Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

Vehicles in units
How many vehicles were lost in supply operations last turn? You are getting rather far from rail.

Got the turn today.
Moving supply I have lost 3+K vehicles last turn.

143392 vehicles are in units. I am wondering if max toe% has any impact on vehicles in units. There is no use for the 100 tank brigades which come in autumn 41 and I always set them to 50% toe. But I have no idea if this helps to save some trucks.

Due to the security reasons screens will come later.

Turn 31

Here is the entire front in mid January. Nothing extraordinary is happening except battle of Kursk. I am still able to advance but not more than one hex per turn. There are two sectors where Axis have collapsed and advancing is possible. Kharkov area and south of Donbas. However there is nothing to gain and it would only result in two salients. Most probably destroyed in March ot even in February. In south I have even retreated to shorten my supply lines and form a "solid" line.
I am really cautious now. With the reduced Blizzard, Axis are perfectly capable of counterattacking. Cavalry corps with 2-3CV is not such mighty toy anymore.

Battle of Kursk

For two weeks, battle of Kursk is raging now.
I been trying to outflank Kursk from north and south but Axis have launched own winter offensive here. Situation is desperate with no chance of liberating Kursk. Currently I am trying to save my exposed forces from destruction. Especially the precious Cavalry Corps.

It is worth to rebuild cavalry corps if destroyed? It's 70APs(I need to rebuild the cavalry divisions as well) per corps.

I'd say no, but then I'm really frugal with ARM expenditures until Fall '42, and Cav is hideously expensive in ARM.

Not many new divisions are coming in now and ARM pool is slowly rising. Probably I can afford them.

Battle of Kursk is over. One cavalry corps and 3 rifle divisions are doomed.
Rest of the front is seeing only attacks and counter attacks on weak spots. Nothing spectacular.

ORIGINAL: 821Bobo



143392 vehicles are in units. I am wondering if max toe% has any impact on vehicles in units. There is no use for the 100 tank brigades which come in autumn 41 and I always set them to 50% toe. But I have no idea if this helps to save some trucks.

If they are at 100% toe and siting in the rear , simply seting max toe at 50 would not help .
However, if they are actualy at 50 % toe due to losses, or build from shels that way , you save more than 13,000 trucks .

I switch the max ToE to 50% immediately when they arrive as shells.
I have just compared 50% strength with full strength brigade and can confirm that brigade with max 50% ToE is using roughly half the trucks than the full one.

When they arive as shells they have around 1800 men , but in january the toe changes to 900 men , so that would put them above 50% if you do not use them.

Yes that's true, but manpower is not the problem. At autumn I had been out of tanks therefore my main concern was getting tanks to front line units. Saving few trucks was a bonus and I don't give a toss if there are 900 or 1800 men in unit.

29.1.1942 - 4.2.1942

With the Winter offensive over, there is not much to show now. Here are the final winter lines in north and destroyed units from the Kursk pocket.
Now I am trying to dig in to avoid March madness.

5.2.1942-11.2.1942

Previous turn I have been too eager to farm some more Guard Cavalry corps and paid the price for it. Brian took advantage on the exposed CCs and pocketed them. Actually 2 of them were awarded with guard status this turn but won't enjoy it for long. [:(]

And the final Blizzard lines between Vyshny Volochek and Vyazma

12.2.1942 - 18.2.1942

Mostly quiet on the Eastern Front so just another part of the front between Vyazma and Orel.

I have started to build up STAVKA reserves. 49. Army is the first one.
Also the 3 pocketed CCs from previous turn were destroyed. [:o]

I need some advice regarding how to spend admin points. I am close to threshold and of course don't wanna waste them.
Every turn I am building few rifle brigades however it has a downside of reinforcements going to them and not to the frontline units.
I did not build any tank battalions yet because of tanks shortage. Now the tank pools are improving and I will build some but with 1 AP per battalion this will not solve how to spend the points.

Apart from rifle brigades, already building those, I take it, I really like the 36 gun 120mm mortar bat's. They will not win any battles, but they will increase the toll on the Axis when they activate in defense. They cause kills, not disruptions in my experience. Over time, they contribute nicely to Axis losses.

Each bat is 350 ARM/men, so 200 will cost 70k of each. 200 is enough for 5/army and some extra to give the armies in the area of the Axis '42 attack direction an extra 5.

I keep them in rear to gain exp and distribute to armies via rail traveling STAVKA in late April. You are a bit further in time, so building all in the rear is perhaps not an option this time. Once in place, they will not need much micro management, more like fire-and-forget.

I try to play historically plausible therefore 200 battalions is not option for me. Anyway thanks for the idea, I will for sure build some. Probably 1 per army + more in crucial sectors.

I took a look at the mortar battalion and it is not better to build regiments? Number of tubes is the same but regiments have more support squads and therefore should be more effective.