wall of steel suggestion

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Northern Star

Vitebsk

It's turn 4, and you have played a pretty typical advance to the land bridge. Infantry just cannot be there by Turn 4, and your tanks aren't going to have enough fuel to conduct deliberate attacks nor to maneuver. So you have no offensive options that accomplish much that is either strategically useful, nor do you have any options that are tactically useful. Not in this theater.

At this point, you maximize your gain at the operational level, with actions such as these:
Ensure two army groups have the ability to fly fuel to the panzers (normally priority is given to Army Groups North and South, not Center here, further restricting expected movement rates in this army group's area.
Maximize your infantry movement - do not waste time trying to convert hexes.
Ensure you have solid rail routes of advance, particularly along the Daugava to Vitebsk. It is critical to run your Army Group Center railroad along the Daugava (using the faster Baltic conversion rate to accelerate the distances you can convert per turn).
Streamline the allocation of aircraft to airbases.
Replace the crap commanders that saddle Army Group Center.

Others have said "Wait for 1.08" and you also mentioned you'd retired for two years. There are some strategies you appear to be using that don't mesh with what I understand (perhaps incorrectly) to be 'standard' strategies, like allocating a panzer corps from AGC to AGS, and focusing more panzers to the capture of Pskov. But I'm not a grizzled veteran any more myself, so maybe you are more on to the current trends than I.

In general, I find the way your units are spread about to be operationally inefficient (at least in reaching this point) but I don't know what combats you were required to fight in your approach to the land bridge.

Going forward, part of your goal is to simply win combats and erode Soviet morale. When I was a hard-core player, I kept a turn-by-turn spread sheet of each soviet division that was attacked so that I had a turn-by-turn grasp of the division's morale attrition (along with tracking how many artillery pieces were involved on the Soviet side, which gives you an idea where he's concentrating good units and SUs). I'll do that again when 1.08 comes out, because managing German morale is the sine quo non of victory (and I'm sure will be likewise in 1.08).

Just ensure you win the combats that you do have.
It is better not to move an HQ than to move it just a little. Same for panzer units.

Maintaining efficiency in 1941 is part and parcel of maintaining momentum.

My two cents, anyway.

[carlkay58]

As Helio states it is turn 4. The infantry is already in the front line. So move the infantry forward. You can attempt to use HQ Build Ups (HQBUs) on some of the Panzer Corps so their supply situation will improve dramatically. If you cannot do HQBUs, your panzer forces will still do a good recovery if you leave them in place.

Essentially you are in an offensive 'pause' turn. This pretty much happens on Turn 3 and/or 4 during the game for the Axis. Use the turn to bring the infantry, air groups, and rail heads closer to the front and prepare for an infantry assault next turn that will allow your panzer forces to exploit weaknesses in the Soviet front lines.

[Northern Star]

Unfortunately I didn't manage to do HQBU in the next turns... Now it's turn 9, here is the situation (the turn is still not finished, I have still to close the rings...

[Northern Star]

I want to encircle at least 14 divisions...

[Northern Star]

In the past turns I destroyed 15 divisions, but it's still not enough...

I can do maybe some HQBU, do you have any ideas about how to destroy this wall of steel near Smolensk?
My priority has always been to destroy the army than to take the cities...

[Disgruntled Veteran]

ORIGINAL: Northern Star

In the past turns I destroyed 15 divisions, but it's still not enough...

I can do maybe some HQBU, do you have any ideas about how to destroy this wall of steel near Smolensk?
My priority has always been to destroy the army than to take the cities...

The best advice I can give is to have a schwerpunkt and press it hard. IMO this scenario is already lost and was lost after turn 2. It takes a lot of practice but a concentrated thrust through the clear gate of Smolensk is unstoppable, and once you flank the Soviet line..they have to either retreat or be encircled. That's not a lot of details but I think its better if the player develops these by themselves.

[Northern Star]

It's the first game after 2 years and things changed a lot, maybe because of 1:1=2:1 rule. With the old rules the Soviets used to make many lines of defence,and counterattacks were much harder. With this rule, Saper has almost nothing behind this wall... And his counterattacks are successful 99% of times. I can't advance too far when I know in the Soviet turn I will be forced to retreat with many losses... So I concentrated panzers and infantry and I went slowly, trying to encircle as many units ad possible.
This game has been useful only for practice imo. We agreed to start a Road to Leningrad without 1:1 rule And we'll see what is more useful to win, Saper's crazy tactics or the old times tricks of an evil witch [:)]

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Northern Star

It's the first game after 2 years and things changed a lot, maybe because of 1:1=2:1 rule. With the old rules the Soviets used to make many lines of defence,and counterattacks were much harder. With this rule, Saper has almost nothing behind this wall... And his counterattacks are successful 99% of times. I can't advance too far when I know in the Soviet turn I will be forced to retreat with many losses... So I concentrated panzers and infantry and I went slowly, trying to encircle as many units ad possible.
This game has been useful only for practice imo. We agreed to start a Road to Leningrad without 1:1 rule And we'll see what is more useful to win, Saper's crazy tactics or the old times tricks of an evil witch [:)]

I cannot give you an optimistic way forward.
The game went through several phases of strategy adaptation and patches to deal with those strategies that were probably too exploitive. On the one hand, the German side for a time was able to fly so much fuel to the front (particularly to motorized rifle divisions whose fuel needs were far lower than a panzer division) and essentially outrun any defense the Soviet tried to mount. Then for a time the winter rules were exploited by both sides to the point that the game received a major patch to deal with that problem. Subsequent to that, players realized essentially that the Soviet side could not lose playing the way your opponent is playing you.

Because morale is everything to combat performance, and because the Soviets have a free +1 odds shift in this time period, it's very easy for the Soviet to gang-up and counter-attack single German units, leveraging his morale up and German morale down (i.e. making the change in morale over time that is hard-coded into the National Morale settings accelerate much much faster for each side - Soviet up, German down).

To counter this, Germany can't leave units alone, which means the entire war machine slows down. As others have said elsewhere, discounting an outright German win (generally agreed upon as highly improbable against an average or better Soviet player) Germany's path to late-war victory is to protect morale and establish as much distance between the Soviet start point and start time back as far as possible. I believe a lot of people feel that until the 1.08 patch arrives, with the option to take away that +1 odds shift (and a host of other important changes), it is so easy for the Soviet side to leverage that strategy that new games aren't worth starting.

[Ketza]

I agree with Heli here. I have been waiting for 1.08 to start my new games as the old rule set has things pretty much locked in to a certain ebb and flow.

[Gabriel B.]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

ORIGINAL: Northern Star

Vitebsk

It's turn 4, and you have played a pretty typical advance to the land bridge. Infantry just cannot be there by Turn 4, and your tanks aren't going to have enough fuel to conduct deliberate attacks nor to maneuver. .

Vitebsk is in reach of german infantry by turn 4.

Typical advance is Lida , turn 1.
Minsk ,turn 2.
landbridge turn 3.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Gabriel B.

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

ORIGINAL: Northern Star

Vitebsk

It's turn 4, and you have played a pretty typical advance to the land bridge. Infantry just cannot be there by Turn 4, and your tanks aren't going to have enough fuel to conduct deliberate attacks nor to maneuver. .

Vitebsk is in reach of german infantry by turn 4.

Typical advance is Lida , turn 1.
Minsk ,turn 2.
landbridge turn 3.

Sure they get there but can not do anything out of MP's.

Its not until around turn 7 that things can get moving again in center. Which is why there is a wall in center. SHC has
7 turns to set up.

In the north GHC can hit hard turn 5 as HQBU's can be done turn 4. GHC has a min 7 90+ morale infantry divisions, so holding Leningrad is no easy thing. Forts are much easyer to drop with the right set-ups.

The south is same a center now (.08) as by turn 4-5 GHC is at end of logistics chain,
so if SHC has an IQ above 2 they can guess where to set up the checker board and where the first real line of defense
will be on or around turn 11 in south.

42+43 are both really going to be interesting.