Grand Campaign --- Q-Ball vs Sertorius21

[M60A3TTS]

The game closed as no turn was played for about two months. If one of the administrators could allow the map and the various reports to be consulted, it would be easy to post pictures of these, even if no further turn is played.

If this game has been abandoned, can the devs get me access to the Soviet player's side? I'd like to see some of the details around the state of things. There's likely a case to be made that PvP among experienced players have pretty much ended when it comes to a full 41 GC. The Red Army hasn't sniffed German soil in any posted games over the last couple years.

[56ajax]

The game closed as no turn was played for about two months. If one of the administrators could allow the map and the various reports to be consulted, it would be easy to post pictures of these, even if no further turn is played.

If this game has been abandoned, can the devs get me access to the Soviet player's side? I'd like to see some of the details around the state of things. There's likely a case to be made that PvP among experienced players have pretty much ended when it comes to a full 41 GC. The Red Army hasn't sniffed German soil in any posted games over the last couple years.

That is interesting. In my current game against a very experienced Axis player I am not going to sniff german soil either. My opponent went on the defensive in 1942. Every 2nd hex has a fort of 3 and a def cv of 50+. Every weak Axis unit only faces one Soviet hex. I can create a hole in the line but cannot exploit it due to cd or zoc. Not complaining as I am enjoying the game. And I am a novice at going this far in a game.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

The game closed as no turn was played for about two months. If one of the administrators could allow the map and the various reports to be consulted, it would be easy to post pictures of these, even if no further turn is played.

If this game has been abandoned, can the devs get me access to the Soviet player's side? I'd like to see some of the details around the state of things. There's likely a case to be made that PvP among experienced players have pretty much ended when it comes to a full 41 GC. The Red Army hasn't sniffed German soil in any posted games over the last couple years.

I'm not really sure there is the sample size to draw many conclusions? It's rare for a 41 campaign to make it to 43, let alone to 45. The only one on the front page of this forum is tyrone's from a year and a half ago. I think that is more a function of the difficulty of finding a closely matched opponent and then if you are both on the same level both players maintaining the interest and commitment to see the campaign through rather than any indication of the Axis being o/p. The games now 5 years old and I think a lot of players have moved on naturally which means the PvP scene is always going to be less active.

I think it's also difficult when this campaign and your own were abandoned at the end of 43 rather than the end of 44. 1944 is when the Soviets can really start getting up some momentum - the German NM drops to 60, the western front TB requirement increases, Soviet AFV survivability improves and the Axis start running out of good defensible terrain. In comparison I think 1943 is always going to be much more bloody and frustrating for the Soviet player. As an example - in that tyrone game already mentioned the Soviet VP score went from 340 in mid 1943 to 380 at the end of 1943 to around 650 by the end of 1944

All that said I do wonder if an Axis strategy of being conservative in 1941/42, setting a decent HWM whilst not threatening any of the auto-victory conditions and preserving their army before digging in 1943 onwards might be a little over-effective. You might say that had the IRL Germans not over extended themselves at Moscow and Stalingrad, and not bled away many of their best troops at Kursk, it might have taken the Soviets considerably longer to get to Berlin. But I'm not sure that that approach was politically possible under Hitler. Maybe players could agree an unofficial 'auto-draw' VP target that the Axis have to reach by the end of 1942 which limits them to a draw if they miss it (so no major victory possible at the check at the end of 1944 and no marginal victory possible if Berlin is still held at the end of the game). That might force Axis players to be a bit more ambitious and make the campaign a little more dynamic?

[Wiedrock]

One thing is that noone tried to use the reduced Combat Delay afaik, when looking at the Tyronec game the Soviet simply could not advance much quicker since there was always high MP requirements after combats (as also Ajax mentioned).

Then there have been several changes that favour the Soviets later on.

V1.04.21 – 9th July 2026
Fixed artillery bombardment phase of ground combat so that ground elements that are disrupted before the phase begins will not fire during the bombardment phase.

Regarding losses I have compared Soviet losses later in the game between game versions before the DISruption fix and after (when attacking with sufficient Artillery/Artillery Divisions). I won't state figures but there are some percentages (...okay a number ...maybe 10-15% ....do not quote me on that) of losses to be saved.
So successful Soviet Attacks which had 10k KIA despite winning MAY be less frequent but generally for sure less painful now.
So that is one thing.
[Sidenote: The pre-battle-DISruption for rivers always worked (at least a bit) this now also has more impact in the attacker's firepower]

V1.04.14 – 18th February 2026
o 152mm Br-2 Field Gun (0818) – Type changed to Super-Heavy Artillery.
o 203mm B-4 Howitzer (0822) – Type changed to Super-Heavy Artillery.
o 280mm Br-5 Siege Mortar (0823) – Type changed to Super-Heavy Artillery.

Another thing is the Fort reduction.
These are two things which were only relatively recently "fixed". One being the general Fort Reduction by Artillery (a bit longer ago it was fixed) and further there are some Soviet guns which just recently were re-classified as heavier gun types, this further improves their capability at reducing forts.

Another thing is the whole Air situation.
One of it being the GA/UNIT/INTERDICTION debate.
When you are slow in advance but leave 10-15k++ IL-2 in the Pool there certainly is room to improve (not just when you are starting to advance larter on but already earlier, so you get attrition going and reduce the MOR values of units, MOR which often does not automatically go down when well supplied - even when NM levels decrease).
The other being the GS situation.
If I look at the recently posted combats I do barely see any Soviet GS active, but mostly wasted Fighters without own bombers. Especially defensive GS is nothing to sneeze at but TacBs (which IL-2s are) do also perform well in the offense (untill they don't). Like there is no need to have fighters not be on REST when you have defensive GS off or no bombers on MAP as the Soviets. Your Fighters are there to shield your bombers not to shoot down the enemy bombers.

[M60A3TTS]

I am waiting on Sertorious21 to give his permission for me to have access to the save so I can better discern what the Red Army looks like by the end of 1943.

[Sertorius21]

I am waiting on Sertorious21 to give his permission for me to have access to the save so I can better discern what the Red Army looks like by the end of 1943.

No problem for me, if the devs can give you access, please go ahead

[Sertorius21]

The last turn we played was in January 1944 and it didn't quite bring changes to patterns that we had seen before. The only difference is that there were less Pz divisions south of the Dnepr, so I was glad to find a few weak stacks.

2Pz is not visible here, I think it was the southernmost unit under the Rumanians, having rested for a couple of turns. I hoped to use it the following week because it was due to be withdrawn soon after. This would leave only a covering force to cause a few losses and slow down the Russian infantry which was plentiful in the area although the Guards corps looked entangled along the river. The initial line of defense was the mixture of swamps and river, and then the plan called for a short withdrawal on the line running from Kherson to Krivoi Rog. This may have been sufficient to hold until almost the end of winter and the raspoutitsa.




A few heavier blows were traded in the bend of the Dnepr. Bittrich's III SSPzK staged a moderately successful attack close to Zaporozhye while most of the heavy elements in the zone went for two Soviet stacks that had their back against the river or would have to withdraw in ZOCs. They were fairly successful and, from the detailed loss report, it seems that the retreat was very costly to the defenders because of this combination of major river and ZOCs. Meanwhile, ants pushed back the control of terrain as much as possible. Virtually all the German line had been committed in these actions, hence my prudence.

It should be noted that, on the Russian side, 6 Guards XXX had previously operated against 4 Army and Army Group Centre, whereas 1 Guards XXX was in the Melitopol area. Given how shallow my line was, I thought that it needed a bit of support. So 3SSPz moved 30 km north, under the Rumanians next to 3SSPzK, after refitting for about 3 weeks. GD was railed to Kivorograd and set itself to support either 2 Army in blue or 1 Pz Army. The value of a large river to offset a thin line is quite obvious here and I was lucky to have a mild winter, otherwise the line would have had to be withdrawn much faster than it did.




This was it then, I hope to provide a few points of conclusion during the week-end. One thing I can say is that this was a lot of fun, a very tense game that I thought I had lost early in 1942 after Q-Ball deftly organised his winter counter offensive. Although the Axis managed to control the pace of withdrawal in late 1942 / 1943, it was touch and go a couple of times. Once the dam bursts, losses mount and ground is surrendered very rapidly, hence my attempts at preventing such an occurrence.