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

[TulliusDetritus]

And Crimea. I have retreated as Marquo has minimum a 3-units stack (German divisions, you don't play with these guys, they vaporize almost everything, eh). I did not want to have some units trapped. Bad news given that this front would have tied some enemy units that he will be using elsewhere. Still, I will try to stay in Crimea and stop his hordes from kicking me out of the peninsule. This should force Marquo to keep a minimum number of troops, we never know.

Overall, in Crimea I am pulling back to pre-blizzard positions. But still, the place was a nice training field. I harvested 4 or 5 Guards here so fair enough [8D]

[DTurtle]

Hmm, because of this thread I looked at the whole RR construction brigade vs sapper regiment thing again.

The thing with RR brigades is that their construction value is completely dependent on he number of men in the unit. With 100% (3000 men), you get a construction value of roughly 24. The experience of the labor squads is apparently completely irrelevant.

Sapper regiments on the other hand are different. There, the construction value is mostly dependent on the experience of the engineer squads. There seem to be several "jump" spots where they increase their construction value. One point is at roughly 50 experience - there they jump from roughly 14 construction points to 24-28 construction points. So, if they have enough experience, they provide just as much construction value as RR brigades, or even more.

[Edit]I tried to control for fatigue, experience, and morale. Fatigue has a large effect on construction value. Morale doesn't seem to have much of an effect, if any. While experience seems to have the effect noted above. However, there are some weird outliers all around - maybe the city labor squads are invisibly counted with those construction units? Feel free to check if my idea seems to hold up to the evidence.[/edit]

There is one other trade-off however: RR brigades require 3000 men to be at 100% TOE, but only have a build cost of roughly 100 armament points (they need 50 support squads). Sapper regiments require only 1100 men to be at 100% TOE, but cost 900 armament points to outfit. Of course, sapper regiments are also useful on the attack.

Altogether, I think RR brigade spam really isn't that useful anymore, and that sapper regiments would be better.

[Flaviusx]

I really like what you've done here Tullius. I think this is the way to do it in 42. You will probably get some stuff pocketed where the German decides to concentrate. But that doesn't matter too much: you have good fallback lines everywhere and massive reserves, and you're limiting your liability to big pockets, he cannot swallow up entire fronts at once. As soon as the German shows his hand you can respond to it overwhelmingly. You're in a position to shift truly enormous numbers of units as circumstances dictate.

Now, you just have to wait to see where the panzers go. Wherever they go, there you go, to paraphrase Grant.

Possible weak spot: the caucasus. But I personally love seeing the German go in this direction. Let them stretch themselves to the limit chasing oil will 'o the whisps. Look how well that worked out for them in real life! If he does take the Fall Blau plunge, you can shift stuff down there anyways, at least for a while before the rail lines get cut off. (So if he does go down there you have to get stuff down there fast before communications are cut.)

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

One thing I noticed at Turn 43 of my game was that the tank corps experience actually dropped from the previous week.  I'd be curious to know if you encounter the same thing.  I thought the drop was immediate after forming the corps and it would start to recover next turn.

This is probably because of the new elements involved. Bear in mind a tank corps isn't just 3 tank brigades -- those tank brigades are missing a lot of stuff that only appears when they are turned into a corps. Those elements are going to be completely green as the replacements arrive.

[M60A3TTS]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

One thing I noticed at Turn 43 of my game was that the tank corps experience actually dropped from the previous week.  I'd be curious to know if you encounter the same thing.  I thought the drop was immediate after forming the corps and it would start to recover next turn.

This is probably because of the new elements involved. Bear in mind a tank corps isn't just 3 tank brigades -- those tank brigades are missing a lot of stuff that only appears when they are turned into a corps. Those elements are going to be completely green as the replacements arrive.

Actually after I thought about it, I wondered if it wasn't because the green SUs I attached to the corps were then factored in.

[Flaviusx]

Honestly, I'm not sure if SU experience is calculated into the parent unit or not. Good question.

[gingerbread]

There is some info from Pavel about construction values: (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2963050#)

Do note the disclaimer.

The number is calculated and it depends on
- Amount of men in element divided by 20 or just amount of elements in case of Eng, Mech Eng and Labor elements.
- Fatigue. (ex. if fatigue is 100 construction value provided by element is halved)
- Experience. Not applied to Labor elements (ex. if experience is 50 construction value provided by element is halved)
- If unit is isolated non-Engineer and non-Labor element do not provide construction value.
- If enemy is adjacent construction value is divided by 5. (Not applied to Eng, Mech Eng and Labor elements)
- If unit type is FORT total amount is multiplied by 4.
- Final construction value is adjusted by supply percentage (min value is 20%)

Something like that..



_____________________________

Pavel Zagzin
WITE/WITW Development

[DTurtle]

Thanks for that info.

There still has to be some other adjustment, as RR brigades have 200 labor elements, but they only have a construction value of 24 or so.

Overall, it does support what I said above though: Once you can train them a little, sapper regiments are better for digging than RR brigades.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I think this is the way to do it in 42.

Well, I don't know if this is the most efficient approach in the game (as opposed to reality). The thing is, when I bought the game -december 2011- I knew I would be 100% following Soviet strategy. Word by word [8D] Except of course the Soviet stubborness and other clownish decisions of the first weeks, months of the war [:D]

The only difference is that perhaps I have more reserves than the historical Soviets. But simply because I have more soldiers (6.3 million) than were available early 1942.

I do know that when the Germans started their offensive in the south the Soviets sent to the south (from their Strategic Reserves that is, not cannibalizing other fronts) 6 Armies, 2 Tank Armies, 26 Independent Rifle Divisions, 25 Independent Rifle Brigades, 5 Tank Corps and 1 Cavalry Corps (source: V. D. Sokolovski).

But this is only what was sent to the south. We can safely assume (I would bet anything) that they were keeping MORE reserves in fact... Moscow [:-]

Now will this work in the game as well? In theory it should... If there is only one axis of attack I could concentrate there let's say 3/4 of the reserves. The 1/4 would be for Moscow for example. And 3/4 means 75 divisions (or less divisions but more infantry corps) + 20 Tank and Cavalry Corps. That's a lot of forces.

And if there are 2 axis AND Moscow is not a target I could in theory send 50 rife divisions and 15 tank, Cavalry Corps to each area.

And 2 axis of advance is the maximum the Germans should afford methinks.

[TulliusDetritus]

As for the RR Brigades, M60A3TTS made it for me. I was creating RR Brigades like a psycho, without thinking I was using lots of men: 450.000. And on top of that, you can't be even sure they are worth all this effort: digging is harder under 1.05. Suffice to say that I will be possibly disbanding the rifle brigades (well, form divisions in fact). One month ago I would have shouted: anathema!!

[TulliusDetritus]

[center]Turn 45[/center]
[center]23 April 1942[/center]

Still mud so we are basically using our pillows. Not entirely true in my case though (and perhaps Mark is doing many things that I can't see).

So, since the first april turn I have been creating two tank corps per turn + I attached support units to them. So now I have 8 corps. When I will get let's say 14 I might stop creating two per turn: 1 per turn might be ok. Because 2 corps are swallowing most of the APs. I'm using the reamining APs to disband up to 3 RR Brigades per turn. I also upgrade old fighters I-1x planes -like 5 or 6 units per turn- to modern planes: Yak-1, Mig-3 and Lagg-3, plenty of them in the pool.

Since the end of the blizzard I was sort of scared. Manpower and armaments were REALLY low. Less than 10k. in some turns even... 2.000. Yes, both. But when I opened the turn there was a nice surprise... Number are finally increasing! [8D]

[TulliusDetritus]

Antoher interesting decision I made on the last two turns. You may remember that the really low morale units were gathered around Gorky: 31 Rifle Divisions. Morale has been increased, a lot so good news.

The idea was: once they have decent morale levels they would be Strategic Reserves. But a small modificaction would be better. The fact is there are still quite many units in the frontline with low morale leves. So I plan to keep minimum 15 rifle divisions around Gorky. They will replace these frontline units with low morale. The latter will be sent to Gorky area. Morale should increase (it will) and then they would be sent to the front to replace low morale units, which are sent to Gorky. Rinse and repeat.

This way I would make sure I get rid of the low morale units. In fact I have already used these Gorky units (now morale almost = 50) to replace frontline units.

[DTurtle]

One thing worth trying for replacing/upgrading the air frames: Set just those air groups with bad planes to auto-upgrade. You'll have to check (either through the commander's report or through the logistics report) when they upgrade and turn off auto-upgrade again. Might save some APs.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: DTurtle

One thing worth trying for replacing/upgrading the air frames: Set just those air groups with bad planes to auto-upgrade. You'll have to check (either through the commander's report or through the logistics report) when they upgrade and turn off auto-upgrade again. Might save some APs.

Ah, I didn't know this interesting feature.

Thanks

[Flaviusx]

The autoupgrade feature is remarkably slow in upgrading prewar fighters, in my experience. Even when I-16 pools drop to negligible amounts and can no longer maintain regimental strengths. Nowadays, I'm manually flipping over prewar models during the blizzard period.

After that, it works fine.

[TulliusDetritus]

[center]Turn 46[/center]
[center]30 April 1942[/center]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus
Still mud so we are basically using our pillows. Not entirely true in my case though (and perhaps Mark is doing many things that I can't see).

Ah the gangster! [:@] He was planning my doom! His hordes have finally striked down south, Rostov itself has been captured but he hasn't crossed the Don. 44 Army six rifle divisions have been pocketed.

And on top of that, Vatutin is now dead! Not killed because of this advance. He was commanding the Bryansk Front 50th Army, no attacks at all in that quiet front. Oh well, he possibly choked to death on pretzels and vodka.

Before this turn it was business. Now it's personal! [:D]

[Flaviusx]

No worries. You're going to lose some stuff here and there to pockets. As long as its not entire fronts. The main thing is to bait the German into doing something and showing his hand. You've got amazing reserves and can handle anything he throws your way. Looks like he's going for Fall Blau here, so respond accordingly. But perhaps not overwhelmingly...enough to keep him wanting to go down into the caucusus, which imo is where you want him to go, but not enough to overrun the whole place.

Put on your poker face. [:)] The management of reserves on both sides is kind of a poker game. But you have the advantage of playing with many more cards.

[TulliusDetritus]

Definitely, situation is improving!

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

No worries. You're going to lose some stuff here and there to pockets. As long as its not entire fronts. The main thing is to bait the German into doing something and showing his hand. You've got amazing reserves and can handle anything he throws your way. Looks like he's going for Fall Blau here, so respond accordingly. But perhaps not overwhelmingly...enough to keep him wanting to go down into the caucusus, which imo is where you want him to go, but not enough to overrun the whole place.

Put on your poker face. [:)] The management of reserves on both sides is kind of a poker game. But you have the advantage of playing with many more cards.

Yes, I like the "waves" approach so I won't be committing all the reserves. In fact, yes, if he wants the Caucasus but does not push me towards Stalingrad, he would have a rather thin corridor. The ideal here: weak allies should protect this flank [:D]

Well, first disposition: the Caucasus Front (only one active army: the Coastal Army in Crimea) will fight south of Rostov, the Don. The Stavka 40 Army, 6 hexes south of Rostov -preparing defensive positions will be attached to this front. More Stavka armies, independent divisions, tank and cavalry corps will be coming.

[TulliusDetritus]

Well, Marquo is allowed to read -again- until the achtung minen thing. He may of course post any comment, if he wants to [:)]