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FortTell wrote: Mon Jan 15, 2024 9:52 am So you are making single massive ground attack sorties. How do they stack up against a multitude of small sorties (of no more than 10 planes?)?

Good question, and not one that I have an answer for. Generally I am following this up with a ground attack where possible, so the big GA serves my purposes better than more smaller ones.

Week 23

Normal shuttle runs to Leningrad. 429 tons delivered this week.

West of Tula, it's bombs away.



Northwest of Tula, jubjub getting some last licks in before blizzard.

M60A3TTS wrote: Sun Jan 14, 2024 7:05 pm Week 21

Dueling supply runs in the north. TB-3s as transports are very important here.

Do TB-3s (or other bombers) actually carry a substantial amount of freight? I have always been put off by the AP cost from using them for that.

BUT if that gets you over > 500 so you don't get isolation combat penalties in Leningrad, that is very useful indeed. Maybe it is enough. At minimum it should help you hold on to it longer, although perhaps he can just assault across regardless if he wants to (maybe in '42). I would really like to see a game where Leningrad gets cut off but nevertheless Axis does not take it for once (rather than it just being totally doomed as soon as it is cut off.

So it would be great if that actually works.

Beethoven1 wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 7:14 pm

M60A3TTS wrote: Sun Jan 14, 2024 7:05 pm Week 21

Dueling supply runs in the north. TB-3s as transports are very important here.

Do TB-3s (or other bombers) actually carry a substantial amount of freight? I have always been put off by the AP cost from using them for that.

USSR starts with a small pool of TB-3 transports, not just bombers, and their load is bigger than that of Li-2 ones.

A full strength TB-3 regiment of 20 aircraft can bring in about 55 tons in the first run. You can do the math and see that they can nicely augment whatever deliveries the Li-2s are making. Due to relative transport capacities, I don't use any other LBs for supply runs. Since the TB-3 isn't buildable eventually you will run out but they can sustain supply runs for some period of time.

The TB-3G-2s are not available in large numbers so you can get limited use out of them, but not for too long, depending on weather, the opposition, ops losses, etc.

I pretty much make the Leningrad Run with up to 4 Li-2 and 5 TB-3 regiments (in a TBAD) and pushed to the max they get close to or just over the 500 ton mark.

Week 24 30 November 1941

Things are about to get more interesting.

284 tons of supplies delivered to Leningrad
4 flights were used, all with Li-2 aircraft

Ground attacks have marginal results in snowfall with 268 men and 16 guns lost among German troops.

Air losses this week 203 Soviet to 15 Axis.

IL-2 production remains shut down. One more week of factory repairs needed. We are short overall by about 140 aircraft. Similarly, MiG-3 and Yak-1 pools are unable to make up the existing shortages for all formations with these aircraft. Only with the LaGG-3 do we maintain an excess of a little more than 200 aircraft.

The last Axis attacks for a while go in.

How are you able to protect your transports from German AS missions? Could you show a combat results screen?

Turn 25 pictures

The Big Picture



Around Leningrad



Moscow-Tula



Donbas



Other info













jubjub has had all sorts of time to bring up supplies and entrench. There will be challenges ahead.

Week 26 14 December 1941

Only air resupply missions flew this week.

489 tons of supplies were delivered to Leningrad.

57 aircraft were lost, 42 of these operational and 15 air-to-air combat. 20 of those losses were transport aircraft.

Week 27 21 December 1941

Blizzard blankets the map, suspending all air operations. As a result, no supplies were delivered to Leningrad

Operation Sledgehammer begins. On the coast of lake Ladoga, the port town of Novaya Lagoda is liberated by troops under Ivan Bagramyan. The rail junction at Volkhov is also back under Soviet control. More on this later.

Air losses to date.

Week 28 28 December 1941.

As 1941 comes to a close, 413 tons of supplies delivered to Leningrad by air. 12 flights used with 17 transports lost.

Sledgehammer is in it’s second week. The port town of Kobena is liberated, thus ending all Axis interdiction capability across Lake Ladoga. Troop reinforcements can now move unimpeded across the lake to Osinovets.

M60A3TTS wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 4:47 am Week 28 28 December 1941.
Troop reinforcements can now move unimpeded across the lake to Osinovets.

Can they, though? The Ladoga should be frozen at this point of time and port capacity is either zeroed or divided by 10.

FortTell wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 7:40 pm

M60A3TTS wrote: Thu Feb 15, 2024 4:47 am Week 28 28 December 1941.
Troop reinforcements can now move unimpeded across the lake to Osinovets.

Can they, though? The Ladoga should be frozen at this point of time and port capacity is either zeroed or divided by 10.

Manpower reinforcements for existing units, not right now. But I can still get units across through ports with 3k troop ship capacity which is the determining factor. Port capacity is actually considerably higher than that. What's now changed is the risk of losing troops to naval interdiction values goes away unless he reestablishes naval patrols.

jubjub is offline with RL and we are about in the middle of his break. We won't be doing anything for the next week+.

Week 29 4 January 1942

Blizzard conditions along much of the front.

Yak-7a and LaGG-3 “11 Series” begin production and will be available for front line units in February.
American P-40Es begin to arrive from America and will be available in February. Only 9 of these aircraft a week are coming in, but we take what we can get at this stage.

307 tons of supplies delivered to Leningrad
9 flights used

Sledgehammer continues with slow progress this week. No new ground secured but two guards rifle corps are active here.

Week 30 11 January 1942

Difficult to make a lot of progress against a well entrenched jubjub. Rows of level 3 forts hard to overcome without a lot of casualties.

Weather graphics off for clarity. Pretty much blizzard here.











A higher OOB would be nice.



But losses aren't too bad.

Week 31 18 January 1942

244 tons of supplies airlifted to Leningrad this week. 22 Li-2 transports are lost. Overall, what remains of these aircraft are 43 ready and 34 damaged. Only 8 are in the pool.

IL-2 production has recovered to the point where we have 343 in the pool. The 1,073 aircraft out of a maximum of 1,100 is encouraging at this stage.

M60A3TTS wrote: Wed Mar 06, 2024 3:44 amDifficult to make a lot of progress against a well entrenched jubjub. Rows of level 3 forts hard to overcome without a lot of casualties.

If you are having a problem attacking in winter, my guess from the screenshots is it may be related to the fact that you seem to be keeping a continuous front line across the front. You don't really need a rifle division in every single hex (at least right now), because jubjub is not realistically going to advance out of his forts into the middle of blizzard.

Having a full complement of units on the front slows your CPP gain, and if you want to be able to attack you have to concentrate your units and attack with overwhelming force, which you can't really do if you just have 1 division per hex on a long front line.

Of course, you also mentioned that some of the turns have not been blizzard, so obviously you can't really attack without heavy snow, so that is probably a large part of it also. But you might try to concentrate your units more, at least locally.

Week 32 25 January 1942

Blizzard conditions let up this week.

The Leningrad Express flies in 513 tons of supplies at the cost of 16 transports and a level bomber.

Ground attack aircraft have an opportunity to fly. Over 400 aircraft lost but 2,000 German casualties extracted.







Aircraft pools are filling.



Next week we will be able to replace some of the LaGG-3 units with the incrementally improved 11 series. Still a poor performer vs. the opposition and inferior to our other fighter options.

Paltry number of American Lend-Lease aircraft will need some time to have any sort of impact.

Do you make any use of the U2s? I see a lot in the pool and historically they were a real morale issue for the Germans. It’s not clear to me how to make night operations useful in the game.

R