The saga of the 88th Infantry Division, a tale of grinding

[Beethoven1]

Welcome to our little story. It is the tale of the 88th Infantry division. We shall follow the trials and travails and tribulations of our protagonist from turn 25 to turn 28 of a grand campaign.

On Turn 25, our heroes start off near Tula in pristine condition, with 98/99 TOE and 75 morale. They are on supply priority 3 and getting good supply, sitting in a level 2 fort. All the other German divisions nearby are similar. And overall, across the front, Axis receives 25,796 supply compared to 18,307 needed according to the logistics freight report.

Before:



0 wins, 0 losses
75 morale
98/99 TOE
16474 men
168 guns
633 ammo out of 499 needed
305 trucks out of 285 needed


But within a few short turns, by the start of Axis turn 28, it will look like this:



After:
1 win, 5 losses
66 morale
50/68 TOE
11950 men
101 guns
181 ammo out of 275 needed
138 trucks out of 120 needed

One of the most important things to note is the TOE (as well as the trucks, ammo, and morale) of the unit drops a lot more drastically than the manpower of the unit. On turn 28, the unit still has 11,950 men out of the original 16,474 men (72% of the total), but the undamaged TOE drops down all the way to 50, and the damaged TOE is 68.

If it were a Panzer division or a division with a more intricate TOE with more rare components, the difference would be even larger, with it dropping even more quickly to a very low TOE. I think the reason for this is that those rare elements (especially guns and AFVs) get disproportionately damaged and destroyed by retreat losses, as compared to manpower. Retreat losses are the predominant culprit, because pretty much whenever anything gets damaged, it then dies to retreat losses automatically just because it is damaged.



Read on to follow our unit's journey from here to there in detail...


Note - although the screenshots look like summer, it is actually winter (December), I just have weather graphics turned off.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 25:

On Soviet turn 25, the Soviets launch their winter offensive.



In a single turn, the entire Axis fort line is demolished from near Moscow all the way down roughly to Orel is pretty much demolished.

As much as possible, Soviets try to do follow up grinding attacks in order to attack retreated divisions a second time after they retreated. That is why you see 2 rows of battles on a lot of the hexes. German divisions retreated once, then were hit again and retreated... more...

There are a couple of routed units also. But they only routed because they had their retreat paths cut off, with no other place to retreat, so they had to rout.

[Beethoven1]

Axis turn 26:

At the start of Axis turn 26, it appears like this (88th division is circled in red):



Our brave division has only 8 MP...

On the bright side, our lads can actually retreat reasonably far despite the low MP, to about 6 hexes away from the front. That seems reasonable! Hypothetically, if we had other reserve troops or something, we could rotate this unit back behind the front line to refit for a turn, and then subsequently send it back, right? So surely it doesn't seem that bad. Right?



Alas, this is sort of misleading... the reason why we can move so far is that it is only snow on most of those hexes, rather than heavy snow...


I now bow to peer pressure and make screenshots actually showing the weather...



The Soviets did 2 attacks against our division.

First attack:



Second attack:



If you just look at the losses from these 2 battles, it actually doesn't look that bad. The retreat losses are also not that high here on these initial battles.

Alas, if that's all you do, this overlooks some things...

First and foremost, we are already down to 77/90 TOE:



There are a pretty large number of elements there already. Basically, since we started with 98% undamaged, 20% of the division's TOE has already been damaged.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet turn 26:

The Soviets did 2 more attacks on Soviet turn 26 against our 88th Division. The first one was a hold:



The losses from this battle are not bad at all. If you are a soldier in this division, you gotta be thinking at this point, things are starting to look up. We just held off a Soviet attack. Sure, last week was bad, but we are getting our act together, and we just inflicted more then 10-1 losses against the Soviets in this battle.


Second Soviet attack was a retreat, however:



The losses from this second battle also were not that bad looking. And even though the second battle was a retreat, there are actually only 12 elements lost in retreat losses, which still does not seem that bad.

HOWEVER, notice something important here. What are the elements lost in retreat losses?

4 150mm Howitzers.
3 37mm AT guns.
3 75mm Infantry guns.
1 105mm Howitzer.
1 50mm AT gun.

Hmmm.

What do all of these have in common? All of them are guns. Every single element lost in retreat losses here is some sort of gun. Not a single rifle squad or anything like that was lost in retreat losses, only guns.

We are starting to see here how, over time, guns and AFVs start to take a disproportionate share of the losses, as compared to manpower. And since there are lots of different guns in the TOEs, this means the percentages of TOE goes down for a lot of different categories of elements. And in the TOE calculation, every single type of element in a TOE counts equally to the overall TOE calculation.

For example, the German infantry division TOE here has only 18 infantry guns in its TOE, but 324 rifle squads:



You might think that if you lose 18 rifle squads, that should lower your overall divisional TOE by at least approximately the same as if you lose 18 infantry guns. But that's not how it works in the calculation.

Instead, the 18 infantry guns count the same as 324 rifle squads, because every single separate category gets averaged with an equal weight, regardless of what it is and regardless of how important that element is or is not to the division.

If you lost 324 rifle squads and nothing else, that would lower your TOE by the same amount as if you were to lose 18 infantry guns and nothing else.

[Beethoven1]

Axis turn 27:

So after those next 2 Soviet attacks (note that I forgot to mention, the Soviet attacks were against a double stack, not ONLY the 88th division), here is our division now:



We're down to 1 CV (technically 1.94). Although last turn, we did already drop to 2 point something.

We are down to 70 morale.

We have a lot of damaged elements. Look at our 81 mm mortars, nearly half of those are damaged. We have 16 damaged and only 22 of them undamaged. These various damaged guns are now going to be susceptible to be lost in retreat losses in he upcoming turn... A lot of rifle squads etc are also damaged. We have 80 fatigue.

Also, although we also had it before, it's worth noting that we only have 8 MP (again), because if you lose a battle and retreat, your MP are always gimped as a result. The problem is that means we cannot really retreat, even if we wanted to, we can only move a max of 3 hexes away, due to having only 8 MP and it taking 2 MP (even with admin movement) to move in the heavy snow.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet turn 27:

Soviets do 2 more attacks on our friendly 88th division. The location of the division is circled in red, Soviet attacks highlighted:



First Soviet attack:



the retreat losses appear to be starting to escalate here, especially for guns. 36 guns lost, virtually all of which appear to be from retreat losses. Retreat losses include:

10 105mm Howitzers
7 50mm AT guns
6 150mm Howitzers
5 75mm Infantry guns (remember we said earlier that the TOE has a total of 18 infantry guns, so just those losses by itself are a third of the division's infantry gun TOE).
2 37mm AT guns
2 81mm mortars

In addition, we do finally also start losing a small number of non-gun elements as well to retreat losses:

1 rifle squad
1 AT rifle squad
and 1 support squad

So that's 3 non-gun elements lost to retreat losses, compared to 32 gun-type elements lost to retreat losses.

In other words, more than 10x gun than non-gun retreat losses.

So now we are starting to see even more how retreat losses come to be disproportionately skewed towards guns (and also AFVs and armored cars and whatnot for units that have those various more obscure element-types), and how that contributes to disproportionately lowering the overall division's TOE.

Because again, each element type gets counted equally in the TOE calculation, regardless of whether it is something rare with only 2 elements like an anti-tank halftrack or something, or if it has 500 elements.

[Beethoven1]

Axis turn 28:

We are now approaching the end of our little story. It is a short story, not a novel.

Anyway, so here is our 88th division:



We are in the state we said we would be in. According to the TOE calculation, the division is only at 50% undamaged elements. Of course, that is (partly) because as we have said, gun losses contribute disproportionately to the TOE calculation.

We are down to 66 morale.

181 out of 275 ammo.

On the bright side, I suppose our vehicles need has gone WAY down. At the start of all this, we needed 285 trucks. Now we only need 120 trucks, and we have 138 of them.

So I guess that means our logistics must be improved?

The division is totally unusable for any sort of combat, with 1 CV.

We, once again, of course have 8 MP.

Since our friends in the 88th division find themselves pretty beaten up by this point, you may wonder to yourself, "well, why don't we just go to the rear to refit on a depot?"

OK, let's try that...



Welp, it seems like that plan is going to be a problem. First of all, let's just ignore the fact that there is no front line to "retreat behind," and it is not like there are other units that can hold the line while this division refits.

Even ignoring that, the problem is it seems that with our 8 MP we cannot move to the depot which is 3 hexes away from us. We can only retreat 2 hexes.

Which means (among other things), that if the game went on, we would certainly be attacked one (or more) times next turn as well, and we would once again retreat, take more gun retreat losses, have our TOE lowered further, and have our morale lowered further.



We are almost done here, I promise. Although we are done with the 88th division, we will next take a very short look around the front to see what is happening with the other divisions.

[Beethoven1]

A short look around the front:

So up here, it seems some Soviet cavalry have infiltrated behind the German lines. The Soviet cavalry traveled about twice as far (or more) through heavy forest and swamp in a single turn as the 2 or 3 hexes our 88th division can retreat through clear terrain in a single turn with its 8 MP:




We're back to screenshots without the weather, because I took these screenshots earlier, but of course this is all heavy snow/snow as well.


Perhaps our 45 movement points motorized regiment can go deal with the cavalry:



But no, it can't even get there with enough MP for a hasty attack.

Perhaps some of the nearby infantry then. well, not exactly. It all has 8 or 9 MP, as well as CVs resulting from their own retreats. Not this infantry:



Certainly not this infantry (8 MP because it was attacked):



Or this one:





Meanwhile, slightly to the north of our 88th Infantry Division, 2 divisions here are ZOC locked and can only move 1 hex. Of course they also have 8 MP.



However, they are only ZOC locked by a single 3 CV Soviet infantry division, so you would think surely that would not be too much of a problem to deal with.

However, not a single one of the other infantry divisions, other than the 2 that are ZOC locked and the one that starts immediately to the left of the 3 CV Soviet division, have MP to deliberate attack the Soviet division, because all of them have 8 MP and are also in more or less the same state as the 88th Division. Can't reach:



The motorized up here also cannot reach:



Just as a quick experiment I tried attacking with the 3 divisions that are right there:

It wins easily enough, but... only 2 mp left after the attack, which means the ZOC locked units can't move a single hex. And it would not have been possible to attack without using the ZOC locked units either. So these 2 divisions would be isolated and subsequently surrendered by the Soviets a turn or 2 later.



And further south, it is even worse for these other 2 divisions between Orel and Kursk. They are not only ZOC locked, but also already isolated.



As an experiment, I brought down Das Reich, which was the only other unit able to reach the area with MP for a deliberate attack. I loaded it with the best SU available (Lehr brigade) and deliberate attacked, but that failed (due to pre-battle disruption, which is another special winter penalty). This was actually a mistake though, I should have attacked the 1 CV tank division to the South of it.

I then tried deliberate attacking with the infantry that could deliberate attack against the Soviet 1 CV tank:



But that failed also with the pre-battle disruption lowering the initial CV of the German infantry division in the battle to 0.2

I then tried hasty attacking with 2 infantry divisions, also a fail:



Finally I hasty attacked AGAIN with 2 other divisions against the 1 CV Soviet tank division:



That succeeded, but BARELY. Literally 2:1. Could have gone the other way.

So that means those 2 divisions are un-isolated. But still ZOC locked so they can be re-isolated and subsequently surrendered over the next turn or 2.



Anyway, that's the end of our little story.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Is this an actual game?

[AlbertN]

Not my game but I had a very similar experience as soon as December has hit me in a game - 2 turns of it and the Soviets had similar results.

[Wiedrock]

Awesome Journey.

If it were a Panzer division or a division with a more intricate TOE with more rare components, the difference would be even larger, with it dropping even more quickly to a very low TOE. I think the reason for this is that those rare elements (especially guns and AFVs) get disproportionately damaged and destroyed by retreat losses, as compared to manpower. Retreat losses are the predominant culprit, because pretty much whenever anything gets damaged, it then dies to retreat losses automatically just because it is damaged.

What's damaged (AFV/GUN) already before Combat is lost at a rate of about 80% or so, no matter if it's just a normal Foot Soldier Unit "overrunning" you... and makes you retreat 1 Hex. 1 Hex. 1. One!

Because again, each element type gets counted equally in the TOE calculation, regardless of whether it is something rare with only 2 elements like an anti-tank halftrack or something, or if it has 500 elements.

I guess you argue it should rather be something like: ?
[Current TOE Percentage] = [Sum of all Ground Elements in Unit]/[Sum of all Ground Elements in TOE]
This way each Element would contribute the same value to the total of 100%.

Since our friends in the 88th division find themselves pretty beaten up by this point, you may wonder to yourself, "well, why don't we just go to the rear to refit on a depot?"

OK, let's try that...


Welp, it seems like that plan is going to be a problem. First of all, let's just ignore the fact that there is no front line to "retreat behind," and it is not like there are other units that can hold the line while this division refits.

Even ignoring that, the problem is it seems that with our 8 MP we cannot move to the depot which is 3 hexes away from us. We can only retreat 2 hexes.

Which means (among other things), that if the game went on, we would certainly be attacked one (or more) times next turn as well, and we would once again retreat, take more gun retreat losses, have our TOE lowered further, and have our morale lowered further.

"The Train to Berlin departs from platform 2 in 5minutes."

So up here, it seems some Soviet cavalry have infiltrated behind the German lines. The Soviet cavalry traveled about twice as far (or more) through heavy forest and swamp in a single turn as the 2 or 3 hexes our 88th division can retreat through clear terrain in a single turn with its 8 MP:

Soviet Cavalry with it's expendability, rebuildability and size - still being a Division which causes NON-MOT Movement combined with Division Movement combined with Cav Movement - all in one. I wonder why modern armies did not stick to Cavalry.

The topic was brought up so many times already over the years. AI vs AI this obviously isn't a issue.
Additionally all the Units which would have been in those areas historically, where Soviet Cavalry is doing Partisan activities are....in the Garrison TB.

Here my *Soviet Cavalry Enjoyer*-Collection

Example threads:
Jango's Cavalry Sizes: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=385034
Small Cavalry=Division: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=385263
Cavalry Division vs Brigade sizes: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=377512
Cav Squad Production in WITE1: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=385461
Cavalry Corps and Cavalry Division limits: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=384445
Cavalry Corps breakdown2: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=384029

[RedJohn]

Is this an actual game?

It was. I think the axis player quit prematurely, but I nevertheless understand how frustrating a long blizzard can be for the axis.

[Stamb]

Golden!

[Sammy5IsAlive]

I don't mean this in a snarky way but what exactly is this illustrating? As far as I can see this seems to be a fairly straightforward example of what can happen in first winter when Axis forces get exposed out of their fortifications in clear terrain. To be honest that whole line in front of Tula was untenable from the beginning.

As one of the early screenshots showed, even after the initial Soviet assault, on T26 that division could have moved back almost to where it eventually ended up on T28. The soviets would have had to have followed it through enemy territory. So at the point of contact the division would have been in much better shape whereas the Soviets would have been more fatigued and less well supplied having trekked through the snow.

Also I don't see any armored units on the map. I suspect that these were sent to the WF theatre box for the winter. In other threads there have been concerns about Axis strength in 1942 and the effectiveness of 'grinding' in that period but I'd suggest that being able to do this is at least in part contingent on sending your panzers to the TB for the winter so that in the 42 campaigning season you can bring them back to the map in close to perfect condition. But as this example illustrates, if you do this in the wrong situation you end up with no mobility and at risk of getting overrun.

So IMHO the Axis player had at least 3 different opportunities to avoid this outcome. Obviously these opportunities would have come with their own costs (giving up land without a fight in the first two examples and much higher AFV losses in the latter) but surely that is part of having an interesting game?

I could maybe get on board with the point about the TOE calculations if these are having large effects on the combat outcomes (i.e. if units are getting penalized for having low displayed TOEs despite their 'manpower TOE' still being relatively healthy).

I mostly disagree with the argument about damaged elements. It seems pretty realistic for a retreating unit to have to abandon much of its heavy equipment in order to allow the manpower to escape quickly enough. I think that is another aspect where the player has some agency - by taking a more conservative pace of advance you'll incur less damaged elements and so take less losses when facing later counter-attacks. That said I could maybe see the argument for speeding up the return of damaged elements to the pool (maybe in return a slightly higher level of permanent losses during combat) as it does seem like units carry a lot of damaged elements around with them.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

I don't mean this in a snarky way but what exactly is this illustrating? As far as I can see this seems to be a fairly straightforward example of what can happen in first winter when Axis forces get exposed out of their fortifications in clear terrain. To be honest that whole line in front of Tula was untenable from the beginning.

As one of the early screenshots showed, even after the initial Soviet assault, on T26 that division could have moved back almost to where it eventually ended up on T28. The soviets would have had to have followed it through enemy territory. So at the point of contact the division would have been in much better shape whereas the Soviets would have been more fatigued and less well supplied having trekked through the snow.

Also I don't see any armored units on the map. I suspect that these were sent to the WF theatre box for the winter. In other threads there have been concerns about Axis strength in 1942 and the effectiveness of 'grinding' in that period but I'd suggest that being able to do this is at least in part contingent on sending your panzers to the TB for the winter so that in the 42 campaigning season you can bring them back to the map in close to perfect condition. But as this example illustrates, if you do this in the wrong situation you end up with no mobility and at risk of getting overrun.

So IMHO the Axis player had at least 3 different opportunities to avoid this outcome. Obviously these opportunities would have come with their own costs (giving up land without a fight in the first two examples and much higher AFV losses in the latter) but surely that is part of having an interesting game?

I could maybe get on board with the point about the TOE calculations if these are having large effects on the combat outcomes (i.e. if units are getting penalized for having low displayed TOEs despite their 'manpower TOE' still being relatively healthy).

I mostly disagree with the argument about damaged elements. It seems pretty realistic for a retreating unit to have to abandon much of its heavy equipment in order to allow the manpower to escape quickly enough. I think that is another aspect where the player has some agency - by taking a more conservative pace of advance you'll incur less damaged elements and so take less losses when facing later counter-attacks. That said I could maybe see the argument for speeding up the return of damaged elements to the pool (maybe in return a slightly higher level of permanent losses during combat) as it does seem like units carry a lot of damaged elements around with them.

I have to say I see this as the effects of Blizzard too. The German units held up well all things considered, although reserves needed to be placed around the map to counter any Soviet breakthrough. You see the Germans scrambling to justify MP's in blizzard are too low for the Germans because of the penalties. When careful placement of counter-action forces needed to be thought out and placed well beforehand. To me, Grinding this is not.

[AlbertN]

Axis players do not bring the Panzer in the TBs because they get back later in pristine conditions, it's to avoid to lose 100% of their AFV that instantly damage on turn of December 7th 41, and will be lost at the first retreat.
The fact they can be replenished without taxing limited freight, that's a good plus, sure, but it's the side effect.

Also I do not define a Fort lvl 2 'outside of a fortification' - but in my own game a similar division as starting shape got shoved out of a fort lvl 3 in Light Woods like the breeze from the Russians.

So the solution you suggest is a (very ahistorical) retreat back 3 hexes or more a turn, through 12 turns of winter (since Russians will advance unhindered, fresh and rested) -- which by the way will led Germans to be outside of forts each turn. But a Soviet moving X with Cavalries and Mechs will hit here and there some INF divisions that will drop down to 8 MP and ... oh will the Axis player leave them behind and get encircled as the ever thinning bulk of their forces keep retreating out of forts?

I believe the message that is being conveyed is that 1st Winter is far too harsh for Axis - the amount of quits (mine included so I am definitely biased) that blocks games there seems to be one of the current peaks.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Is this an actual game?

It was. I think the axis player quit prematurely, but I nevertheless understand how frustrating a long blizzard can be for the axis.

I see. The Germans primary duty is to "not" have units surrounded and surrendered. If that is accomplished the German player is doing very well with the first winter. Germans are NOT the supermen they were during the summer and fall months and when that reality sets in during winter, and the first sign of trouble, the Germans quit.

[Stamb]

Axis players do not bring the Panzer in the TBs because they get back later in pristine conditions, it's to avoid to lose 100% of their AFV that instantly damage on turn of December 7th 41, and will be lost at the first retreat.
The fact they can be replenished without taxing limited freight, that's a good plus, sure, but it's the side effect.

Also I do not define a Fort lvl 2 'outside of a fortification' - but in my own game a similar division as starting shape got shoved out of a fort lvl 3 in Light Woods like the breeze from the Russians.

So the solution you suggest is a (very ahistorical) retreat back 3 hexes or more a turn, through 12 turns of winter (since Russians will advance unhindered, fresh and rested) -- which by the way will led Germans to be outside of forts each turn. But a Soviet moving X with Cavalries and Mechs will hit here and there some INF divisions that will drop down to 8 MP and ... oh will the Axis player leave them behind and get encircled as the ever thinning bulk of their forces keep retreating out of forts?

I believe the message that is being conveyed is that 1st Winter is far too harsh for Axis - the amount of quits (mine included so I am definitely biased) that blocks games there seems to be one of the current peaks.

It also depends on a weather, imo too much. In this specific game players tested what weather is going to be during next turns and it was blizzard many turns in a row.
In the same time if Axis player is getting lucky with a weather then Soviets are in trouble since attacking German units in good fortifications with good supply and without heavy snow, so no penalties, is not an easy task.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

I believe the message that is being conveyed is that 1st Winter is far too harsh for Axis - the amount of quits (mine included so I am definitely biased) that blocks games there seems to be one of the current peaks.

Do we need the “nerf” version of the game for the German “supermen of summer and fall” for winter 41? It won’t hurt their head according to the commercial below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jdhmE4WT2c

[Jango32]

It also depends on a weather, imo too much. In this specific game players tested what weather is going to be during next turns and it was blizzard many turns in a row.
In the same time if Axis player is getting lucky with a weather then Soviets are in trouble since attacking German units in good fortifications with good supply and without heavy snow, so no penalties, is not an easy task.

Yes, it was tested up to turn 32 and it was heavy snow everywhere every turn, all the way to Minsk. So there was nowhere to retreat to and actually hold.

Also, if the Soviets simply attack and the Germans don't retreat (hold), next turn they will have minimal MPs - effectively pinned down.