too.




In the far south, I also forgot to take a screenshot at the start of the turn. Here I had already moved some stuff, and was moving forward the highlighted tanks to attack the Romanian armored division.

4 infantry divisions and a cavalry highlighted in red in the half-formed pocket are depleted, which at least means they won't lose too much equipment, I guess, since they ahve already lost most of it. I also am losing some support units not shown. Due to our house rule I can't switch support units to HQs in the semi-pocket to STAVKA, so they can't unrealistically escape. I relocated a HQ that I wanted to get out prior to remembering to screenshot, which destroys the support units as they would be destroyed in the pocket in a turn or two when it is resealed and wiped.



And actually, I am even adding to the casualties by suiciding additional cavalry in between Wiking to ZOC hug the Wiking regiments.

The German advance across the Dnieper here and ZOC locking all these units is really pretty bad for me. They are not good quality units, but still, it is a lot of them. In total this is:

4 depleted infantry divisions
1 depleted cavalry division
1 very low quality mech division
3 non-depleted infantry divisions
1 NKVD border guard
2 cavalry divisions
2 AT brigades, 1 artillery (support units)
1 additional cavalry that I am suiciding from the outside (unless I decide later to suicide even more)

Not counting the additional cavalry suicided, that comes out to 58k doomed men, plus probably 10k from the doomed support units. I guess 68k is not as bad as you might think given the sheer number of units, which is an indication of their distinct lack of quality.

I had wanted to try to at least delay for a turn on the Dnieper here, and I thought that I could at least do that because it was swamp IN ADDITION to being a major river. And at the place where Germany crossed, I also had a unit behind the line to ZOC the crossing so that it would take more MP. But swamp plus major river is really no obstacle to Germany, you can't even delay for a single turn with that apparently. The first German attack across the river was even a hold (with 1:1) final CVs. That should have created additional combat delay above the normal, but even that extra combat delay, along with the MP cost of crossing motorized units across a major river into swamp was apparently not enough to stop Germany from being able to do this:



The second attack, of course, was a rout... and the units of course routed into the half-pocket... This was also a deliberate attack, but the combat delay from this, on top of the earlier hold, was apparently not enough to stop the Germans from going on a rampage ZOC-locking everything in sight:



Considering that this was the swamp part of the Dnieper, just think of what Germany could have done on the non-swamp parts of it. And the Dnieper is the only somewhat defensible terrain in the south. So I think this really goes to show there is a lot of merit to my earlier idea that Soviets should not try to defend the south at all. Just transfer everything to reserve/theater boxes on turn 1, and start with a delaying defense back at maybe Stalino and Kharkov.


What basically seems to have happened is a whole bunch of units routed/retreated into this partial pocket which didn't start there. So more herding type stuff, but with routed units all routing to the wrong place. The blue circled hexes are where my units that routed/retreated into the half-pocket started, you can see that basically everything routed into the semi-pocket:




So, total effective losses for this turn are pretty grim indeed...

1) 177k from actual combat...



2) An additional 115k isolated (this is not counting the troops air evacuated from Smolensk)



3) 68k doomed in the southern non-pocket pocket

That adds up to 360,000 or so casualties resulting either directly from the combat this turn, or indirectly dooming them via isolation or the southern ZOC trap.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 6 (July 27, 1941)

At the end of the turn, my defense in the north ended up better than I was expecting it could at the beginning of the turn, and I have a pretty passable defense despite the significant encirclement the previous turn, at least for now. But I still think it may be inadequate next turn due to the front getting longer.

Unfortunately I only have 2 infantry divisions in reserve to deploy this turn which will arrive next turn. Both are going to the north here to help try to lock it down into the slow grind that I need it to be so that I can hold Leningrad in 1942. This is the lull when Soviet reinforcements slow down after the turn 4 reserve rush, but before the previously destroyed units start coming back.



To strengthen the defense north of Pskov, I had to pull a couple units out of Estonia, and one or two more were also railed up from the center. Also the two units on rail at the very east of the screenshot (circled) in Bologoe were the Kiev garrison last turn... Those are 2 full CPP fully equipped divisions with 14k men each, which I can put down somewhere in the north next turn if needed to secure the defense, or alternatively send back down to the center.

Also in the north I made Zakharkov the commander of a new army near Novgorod, and I gave him a ridiculous number of engineer-sapper battalions. I think either 15 or 18 of them just in his one army. This is the turn where Soviets get a bunch of new engineer units. The north is loaded with those to try to dig forts quickly and get the line quickly stabilized that way, as is the northern part of the center.



In the center, I also think I have a good enough defense, despite the previous encirclements. This turn I have only 3 depleted units in the center, whereas last turn I had a full army almost of depleted units, so that makes a big difference in being able to field enough defense in depth. I do still have a lot of unready units, but at least those are not depleted. Along the double rail line, my defense is strongest.

However, NONE of the units in those strong points are my high morale units, and none of them are units that have wins. Those are all just normal 50 morale units, but which are fully equipped or close to it. Any units that have wins or that have high morale I have tried to put in safer positions to try to make sure they don't get destroyed and can be strong in future turns. Hopefully the line can start to stabilize and become more defensible with forts from all the new engineers, although I will need to keep retreating, hopefully that can be done in a controlled and measured way, where I can retreat to previously prepared forts.



As I mentioned in my earlier real time post, we did a very strong counterattack here this turn against a Panzer division.





One of the mountaineers in that attack has 68 morale, has Malinovsky (5.8 rating) as their Corps commander, and also Tolbukhin (6.2 rating) as their Army commander, and also Zhukov (6.7 rating) as their Front commander (which is also an assault front, of course). And all that by turn 6. The other mountaineer division is slightly worse, with *only* 63 morale. Also the morale of all the tank divisions went up after this attack to 53, with the mech division going up to 52, an an infantry division going up from 53 I think it was before to 56. Not sure if how *good* of a win it is impacts the morale boost you can get from winning a battle.

One StuG battalion was apparently hit so hard in this battle that it SHATTERED:



It is now in the Axis reserve training back up:





South towards Gomel, my defense is still weaker, and also weaker than it was, overall. I am retreating here ahead of the infantry. Without any Panzers here, there is not much need for more defense. If he sends some Panzers down towards here rather than keeping gon pushing directly to Moscow from Smolensk, then I will need to up my game here though. No sign of that so far though.



I was planning to actually defend the Crimea this game rather than abandon it, but I thought I would have one more turn to set that up. My plan for that was busted by the previous turn's breakthrough across the Dnieper and through the swamps in the south. So this turn was really my last opportunity to send units into Crimea, so I railed in as many as I could. It seems pretty clear in general that jubjub is going for port supply in the south, so I'd like to delay that a bit at least in Sevastopol, and make sure that there is no sort of quick/easy strait crossing at Kerch. Even if I hold Sevastopol for a bit, it probably won't help much though, because port supply is very high even from smaller ports, and there is no way I can defend all of those.



Low quality units are screening in front of the ZOC lock, hopefully those along with the need to close the pocket will distract jubjub for one more turn before he is able to push into Crimea and/or towards Rostov along the coast.



I also put all of my depleted units (5 of them) within the half-formed pocket right next to the river crossing. That way if he moves any units across the river crossing, it will displace those depleted units. So if he wants to destroy them, he can't cross the river there with more units. Alternatively they will displace.

And circled in red, an airborne brigade has been ordered to hold Kirovoi Rog. We have complete confidence that they will be successful in this.

Here's the counterattack I did against the Romanian armored division, which isolated 2 Panzer divisions and Wiking for a turn:





Due to the half-formed pocket in the far south and the need to get troops into Crimea quickly, it is simply not possible to maintain a continuous defense around Kiev and the northern side of the Dnieper. All I can muster is a screening defense. Even the one infantry unit between Kiev and Cherkasy is an infantry brigade, not an actual division.



From recon it looks like all that is really heading towards Kiev is infantry, and scouting spotted one of the unidentified Panzers in the south in Kirovograd circled in red (there are only 3 or so Panzer/motorized units in the south that I do not know their locations from battle reports/intel). The Panzers there will probably head towards Dnepropetrovsk and/or Kharkov.

[loki100]

good to read, well written, clear and lots of interesting analysis and ideas

[Veterin]

A very comprehensive AAR with a lot of top tier turns occurring! Out of interest, how can you influence where a unit retreats to. Some very nice pockets being formed form jubjubs "herding"

[Beethoven1]

good to read, well written, clear and lots of interesting analysis and ideas

Glad you like it!

A very comprehensive AAR with a lot of top tier turns occurring! Out of interest, how can you influence where a unit retreats to. Some very nice pockets being formed form jubjubs "herding"

When units retreat, they tend to retreat in certain directions.

1) In general Soviet units have a bias to retreat to the east (but this can easily be overcome by other factors.
2) Units can only retreat to hexes that are not enemy controlled. So this means you can make some retreat paths impossible by getting behind units and cutting off their retreat paths to their rear.
3) Units also tend to retreat away from the units that attack them, so if you attack from one direction you can somewhat control where they go.
4) Units don't like to retreat into an enemy zone of control. So if you want them to retreat into one particular hex/direction, you can sometimes achieve this by withdrawing units from right next to the hex you want them to retreat to.

[Beethoven1]

Axis Turn 7 (August 3, 1941)

The weather for Axis turn 7 was muddy along the front. According to jubjub this was pretty bad for his logistics. Even though a single turn of mud/light rain didn't make much difference, apparently two in a row makes more of a difference.



However, Soviet casualties nevertheless exceeded 250k this turn...

120k had been isolated at the end of last turn, meaning 130k losses from regular combat despite the mud. And that was with most of the Panzers pretty much resting, due to the mud... There seems to be not a lot Soviets can do to avoid tremendous losses, other than simply running away.



Lots of attacks in the north, including by a good number of the Panzers. Importantly, it looks like he might be more interested in Valdai and perhaps pushing from there on towards Moscow than pushing directly towards Leningrad, although obviously he looks to be doing some of both.




In the center, pretty much only the infantry attacked. That means the Panzers will be rested next turn... Now, what would I consider doing in this situation? I have some Panzer divisions that I know have not moved and are rested and are going to be a problem next turn. So one thing I might do is try to bomb them.



However... All of my level bombers were transferred automatically to reserve this turn. Though this may not be technically a "bug," it is certainly not what I wanted or expected to happen. This appears to have happened because I had my level bombers assigned to the Kharkov Air Command, which disbands on turn 7. When it disbands, rather than simply un-assigning them from that AOG (as it does with land units, automatically re-assigning them to STAVKA when Kharkov Military District disbands), it sends them all off the map and back to the reserve. So doing any bombing is not an option... It might have been an especially good turn to bomb some Panzers, because they have not moved, and it is apparently less likely that semi-effective ground attack bombing missions get randomly changed to utterly useless interdiction missions against non-moving targets.

(comment from afterwards - this issue got resolved and iirc fixed in a patch, the bombers appeared visually to be gone from the map and the AOGs disappeared, however the air groups with the planes were still in the airfields, but just invisible because they were not assigned to any AOG.)



Kiev was taken and The Dnieper was crossed, unsurprisingly with the usual routs that we all know and love so much:




In the southern Dnieper, the German bridgehead was expanded, and approached Crimea, but has not yet pushed into the Peninsula. Our brave Airborne boys in Kirovoi Rog put up a fantastic defense of the city, taking 14 German soldiers down while only losing 2555 Soviets. With ratios like this occurring in most battles, there is no way we can lose this war.





Remember the 5 depleted divisions at the end of last turn? It appears those were displaced. I think those are these units that ended up near Zaparozhie/Dnepropetrovsk. So it is nice to still have those counters around... although they don't have a lot of men, it is definitely better than 0. If I had placed the depleted units somewhere else, they probably would not have been displaced and would be destroyed this turn. Between those 5 depleted divisions, that is more than 10,000 men saved, who now can be lost in a big rout or two instead.




In Crimea, what I was going to do this turn was to bomb the Romanian oil. Although this may or may not do anything to actually lower the practical availability of fuel to units for the Axis, even in the very long term, I had relocated all of my long range bombers to airfields in Crimea, and had been planning to bomb the Romanian oil production. But I can't do that now since they were all under Kharkov air command and unfortunately got removed automatically from the map.