Odessa

[OberstVonWitz]

Any clues for September capture ?

I tried 8 German units ( all over 20 CV) with 5 Pioneer. Pre heavy bombing, isolated for 2 turns.

I think Odessa CV after all that was 178. '

As this constituted 50% of my elite units I can't afford to wait for Xmas 1946.

Please advise.

[Denniss]

did you fly naval interdiction to prevent resupply by sea?
do you have sufficient artillery? the bigger the guns the better

[jasonbroomer]

Oodles of pioneers help no end. Chuck in a corps of Roms too, apparently numbers make a difference, though they will die in spades. You also have 5 or 6 units of extra heavy artillery (Karl mortars, K3 guns etc). These are siege weapons for cracking heavy defences. Rescue and preserve them from your regular corps, else they'll be wasted in open ground attacks (big guns burn out quickly). Store them in OKH until you need them.

Against the AI which usually defends Odessa in size it normally takes a couple of attempts. As long as you keep reducing the entrenchment level, you are making progress. See my post in the war room about assault HQs and thus how to recover CPP quickly, it will speed things along nicely for you.

[Jango32]

Use mountains of useless Romanians to absorb Soviet ammunition and tire out the defenders. Then attack with German divisions.

[billy26]

If playing the AI, isolate and bypass both Odessa and Sevastopol; guard to two Romanian Inf divisions or less for each. Taking them are not worth the casualties or the time it takes to reduce them, even though they are worth 40 Victory points total. I prefer to focus on encircling and destroying Russian divisions and capturing Kharkov and Stalino before the Red Winter Offensive. You should and can clear out and capture all of Crimea except Sevastopol. If playing a human opponent, it may be different since he may choose not to defend those cities strongly.

[exalted]

Usually I go at it with all of 11th army with more or less every pioneer on the east front, as well as some siege artillery does it. Going in with more resources than you really should will also make the casualties minor.

Also get some decent commanders in place, the 11th Army has a severe leadership defiency at the start of the GC.

[jasonbroomer]

Here's West Moscow as an example of taking a fort in an urban hex

t59 Moscow W, not as heavily defended as expected.png (2.45 MiB) Viewed 2407 times

Closer inspection of the combat details

t59 Moscow W, pioneers are the key.png (1.28 MiB) Viewed 2407 times

The pioneer attachments did almost as much as the infantry commitment, which was 12 divisions in this case. This produced a crushing 10+:1 victory against 65k soviets in a level 4 fort, which had been isolated for only 1 turn. Admittedly the infantry were mainly veterans. The assault was lead by Germany's ablest infantry general Model.

All this has implications for Odessa. From memory the AI stacks c.100k troops in the fort, which is level 4.

You will need:
Firstly, isolate Odessa, using naval patrol air missions.
Model (he can be moved easily around the front, by shedding his ID commands, moving and adopting new infantry divisions. This is cheaper than spending valuable APs to reassign him). Assign him all the extra heavy artillery you can find, (6 artillery unit will suffice) although I'm not sure how important these actually are. Assign him the best German ID divisions that are to hand, which will ensure that he leads the attack
9 infantry divisions from 17th Army (or the 11th or whatever)
3 Romanian divisions (attached to the same Army command)
36 pioneer SUs from OKH (make sure that the Roms are in OKH's chain of command, perhaps by assigning AGA to OKH)

You will need to get the German IDs at least 75% CPP, and the majority to 100%. Attach the pioneers from OKH (they will lose 50% of their CPP as a result). Wait a turn ensuring that the host ID doesn't move and is not adjacent to an enemy controlled hex. This will to bring them to 75% CPP. The next turn will bring them to 100% and you are good to go.

The Romanian divisions are there as a pioneer delivery mechanisms. You may be able to manage with only 4-5 German IDs and 4-5 Rom IDs on that basis.

I'd be amazed if that didn't work. If it doesn't it will massively degrade their defences and the second attack will be much easier.

[OberstVonWitz]

Use mountains of useless Romanians to absorb Soviet ammunition and tire out the defenders. Then attack with German divisions.

Like the thinking on this. A bit "Putinesque" but hard to argue...

[OberstVonWitz]

If playing the AI, isolate and bypass both Odessa and Sevastopol; guard to two Romanian Inf divisions or less for each. Taking them are not worth the casualties or the time it takes to reduce them, even though they are worth 40 Victory points total. I prefer to focus on encircling and destroying Russian divisions and capturing Kharkov and Stalino before the Red Winter Offensive. You should and can clear out and capture all of Crimea except Sevastopol. If playing a human opponent, it may be different since he may choose not to defend those cities strongly.

LOL You might be able to but my desires are a lot more constrained . ALL I want is to have Odessa as a MAIN supply source for the "end" of 1941. That is "be the be and end all" of of a southern attack in 1941 other than preserving a Southern line about ~ 15 hexes east of O.

There are quite a few rivers ( at least 2) that could probably have level 2 fortification by mid Dec in that Odessa E 15 hexes. ?? Is it better to just pull back "out" of Soviet "pushes" and maintain some maneuver element ( panzer Corps / Inf Corps) or slug it out in 2 ( maybe 3) defense???

[OberstVonWitz]

Here's West Moscow as an example of taking a fort in an urban hex

t59 Moscow W, not as heavily defended as expected.png

Closer inspection of the combat details

t59 Moscow W, pioneers are the key.png

The pioneer attachments did almost as much as the infantry commitment, which was 12 divisions in this case. This produced a crushing 10+:1 victory against 65k soviets in a level 4 fort, which had been isolated for only 1 turn. Admittedly the infantry were mainly veterans. The assault was lead by Germany's ablest infantry general Model.

All this has implications for Odessa. From memory the AI stacks c.100k troops in the fort, which is level 4.

You will need:
Firstly, isolate Odessa, using naval patrol air missions.
Model (he can be moved easily around the front, by shedding his ID commands, moving and adopting new infantry divisions. This is cheaper than spending valuable APs to reassign him). Assign him all the extra heavy artillery you can find, (6 artillery unit will suffice) although I'm not sure how important these actually are. Assign him the best German ID divisions that are to hand, which will ensure that he leads the attack
9 infantry divisions from 17th Army (or the 11th or whatever)
3 Romanian divisions (attached to the same Army command)
36 pioneer SUs from OKH (make sure that the Roms are in OKH's chain of command, perhaps by assigning AGA to OKH)

You will need to get the German IDs at least 75% CPP, and the majority to 100%. Attach the pioneers from OKH (they will lose 50% of their CPP as a result). Wait a turn ensuring that the host ID doesn't move and is not adjacent to an enemy controlled hex. This will to bring them to 75% CPP. The next turn will bring them to 100% and you are good to go.

The Romanian divisions are there as a pioneer delivery mechanisms. You may be able to manage with only 4-5 German IDs and 4-5 Rom IDs on that basis.

I'd be amazed if that didn't work. If it doesn't it will massively degrade their defences and the second attack will be much easier.

This is a FABULOUS reply !! It's so enlightening to have such clear replies. (One can only dream)

[Sarge11]

Oodles of pioneers help no end. Chuck in a corps of Roms too, apparently numbers make a difference, though they will die in spades. You also have 5 or 6 units of extra heavy artillery (Karl mortars, K3 guns etc). These are siege weapons for cracking heavy defences. Rescue and preserve them from your regular corps, else they'll be wasted in open ground attacks (big guns burn out quickly). Store them in OKH until you need them.

Against the AI which usually defends Odessa in size it normally takes a couple of attempts. As long as you keep reducing the entrenchment level, you are making progress. See my post in the war room about assault HQs and thus how to recover CPP quickly, it will speed things along nicely for you.

What other artillery types besides the two mentioned would you move to OKH??,

[PeteJC]

After Odessa is cut off on land, I do the following:

Use Flieger Fuhruer Ostee to naval interdict Odessa. a 3 hex wide interdiction will do. Make sure to change the payload to mines.

I air ground attack Odessa itself. High on Railyard and normal on Port. The AI will use the City Fort supplies to fix teh railyard.

I move 6 Romanian division and 3 German divisions from 11th Army to sit outside (not next to) of Odessa. The corps of German troops should have Model leading it and have the Siege Mortars, super heavy artillery, Sturm engineers and flammpanzers.

Interdict and air attack Odessa for 3-4 turns then attack it with all your troops. It will fall.

[Sarge11]

Following the advice in this post I reassigned the siege artillery to OKH, but when i was getting ready to attack Odessa it was no longer there???? It had been reassigned to other corps??? is this normal???

[Stamb]

you have to lock support level for a HQs, otherwise SUs will be automatically assigned to a HQs

to lock support level you have to click on each HQ and change it, like here:

2.png (335.38 KiB) Viewed 2085 times

or via CR (commanders report), which is much faster

1.png (1.28 MiB) Viewed 2085 times

in that case SUs stay in a HQ until you move them

generally it is better to manage everything manually, but it depends if you have time and will to do it

[homer82]

Following the advice in this post I reassigned the siege artillery to OKH, but when i was getting ready to attack Odessa it was no longer there???? It had been reassigned to other corps??? is this normal???

It sounds like you have your corp support levels (SupL) set to something other than 0 or Locked and OKH distributed that particular support unit (SU) based on the SupL set.

One tried and true method of getting your SUs just where you want them to set OKH's SupL to 9 in order to draw all SUs up, and all other HQs to 0 so they retain no SUs. After a few turns when all SUs have migrated up to OKH, manually assign SUs to your corps being careful to set the corps SupL to LOCKED. This will prevent SUs from flowing up again. This is best set up on turn 1 but the concepts should help you figure out the best way to get that siege artillery in your Odessa corp.

[ITAKLinus]

I tell you what I think it's the best, which is along the lines of everyone else.


1) Siege artillery. You have various support units with heavy stuff. Roughly 6-8 SUs. Assign them to an HQ.
2) No tanks, infantry is best
3) Each infantry division must have 100% CPP, proper supplies and of course 3 IDs per hex
4) The corpsHQ leading the attack must have a tough dude like von Manstein or even better Model (inf=9)
5) Naval interdiction and general air superiority in the area
6) Each ID must have at least a StuG battallion and a pioneer one attached, I recommend flammpanzers (3 SUs IIRC) too
7) First deliberate can be bad and just destroy the forts, the second always takes the place
8) IDs must have a decent TOE. I would go as low as 70%, but the higher the better.

That's true for 99% of the sieges I've been involved to. Leningrad is a little bit trickier because of the multiple possilibilites you have in order to severe its supply lines, but I dare to say that you'll be fine always following these lines.

Now I'm in mid-December 1941 and I am preparing to launch a land attack on Sebastopol in the most f@cked up period of the year: with proper preparation you can do many things.


The general idea is to bring into the fight units that are appropriate for heavy urban fight and that's it. Moreover: Odessa is generally a massive sinkhole for russian players since it's basically impossible to have a meaningful defence once the Axis player decides to cut it off from the sea and there is no way for it not to happen. Basically, it's a magnet for s@it for the Russian. Planes to contest you and he has massive losses for no returns. More IDs and they all die. Better SUs and leaders and they all die. And so on.




My impression, and it might very well be wrong, is that city fortresses before T010-T015 do more harm than good to the russian player if you can cut them off, bypass them and then reduce them with a good preparation.
However, it must be noted that every match is different.

[K62_]

Here's a pretty simple plan that should roll over most Soviet defenses:

-You start with 8 German divisions in Romania. Rail in 4 more German inf divisions on T2. (Regular infantry, not light or mountain.)
-Put Model in charge of 11th Army.
-Assign all 12 German divisions directly to 11th Army. (The 11A corps commanders are not that great.) Re-assign all Romanian divisions to Romanian armies.
-Add 3 German pioneer battalions to each division. That's a total of 36 pioneer units, you'll have to find them and send them to OKH at least one turn before the assault.
-The only support units in 11th Army HQ should be artillery and mortars of caliber 210mm and larger. Make sure you have at least 10-15 of them. Again, you'll need to find them and send them to OKH in advance.
-Preferred air support is Ju 88A with the 2x1000kg loadout. Make sure you have at least 2-3 AOGs in range with decent escort. Use a GS directive for Luftflotte 4 to support 11th Army directly on the turn of the assault.

[Jango32]

Running naval patrol ahead of time is also quite important.

[Sarge11]

Following the advice in this post I reassigned the siege artillery to OKH, but when i was getting ready to attack Odessa it was no longer there???? It had been reassigned to other corps??? is this normal???

It sounds like you have your corp support levels (SupL) set to something other than 0 or Locked and OKH distributed that particular support unit (SU) based on the SupL set.

One tried and true method of getting your SUs just where you want them to set OKH's SupL to 9 in order to draw all SUs up, and all other HQs to 0 so they retain no SUs. After a few turns when all SUs have migrated up to OKH, manually assign SUs to your corps being careful to set the corps SupL to LOCKED. This will prevent SUs from flowing up again. This is best set up on turn 1 but the concepts should help you figure out the best way to get that siege artillery in your Odessa corp.

Starting a new game with the latest Beta, followed advice for 1st turn air moves I lost 45 pilots and 92 planes, Soviet loss's were 778 pilots and 4067 planes, now in migrating all SU up to OKH and manually assigning them. would I do this with the SU's in the romanian army also??? and assign from there High Command???

[OberstVonWitz]

Following the advice in this post I reassigned the siege artillery to OKH, but when i was getting ready to attack Odessa it was no longer there???? It had been reassigned to other corps??? is this normal???

It sounds like you have your corp support levels (SupL) set to something other than 0 or Locked and OKH distributed that particular support unit (SU) based on the SupL set.

One tried and true method of getting your SUs just where you want them to set OKH's SupL to 9 in order to draw all SUs up, and all other HQs to 0 so they retain no SUs. After a few turns when all SUs have migrated up to OKH, manually assign SUs to your corps being careful to set the corps SupL to LOCKED. This will prevent SUs from flowing up again. This is best set up on turn 1 but the concepts should help you figure out the best way to get that siege artillery in your Odessa corp.

Very useful post