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As this is a test game, can the Soviets bring forth their VVS - especially the Tactical Bombers - and set them to do ground support where the Axis has no fighter cover (or strugglesw to have it).
I am convinced there will be a German artillery destruction bonanza.

(I actually am doing that in my Soviet game and anywhere the Germans have no fighters their guns are blasted away by Il2 and Su2)

VVS were disbanded!

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

As this is a test game, can the Soviets bring forth their VVS - especially the Tactical Bombers - and set them to do ground support where the Axis has no fighter cover (or strugglesw to have it).
I am convinced there will be a German artillery destruction bonanza.

(I actually am doing that in my Soviet game and anywhere the Germans have no fighters their guns are blasted away by Il2 and Su2)

OK, I am deploying a few around Rostov and will test it out when he approaches.

End of Soviet Turn 6

An attempt to break out the isolated unit in Estonia failed. My intel made it look like the motorized regiment was weaker than it was, plus Popov had sub-optimal leader rolls. I also continued a gradual retreat towards Leningrad.



In Smolensk I am really stacking up my defense with triple-stacked units with high defensive CVs, attempting to bring the Axis advance to as much of an outright halt as humanly possible.



Pulling back around Gomel to keep out of infantry range:



Tried to cut this off with cav, but Bread prudently had the highlighted infantry in the right place:



Cut off a motorized with cav:



Great success in the Crimea area. Budyonny's cavalry-mechanized forces cut off the German Panzer regiment and routed it, causing it to lose 117 vehicles in the battle.



Meanwhile, since Odessa has been taken, that means that the Odessa cavalry division has to spawn somewhere else. And it spawned just a few hexes away from the lead German Panzer division that had entered Crimea. So I marched it north along the coast and it cut the connection to land, and also had another cav convert the hex north-east of the motorized.

However, then I realized that the German units would probably not count as fully "isolated" due to the ferry hex. I had one relatively weak tank division that had enough MP to cut the other side of the ferry connection. I might not have sacrificed it, but the routed Panzer regiment ALSO had routed to Novotroitskoe, so I could displace it at the same time as also cutting off the other Panzer.

Start of Soviet Turn 7



Bread inflicted another 170k losses basically just from grinding. Our total men on the map went up by 30k to just under 3.2 million, but the total size of the Red Army went down by 30k (including theater boxes etc). Will the casualties be sustainable continuing like this, or can we hold well enough despite the losses to avoid sudden death?

These are presumably still less than historical losses though, so hmm:





North grind:



2 glorious reserve activation holds in this one hex:



Gomel grind:



South (Kharkov falls):

"Upgrade"



Well, there goes half my south defense. Thanks a lot for the "upgrade," guys. [:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@]

I am building a new cavalry division. It only costs 8 AP, which normally would be too expensive, but it is not too expensive for this game. I get AP 25 per turn, and I am getting close to running out of useful things to spend AP on, since I can't spend it on changing generals. In subsequent turns I expect to spend a lot of AP on new cavalry divisions, which will be used to harass the German Panzer divisions while they are advancing as much as possible. I can build up to 3 additional cavalry divisions each turn if I want to, until I have 74 of them.



I also am building 8x engineer-sapper regiments (1 AP each), which brings me up to the maximum of 22 allowed. The purpose of these is to assign them to forts, to make forts build up to level 3 fortification more quickly. I have disbanded all my motorized engineer-sapper battalions and also some of the non-motorized engineer-sapper battalions. Other ones that I did not disband are assigned to forts which I have been constructing in previous turns.

ORIGINAL: Beethoven1

"Upgrade"



Well, there goes half my south defense. Thanks a lot for the "upgrade," guys. [:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@]

Maybe Timoshenko just mixed up the orders and the NKVD liquidated themselves without question. It happens, with hundreds of directives going out per day.

Also, if Stavka is personally responsible for every single victory, I am horrified to imagine how many medals this poor man will be eventually forced to wear. He'll tear his spine in half!

ORIGINAL: Lovenought

Also, if Stavka is personally responsible for every single victory, I am horrified to imagine how many medals this poor man will be eventually forced to wear. He'll tear his spine in half!

Rest assured, Comrades, that an investigation of this matter is underway. It is our sincere hope that this will persuade Stalin to replace Timoshenko with a more capable leader such as Marshal Kulik.

Start of Soviet Turn 8

Another 187k losses this turn. The size of the Red Army, both in total and on the map, remains basically the same.

The 37th Army HQ spawned near Kharkov. IIRC it is supposed to spawn somewhere around Kiev, but that is obviously not happening since the front is slightly further than Kiev...



In the south, Bread is trying to encircle my cavalry, apparently not realizing that I can build 3 new cavalry divisions each turn with my AP to replace them. I guess there is genuinely nothin better for the Romanian/Hungarian troops to do than hold those pockets though, so why not?



North grind. It's raining:



Smolensk grind. Also raining, and as you can see I have built some forts around Bryansk in previous turns:



South:

Forgot to mention, a German Panzer division has reached Sevastopol. However, Sevastopol is defended and has a decent defensive CV.

Our impenetrable Donbas defense begins to take shape. Undoubtedly more high quality cavalry and the like will arrive next turn to throw back the invader.

I feel some of the issues shown here can be solved by:

A) CCP loss on attack varies on combat ratio
B) 'Unready' units cannot flip hexes. (This stops raids by 'sacrificable units')
C) Ready Divisions under a specific CV or Personnel count as regiments for Hex Flipping. (Atm it's silly a German Regiment flips only its hex, and a Soviet unready CAV flips through ZoC)
D) Some units (too small, or too weak) do not exert ZoC to hinder enemy movement around them.

I support all your suggestions, but A would probably solve a lot of issues.

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

I feel some of the issues shown here can be solved by:

A) CCP loss on attack varies on combat ratio
B) 'Unready' units cannot flip hexes. (This stops raids by 'sacrificable units')
C) Ready Divisions under a specific CV or Personnel count as regiments for Hex Flipping. (Atm it's silly a German Regiment flips only its hex, and a Soviet unready CAV flips through ZoC)
D) Some units (too small, or too weak) do not exert ZoC to hinder enemy movement around them.

Nooooooooooo, don' nerf my 1 CV cavalry, noooooooooooo [X(]

And I'll have you know that not all of my cavalry is unready [:-]. A good number of them are actually (barely) "ready." Like this one, for example. All my cavalry are always on 60% TOE and permanently on refit so that they spend fewer turns depleted and more turns when they are either unready or ready and can be thrown into the gaping mauls of the Panzers.

This cavalry is at 48/49 TOE, and with 52 morale that is enough for it to be "ready." This division has also already made two sacrifices (losses) for the motherland. Hopefully many more to come!

I thought that this AAR is showing what is wrong with current balance/CPP/etc
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5135309

But this one. This one is a real gem! Thanks Beethoven and RedJohn. I hope developers take a closer look into current situation and players suggestions.

An annoying thing happened. When I build the engineer-sapper regiments last turn, I sent them immediately to the map, without even letting them have a single turn in the strategic reserve to get replacements, so they were at 0% TOE. I thought that they could get replacements when sent to the map and assigned to STAVKA, which shouldn't be a problem because I have plenty of freight/supply/etc. However, this seems to not be possible, it sent them back to reserve at 0% TOE and now I have to wait again apparently to be able to use them. So apparently you can't do this and I will have to wait a turn before deploying them and assigning to forts [:@]



However, some engineer-sapper regiments in the Far East theater box disbanded, which means I can make some more of them now I suppose. By using these, hopefully I will be able to make some powerful level 3 forts that will stop the Axis advance in its tracks... soon...

I have just finished turn 9, and my logistics are beginning to fray. Worrisome!

Start of Soviet Turn 9

The guilty have been punished:



My losses were worse this turn, nearly 250k. I retreated very little in the north and center, in part because it was raining, and I paid the price for that. I thought that Bread might rest his units more since it was raining but clear was forecast the next turn. As a result, the total size of the Red Army is down by about 50k (both in total and on the map), but I am still at 3.1 million on the map.



North grind:



Center grind:



South (not really a grind). Kerch, Sevastopol, and Rostov have all been more or less reached, but all stand firm. At least for now.




One reason for the relatively high losses is probably that the Axis bombers are being used and not contested at all by the non-existent Soviet Air Force. Here is one screenshot that Bread took. Although now that I look at it, maybe it is not having that much effect. It is disrupting elements, but this was with only 1 division defending. And it did not destroy all that much, considering it was 400+ German bombers bombing a single division with 0 Soviet fighter cover.

Bread has still not eliminated heroic 5th rifle division in Bialystok pocket. We will soon liberate Minsk for +6 bonus VP.