Death or Glory - Russia 41 rematch with Seille

[xBoroNx]

Mainly out of scientific curiosity i did another attack with the finns. I think this is proof enough how evil overstacks are. Now Seille has about 100 stackpoints there, i attacked with 100 stackpoints and as it should be the defenders won. My poor finns.

[xBoroNx]

Has been a quite bloody turn. All fronts were in combat. Sewastopol and Kiev were taken.
114k for the russians, 29k for the germans. Without my fin attack numbers would likely have been like 100k vs. 15k.
But for my scientific curiousity the bloodbath was worth it [:D]

[xBoroNx]

Strategic situation is ok. I likely won't be able once more to take Moscow, but Leningrad should fall before the winter and maybe maikop.

[seille]

I did some counterattacks this turn which weren´t well prepared.
I got results like this mostly:

[seille]

But also a successful attack in the south which was well prepared.
Here our forces eliminated a complete german infantry corps.

[seille]

I did these attacks to reduce the effectiveness for the german troos in the coming turn.
Unfortunately their mortars are not only very effective in offense, they are also very effective in defense
cause they can fire the whole time out of the rear area (as long as my troops don´t break the enemy lines)

Overall losses for my turn:

[xBoroNx]

The germains tactically lose this turns air battle in the center. Shouldn't attack flak when i also have to fight fighters i guess [:o]

[xBoroNx]

Leningrad is finally ours. The there trapped baltic fleet is sunk.

[xBoroNx]

Seille left another present in the airbase in Leningrad.

[seille]

Oha. Worst case. I expected to lose Leningrad, but was sure i could defend the airfield.
That´s the price i have to pay for the early very high casualties in Leningrad especially the tanks.
These forces i wasted there i had not available for defending against AG North.

[xBoroNx]

This turn we mainly focused on destroying as much of seilles forces as possible. Not shown losses of the sowjets:
10 rifle II, 443 Rifle III, 6 smg II, 24 smg III, 15 fighter II.
About 135k losses for the sowjets. Didn't count the 2 battleships since they were inventory for sure. With those 150k.

[seille]

Losses, losses. losses.
Nothing can stop the german army.
They overroll everything.
 
I´ll have to surrender soon. The situation is much more complicated than in the last game
where i defended Leningrad easily.
Wherever i place my defense the germans overroll them with nearly no losses.
Their XP and unit combination (lots of mortar II) are simply too deadly.

[xBoroNx]

I think that the mortars are not so much the problem. Rather my artillery. I built a couple of additional artillery and upgraded them to lvl 2. The artillery then usually softened up seilles toughest units. After the artillery + if needed air strikes i often had the opportunity then to attack from 3-4 directions.

Since Seille had 31 fighters guarding moscow and i only have 31 fighters at AG center myself i did not dare to risk too much, we also have the same tech. So i only picked 25% losses for my fighters. To my great surprise though they clearly won the air fight. My fighters didn't have too high exp neither. Only 46.

[xBoroNx]

Seille is correct i think. This game the situation for the russians is even worse than last one. Lots of losses for the russians again. They are only a bit lower than last turn because AG North + the Finns were exhausted after the fierce leningrad cityfighting and had low readiness. And in the south i was mainly advancing finding only few russians.

102k for the russians, 23k for the germans.

[xBoroNx]

Strategic situation at the end of my turn. It was round 8/November 9th. Means 1 more round before the russian winter. Seille also got the Siberian reinforcements this turn. So Moscow will held in 41. But the game is lost for the russians i think. At least the situation currently is better than in our previous game for the germans since i already have Leningrad + Sewastopol. In our last game i captured Sewastopol later and Leningrad not at all.
In the next turn i should also likely take Maikop. Once this game is over Seille owes me a match where he plays the germans .

[IRONCROM]

What if you two were rematch but switch sides. I would like to see if seille could reproduce your success with the germans using the mortars in a simular fashion.
Few here would ever question seille's skill in AT(Least of all me), But it could possibly prove seille's case against the Mortar II.
 
If it doesn't...Well as my father used to tell me when I was a boy. "Be careful who you pick a fight with, no matter how tough you may be there is always going to be someone out there who is tougher."[;)]

[british exil]

Agree here with IRONCROM.
Love the AAR's would be nice to see the way xBx fight on the defense,seille on the offensive.

Depends also on how much time they have.
A nice AAR takes quite a bit of time.

Has anbody ever taken Moscow by Winter 41?
Is it possible?
I'm so new to AT, that by winter 42 I was no where near Moscow. Still learning, thats why I love reading the AAR's


Mat

[oldspec4]

ORIGINAL: british exil

Agree here with IRONCROM.
Love the AAR's would be nice to see the way xBx fight on the defense,seille on the offensive.

Depends also on how much time they have.
A nice AAR takes quite a bit of time.

Has anbody ever taken Moscow by Winter 41?
Is it possible?
I'm so new to AT, that by winter 42 I was no where near Moscow. Still learning, thats why I love reading the AAR's


Mat

I've taken Moscow by Winter '42...against the AI[:D] My German attacks are patterned after these AAR's. They have been a great read. Agree that it would be a hoot to see the players reverse sides here.

[jjdenver]

ime.

Has anbody ever taken Moscow by Winter 41?
Is it possible?
I'm so new to AT, that by winter 4

I've been in games where I would have taken Moscow by Winter but my opponent conceded. I think it's possible but only if the Germans are winning by a blowout.

[xBoroNx]

Yeah i am looking forward to our next match too. Both Seille and me prefer the russians lol. After our first match where i won mainly via air war i tried a brute force variant this time. In the first game probably 40-50% of the german production went into airforce, this time at maximum 15%.
But especially in the russia 41 scenario i dislike playing the germans. The time passes so fast there that it's extremely hectic for the germans. I usually prefer attrition warfare though.

I am really curious if i can beat Seille as sowjets. I strongly doubt it, but it should be interesting. The problem is that the germans have the initiative till the 41 winter and likely in 42 again for some months. Once russia looses too many cities the production advantage also goes down to nearly 0. Currently e.g. i assume that Seille only has about 10-15% more production than me and soon only my production maybe.

I think that Seille defended too early in both of our games though. This way i could always kill most of his defenders via combined arms. Then Seille retreated the few survivors which were in bad shape and formed with them only few hexes behind the front a new line which was again more or less overrun by me the next turn. Imho AT models it well. Defense is a bit stronger than offense, but only if you have enough forces. And a successful defense has to have an elastic element too i think. If you only defend staticly you give the enemy the whole initiative.

In this match i had nearly optimal allround forces i think. Lots of artillery and lots of fast infantry. Tanks i did not build a single one this time, imho the starting ones + the 15 tanks you get as war prey in Riga/Minsk/Kiev are enough. Eventually you will have lost all, but till then they have reached their purpose and you are only a few hexes away from your objectives. Seille built for the first turns too spezialized units imho. He has a lot of engineers who are also mobilized with trucks. Imho a bit too expensive. Then there were quite a few units which were like 50 rifles or smg + 1-2 light tanks. Or rifles/smg + flak or rifles/smg + at or rifles/smg + mg. But i can't remember that i saw a unit that had a mix of enough varied defensive weapons so far. The main problem though probably was that the russians built no artillery and only little airforce. So AG Center especially where i concentrated my starting airforce had every turn at least 6 free smaller soften up strikes or 2-3 concentrated ones with their 15-20 artillery and 10 level bombers and ~15 dive bombers. But this basically means that i can clear at least 3 hexes every turn with very little losses.
For AG North and South and the Romanians the situation was similiar, though at a smaller scope. But those army groups all had at least 2 smaller soften up striker units too.

I hope Seille surrenders and lets me play the sowjets now. I wonder if any of my planned strategies to survive with the russians in good enough shape will be successful vs. Seille. I am very doubtful [:)]