Turn 15 – 25 september 1941
Three turns for the rasputitsa, and it does indeed look like some dark clouds are gathering over RKKA fortunes. Q-Ball hasn't pressed as hard as I expected, but that's not a sign of weakness. I'd rather say it's a sign he's planning some major operations to cripple the RKKA before Winter hits.
Combat intensity has gone down all across the front, there have been just 49 battles, 73% of them Axis victories. Comparing with Turn 13, where there was a similar number of battles, Held results have increase by a 50% (proportionally). That's a good sign: the RKKA is regaining some balance. But I need to keep this strength and not let it be easily destroyed by the Axis armies.
Definitely, Axis AFV losses are well under control. Now it has occured to me that this is just a sign of most reliable AFV types “surviving”, that is, becoming the bulk of PanzerDivision TOE's. Trends in air losses have also changed, though I don't know how significantly. Let's take a look at the air battles during the Axis phase ordered by the number of fighters
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and sorted by number of bombers involved
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The AI is doing a more than decent job designing Luftwaffe strike packages: escorts seem to me adequate. Unfortunately, “adequate” depends on what the mission is going against. Three air battles went really bad for the Luftwaffe, in all cases, a reasonable number of fighter escorts were overwhelmed by a mass of VVS CAP. Looks like I can put up in the air enough CAP to dispute air superiority.
Continuing with the air model angle, I've checked how many Interdiction attacks were launched this turn: 2. That with 60% settings on the Air Doctrines. Checking the manual I see that DL is the major factor determining chances of interdiction. Since there's no recon being conducted during the non-phasing player, DL must be low, really low. The chances of a unit with DL = 5 are of 5/10. Hence the very little interdiction we see conducted either by the Luftwaffe and the VVS, in general, and why it makes sense to have low Interdiction settings – and generate a lot of “possible” interdiction missions – sooner or later, some of them will get lucky and strike on moving enemy forces.
Operational Situation Report
I think it's the first time in this game one of my predictions is 100% right
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Q-Ball hasn't managed to isolate Leningrad and link up with the Finns in one turn. But he'll next turn, almost for sure. I'll distribute the units along the fortified hexes, just to make their surrender “interesting”. This also means it's time to think how to pull back from the Svir, before the Finns burst through it.
The plans for Moscow of my opponent are quite obvious:
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I'm not sure of the identity of the two motorized units concentrations east of Rzhev and Kaluga, I think Q-Ball OOB has been thoroughly reformed several times now. Looks to me he brought the XL. PzKorps – which should have already arrived – to pair with 3. PzArmee Motorized divisions in the south. This is going to be dificult. If I pull from the center to the flanks, he can just walk into the city, if I don't, I make the Moscow encirclement to be a parade.
German forces in front of Voronezh have been this turn relatively quiet, a whole PzArmee seems to sit waiting for something in the Krastornoe region and on the eastern bank of the Oskol
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all of these units are out of build up range, according to the UI. I'm not sure what's going on. The infantry has clearly got into position to force a crossing north and south of Voronezh, which can only mean that he's onto trying to encircle Voronezh and the 33th Army defending it.
The situation in the Don bend isn't very good. 1. PzArmee is out of build up range, at least for three turns more:
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I'm pretty sure Q-Ball is carefully considering his future supply situation before striking towards Rostov, which I think is the last major target within reach of the German Army before rasputitsa. I need to reinforce – but also Moscow and Voronezh – and I don't see many divisions available for that.
Industry Evacuation
I have only 7 ARM points waiting for evacuation in the Danger Zone I defined at the start of the campaign, 3 at Moscow, 1 at Kalinin and 3 at Lipetsk, time to move them out. Besides I need to move out the vehicle factories left in Moscow as well as the IL-2 production. I move 6 of the IL-2 factories and leave the vehicles for another turn. That gobbles 60,000 railcap points out of the 82,913 generated this turn by the Railyards I still have.
Logistics & Organization
This turn the Armaments pool dried. The doom of the Soviet Union? Well, perhaps not right now, but it's not a good sign. I've checking the numbers and there's something that doesn't add up at all here. I've still have 316 Armament factories, 53 of them damaged (not taking into account factories moved this turn, next turn there'll be 60 damaged factories). Checking the Logistics Report, I find that 197 factories have produced 49,250 armament points this turn. First, the production multiplier seems to be 250, which is wrong. Second, the number of factories reported as producing is too low, it should be, in the case that all the factories below 50% didn't produce anything, 256. Either the logistics report is reporting the wrong numbers, or I just overlooked something.
Has that been bad for the health of the RKKA? Looking at the TOE statistics I'm tracking, they say that situation of Rifle units and Tank units has improved, but worsened that of artillery, which is not that surprising, since I lowered the TOE's to 50%. The pools look very similar to what they looked like last turn:
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Too similar, actually. Comparing built numbers between this turn and the previous one, I see that quite some stuff is being produced – basically Rifle Division equipment. Interestingly enough, no Cavalry squads.
The data is inconclusive, I need to look at this so close for a longer time. Now I'm damning myself about not tracking this since Turn 1.
Operations
This is the turn I've to say goodbye to Leningrad. I think I have done a reasonable job defending it, but now I can't stop thinking about that turn I could have gained at the very beginning of the game by isolating 4. PzArmee. Too bad:
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The red dashed line is the stop line for my retreat. There's nothing worth fighting here, I just want to have the shortest frontline I can afford.
The goal in Moscow is to make as difficult as possible encirclement, even if this means abandoning some level 3 forts achieved with the relentless effort of Moscow citizens:
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I also abandon Tula: it was becoming a bulge which I don't have the means to fight for. I'm pretty happy about northern flank defense: I brought here 55th Army from Tikhvin. Now I need to find somewhere another spare army to deploy it on the southern flank.
I retreat slightly towards the Don:
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moving most of Southwestern Front along the Don would have been perhaps a better move, but I can't just retreat like that. I am much more to the east that I ever really imagined, and I'm not comfortable with the idea that Q-Ball might get away holding the line on the Oskol, well to the west of Belgorod and Kharkov.
Another reason for not retreating too “aggressively” south of Voronezh is the situation of the Southern Front:
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I need to cover this Front flank. The defense of Rostov is almost ready...
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