jasonbroomer wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2023 11:45 amThe first winter sucks for the Axis big time, this appears to have been a well thought out and prepared Soviet offensive.
Not really. If anything, it was more the
opposite of a well thought out and prepared Soviet offensive.
I took over the game literally only 2 turns before. There were less than 3 million Soviets on the map, and there were a lot of things Soviets could have done to prepare for a winter offensive that had not been done. There were virtually 0 depots anywhere other than Moscow, there were a bunch of excess units in theater boxes (despite it being open theater boxes), there were a lot of units sitting in Baku and Kubyshev that had arrived on map from theater boxes but which had not been bothered to previously be moved anywhere at all. There were 0 Soviet guards units and very few Soviet divisions with wins (the most was 2 divisions which had 3 wins). Multi-role units (rifle brigades etc) had not been converted to SUs and were unavailable initially to assign to divisions. Soviets also had very few tank/mech divisions on the map, so Soviet mobility and ability to do good follow up attacks was very limited compared to what it can be (you can have up to like 60 or so of those chasing down the Germans and follow-up attacking them, and there were more like 5-10).
Far from being an example of a well-prepared Soviet winter offensive, it is basically the test case for how successful a Soviet winter offensive can be with the
minimal possible preparation.
Also the weather RNG was initially unfavorable for Soviets. In the first turn or 2 of December there was no blizzard in the north or the south (only in he center area around Tula). It would have been worse if there were initially blizzard in the north especially as well (there were basically no units initially in the south because of there being so few men on the map when I took the game over).
Also on turn 27 Jango inflicted 200k losses against the Soviets (mainly because of the weather RNG, but also he got in good counterattacks even in blizzard areas, and virtually all of his counterattacks were wins). Here are some screenshots of the Soviet view on turn 27:
Notice all the newly deployed Soviet units in the rear. Those could and should have already been on the map with 100 CPP and have already been participating in winter offensive with December penalties, but they were not.
jasonbroomer wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2023 11:45 amMy 1st Guards Corps had been brought into the line to provide momentum and start the second wave of of my offensive when it got pounced on by the Axis. It held off the first attack by a German division, only to wilt to a second by a couple of low CPP divisions. Sitting in light woods was not enough.
The single defeat trashed its pristine TOE to this:
T29 Guard corps from full ToE.png
and its combat preparedness went out of the window.
The big point here is that it is binary. Yes, you can get counterattacked. But probably - though not 100% necessarily for sure - that counterattack was in "snow" rather than "heavy snow."
Though as I said, Jango was also able to get in some counterattacks against me in blizzard, so that is possible. The trick is basically you have to attack with large numerical superiority. In that same way, Axis can attack with large numerical superiority even in heavy mud and inflict as many as 30k rout losses in a single battle against Soviets, like neaugustus did against HLYA. This is due to a flaw in how the weather combat penalties work.
Anyway, so I think it is basically the opposite of what you (and HLYA) are suggesting.
It could have been much, much worse for Axis here.
)
