Power of the Dark Side, Stephan61[A] vs Stamb[S]

[Stamb]

On turn 11 some of my units were under attack. I especially like this one.
Romanians managed to route our lovely cavalry with 99:0 combat CV.
16.6k men vs 4.1k
168 guns vs 33.

In the end they still managed to lose MORE, especially in disrupted elements than i do.
I like "axis" allies! They are true allies for a Soviet player.

i like axis allies.png (3.99 MiB) Viewed 2146 times

And my units that made that beautiful pocket last time are pocketed now.

pocketed units.png (1.98 MiB) Viewed 2146 times

[Stamb]

Well, they are pocketed by Romanians...
And that 13 CV Romanian division is not just simple divisions. It is guards division! With higher morale probably.
But i know that their CV is fake, and guards or not i will attack them.

i like axis allies 2.png (4.33 MiB) Viewed 2144 times

And that 69 pre combat CV turn into 11
And our comrades in a pocket are liberated!


we can see that 1st guard Rum ID retreated to a hex with another ID and now they have 20 CV

[Stamb]

as i wrote before, it is fake CV
at least i think so
lets attack them

no comments are needed

they had 20 on map CV lol.png (4.39 MiB) Viewed 2139 times

[Stamb]

After seeing such Axis allies performance and having no MP to run away far i decided that is is worth attacking them with a units that were pocketed.
They were lucky this time to be in lvl 2! fortification.
Still managed to disrupt 758 elements for a price of 1004 from my side.

lvl 2 fort saved them.png (4.28 MiB) Viewed 2133 times

[Stamb]

nothing worth showing in a North nor in the Center for this turn

[Killmaster851]

Well, they are pocketed by Romanians...
And that 13 CV Romanian division is not just simple divisions. It is guards division! With higher morale probably.
But i know that their CV is fake, and guards or not i will attack them.
i like axis allies 2.png

And that 69 pre combat CV turn into 11
And our comrades in a pocket are liberated!


we can see that 1st guard Rum ID retreated to a hex with another ID and now they have 20 CV

Bad general and no supportartillery versus the best romanian divison not outnumbering it by much and it results in 7.3 odds in soviet favour. LOL!

[AlbertN]

There is just something wrong in the Axis allies.

The CV is non relevant because 1 Rifle Squad contributes to the same CV no matter what. It can be German, Russian, or Romanian, their CV is the same. What it changes is how it fights, in terms of aiming and I assume evading potential damage?

But it is more than evident there is something that squanders them at the first enemy attack or almost.

[Stamb]

in my opinion basic Romanian, Italian, Hungarian division/brigade should perform the same as Soviet one in `41
i was posting a lot in a topic "Axis allies useless?" https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=379022
but in the end i just gave up
i have no more will trying to show that they are not allies but actual enemies as they consume freight the same as German divisions but are useless in a combat
but some people find them useful
ok

in the end i just accepted offer from a Dark Side and now i am enjoying this game so much!
just having a blast with it, especially after experience playing as an Axis

[Stamb]

Turn 12.

Beginning of September.
Our air squadrons were 30 or 32 planes max size.
Now they are 20

As a result TBs requirements for an air are messed up.

TBs messed up cuz of air groups size reduction.png (95.05 KiB) Viewed 2078 times

Fortunately we are playing with TB control so i send a lot of fighters to that TBs.

I have no clue why game is not showing how much CV each squadron is contributing in a TB.
Also i was pretty short on fighters in reserves to cover all requirements so it was time to think what i can do to figure out how many planes to i need to send in TBs.

I just opened one of them and counted how much squadrons do i have there and how much CV they are providing. If i remember it correctly then 20 old planes give about 0.5 CV.
Thus i send appropriate amount, according to my math, of fighters to different TBs.
As a result i was almost out of fighters in reserve.

[Stamb]

Main action is happening again the South.

I spotted that 13 panzer division that was beaten last turn is now stacked with 1st Rum. Mountain brigade.
And that brigade had more CV on a map than a panzers.
What does it mean?
It means that in case of attack leader of a Mountain brigade will be in charge of a battle.

Romanian leaders have pretty bad stats, even for an infantry.
Their mech stat are just terrible.
So unless this brigade is under German commander with good mech stat - panzers should perform badly cuz of failed rolls. And even if they have good leader then you can not expect adequate performance from Romanians as well as 3-4 CV panzer division.

It was time for an attack

1st battle in the south.png (1.27 MiB) Viewed 2067 times

Remember name of that panzer division - 13th.

[Stamb]

Exactly same situation for this battle. Romanian leader is in charge of a battle which guaranties poor performance for mobile units

2nd battle in the south.png (1.81 MiB) Viewed 2071 times

Remember 25th motorized division

[Stamb]

Fortunately for me 13th panzer division and 25th motorized division retreated to a same hex. Unfortunately 2nd Rum. brigade from a previous battle is also here, but now it has less CV than any of this mobile units. It means that there will be German commander in this battle. But units that were already pretty weak before any battles are now even weaker after they were forced to retreat. Not only they suffered some losses, most importantly they have 0 CPP now.
So we attack them again

3rd battle against grouped enemies.png (1 MiB) Viewed 2070 times

[Stamb]

Our units that opened pocket from a last turn are now in a pocket.

pocketed units in the south.png (563.89 KiB) Viewed 2062 times

So it is time to liberate them as we liberated our other units!

Looking at that image 1 cv Romanian brigade is not an issue and an obvious choice is unit with the lowest CV. In that case it is L.A.H SS motorized brigade.
Obviously we get rid off that Romanian brigade without a problem.
And we attacked L.A.H SS.
And we failed.

88flak is insane.png (941.6 KiB) Viewed 2062 times

That 88 flak is just insane.
I think it is bugged.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=383416

Nevertheless. We failed.
So we make another attempt and select another target.

and another fail.png (1.3 MiB) Viewed 2062 times

And we fail again.

That is it. First pocket with more than 1 unit from the start of the game.
If we exclude first 2-3 turns.

[Stephan61]

Very Nice Stamb.

From the Axis side POV, its been interesting to play the No End Date version of the GC for the first time.

I admit from my side, that I should have kept to the normal Axis opening gambits of taking Smolensk, D&T etc within the first 10 turns, but alas my main objective of this game was to be in good order come 42 onwards.

Having said that, I have been surprised by the strength of the hoarded CAV & Para units who run endlessly run through the ZOC and cause havoc in the back area, this has even resorted to me having to bring one of the 2 Armies in reserve locations forward to deal with them. This is a very good tactic which does slow down further the Axis advance, even though I was not rushing forward.

I am also enjoying your hunt for Model, alas for you, you have not found him yet

Overall, I feel in a reasonable position going into the winter of 41.

[Stamb]

I think you are in a good position for a winter. I will cover it in my next posts.

Also cavalry is the best unit for a psychological warfare!
Seeing this raids almost every turn should be very annoying.

[Stamb]

I decided to attack Romanian division.

ok, Romanians are great.png (1.14 MiB) Viewed 1955 times

I do not know what happened here. Was expecting a route or at least a retreat...

[Stamb]

In the center Axis had to concentrate enormous amount of forces to push me out of swamps.
If game would follow what is written in a manual about reserve activation and terrain - it would be a hold

7 division to to push out from swamps.png (1.47 MiB) Viewed 1953 times

And this is OOB for turn 12

oob is huge!.png (2.42 MiB) Viewed 1953 times

i like it

[Stamb]

t13

North

Despite presence of my fighters in the air and even not complete wipe of them in a2a battles - stukas are doing an insane amount of damage for my guns.
By best guns.

black day for ml 20.png (1.99 MiB) Viewed 1945 times

In this battle alone i lost more ml-20 than i produce per 1 turn.

Total losses in an Axis action phase were also impressive. I will need at least 3 turns of 24h/7days of work to compensate this.

ml 20 losses in axis action phase.png (8.74 KiB) Viewed 1945 times

Panzers + infantry goes into swamps together and as a result only 4 panzers were lost

panzers into swamps - minimal tank losses.png (4.13 MiB) Viewed 1945 times

And another attack into swamp with a panzers. 0 losses

panzers into swamps - no tank losses.png (4.08 MiB) Viewed 1945 times

Obviously this is not what i was expecting. I though swamps will exhausts tanks but German tanks with a recent changes feels there like a fish in a water

[Stamb]

The only good news in the North were that i managed to push that 10 CV ID that was able to cross a river

enormous effort to push ID.png (3.63 MiB) Viewed 1941 times

[Stamb]

In the Center.

I saw 12 CV division and thought that it will be a free win for us.
I was wrong. My opponent started to make such baits. And this is why i like PvP games. AI will not do this.
Once you try PvP game you will not play vs AI again.

what a bait.png (1.78 MiB) Viewed 1933 times