1941 GC Zovs (Axis) vs. thedoctorking (Soviet)

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: Zovs

Okay no more blackouts lol.

Are you playing with a delay?

[Zovs]

Yeah, sort of, its taking about 3-6 days for each of us to do a turn, and I write my side up while I do it but wait to post it after thedoctorking puts his AAR on.

[thedoctorking]

I am just sort of figuring that gentlemanly play means you don't go looking at your opponent's AAR for the previous turn to figure out where he's deployed so you can make the optimal moves. I make my move, write my AAR, and then go look at Zov's AAR as I'm posting mine and maybe make a few comments in response to what he's said.

[Zovs]

Yeah, I almost think writing the AAR takes more time than playing the game…lol it’s a lot of effort, plus with MP you have to write while doing the turn. There have been several 3:00 am movings where I just go I’ll post this later and a few days go by lol.

When not playing WITE2, working or life I have a pbem game of WITP-AE going on, that is also a time and micromanagement dream lol

[thedoctorking]

I really wish we had played this using PBEM instead of the multiplayer system. I understand why MP is so restrictive, to prevent shenanigans between players who don't trust each other, but it is a pain in the butt for the things we are doing. I just take screenshots of the starting position, air and ground losses, and the ending position plus anything I see that looks especially interesting. I zoom out far enough that you can't see the strengths or identities of the units is the only sort of security measure I take - and that allows me to have three or four images that cover the whole front.

[thedoctorking]

I've owned WitP since it first came out. Played one PBEM game long ago, then got the new version, and have never played it. I'd love to try, looks even crazier than this one.

[Zovs]

Well if our current game gets derailed for any reason we can always start a PBEM anew if you like. It’s way much easier to do AARs that way.

Regarding WITP-AE it’s a hoot, I am still doing my Dec 8th planning as the Allies, it’s been two weeks and I am going by region and am in the Ds. Luckily my opponent is as patient if no more so than I. Lol, I think after that turn it should go a little faster, lol.

[Zovs]

Notes...

We are both now on patch (v 1.02.13) and both running on Steam. NOTE: Version 1.02.14_Beta has been released to the testers as of 1/10/2022. So working on this version. 1.02.14_Beta has now been released to the public on 1/11/2022. This helps a lot with flak losses.


Turn 5 - 20-Jul-1941

New Events

Axis capture Salmi, RAF Raids in 1941, Axis ground setback in N. Africa and the V sign.

Turn Summary & General Notes (previous Soviet turn)



Reinforcements
I received 1st RFSS Motorized Brigade on the map. TB Western Europe received two light flak Battalions (98th and 99th LW). TB Italy received the 2nd Italian Mountain Division. North Africa received the 103rd Italian Motorized Division and the 101st Italian Motorized Division, the German 90th Light Afrika Motorized Division and the 288th German Special Purpose Battalion. TB Finland received four Infantry battalions. The Axis Reserve received 15 LW Light Flak battalions. I also received the 15./JG 27 (Span) FB squadron into Axis Reserves (Bf 109E-4B) and for AOG I got the KG 4.

Friendly Losses
Friendly losses show 10,816 men, 26 guns, 10 AFVs and 223 aircraft (all were down a bit, some by half or more).

Logistic Summary
Units looks pretty good. The tons received was down about 7k again. Everything else looks pretty good.

Combat Unit Alerts
Shows 3 unready, but the CR shows that 2 (26th and 27th Hun. Infantry Brigades) are unready. Low supply shows 2 units, CR when filtered shows the 1st RFSS MB at 32% supply and the 1st ID and 131st ID at 40% supply.

Soviet Combat Activities from turn 4

Looks like the Soviets did 66 battles, broken down it looks like they are all various air missions:

Observed: 8 (Soviets losses 17, Axis 2)
Interdict: 24 (Soviets losses 38, Axis 0)
Air Combat: 4 (Soviet losses 28, Axis 22)
Naval Attack: 30 (Soviet losses 23, Axis 0)

Gulf of Finland


AGN Area


AGC Area


Gulf of Odessa


Top Fighter Aces at the start of the turn


To get a zoomed in view, click here: https://i.imgur.com/2zrTr4y.png

Logistics Report

Freight

OKH down 153 tons, AGN down 283 tons, AGC down 335 tons, AGS down 179 tons.

1st Panzer up 1,291 (614 lost)
2nd Panzer up 383 (1,442 lost)
3rd Panzer down 326 (568 lost)
4th Panzer down 203 (508 lost)

Will need to adjust depots and look at wastage.

Ground Command Totals
Sup Need 26,192
Sup Recd 21,207
Sup Lost 6,896
Diff (sup need - sup recd = 4,985)

Air Command Totals
Sup Need 9,414
Sup Recd 6,936
Sup Lost 1,193
Diff (sup need - sup recd = 2,478)

Trucks used 34,408
Trucks lost in Freight 192
Total freight losses 40,481

Axis trucks captured 6
Soviet trucks captured 8,614

Arrivals


Supply
1,335 trucks were repaired and returned to the logistic pool.

Turn 5 - 20-Jul-1941 at Start

OOB At Turn Start


Air Phase:

I deleted all the Recon AD and decided to start over. Did some testing and found a sweet spot for 1.02.14_Beta (which lowers flak losses).

WARNING TO AXIS PLAYERS
During my testing I found a few sweet spots for Recon Missions to reduce losses and gain higher DL. I found that if you set the number of strike per day to Auto(x) - where x is the area you set for the mission - and you set the Req AC(Esc) to Auto(Auto) you will receive very high DL but you will also in incur massive recon losses. To circumvent this, do not use Auto(Auto) or Auto(x) for any Recon missions. You'll note that when I setup the AD for the turn 1 GA missions I set the number of strikes to the number of airbases in the area. For recon its similar but a little different.

What I found to be a workable solution is to set the number of strikes per day to 1 (I only used 2 strikes on Port Recon missions and with a range of 1) and then I set the Req AC(Esc) to one of the following 24(8), 12(4), 6(2) or 6/4/3(Auto) - i.e., 6(auto), 4(auto) etc. With 12(4) I was finding that the DL was generally +1 to +6 and for 24(8) it was +4 to +12. Losses could be up to half your recon planes, if you got an unlucky set of rolls, but in many case it was none. I'll demonstrate that here on this turn.

This is what I found to be pretty optimal for AD (your mileage may vary):


Next I cleared out all the previous Recon and Naval Patrol AD's I had set. Then I made sure all my fighter squadrons where in the closest and best airfields I could get them on.

Then I setup the Recon missions generally like so (you have to 'personalize' each one as its situational dependent, at least from my perspective). But this to me seems to be the 'sweet spot'.


Here is a maxed out view of all the AD I setup for turn 5.


I created 23 AD as follows:

Luftflotte 1
4x Recon (this was the most varied depending on where my fighters were (i.e., escorts), but ranged from as low as 6(auto) to 24(8) with 1 strike per day)
1x Grd Support (AGN)

Luftflotte 2
4x Recon (these were all set to 24(8) with 1 strike per day)
1x Grd Support (AGC)

Luftflotte 4
2x Recon (these were all set to 24(8) with 1 strike per day)
1x Air Superiority
2x Naval Patrol(I used KG 27, I moved the Ju 88E-2 up and staged from Kulevcha and the Ju 88A staged from Constanta)
2x Grd Support (AGS and 11th Army)

Hun.Air Cmd.
1x Recon (I set this to 16(8) and an area of 6 but only 1 strike per day)
1x Grd Support (Mobile Hun. Corps)

Rum. Air Cmd.
2x Recon (I set both differently, for the one on Odessa I set it to 9(3) and 2 strikes per day (the Port) with an area of 1 and for the other I set the area to 3 and 18(9) with 1 strike per day)
1 Superiority
1x Grd Support (Army Grp. Anton)

Air Execution Phase Summary



Total sorties: 2,316
Aircraft lost: 255
Damaged: 74
Enemy Aircraft lost in A2A: 127
Damaged: 5

In this case most of the losses for both sides were in A2A combat (both sides intercepting each others Naval Patrols).

Here are some interesting aspects of micromanaging Recon.

On D7 my 6 recon units went unmolested but I had 38 fighters intercept the Soviets and I knocked out roughly have of their fighters and bombers.


Clicking on the D7 and then on the Air Combat produces this when you click on Show Details and sort by Air Losses.


You'll note I only lost one Bf 109F-2 to A2A and one to Ops, while the Soviets lost about half of their force.

For Luftflotte 1 I only lost 9 recon out of 116 that flew (even though the combat panel shows 13 beta, the main game shows 1.02.14_Beta) so over all that looks like a much better improvement with the new code. Just word to the wise, do not use Auto(Auto) and Auto(x) for number of strikes per target otherwise you'll have a mess of dead pilots and lost recon planes. Also as expected when I flew 6 recons per strike the DL/effect is only +1, one of the 12 missions got +1 and +5 and the 16 missions got +13 and +10.

Luftflotte 2 lost 14 recon and 4 fighters out of 163 recon and 48 fighters flow, again much improved. The first strike for both D1 and D7 netted only +1 even though 24 were flow on both days. The second strike netted +9 and +2. The third strike only +1 each. But the final strike in Luftflotte 2 netted +23 and +17. I think this is because of weather, there was a lot more rain up north.

Luftflotte 4 lost 12 recon out of 96 flown and lost 1 fighter out of 24 flown. Again much improved.

For the Superiority mission I lost 5 fighters out of 155 and the Soviets lost 24 out of 35 fighters. I think the Soviets did better in the Naval Patrol mission during the superiority mission. Here is a screen shot:


In the first Naval Patrol I lost 5 fighters out of 81, and 28 bombers out of 240. The Soviets lost 29 fighters. Overall the Soviets probably came out better for the wear here since most of these are most likely junk planes (just check they were I-16s and I-15bis). On the D2 mission the one fighter lost was a Rumanian Me 109E-3 shot down by flak. In fact all the fighters lost in this Naval Patrol were Rumanians. The DL (damage/effect) where generally very nice.


In the second Naval Patrol I lost 1 fighters out of 68 and 29 bombers out of 168 flown. The Soviets lost 5 fighters out of 44 flown. The lost fighter was German and a flak loss. The DL levels here were okay.


For the Hungarian Air Command Recon I lost a total of 5 out of 27 recon planes with limited DL.


For the two Rumanian Recon mission I lost 4 out of 35 fighters and 3 out of 54 recon planes lost.


The second interdiction mission is kind of strange and seems to be a display issue, when I click on the type button it shows this:

Not really sure why this is so, but reported it back to Joel as a potential display issue bug. He thinks that the Soviet Air interceptors are causing some display issues here.

The Rumanian Superiority mission has a lot going on:


The first Air combat is interesting:


Ground Phase

Ground Losses at the start of the turn

Men
Axis: 45,719
Soviets: 843,934

Gun
Axis: 596
Soviet: 15,067

AFV
Axis: 68
Soviet: 5,262

Air

Pilots KIA
Axis: 1,033
Soviets: 2,657

Total Losses:
Axis: 1,376
Soviet: 6,841

Weather Report

Rain in the northern area and also predicted the same for next turn.


Commanders Report

I have 16 units out of DtHQ, out of these 10 where individual Divisions or Brigades, most were the Hungary and Rumanian in reserve, except for one Hungary unit that I am moving to reattach to another HQ. The following six corps are also out of DtHQ range: LV Corps, VII Rum. Corps, XXIII Corps, XXVIII Corps, X Corps, II Corps were all mistakes on my part. I need to tighten up my play here.

Supply Priority
I made an adjustment to all German Armies and Corps to be set to 2 and for the Rumanians I left as is (most are on 1, but the 4th Army is on 2) and the Hungary Mobile Corps is also on 2.

TB Transfers

Italy, 10th Motorized to North Africa. Axis Reserves transferred the 245th Construction Battalion to the map, and the 363rd, 384th and 702nd Heavy Flak battalions to map. Axis Reserves transfered the 385th and 303rd Mixed Flak battalion to North Africa. Also transferred the 15./JG 52 (Croat)

End of Turn Summary

Not the best turns I have had, thedoctorking has given up a lot of territory and chasing after his units and the rain over much of AGN and AGC is causing delays.

End of turn map view.



Click on the link if you'd like a zoomed in view: https://i.imgur.com/Ad4W4Da.jpg

Areas of Interest

AGC

Vitebsk


Mogilev


AGS

Zhitomir


Here is a breakdown by Battle Result:

Total Battles: 71

Hasty: 3
Deliberate: 2

Retreated: 2
Surrendered: 2
Routed: 1

Observed: 26
Air Combat: 24
Naval Attack: 16

End of turn 5 losses

Ground Losses


Air Losses


OKH Total Win/Loss for turn 5
181 to 1

...to be continued...

note: due to time constraints and other personal commitments I don't know if I can continue these in-depth detailed AAR's. I may have to shorten them a bit.

[Stamb]

Great tips for a recon [&o].

I wonder if you have DL in each of those selected hexes? Pretty often when I assign more planes than you do and number of strikes on auto with a similar area I have half of the hexes with 0 DL. Not sure what do I do wrong.

[homer82]

Thanks for the excellent AAR guys and thank you ZOVs for your interesting take on German recon. The timing is perfect as I'm just about to start the German air phase of Turn 2 of my GC. I'm going to try your recommendations. Based on my other short, aborted GCs, I guess I had just somewhat resigned myself to expect high recon losses. Thanks!

[thedoctorking]

I'd be interested in seeing what detection level these missions achieved. I have done recon as the Soviets and routinely gotten little or nothing in the way of information.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: thedoctorking

I'd be interested in seeing what detection level these missions achieved. I have done recon as the Soviets and routinely gotten little or nothing in the way of information.

Probably a counter pop

[Zovs]

I am noticing that for the Germans the following:

24(8) provides the best DL but higher loss (1-4 planes depending on flak and if the mission gets intercepted) this is with 1 strike per hex.
12(4) provides the next best DL but less losses (you can still get unlucky)
6 or 4 (auto) provides the least DL.

Generally I am seeing:

24(8) +4 up to +30 (rarely in the 20-30s, averaging +6 to 18+ DL) but with no losses and or 1-4 losses, depending on a number of factors. this seems to be the sweet spot for me.

12(4) +2 up to +16 (rarely in the teens, averaging +3 to +8 DL) losses nil or 1 to 2, again depending and with 1 strike per mission for area.

6(Auto) or 4(Auto) +1 to +3 (rarely +2 or +3, averaging +1, sometimes see +0 DL) nil or 1 loss per above.

YMMV

Slovk and Hung a little better then Rumanians in Recon.

[Stamb]

Do you use only planes with 2x camera (some JU model, do not remember exact model, Ju 88-D or similar) or also with a single camera?

[thedoctorking]

Zovs (Axis) v Thedoctorking (Soviets) 41 GC No Early End
Turn 5 AAR

I opened the turn, and once again, almost nothing had changed from the previous turn. Axis infantry closed in on my front in a few places, but in most cases, even the sacrifice units I had left out to slow the enemy’s advance were still in place. In the north, the Germans entered Estonia as my boys left (all images this turn are from the end, since I neglected to take start screenshots before I began moving). It was raining pretty much across the map. I’ve seen this in other games; the weather in WitE2 is not nearly as consistent as in WitE1, even with the random weather option turned on in the earlier game. The rain created spots of light mud all over, and ran up operational losses. Axis aircraft losses in the preceding turn were 335 to like 650 for the Soviets. Again, this is a good outcome for me and an unsustainable rate of wastage for the Luftwaffe.

[thedoctorking]

In the center, he did push across the Dvina and get next to Vitebsk. He cut off a couple of my sacrifice units in that sector, pushing up against my positions with armor and signaling an upcoming attack.

[thedoctorking]

His armor crossed the river, giving up a good bit of their combat prep points in the process. I set up to hamper supplies for the guys in the north; to the south, he was already in a ZOC’ed position with his armored spearhead. It was gratifying to see that 44 strength SS Motorized Division go down to a more human 20.

[thedoctorking]

The Gomel-Chernigov sector remains the weakest part of my lines, but I was able to strengthen it to some extent with reinforcements railed up from the southern sector last turn. With the large commitment of armor in the center, and two major rivers for him to cross, I think he won’t be able to take too much advantage. I could see that armored corps south of Mogliev busting through my position to the southeast – that’s why I left that little division to hamper their supply. They are showing green supplies but yellow fuel at the moment. Hard to tell what that means in terms of movement points for next turn, but I’m hoping not enough to make a real breakthrough.

[thedoctorking]

In Ukraine, he cut off Vinnitsa and left the other picket line guys to make their way gratefully to the rear. I strengthened my position behind the Dnepr. If he doesn’t push across the Desna to the north, I expect to be able to hold the Dnepr for a couple of turns. Maybe long enough to fort up and hold the Donbass. He doesn’t seem to be very interested in advancing in this sector anyway. I’m assessing that his primary effort is going to be directed towards Moscow, and it is there that I have massed my best units and directed my transfers from the reserve box.

[thedoctorking]

The southern front was mostly static this turn. I reinforced the Crimean position and began digging in seriously across the entrance to the peninsula. I hope to have level 3 forts there and in front of Leningrad by the time his attackers arrive there. We’ll start digging in near Moscow next turn as I expect a couple of army HQ’s and some engineer battalions from the reserves (now coming in near Moscow).