Advice - Axis Campaign, end of Aug 1942

[parkingmyscooter]

Hey everyone,

I'm not sure how best to proceed with my Axis campaign and I'd love some help!

Here is where I am at, with some screenshots below:
-It's end of August 1942
-Casualty counts are 1.5M for Axis, 7.4M for SovietsI mostly achieved my objectives in 1941; I took Leningrad with Army Group North, Kalinin with Army Group Center, and almost reached Stalino with Army Group South. 
-Winter went okay. Lost Orel and Kalinin but not Kharkov. Didn't get pushed back too badly in the southI moved most of my panzers/motorized divisions to the South in the spring with the objective of reaching Stalingrad in 1942.
-The summer campaign has been okay so far. I am creating lots of pockets and generating high casualties - 2.0M soviet casualties between April and end of August, vs. 300k Axis.However: With the summer halfway finished, I don't think I am gaining enough territory to reach Stalingrad. I will certainly take Rostov and Voronezh, but that may be it.

So.....what do folks think? Should I keep pushing toward the South, and expect the lines to break if I keep generating casualties? Should I try to move more panzers north and try to take Moscow (where the lines have thinned out, and I have been able to surround Tula)? Something else?

Welcome your thoughts!

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[Wiedrock]

2.0M soviet casualties between April and end of August, vs. 300k Axis.However: With the summer halfway finished, I don't think I am gaining enough territory to reach Stalingrad. I will certainly take Rostov and Voronezh, but that may be it.

Where did you start your summer offensive, I assume you did own D+Z-town at start? An it is now 5 months ongoing?

Where is your Superdepot in the South? How is the Supply-situation down there? How is your Truck situation?
Note that the Ports in/at the Azov Sea can not import/export since Axis has no ships in that sea zone (if thishasn't changed with last Update).

[parkingmyscooter]

Where did you start your summer offensive, I assume you did own D+Z-town at start? An it is now 5 months ongoing?

Where is your Superdepot in the South? How is the Supply-situation down there? How is your Truck situation?
Note that the Ports in/at the Azov Sea can not import/export since Axis has no ships in that sea zone (if thishasn't changed with last Update).

Thanks for the help Wiedrock!

Below photos of (1) my southern front in April - just a little past D-town., (2) my truck situation.
Since roughly June, I have moved my FDBs away from being super-depots and back again toward extending rails to the east, keeping pace with my advance. Sounds like you might still keep them as superdepots?

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[Wiedrock]

Since roughly June, I have moved my FDBs away from being super-depots and back again toward extending rails to the east, keeping pace with my advance. Sounds like you might still keep them as superdepots?

I am furthest from being the expert but I can give my 2 cents.

If you plan/do a major offensive you have planned, you either have stored lots of freight in multiple depots in the area in oreparation or you need to get freight into the area by other means, one being to keep one FBD superdepot'ing at all times (imo). Superdepots are doing magic when it comes to rail throughput.
Your southern Depots are all empty (from what I can see), which means less CV, less MP. Even when ignoring the Truck situation you won't be able to advance at max speed with this situation.

Generally you said (how I understand it) that your main objective was Stalingrad, but simultaneously you also have pushed across the whole frontline except of Leningrad area (I am not saying this is wrong, but if you "LARP" Case Blue this needs to be mentioned ). So your limited ressources (Trucks/FBDs/Mobile Units) are spread across multiple areas. Many of your Units near Kalinin, Moscow, Orel, Tula and so on now are >3Hexes from depots, so they will use trucks for deliveries, losing trucks to attrition, those trucks then may be lacking to get supplies from depots in the south to your units in the south (if there was suffucient freight) and the system missing trucks tends to also reduce the average MP of MOTorized Units by quite some, which slows your advance further, as in your case.

What you (imo) can try to do is to look into the Supply priority situation of your units further north, which are mostly more than 3 Hexes away from depots and reduce their priority at least to 3 for some turns, so they will not (or rather - less likely) try to get freight from further away depots, therefore wasting less trucks. I guess if you do not expect any counterattacks you could even go with Prio2 (but I am sure some will say that is not a good idea, doesnt provide any further benefit/be more negative).
The same can be said about the south.
What you can see in the south us that the missing freight and missing trucks cause some of your MOT units to start with just 30-35MP. Do not Refit units when further than 3 Hexes from a depot (with freight). And do not simply put all units on Priority 4, MOT Units which need to use their internal trucks to move supplies will end up with less MP usually.
I personally would make the depot between Rostov and Stalino into a Superdepot, when you get it to 20k Capacity by placing 2 HQs on top I think that'll do for now and also is much closer to your Stalingrad advance than Stalino is. Remember that it takes 2 turns for a Superdepot to become active as such (I think the FBD needs to end a turn with 200SMP in a Depot and then the next turn it will be a superdepot).

Not sure how you use your Transport planes, but you could try to move freight by air from Kerch to Stalino, it won't be a gamechanger but for sure add 1-2 MP here and there. You can also drop supplies elsewhere, where a unit is in a Airfield Hex, so the unit gets stuff/some more MP (especially mobile units (Fuel)).

Thats my 2 cents for now, maybe others will correct/add more.

[M60A3TTS]

Is Sevastopol taken?

[parkingmyscooter]

Thank you! Yet again I am reminded of just how important supply is in this game. Those are some good tips for getting it funneled to the right location. I'll push forward and let you know where I end up!

[parkingmyscooter]

Is Sevastopol taken?

Ehhh....not quite. I've got 10 or so German divisions in two corps doing their best to take it (hex is isolated, divisions are stacked with pioneers and heavy art.) but haven't quite cracked it yet. Any tips?

[M60A3TTS]

For starters, you always want to get Sevastopol finished off before the summer campaign kicks off. You tie down too many resources otherwise for too long a time. Given you are at the end of August you seem to have either gotten around to this late or not executed properly. It does sound like you have most of the key elements in place, but let's cover all of them.

You can't just isolate the hex in one phase, you have to do it in two consecutive phases or the garrison goes briefly into a non-isolated supplied state. You have to have all the planes necessary to do this.

No mediocre leader managing the battle. You want an infantry 7 at least.

Your 10 attacking divisions need full or near-full number of prep points along with full or overfull supply to max their organic CV. Don't just go in with a bunch of 6CV divisions.

These 10 divisions should be near all in two corps, three max.

Use as many pioniers as can be spared along with a good number of heavy artillery. No 105mm attachments, all 150mm, 210mm and above.

When I've done it, I haven't hesitated to have the army laying siege as an Assault HQ just to get all this done faster, but that is a luxury you probably don't have now.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

"Pray" not to be the "Prey".


Anyway, is this an AI game? If it is I have no further comment. If it is head-to-head then I will have a comment or two and expand on the above sentence I wrote.

[parkingmyscooter]

Thanks everyone! Yes, this is a game against AI

Appreciate the tips M60A3TTS. Some new ideas in your note will be very helpful - for example, I hadn't really considered how heavy the artillery pieces needed to be. And I think I unfortunately get it into a non-isolated supplied state, which may be causing the delay.

Bit of an update: I made some changes and was able to get reasonably close to Stalingrad, but still no luck capturing it. I rewinded back to April '42 and am trying a run at Moscow instead of the South now. Hopefully this goes better!

[parkingmyscooter]

An update: having restarted the game from April '42 and tried the different approach of advancing toward Moscow instead...I took Moscow in Dec '42. Pretty remarkable just how much having those FBDs acting as superdepots helped.

Now onto defense... thanks all for the help!

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