The Sky’s the Limit- PBEM GC 41 jubjub (Axis) vs. M60A3TTS (Soviet)

[M60A3TTS]

One of the things in the manual makes reference to aircraft information contained in the editor. A typical depiction of the information available, from the old editor version that I prefer, looks like this for MiG-3.



You will note in the bottom left hand portion of the screen shows information related to the MiG-3. As with all aircraft information includes the fastest speed of the aircraft, the altitude where that fastest speed is achieved, as well as the speed of the aircraft at zero altitude.

Since the difference between speed at ideal altitude and zero altitude is a straight line, we can create a formula that will calculate the speed of the aircraft at any altitude in between and compare it to other aircraft.

Like so:



Here we can see that at 6,000 feet, a Bf109G-2 achieves a superior speed of 354 mph in comparison to the Yak-1 at 321mph, the LaGG-3 at 316mph, and the MiG-3 at 313mph.

Although speed is not the decisive factor in air-to-air combat, it at least gives us one aspect of the game to look at aside from experience that is so often in favor of Luftwaffe pilots.

Now if we take this a step further and do a speed comparison for the more common fighter aircraft in 1943-44, we can help decide what aircraft we may want to prioritize for air-to-air operations, again with the understanding this is only one facet of the overall calculations that go into deciding who wins and who loses.

Here are some speed comparisons for Bf-109


And some others against Fw-190


We can see that in a lot of cases the German aircraft remain superior, but there are some exceptions with aircraft such as La-5FN, P39 and Yak-3 aircraft, particularly at 10,000 feet and below. Interestingly, Yak-1B did not fare as well as one might expect. Still these are the numbers and may give folks a better idea of what Soviet fighter aircraft stand out in the speed competition.

[Wiedrock]

Good comparisons, I also assumed it's be using the Altitude a plane flies at. The issue with that is which Altitude is being used if the Combat Report shows an Axis plane Group at 20k and a Soviet one at 23k.

Although speed is not the decisive factor in air-to-air combat, it at least gives us one aspect of the game to look at aside from experience that is so often in favor of Luftwaffe pilots.

IIRC, I read somewhere (not sure if Dev statement in the Forum or in the Manual), that speed is the most important plane stat.

Have your found/ever looked at "climb rate" being used for anything?

[M60A3TTS]

I have seen Rate of Climb mentioned as a factor that affects air-to-air combat, though to what extent your guess is as good as mine.

Here is some sample data related to Rate of Climb. And yes, you're reading it right, the I-16 Rata has a faster RoC than an Fw190A-5.

[M60A3TTS]

Game over.

I've been halted with 10+ million casualties at the end of 1943 and just don't have the desire to continue with this.

Thanks to everyone who invested time reading and commenting in the AAR.

[tyronec]

Game over.

I've been halted with 10+ million casualties at the end of 1943 and just don't have the desire to continue with this.

Am surprised as I thought you were winning, but thanks for an excellent AAR and good insights into handling the VVS.

[Q-Ball]

Game over.

I've been halted with 10+ million casualties at the end of 1943 and just don't have the desire to continue with this.

Thanks to everyone who invested time reading and commenting in the AAR.

Fantastic AAR with insight into the VVS! Would be interested to see your end-point, including final screens on OOB and Casualties, and maybe a little more color on why you think the Soviet position is hopeless

Not many games get into late 1943 it seems so some insight would be great!

[Wiedrock]

Awesome VVS AAR indeed. Maybe continuation at a later point?

Yep, some final numbers would be awesome (for those that like numbers).
I'd rly like to see how the Equipment Pools look like.

[PPetar]

Hey M60, just wanted to say well played and thank you for sharing the game with us, it has been really enjoyable to follow.

[Lurberri]

Fantastic game, congratulations to both players. Thanks, M60, for the wealth of tips you shared (including everything related to using aircraft). It was all very interesting.

[TallBlondJohn]

Sad to see this end but thanks to both players, its been quite a journey

[Sertorius21]

May I extend the thanks for this excellent set of reports, with so much useful advice - quite a shame I am playing the German in my game!

Like the others, I struggle to see, on the basis of the last battle outcomes, how you were not heading towards victory.

[M60A3TTS]

Here are the map pics







OOB. Keeping the army above 6 million effective could only be accomplished by pauses in the action. That would have been even more challenging with manpower multiples ready to tank in 1944.



Ground losses. Well on the way to 11 million and we aren't into 1944 yet.



Air Losses



Vehicles. It was only in the last few weeks the vehicle needs were under control and in surplus. More vehicles would have been available via Lend Lease in 1944, but to what end? Building a bunch of new stuff with limited manpower, already widespread unit manpower shortages and 35 experience to start isn't encouraging.



Armor production. Decent number of vehicles. Didn't touch the flame tanks much. For the individual who complained about not having King Tigers in his heavy tank battalions in another thread, note the Soviets share the same problem, with an unused pool of KV-85s and IS-1s. The new IS-2s would have sat as well. Meanwhile the KV-1S losses are replaced by older KV-1 tanks.



Active aircraft pools. There are huge stockpiles of tac bombers and enormously wasted production of U-2VS. Not enough formations even to throw vast quantities of U2-VS' away. Fighters are what matter in dictating how much airpower can influence battles. Also, lack of vehicles and manpower made keeping the VVS at full strength on the map was starting to be a challenge.



Here are half my tank corps, none of which are guards. Totally messed up here, they could have all been guards had it been managed properly. As it was, jubjub fought in such a way any overly exposed tank corps was decimated. It was only later I tried to cover them with rifle corps. I would have been better off sticking to more brigades as support units.



Compare how two groups of artillery perform in a Soviet assault on a Level 3 fort. Here, 32 German M18 Howitzers had about 25% more HE hits than 1,324 Soviet artillery pieces.

[56ajax]

Thx

[Wiedrock]

Armor production. Decent number of vehicles. Didn't touch the flame tanks much. For the individual who complained about not having King Tigers in his heavy tank battalions in another thread, note the Soviets share the same problem, with an unused pool of KV-85s and IS-1s. The new IS-2s would have sat as well. Meanwhile the KV-1S losses are replaced by older KV-1 tanks.

Just build the Heavy Tank Regiments as was suggested and you will be able to use the new Heavy tanks in no time.

Here are half my tank corps, none of which are guards. Totally messed up here, they could have all been guards had it been managed properly. As it was, jubjub fought in such a way any overly exposed tank corps was decimated. It was only later I tried to cover them with rifle corps. I would have been better off sticking to more brigades as support units.

Those Tank Corps's win rates look fine, you are just missing some wins to increase the chance/roll each turn to get them to become Guards.
1943 a MOT needs 12+1+rnd(12) to become Guards. Not sure if the rnd(12) can ever be 0?! So all your 10-13 wins are just missing few more wins to be eligible. The first two must just be bad luck. Or are your Tank Guards percentages maxed out already?

Active aircraft pools. There are huge stockpiles of tac bombers and enormously wasted production of U-2VS. Not enough formations even to throw vast quantities of U2-VS' away. Fighters are what matter in dictating how much airpower can influence battles. Also, lack of vehicles and manpower made keeping the VVS at full strength on the map was starting to be a challenge.

Any reason why you never used GS from ~mid 1942 onwards?

I have seen defensive battles with ~20 Axis Fighters intercepting ~30 Biplane TacB in 1941 (with no escort) and the TacB still hitting lots of targets on ground before getting shot down, so it's not all bound to Fighters, that's the GG RNG we love, no?
Imo there's no reason to not have defensive GS as Soviets. Pilots and planes are there, just use them. They won't turn every battle but they are part of the attritional war, if each plane gets 6-10 Germans KIA on average, that's ~100k Germans dead with your Pool and many more Disabled (of which another 33% die), this makes more elements needing to be rebuild at the frontline (consuming freight - altough may not matter in 1943 that much anymore) and reducing EXP of that Ground elements (which otherwise basically does not happen when Germans get reduced NM, so you need to "kill the EXP"). It may also help with untis MOR, the disrupted Elements gain fatigue and then Leaders may fail some more fatigue rolls which may reduce the Division's MOR - which again otherwise basically does not happen by itself.

A plane on average may need like ~16Men for service, let's say it is 20. If you have 100 Bombers of which all die and every killing 6 Germans (average), that's 2000Men killing 600Germans, not sure how that would not make sense to invest in. The 2000Men stay alive and noone cares about the pilots.
Such K:D rates (even if the 2000 would die) is what the Ground forces can only dream off.
EDIT: For your case, 5000 planes on MAP x 20Men = 100k Air Personell needed, this would equal not even 2% of your total MAP Manpower. Even if my math is off and it requires twice as much it'd still be worth it imo.

Compare how two groups of artillery perform in a Soviet assault on a Level 3 fort. Here, 32 German M18 Howitzers had about 25% more HE hits than 1,324 Soviet artillery pieces.

Some things never change. ...probably still at 75+ MOREX and with 100CPP.

[M60A3TTS]

Armor production. Decent number of vehicles. Didn't touch the flame tanks much. For the individual who complained about not having King Tigers in his heavy tank battalions in another thread, note the Soviets share the same problem, with an unused pool of KV-85s and IS-1s. The new IS-2s would have sat as well. Meanwhile the KV-1S losses are replaced by older KV-1 tanks.

Just build the Heavy Tank Regiments as was suggested and you will be able to use the new Heavy tanks in no time.

I had 20 of them. If the good equipment was to be anywhere in sight, I probably needed 40-50 of them.

[M60A3TTS]

Here are half my tank corps, none of which are guards. Totally messed up here, they could have all been guards had it been managed properly. As it was, jubjub fought in such a way any overly exposed tank corps was decimated. It was only later I tried to cover them with rifle corps. I would have been better off sticking to more brigades as support units.

Those Tank Corps's win rates look fine, you are just missing some wins to increase the chance/roll each turn to get them to become Guards.
1943 a MOT needs 12+1+rnd(12) to become Guards. Not sure if the rnd(12) can ever be 0?! So all your 10-13 wins are just missing few more wins to be eligible. The first two must just be bad luck. Or are your Tank Guards percentages maxed out already?

No, you're missing the big picture, and so was I until recently.

Farming tank corps isn't an efficient exercise. As we've discussed in your thread, this rule of 28 combat points impacting the number of shots taken makes the early tank corps very poor if employing massed attacks, that is to say 3-4 tank corps fighting at once. If you farm the tank brigades you aren't impacted by any of that. Also, you can farm brigades in 1941. You can't farm corps until April of 1942, and that is very important because the motorized brigades also become available at that time, and is the key to virtually full guards tank or mechanized corps. Your only real limitation is the number of vehicles you can support them with.

Some may recall you used to be able to build guards tank corps as soon as April, 1942 but the devs changed that until December. That restriction obviously doesn't apply to brigades, so you can make use of the guards advantage that much earlier. But let's get back to the motorized brigades.

Tank brigades can be used to build a tank corps. Mechanized brigades are used to build mechanized corps. But motorized brigades have no corps, they are building blocks for the tank and mech corps. If you have a single guards motorized brigade, and match it with a guards tank brigade and regular brigade, you get a guards tank corps.

Here's the thing. When you build the guards tank corps, the guards cap goes against the tank unit. With the guards motorized brigade now gone, the motorized cap goes back to zero. So as long as we match guards tank and guards motorized brigades, the cap against tanks goes up, but the motorized cap continues to reset to zero every time a guards brigade is consumed in the making of a tank corps. So at the end of the day, as long as you have 29 guards tank brigades, all you need to do is farm motorized brigades to get 29 guards tank corps. A dozen get farmed to guards per the motorized cap, they form a dozen guards tank corps. Next turn another dozen motorized brigades with sufficient wins flip to guards. Rinse and repeat. Then you do the same thing with mechanized corps, one guards mech brigade, one regular mech brigade and one guards motorized corps. In this way you can be virtually all guards tank corps in early 1943 rather than still be working on it farming tank corps late in the year.

Too bad I didn't realize all of this 18 months ago.

[Wiedrock]

Armor production. Decent number of vehicles. Didn't touch the flame tanks much. For the individual who complained about not having King Tigers in his heavy tank battalions in another thread, note the Soviets share the same problem, with an unused pool of KV-85s and IS-1s. The new IS-2s would have sat as well. Meanwhile the KV-1S losses are replaced by older KV-1 tanks.

Just build the Heavy Tank Regiments as was suggested and you will be able to use the new Heavy tanks in no time.

I had 20 of them. If the good equipment was to be anywhere in sight, I probably needed 40-50 of them.

We may continue/expand on that in the other Red Army-Thread where you mention the Tanks performance I'd say.

Those Tank Corps's win rates look fine, you are just missing some wins to increase the chance/roll each turn to get them to become Guards.
1943 a MOT needs 12+1+rnd(12) to become Guards. Not sure if the rnd(12) can ever be 0?! So all your 10-13 wins are just missing few more wins to be eligible. The first two must just be bad luck. Or are your Tank Guards percentages maxed out already?

No, you're missing the big picture, and so was I until recently.

Farming tank corps isn't an efficient exercise. As we've discussed in your thread, this rule of 28 combat points impacting the number of shots taken makes the early tank corps very poor if employing massed attacks, that is to say 3-4 tank corps fighting at once. If you farm the tank brigades you aren't impacted by any of that. Also, you can farm brigades in 1941. You can't farm corps until April of 1942, and that is very important because the motorized brigades also become available at that time, and is the key to virtually full guards tank or mechanized corps. Your only real limitation is the number of vehicles you can support them with.

Some may recall you used to be able to build guards tank corps as soon as April, 1942 but the devs changed that until December. That restriction obviously doesn't apply to brigades, so you can make use of the guards advantage that much earlier. But let's get back to the motorized brigades.

Tank brigades can be used to build a tank corps. Mechanized brigades are used to build mechanized corps. But motorized brigades have no corps, they are building blocks for the tank and mech corps. If you have a single guards motorized brigade, and match it with a guards tank brigade and regular brigade, you get a guards tank corps.

Here's the thing. When you build the guards tank corps, the guards cap goes against the tank unit. With the guards motorized brigade now gone, the motorized cap goes back to zero. So as long as we match guards tank and guards motorized brigades, the cap against tanks goes up, but the motorized cap continues to reset to zero every time a guards brigade is consumed in the making of a tank corps. So at the end of the day, as long as you have 29 guards tank brigades, all you need to do is farm motorized brigades to get 29 guards tank corps. A dozen get farmed to guards per the motorized cap, they form a dozen guards tank corps. Next turn another dozen motorized brigades with sufficient wins flip to guards. Rinse and repeat. Then you do the same thing with mechanized corps, one guards mech brigade, one regular mech brigade and one guards motorized corps. In this way you can be virtually all guards tank corps in early 1943 rather than still be working on it farming tank corps late in the year.

Too bad I didn't realize all of this 18 months ago.

I was recently asking in discord exactly for that reason, for reasons to "what being the point to build Mot/Mech Brigades besides farming them Guards" (noone replied), so I agree the best way is to farm Brigades (for many reasons it is easier) and there is no reason after Nov/Dec 1942 to build any Tank/Mech Corps without it being Guard.
But somehow how you frame it, it sounds so "exploity" , I don't think it is. People have to decide whether to have earlier mobility Corps or if they can wait until end of 1942. Like with the earlier Tank Corps you can make way more devestating follow-up attacks due to their mobility, I wouldn't say you can forget about that capability those Corps enable you to do. Or just add them to attack to cause more retreat losses (altough may also work with SUs, not 100% sure).
So imo, if you decide to build some earlier you are also not wrong by that and can do some farming with them which you did not bad in I'd say (altough probably also not good enuff for the RNG).

I actually never thought (or forgot) about your point of stacking penalties affecting the Tank corps proportionally more than the meatwave Rifle Corps. That's a rly good point. But I would propose a mix (combined arms, literally) Tank with Rifle is usually the best (adding CVs with Rifle Formations until you reach about your "target attack CV ratio", then add a Tank formations/tank SUs for some % reduced manpower losses). But this is smth we may also continue on in the other Thread.

[M60A3TTS]

I actually never thought (or forgot) about your point of stacking penalties affecting the Tank corps proportionally more than the meatwave Rifle Corps. That's a rly good point. But I would propose a mix (combined arms, literally) Tank with Rifle is usually the best (adding CVs with Rifle Formations until you reach about your "target attack CV ratio", then add a Tank formations/tank SUs for some % reduced manpower losses). But this is smth we may also continue on in the other Thread.

One option is to attack with a rifle corps, then break an assisting tank corps down, attack with only two of the three tank brigades and then after the battle re-form the corps. Your battle is 25 strength, under the limit, and re-forming keeps you away from potential CU overages where your HQs are at their limit.

[Wiedrock]

I actually never thought (or forgot) about your point of stacking penalties affecting the Tank corps proportionally more than the meatwave Rifle Corps. That's a rly good point. But I would propose a mix (combined arms, literally) Tank with Rifle is usually the best (adding CVs with Rifle Formations until you reach about your "target attack CV ratio", then add a Tank formations/tank SUs for some % reduced manpower losses). But this is smth we may also continue on in the other Thread.

One option is to attack with a rifle corps, then break an assisting tank corps down, attack with only two of the three tank brigades and then after the battle re-form the corps. Your battle is 25 strength, under the limit, and re-forming keeps you away from potential CU overages where your HQs are at their limit.

Don't think thats worth it, you would lose the victory-count ...I think... and if the manual is right the 2 Corps should hit more enemies than 1.66 Corps.
Not sure if one could quantify the stacking penalties among all the RNG and other factors.

[M60A3TTS]

Hey M60, just wanted to say well played and thank you for sharing the game with us, it has been really enjoyable to follow.

Thanks, but in truth there was a whole lot I could have improved upon. After having played the Soviets so long once the game came out, I switched over to the Axis side for a while. That got me out of practice with the Soviet side and that along with a bunch of game changes that were introduced left me not in the best position. To his credit, jubjub played a unique game where he seldom created pockets, seldom ventured out and attacked after the tide turned. This forced me to keep assaulting his positions and racking up the casualties. His counterattacks when they came often generated lots of losses for me as he frequently combined attacks with SS and GD units with panzer divisions. That cost a lot of T-34s that might be exposed in tank corps that were not covered by rifle formations. It also cost thousands of casualties to rifle corps when my attacks failed.

If I had it to do over, I would have used more tank brigades and regiments and fewer tank corps. T-34s often end up with higher HPEs than even heavy artillery regiments, and the tank SUs use fewer vehicles, so that is an added bonus. I never really tried a mass breakout because it was usually over a bunch of combat delay 3 hexes where I wouldn't get too far, be out of cover of the rifle corps, and would have just been whacked by junjub with his nearby panzer and motorized divisions that despite my frequent sallies against them never seemed to run out of AFVs. There always seemed to be more StuG battalions on the horizon.

The artillery use could have been better, and given the ever increasing need for vehicles by the artillery park, that needed to be managed efficiently. Maybe fewer heavy artillery regiments and more mortars might have helped. Even cleaning out a lot of vehicle hungry units in the TBs didn't keep my army from suffering chronic vehicle shortages.

One thing I have subsequently tried after some of Wiedrock's postings is to assign Zhukov's front some Naval infantry Brigades directly and giving the front HQ some artillery support units. By combining a brigade to a rifle corps attack belonging to an army of the front, you keep the value of the assault force to 20 (under the 28 limit that reduces fires) and get the benefit of additional artillery support beyond the army's from Zhukov who of course has excellent leader values. It can be done with all sorts of fronts, but obviously a leader with better numbers gets better results. Once you get on map artillery divisions, they can go to the front HQ as well for more flexibility and capability.

Leningrad was nice to hold until mid-1942 but that cost maybe 400,000 troops over the long haul to hold, so maybe not worth that cost.

All in all, Berlin might still be in my sights if only I had another half million men. But 'twas not to be. C'est la guere.