Sapper 22 Invades his Homeland

[Bozo_the_Clown]

I am unsure why 13th army got such a penalty, distance from its HQ?

If you attack with two different armies one army gets a penalty.

[Tom Hunter]

In the South I am going to fight at Rostov for a turn, but will likely have to run to conserve forces. I have been re-deploying Southern front out of the Crimea, and rotating rested units out while putting new ones in. This is helping me build up but slowly. I am planning to abandon Crimea if Saper pushes on it, but right now its all Rumanias facing my fortified troops. Maybe I can hit them and help create a guards unit or two?

I’m expecting to fight at Stalingrad before mud hits, and have been expecting that for a while, hence the two forts. I have noticed they build out really slowly, these two went down early enough so that does not matter much, but I was too slow on a few at Leningrad.

Saper222 is 50 hexes from his rail head in the South, and did not use air to resupply last turn, I am certain he is building up for another strike, but not sure if it will be T11 or T12, regardless he still has plenty of time.

[Tom Hunter]

Thanks Bozo, there are so many penalties and bonuses going on I was not sure what was driving that one in particular.

In that attack, would you have separated the forces and attacked twice, or is it worth grouping them up?

[Bozo_the_Clown]

Tom, it's very hard to give specific advice. For example, I don't even know if the screenshot your are taking are before or after your move. However, I would relentlessly counterattack his spearheads. Especially if they are 50 MP from the rail head. He can't even supply them by air because he's too far away.

I do lots and lots of counterattacks in my games and get very few Held results. In most cases I don't even have to rely on the 2:1 rule. The key is numeric superiority. The displayed CV is almost meaningless.

Of course I haven't played Saper222. I tried but he rejected me (sniff, sniff).

Looks like you are doing pretty good in the North.

[Toidi]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Here is a sample attack, I bombed 6 or 7 times with light air raids before hitting the Germans, then went in for a planned (not hasty, I forget what term the game uses) attack. Many of my troops were at close to 50% fatigue, which I assume is detrimental to the attack. I am unsure why 13th army got such a penalty, distance from its HQ?

I would like to pull units off the frontline to raise moral and reduce fatigue, but my front is quite weak as it is, if I moved more away from it I think Saper222 would quickly surround what is left, and that would leave me with even less.

Tom, you just cannot attack like that. Always reassign divisions to a single army, (or at least to armies within single front to reduce the penalties), move your best leaders to those attacking armies, and than attack. Also, you need around 1:2 initial odds to be successful without any issues. With initial odds 1:3 or less things are quite uncertain. Finally bring a lot of sappers - do not build anything but sappers... Or perhaps sappers and some mortars...

Taking into account how bad your attack was prepared, it is amazing that it almost succeeded.

T.

[Tom Hunter]

Thanks Toidi, I have been putting better leaders in critical locations, but I have not maximized sappers, they are in every army, but not with three regiments. I'll do a bit more optimizing on the next set.

Bozo the maps I post are clearly labled Saper22 T10 and then Soviet T10, so you can see before and after. Saper is very careful about what he exposes. If you would not mind posting a screenshot from a game where you are about to counter attack I would be interested in seeing it. Or if there is an interesting case on an AAR you have written a link would be fine.

Thank you both for commenting and the advice.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

Finally bring a lot of sappers

I totally agree with that. Build nothing but sappers in 41 and some RR repair units before the blizzard. It's boring but effective. Also, did you move all support units assigned to fronts to Stavka and then reassign them to armies?

[Tom Hunter]

For some reason my post on the center did not take, so here it is.

Bozo, yes, Stavka has very few attached units (RR repair and a few because I am defending in the Moscow area) support is locked, but there may be a newly appeared army or two that are trying to drain my support on the sly. I have small numbers of support in the Fronts, most is in the armies.

I am getting kind of thin infront of Moscow, so I slid the Bryansk front North to fill things up infront of Saper's Panzers. I stayed forward to buy time to evac Moscow factories, a processes that started this turn, using Walloc's very helpful guide. I also wanted to keep in touch with the units Saper put into a weak pocket during his turn. I think they are doomed, but I would rather have them doomed later than now.

Further East I have been reorganizing the airforce supporting Western Front, and I have boosted the interdiction %. Saper has been waging agressive war in the air, I am experimenting with counter strategies to see what can be done about that. I am following the usual practice of withdrawing groups with low moral back to the national reserve, I am also trying setting some obsolete fighter units as bombers, and some other small experiments.

I did not have a good plan for my paratroops at the start of this game, and do not want to try small operations that are bound to fail, so I have done very little with them. Eventually I may change that.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

f you would not mind posting a screenshot from a game where you are about to counter attack I would be interested in seeing it.

A couple of battles from a recent game. Maybe that gives an idea regarding the numbers you need. I have two or three sappers per army.

[Tom Hunter]

Saper222 almost makes it:

[Tom Hunter]

If its not clear, he attacked to create a pocket, and forced some retreats, but was not able to get the close.

So more of the Leningrad army will get away.

I think the smartest thing for Saper222 to do at this point is stop trying for the pocket. He will get less and less of my army, and the Germans are way off in the middle of nowhere during very important turns. We will see what he chooses to do in T12.

In the air Leningrad is a success, I'm actually winning. Saper is very aggressive in the air, and I seem to be getting the hang of building up a fairly decent Red Airforce. Elsewhere the air war is acceptable to me as well, the only times I really get murdered is when I send I-16s into the battle. This is vs Finland, but its becoming a model. All that said I don't think you really win the air war as Soviets in 1941, but you can lay better or worse ground work. One of the Lagg-3 squadrons in this fight has downed 26 Axis aircraft.

[Tom Hunter]

Leningrad falls, many Soviet units get away, others are in route. I am not sure if Saper222 can close the pocket, the Finns are not very strong and there is quite a bit of stuff in the way, but Saper is very resourceful.

I have started stacking my armies for counter attacks, something I was not really paying close attention to before. Saper222 got punched in the nose T8, and I even retreated a full stack of pnz, and since then he has been careful about exposure.

[Tom Hunter]

9 divisions cut off West of Moscow, that is the biggest pocket Saper has made since the early game. I need to buy time to get factories out, I am using all of my rail for that. Two turns of pulling stuff out of Moscow so far, and its getting pretty empty, but I would like another turn or two. I think this line can hold for at least another turn, it seems the game does not allow you to smash forward more than 2 turns without a bit of rest, at least not into stacks of 20k men in forts, so maybe things will work out for a bit.

I need to build another line with Moscow as the fortified center, I don’t know if I can hold the city but I hope to keep a big chunk of Saper’s army in the area for a while. I’ve also set up the Red Airforce in a way that may cause Saper heavier casualties, we will see. The blue airbases west of the city have more modern fighters at relatively higher moral levels and they are set up to support Moscow and be close behind the river lines without having to move at get fatigued. I’ll report on how this works, as earlier posts show the air war has been one of my few relative bright spots so far.

[Tom Hunter]

In the South Saper got next to Rostov, which is down to 3 factories I pulled back to shorten lines and make them stronger. I’m hoping heavily fortified swamp and urban hexes are harder to take, and the river line of the Don is relatively strong. You can see Southern front starting to form new armies South of the city, those are likely to move North and East over time to screen Stalingrad. I notice there are few rail lines into the Caucasus, so I am setting things up to defend those routes in.

I’m also thinking about putting some para’s into the Crimea to cut key supply lines, if I still have Crimea at blizzard time that might give me an edge in counter attacks in the South.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

Saper222 got punched in the nose T8, and I even retreated a full stack of pnz, and since then he has been careful about exposure.

Very nice! I'd love to see some of those combat results.

[Tom Hunter]

Over all I am starting to form new armies, and you can see Southern front has formed a thin screen that is not engaged by the Germans between the Center and South. The Red army is just over 4.1 million men, so I seem to be keeping up with my losses, and I see signs that the Germans are slowly drifting downwards in combat power.

New armies are starting to form in the rear, I am trying to fight the fronts with what I have there and move towards a system with more reserves.

It’s a very tough game, but getting a bit more interesting as I begin to catch up with Saper’s knowledge of the game and understand his play style.

Soviet ARM production dropped to 299, and I still have more evac to do, but a fair amount of it got out. Hopefully enough to make an interesting game later in the war.

[Toidi]

In my opinion Sapper will not attack Moscow frontally. He will move from the south and the north, and than make 2-3 hq buildups trying to make an encriclement with a pincer movement. Moscow is almost impossible to attack frontally, even if you are next hex to it unless it is cut off - the cv is just too high. As his supply is likely too far at the moment, his temporary objective for tanks will be to pocket the divisions in the west - west-north of Moscow (or east of Rzhev) - he needs pockets badly and he needs time to get rail closer.

You will evacuate Moscow with no problems. If you do not lose any more armament points, you will be perfectly fine. The only issue is that you were evacuating them in small chunks, which means that they will repair for some 10 turns longer as they take more damage when compared to evacuating them in as big chunks as possible.

If you manage to grow your army to 4.5 million, Sapper will have problems with big attacks, if you manage to grow till 5 million by the end of summer you will have really good blizzard. Sapper main objective now is to pocket as many divisions as possible, as he will not get much more industry (if any).

Finally, pity you did not attack that cavalry from Finland, it would certainly yield if attacked by 5-6 divisions (and maybe even 3 divisions would be enough). You should also have attacked those tank divisions, the 22cv shown would most likely yield to 10-11 cv attack (so again, 6-7 divisions) when the units are attached to single army and under good leader. Even 7-8 cv attack would be worth trying as they have no supplies and are far from supply points - so after unit bombing at the beginning (as a separate air mission), chances would be high.

[Tom Hunter]

Toidi you are right about the attack on the Finns, but it was not possible. One of the things that I'm just now understanding is how to set the army up to hit back after Saper's moves. Most of my troops were not in a position to launch an attack on the Finns, the best I could do (and did) was one division on a deliberate attack, and two or three on hasty, which was not enough to move them. Also, there is a lot of chaos as I run through the gap.

Saper222 will get the divisions near Moscow that could not move away fast enough, I think he is too spread out to get a large pocket in Moscow, my impression is he would need the troops from Leningrad to do that. Bozo I am sorry but I doubt I have the reports for the successful attacks, but they were similar in terms of force to the attacks you showed, the Red Army seems to need 100k to win early on. Saper222 clearly understands this, he is careful not to expose big stacks with high fatigue and low supply.

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: Toidi
Moscow is almost impossible to attack frontally,

I hope you are right, and normally you would be, but in this case I would not feel so optimistically at the moment - we have only one very weak line of Rifle/Cav with minor fortifications. and his infantry is very close... The northwestern front is much better protected, as well as the moskwa-line in the east. May be you could shuffle the cav vs. the rifledivisions.

Good job at LG, by the way. At least a strong proportion of his panzers are now far away from the main attack.
Sapper's tempo of advance is just insane, looks more HoI III, but whether you survive this or not, Tom, you will have gained a huge lot of expirience. Matrix should really hire guys like sapper for beta-testing!! Good luck!

[Toidi]

ORIGINAL: Wuffer


I hope you are right, and normally you would be, but in this case I would not feel so optimistically at the moment - we have only one very weak line of Rifle/Cav with minor fortifications. and his infantry is very close... The northwestern front is much better protected, as well as the moskwa-line in the east. May be you could shuffle the cav vs. the rifledivisions.

He can get to hexes next to Moscow easily. But attacking Moscow without cutting it off is almost impossible - even 3 stacks of infantry + mobile reserve support (which gives around 1000 initial cv in combat report) is not guaranteed to displace 3 divisions in Moscow dug in into lvl 3 fort (that will show some 2000+ initial cv in combat report). It is always easier to flank, isolate and attack isolated urban hexes. At least I have never seen player successfully taking Moscow with frontal assault, when Moscow was defended by 3 divisions. I have seen Moscow flanked and taken many times.

As such, for Axis the effort to get next to Moscow hexes is almost counter-productive. As you have to flank anyway, it is better to use the effort on the flanks which will force the withdrawal of the divisions defending hexes in front of Moscow anyway (or if Soviets keep them there, Axis will just pocket them happily when surrounding Moscow).

T.