Stalin's fired, I'm in charge! III 1/2- Tullius (Soviet) vs Marquo (Axis)

[Q-Ball]

BTW, you can't create Mountain Corps. They will forever remain divisions.

Still worth keeping out of harm's way; thinking WAY ahead, a Mountain Army will come in handy invading Hungary.

In the meantime, they get Guards + 5 morale bonus for being Mountain, so they are quality divisions

(If my math is right, that means NM for those guys will be 75 in mid-1944. I think)

[gingerbread]

How come there is not a single RR repair unit visible in the 3/26 screen shot - have you repaired all hexes up until your front line?

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

How come there is not a single RR repair unit visible in the 3/26 screen shot - have you repaired all hexes up until your front line?

Almost [8D] All my armies have 3 RR Brigades. Plus 2 RR Brigades in each Front HQ = 14 RR Brigades per front.

[TulliusDetritus]

And here

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

BTW, you can't create Mountain Corps. They will forever remain divisions.

Understood, no Mountain Guards Corps then [:(]

[M60A3TTS]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus
Almost [8D] All my armies have 3 RR Brigades. Plus 2 RR Brigades in each Front HQ = 14 RR Brigades per front.

[X(] That's like 150 of them. @3,000 men per Brigade= 450,000.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus
Almost [8D] All my armies have 3 RR Brigades. Plus 2 RR Brigades in each Front HQ = 14 RR Brigades per front.

[X(] That's like 150 of them.

Yes. Anyway, are people building less than that? Shovels are really important: your frontline ants will dig faster [8D]

Anyway, this turn there is blizzard in Stalino area (but snow on the other march turns). If Marquo was waiting for this last turn to strike, he's lost his opportunity. I can't say I'm sad about it [:'(]

Edit: oops, no sorry, blizzard south of Makeevka. And snow north of that city. Still, if he wanted to bag something he should have striked in the south in theory.

[Flaviusx]

I'm not so sure having that many RR brigades matters so much anymore, tbh. I build as many as you do and am no longer very impressed with the results. The front is so fluid in so many spots that it could be argued that a lot of this manpower tied to construction assets is wasted. Only where the front is relatively static does the investment pay off.

Forts generally, hell the defense generally, have been seriously devalued in this patch. They build more slowly, and at a lower level. Getting anything past level 2 is a pain in the ass. And then there's the stupid enemy pioneers. Your forts may as well not even exist wherever they are concentrated. It's made terrain even more important. Terrain is proof against enemy engineers, too.

Fort lines can no longer be extemporized. They have to be preplanned. I'm wondering rather than just giving everybody construction assets, instead maybe they should be targetted to armies specifically tasked with digging (exception: maybe the guys near Leningrad.) Sapper armies. STAVKA itself can act like one and hold a bunch of construction assets.

The only places you can rapidly throw up fort lines are where urban labor is plentiful, i.e., Moscow and Leningrad.

[TulliusDetritus]

And as you can see, they earn their weekly vodka... [:D]

[wadortch]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

I had said I've got two Guards Mountain Divisions. One of them had been attached to the Mighty (we hope! ) First Guards Army. I changed my mind. Who knows. For sure this army will be committed to meet the enemy summer offensive. I would not like to lose one of these divisions... because I am already thinking about a scary & nasty Guards Mountain Corps

So I send both divisions to Gorky. So train well, have fun and lots of vodka. Don't chase nurses though, at least whilst they're working!

Hello
What is the present morale of these two units on vacation?

[TulliusDetritus]

Sure [:)]

1st Guards Mountain = 55
2nd Guards Mountain = 58

[Flaviusx]

That's very high morale for the Sovs at this time. Very difficult to get above 50 in early 42.

It's also quite unlikely that training will increase it much or at all. You'll be doing well if they can maintain that morale as they take in replacements.

[randallw]

So replacements have their own morale, and that can adjust the morale of a unit, since a new average morale has to be calculated?  I used to think replacements made no effect, or just brought morale that the unit already had.

[TulliusDetritus]

These Guards Mountain Divisions are not the best units. Look at the mighty 65th Rifle Division, fighting in the Volkhov Front 52nd Army. Now that's morale! I will pull this unit back and assign it to a Shock Army. The morale might rise to 65 if I well understood, A nice monster I should put to good use during the summer [8D]

[TulliusDetritus]

From this

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS
[X(] That's like 150 of them. @3,000 men per Brigade= 450,000.

and this

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
I'm not so sure having that many RR brigades matters so much anymore, tbh. I build as many as you do and am no longer very impressed with the results. The front is so fluid in so many spots that it could be argued that a lot of this manpower tied to construction assets is wasted.

And the low state of the armaments:

I have concluded I am going to disband many RR brigades. Hmm, each army will have only 1 RR Brigade. No RR Brigades for the fronts either.

I have also disbanded like 15 Fortified Regions this turn.

So again thanks for your sound advices [8D]

[Flaviusx]

Well, it's not advice, exactly, more like thinking out loud. I'm not sure if this is the way to go, but clearly fort building strategy post 1.05 needs some adjustment.

The other thing I'm thinking about changing: switching out RR brigades for sappers. Leave 1-2 of those per army. (None per front. I think fronts should keep some brigades for actual RR repair purposes, as a matter of fact.) Sappers offer both defensive and offensive benefits. So they're not just diggers. You can get up to 6 SUs into any non urban battle from any given HQ, and I'm liking sapper regiments as part of the mix. Especially on those cross river attack where they won't be disrupted. (I also like putting in one tank battalion per army. So each army has artillery, engineering and a bit of AFV combat support.)

If your armies aren't moving, the sappers can pitch in an help digging, but if they're fighting, they can do that too. More cost effective in the post 1.05 environment.

[gingerbread]

Disband the RR brigades? The plan you sketch (14/front -> 5/front) would cost you 100+ AP. Could be cost effective to just set the TOE for the RR's to 50% until you start advancing again.

[Flaviusx]

Yeah, Gingerbread brings up a good point. APs are precious. But for your next game, you can switch it up a bit. Now is probably a bit too late, in for a penny in for a pound.

[TulliusDetritus]

That's indeed correct, lots of APs. Well, it simulates the mistakes done in the real thing too [8D]

When I think about APs, I think about a pie. Starting in april, minimum 1 Tank Corps will be formed per turn (on the first turn perhaps 2 or 3 in fact). Then I might disband 5 RR Brigades per turn = 5 APS. The air force: I might upgrade the I-1xs to modern planes, let's say 2 or 3 groups per turn = 3 APs.

etc etc, you get the idea.

As for sappers, all my armies already have one sapper regiment minimum.

[TulliusDetritus]

Anyway, I won't be advancing, I will be retreating towards Vladivostok in 1942. So repairing rail hexes is an impossible task [:)]