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April 24 1942

And finally Finland.

May 22 1942

Around Moscow the Axis gather up forces to storm the capital. I prepare defenses as well as I can but I have no real hope of holding the city.

Red airforce try to help with some interdiction. I must say I have changed my mind of the Soviet airforce quite a bit. I have kind of thought if not at 50xp they are useless but that is not true. Becuase you have so many airplanes so you can overwhelm the axis a bit I now find the red airforce pretty useful when it reaches like 43 in xp. Because I had so low manpower I did spend quite a bit of production on the airforce over the summer and at the end of it airforce xp was up to 46%.

May 22 1942

South of Moscow there is quite a bit of fighting. I am holding my ground as I explained in the other AAR I did not see any particular concentration of forces on the Axis side except Moscow so I decided to try and hold my ground and slug it out as best I could.

May 22 1942

In Tunisia I retreat. My main goal now is not to lose any armoured units. As I thought the whole operation did not work out very well. Possibly I should not have left Tripoli without a fight but I felt preserving my units especially those costly and long time in building ones was more important.

I spent about 140 landing ships on the whole thing. Worth it or not I am not sure. But there are maybe 2 less mech units on the eastern front and the Italian navy is cut down in size so something was gained at least. Now I feel I need to evacuate some units to form a reserve that can go somewhere else at some point.

May 22 1942

In Libya I approach Tobruk. But I dont think I have enough forces to take it but it looks threatening at least .

June 5 1942

Putting up a decent defense but the pressure is too great and the defending army retreats from Mosccow. Soviet reserves attempts to retake the city but fails. Stalin not happy and we all know what happens then.... He kills so many people so that Soviet Manpower each turn dropped by 20%. You all have to agree thats pretty insane .

Fighting to the south and also some fighting to the north of Moscow continues.

June 5 1942

In Libya new German reinforcements arrice in Tobruk and the English say thats not fair play and quickly retreats to their home base as it is time for tea.

The proud carriers of the Royal Navy sortie. The intelligence service is uncertain but they think the did manage to score a couple of hits on a Italian ship.

June 19 1942

The Axis offensive is not really a strategic one it is a attritional one with the aim to kill as much Soviet soldiers as possible. And it is kind of working. Losses are high and manpower go down. The lowest point over the summer I had was 52% and the only reason why it went up a bit later was because of some units with low xp gettting disbanded.

June 19 1942

And also north of Moscow there is losses and my units here are very weak.

June 19 1942

In Tunisia/Algeria the retreat continues.

June 19 1942

After having had their tea the British are full of martial spirit and think f**k it lets attack. So advance back into Libya without really having any plan on how to achieve anything

That's not low manpower! Under 50% is, and it's easy to get there against a strong opponent. Your Soviets have plenty of units on the map. I'd say things are looking good for the Allies.

Nice read.

sveint wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 9:36 am That's not low manpower! Under 50% is, and it's easy to get there against a strong opponent. Your Soviets have plenty of units on the map. I'd say things are looking good for the Allies.

Nice read.

Thanks doing my best. I doubt I will ever becme a writer or a poet but one never knows .

I also think situation is ok. Not sure if I win or not but the Soviets looks like they will survive at least. One step at the time.
I am just thinking historically I am guessing the Soviets went under 50% in 1944 not in 1942. In 42 and 43 the army was growing in number and most would agree it grew in quality too so being close to 50 in 1942 seems a bit early meanwhile a Soviet spy told me that German manpower is in the low 80s. But I am not going to complain too much. Now when losing Moscow wont be as painful in the future and 7op mech units I am guessing the game might be in better shape than ever. Fingers crossed .

From my nervous perspective, the Soviets are already annoying now and will probably become outright dangerous in 1943. Hence my attrition strategy which feels like cheating since I only knew about the MP problem because of this AAR .

What is your secret to have 10-5 Soviet armies in April 1942???

I can not answer for MM, but IIRC a full readiness 1943 army with 50% xp would be about that. So it is probably an army built very late 1941 or early 1942 at 50% experience and kept at best possible tech level (And maybe even an extra few xp from combat?).

Nirosi wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:58 am I can not answer for MM, but IIRC a full readiness 1943 army with 50% xp would be about that. So it is probably an army built very late 1941 or early 1942 at 50% experience and kept at best possible tech level (And maybe even an extra few xp from combat?).

Yes that is it. I think I wrote about it in another thread but what I do is this. I turn off replacements as soon as september 41 ends and I build new armies until end of January usually with 45+ xp and 42 tech. In February I turn on relacements again and rebuild the most weakened units if by then I have 50 xp replacements those armies too usually get to the same strength as the bought ones. Then you have the Siberians of course already at 50xp just need to upgrade tech and you should have a bunch of armies in the 9-10-11s something like that. Again not sure if it is the best or only way just the way I do it .

Nirosi wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 10:33 pm From my nervous perspective, the Soviets are already annoying now and will probably become outright dangerous in 1943. Hence my attrition strategy which feels like cheating since I only knew about the MP problem because of this AAR .

It is not cheating it just ordinary espionage . Anyway as I wrote in the game I really think you can calculate Soviet manpower at least get very close. All the statisics you need is in the game. Starting forces, casualties, manpower per turn and so on.

I have a plan that I hope will make the Soviets annoying in 43 we will see. Time is ticking for the Allies need to make something happen somehow .

July 1942

Driving around in the desert high on tea the British stumble upon a German HQ. After a quick fight lots of chefs, secretaries and other very important personell is captured.

In Algeria and on the east front not that much happening.

August 14 1942

In the east the Russian bear is not compeltely toothless. Over the summer the Soviets managed to destroy 2 German inf corps. Here is one of them. Also the Soviet airforce is getting a bit of control of the skies between Moscow and Kharkov.