Taming the Tiger or Slaying the Bear......loki100 (Axis) vs Speedy (SU)

[loki100]

T24 – 30 November 1941

Oh great



Small bit of good news was the weather reverted to snowfall, so even in the north its just short of deep snow on the ground.

Looking ahead, the worst of the weather is going to strike from Moscow to Kharkov.



Not getting enough supply to the combat formations,



but my main depots are well stocked. Kharkov was connected that turn which will help.



Anyway, here and there made local attacks, the Soviets have got a bit too casual for my tastes.

Not only does that cull the VVS, it gives me some idea where the better commanders have been allocated.



Repeated that, more successfully across the front. At a rough guess that was 30 routed divisions, a couple that shattered. Not enough to remove the threat but a useful reduction in their immediate front line numbers.



Net losses were in my favour, an image to cherish given what is on the way. At least that gives them something to spend their new manpower stock on.



And a decent chunk out of the VVS.



So in addition to Leningrad, what did I learn?

Nobody on the front line around Vyazma who worries me, Lelyushenko south of Bryansk is interesting.



No real clues there.



Nor there.



The Crimea tells me more about the state of Soviet supply than about the state of their leadersip.



Guess all I learnt is that their best formations are not immediately in the front lines yet.

Spent a lot of AP on a numpty reduction programme. Need to pass as many leadership rolls as I can.

[Speedysteve]

Welcome Comrades to the greatest show on Earth and the start of our Winter Offensive. I had been planning Operation We Love Uncle Joe for over a month now.....since we're at T29 I can disclose what my original intentions were since the weather has royally screwed me and I had to adapt and change the plan on the fly.

The original focus area was going to be a substantial offensive in the Leningrad area. The logic for this was if I could push the Fascists back to the Narva I would effectively guarantee Leningrad's safety for the war allowing me to focus forces in other areas.

The plans for this involved a supply priority focus for forces in the area, use of an NKPS to boost a depot, 2 reserve armies bought up, allocation of some of my best leaders (Rokossovsky, Bagramyan, Tolbukhin, Popov, Bobkin, Berzarin and Purkaev) to the theatre and masses of additional vodka rations for my men.

The plan was set, leaders had been briefed, men on triple vodka rations, Leningrad Front set to assault status and........the weather screws me.......many areas on the below screenshot have not seen.....a.....single......week.....of blizzard (even to now on T29).....ridiculous. As such in actuality I have made very little progress in this sector during the Winter Offensive.

Apart from the obvious (using these commanders and troops elsewhere) the other frustrating part is the total waste of over 150 AP's in getting this all set up.

Since we're in the middle of the Winter Offensive I can't post much yet on what has happened since and the area I had to shift my focus to but I'm 'reasonably' happy with the damage I have managed to do in this improtu focus area from T24 onwards.

The below art masterpiece shows the NKPS, 2 reserve armies and the original target line.....vapourware now mind you.

[loki100]

T25 – 7 December 1941

Well Japan comes to my rescue ... or not. The weather forecast was right, with a very odd shaped blizzard, next turn its going to be front wide. Deep snow roughly from Smolensk south, only snow above that line.

Oddly the Soviets didn't really try very hard:



So decided to give them some ideas:



So gave up a bit of space at Rzhev – I can retreat a long way here with no particular cost.



And a bit of gentle sparring on the Kursk-Kharkov sector. I'm assuming some sort of plan to break my lines between Kursk and Bryansk (judging by the leadership etc) so have a deep reserve set up there.



Realise its just starting but the Pzrs are currently in a decent shape.



And most of my losses are disabled (so should return in the Spring – if I last that long).



Tank build up in the pools is more due to inability to deliver to the front than excess production. The Pzr replacement battalions are useful for bringing this stock up to the line but won't start till January.




Apols for the short gap, while I did go to mainland Scotland I also found a corner with no wifi or mobile phone signals ... so my noble opponent couldn't get a turn ... but to pick up on Steven's last post - he has been really unlucky with the weather. Roger

[loki100]

T26 – 14 December 1941

Not too bad for week 2 of December:



'Not' is doing some serious work in that sentence, so we are in full retreat in N Africa, the French are revolting and the minor inconvenience of being at war with the USA.

Weather remains a bit of a south-north split. Roughly south of Velikie Luki is blizzard/deep snow (boo), to the north is still only snowfall and normal snow.

So it looks like the main Soviet offensive is aimed at 9 Army



And at the hinge between 4 and 6 Armies. Limited action in the Dombas where mostly my lines held up.



Overall not too bad – where they failed they took really heavy losses.



Start to gain a better feel for where their key commanders/formations are. Note that both sides get hit by the heavy snow removing elements from combat before it even starts.



None of my formations are in great supply, but its notable that far more is arriving in the Pskov set of depots than anywhere else.



For a response, mostly pulling back a hex, not enough to remove the threat but it means maybe only one chance to attack, easier for AGC as there is always some sort of terrain bonus. Lashed back here and there – sometimes with real success. In a way more cheered up by the lost guns than the raw manpower.



Despite that, overall numbers rather grim – if predictable (19,000 of my losses came in the logistics phase).



Small pleasures ... and all that.



Truck score. Well I've lost almost 68,000 (nearly 2,800 this turn alone), Soviets have loaned me 21,500 as compensation for the damage they've caused.

Northern supply network – its fairly neat (apart from all the shortfalls).



Ukraine remains a guddle.

[Speedysteve]

Well Comrades....as I pointed out earlier on and as Herr Loki highlighted the initial advances for my counter-attack were launched by Reserve Front. After the failure of 'any winter' offensive around Leningrad I had to improvise. I chose the areas near Moscow for 2 main reasons:

1.) Force dispositions/depth. I had a natural force depth here of many many miles that gave me a natural 'pool of men' to advance and replace depleted formations due to Sausage eater resistance.

2.) Supply! With many key locations still in my hands and near the front (Rzhev/Kaluga/Orel) my men would have no problems in obtaining vodka.....crucial!

During week 2 (14th December) of my actual 'advance' my men make decent gains using Front wide echelon attacks and also reserve formation attacks to puncture Axis defences across Reserve and Western Front commands. An example of Reserve formation use is seen with the '2 attacks south of Dugino AF'. I'll post them below but Zakharov's initial failed attack was followed up by reserve formations from Zakharin's 20th Army a day later....extra Vodka for Zakharin of course.......

[Speedysteve]

Glorious:

[Speedysteve]

Herr Loki's Abwehr is clearly working since the second area for counter-attacks was directed around Kursk. Here it was largely based on the enemy forces being spread out and the fact that Comrade Stalin had a vodka dream clearly seeing Kursk as being very important in July 1943. The men responded accordingly....In all seriousness if we can re-take Kursk it would be a nice VP boon (important since the War was clearly fought on a VP basis[;)]). The challenge here is viable depots....Orel and Voronezh are there but that's it.....it also dictated why Southern Front was a real challenge to use as a focus area....Rostov and Voroshilovgrad...and that's it for decent depots in my hand....tough.

[Speedysteve]

OOB. Comrade Stalin is very happy seeing the silly enemy tractors freezing and becoming ice monuments:

[loki100]

T27 – 21 December 1941

Yep, I've worked this one out



Overall same odd pattern of weather, still only snow in the northern sector.

But the Soviets were much more active but paying a high price where they ran into my Pzrs.



My counter-attacks were mostly very ill-judged as things start to fray but some generated satisfying routs and heavy losses.

Nothing too worrying up at Leningrad so was able to plug that gap.

Not too bad for AGC/N around Vyazma, 9A took a battering but has space to fall back into.



Bit more worrying here, gave up space, I'm going to lose Kursk (-6 time bonus) so no point trying too hard to hold on. I'd like to cling to Kharkov if I can. Dombas more under control and Soviets being very cautious in the Crimea.



Ah well, another 2 turns and then the first relaxation of the worst effects. Also the first of the fresh infantry divisions arriving which will make it a bit easier to rotate and plug the gaps.

Down to 1,200 working tanks – going to be around 800 by January.

Note I've stripped down the Luftwaffe to little more than a fighter screen. I guess one good thing is the Soviets can't get over 5m easily given they have consumed their 500k allocation.



Losses – again mostly attrition. Have to keep in mind most of my disabled will return (reckon on around 20% by May).

[squatter]

Hi Loki - looking at your supply network, it seems you are only building depots where there are railyards.

I wonder what are the disadvantages of building depots on non-railyard rail hexes much nearer the front, especially in winter? Obviously they will not process as much freight as railyard depots, but they will allow some units nearby to use the 3-hex horse transport rule and retain more MPs as a result?

What am I missing out that makes this a bad idea?

[loki100]

couple of bits to my thinking:

a) till the rail malus lifts in March I have a global cap on what can come east. You can see this practically a few posts back where I show the receipt by 'super'-depot, basically I can fill up 3 such places but not 4 in a given turn. I'm seeing this pattern repeated, so at the broad level more depot capacity isn't my problem (for now);

b) new railyards grab a fair chunk of supply can take a while to fill out, so in a supply stressed situation, they can be costly (short term)

c) I take a different approach to say Carlkay in that I trade off rail repair for temp super-depots. This isn't right/wrong, prob not even better/worse just a different view on how to use the tools to hand. The result is I can't usefully generate a cluster of small depots to take advantage of the 3 hex rule etc as my rail network is still mostly linear W-E. I have one N-S connection that uses Gomel as the link spot.

The problem with the 3 hex rule is its not great if you can't deliver. A unit gains from that routine IF it can fill up at the nearest depot, if that depot only gets say 100 tonnes of freight in a turn its not really going to cover many units (ok for a few more or less static divisions). If the unit has to reach beyond 3 hexes, it falls back on trucks etc in anu case.

As I prepare for 1942 offensives, I will fill out a lot of the gaps - both rail lines and depot frequency. In part as the first constraint eases and I can use the idea of creating a stock at a location then letting it flow to the advanced depots on a sector.

Wider pt, all this is guesswork. For various reasons I last played the axis in a 1941 HtH prob about 3 years back (if I recall that was before the super depot rules etc) and towards the end of testing tended to concentrate on the Soviets vs AI. So I know the principles, but probably have a much better idea of how to make it work in practice with the Soviets. And its a different challenge there as inevitably you have more demand and thus need very different approach to meet that demand (in many ways the Axis in 1941-2 doesn't need that much freight, just it can't access what it does need).

[carlkay58]

When you build a depot where there is no current railyard a level 1 railyard with 100% damage is created.

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: loki100

couple of bits to my thinking:

a) till the rail malus lifts in March I have a global cap on what can come east. You can see this practically a few posts back where I show the receipt by 'super'-depot, basically I can fill up 3 such places but not 4 in a given turn. I'm seeing this pattern repeated, so at the broad level more depot capacity isn't my problem (for now);

b) new railyards grab a fair chunk of supply can take a while to fill out, so in a supply stressed situation, they can be costly (short term)

c) I take a different approach to say Carlkay in that I trade off rail repair for temp super-depots. This isn't right/wrong, prob not even better/worse just a different view on how to use the tools to hand. The result is I can't usefully generate a cluster of small depots to take advantage of the 3 hex rule etc as my rail network is still mostly linear W-E. I have one N-S connection that uses Gomel as the link spot.

The problem with the 3 hex rule is its not great if you can't deliver. A unit gains from that routine IF it can fill up at the nearest depot, if that depot only gets say 100 tonnes of freight in a turn its not really going to cover many units (ok for a few more or less static divisions). If the unit has to reach beyond 3 hexes, it falls back on trucks etc in anu case.

As I prepare for 1942 offensives, I will fill out a lot of the gaps - both rail lines and depot frequency. In part as the first constraint eases and I can use the idea of creating a stock at a location then letting it flow to the advanced depots on a sector.

Wider pt, all this is guesswork. For various reasons I last played the axis in a 1941 HtH prob about 3 years back (if I recall that was before the super depot rules etc) and towards the end of testing tended to concentrate on the Soviets vs AI. So I know the principles, but probably have a much better idea of how to make it work in practice with the Soviets. And its a different challenge there as inevitably you have more demand and thus need very different approach to meet that demand (in many ways the Axis in 1941-2 doesn't need that much freight, just it can't access what it does need).

1942 offensives[&:]

I'll be in Berlin by May....just you wait and see

[squatter]

Thanks Loki - v interesting analysis of the Axis winter supply situation

[loki100]

T28 – 28 December 1941

So last turn of the very worst of the effects.

Weather remains wierd. Blizzard around Leningrad and then over most of the map but a gap over the Valdai. If I believe next week's forecast its going to be just snow across the front (no real gain as I now have heavy snow pretty much everywhere).



Soviets not really generating much sustained effort but my lines are starting to fall apart under the pressure.



In a few places, they had over-extended so hit back as I could. Some of those wins were a bit of a morale boost. Tactically in a few places, I'm ready to risk a salient as it gives me a clear hit at anything that tries to move into the gaps.



Main crisis is north of Vyazma, 9A is in full retreat (& a real mess).



Other main pressure point is around Kursk but so far can mostly hold my lines. Sending reinforcements here – unlike 9A in the end they could make serious gains here.

Not shown but action on the Kharkov-Stalino sector relatively low key.



Losses – grim but not unexpected.



I've been experimenting with a new depot priority system, basically last turn all the big depots on the 1941 border were set to 3 or 4, that did seem to pull stuff from the NSS and in turn a bit more got to my main front line depots. If this works as a structured approach, should start to pay off come mid-January 1942.

In the end, its better to have freight in Lvov-Brest Litovsk etc rather than back in Berlin.

[Speedysteve]

Well Comrades.....19451 draws to a close and what a year.

The Blizzard has provided a welcome relief to my soldiers and I BUT not where I wanted (As previously mentioned - Leningrad). Snow for this week across the Fronts. I urge my men to continue pressing where they can as there's still deep snow in many areas.

As per the previous weeks the main 'progress' continues to be in the Vyazma area involving Reserve and Western Fronts. For transparency I've annotated a map (red line) showing the start positions of my men 4 weeks prior. Hardly going to win the at at this visit but it's a morale boost, an enemy detritus boost and increases my men's permeance and an ultimate chance to gain Guards status.

[Speedysteve]

Despite Abwehr Agent Loki's claims we are trying down south.....just not as much or with as much success as around Vyazma....

You'll also note 2 of my 8 Cavalry Corps in view on this:

[loki100]

T29 – 4 January 1942

So starts the slow route back to some recovery – helped by the fresh infantry formations actually reaching the front lines.

I mean I won 4 battles ... that is some sort of recovery?



The weather remains odd, basically north of Velikie Luki it is snow, south it is heavy snow. Its the latter that cripples my formations so AGN is (relatively) having a good winter.

First of the Pzr repl battalions appear in the reserve. Handy as a means to repair some of my weaker Pzr divisions.

Worst hit sector is 9A again, I'm going to gamble on holding onto Vyazma for a turn or two.



Although Kursk is a VP city, I'm less interested in trying to hold onto it – in the end its not really defensible and no point actually losing formations here.



No real improvement to the freight situation.



Not helped by some disastrous counter-attacks.



OOB – bad but not unexpected.



For Germany only, have almost 500k manpower in the active pool, so in theory once the supply situation eases I should be able to recover most of my formations.

Tank stocks exist, just the same problem of delivering them.



So broadly, my lines are intact around Leningrad, 9A is in full retreat. A degree of crisis at Vyazma but the bulk of AGC is under little pressure. The hinge between 4A and 6A is very weak but I'm not sure the Soviets can do much here. Abandoned Kursk but the bulk of AGS is stable.

[Speedysteve]

[:D] They're not tanks[:D][:D][:D]

[loki100]

T30 – 11 January 1942

Well don't think I'll reach the 750 threshold for April.



Seems as if the Soviets are having a little lull. Worst of that was around Kursk.



Needless to say the weather really doesn't like Uncle Joe. Snow/snowfall pretty much everywhere which eases the pressure on both my units and logistics.

For last turn, Pskov and Dnepropetrovsk were my main depots. The satellite depots for AGN are all fairly full as well. Situation behind AGC is a bit more patchy but lots of small depots are helping out.

Black Sea ports are full of stored freight.

Of my experiment in priority depots on the border, only Brest-Litovsk and Vilnius have really worked as I hoped, all the others have minimal stocks. My suspicion is this fits to the lower storage rates for AGC so both now set to '1' to see if they will release the freight towards Minsk etc.



One unexpected benefit of the return to snow was relative mobility. This meant units set for refit could actually reach the depots in a single turn.

Equally, took the chance to take out some over-extended Soviet incursions.



Cleared the approaches to Vyazma – which has the capacity to become costly to the Soviets due to the relatively clear terrain around the city.



The gap between 4 and 6A becomes a worry but fresh formations being sent here (also really helped to be able to pull stuff back to depots). 1PzrA had some sport along its front, in total routing around 20 formations. That should make them cautious about exploiting the gap – as well as possibly forcing them to weaken any offensive formations just to fill out.




Nothing I did to deserve that other than take advantage of the odd weather conditions. As far as I can see, should be the same next week but there are two large low pressure areas east and north so blizzards by t32 (at a guess).

Ground losses reflected the action, impressed that 22,000 Soviets have surrendered – clearly I have better food despite all the problems.




Air war was a massacre for the VVS. I'm only using the fighters (auto-intercept only), but it seems as if the VVS was risking a full scale commitment.