The Sky’s the Limit- PBEM GC 41 jubjub (Axis) vs. M60A3TTS (Soviet)

[HardLuckYetAgain]

If you do it right the low experience TAC bombers (even the old ones) can gain experience really fast if done right from their bombing . Also if done correctly these planes are not cannon fodder at all .

[M60A3TTS]

If you do it right the low experience TAC bombers (even the old ones) can gain experience really fast if done right from their bombing . Also if done correctly these planes are not cannon fodder at all .

A number of the lesser experienced fighter groups will be bound for other theater boxes once the regiments drop in size and the AIR DAY percentages decrease.

[M60A3TTS]

Week 4

Increased Luftwaffe activity takes place south of the Land Bridge and in the area of Nikolaev.

An attack by tac bombers of the VVS created several hundred casualties within the 44th Infantry Division. Soviet air losses were substantial but it's a price to be paid in the early going. Virtually no Axis attacks have generated such losses among their ground forces since this campaign began.

Trained fighter pilots were deployed in increasing numbers within Arkangelsk Air Command. As mentioned earlier these formations are due to disband turn 12.

A few of the North Caucasus fighter groups also received some pilots. Here are a couple examples of units that only contained a single pilot last week.



When adding pilots, the Get Trained Pilot Crew option is always used. Max Trained Pilot Crews is not an option we want here. We just add a few at a time.

IL-2 production is slow in the early turns, only about 87 aircraft on average per week.

A couple R-5 air recon groups are being transferred to the reserves from outside TBs.

Air Losses to date:


For Week 5, there will be a summary of the ground campaign to date.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Week 4



An attack by tac bombers of the VVS created several hundred casualties within the 44th Infantry Division. Soviet air losses were substantial but it's a price to be paid in the early going. Virtually no Axis attacks have generated such losses among their ground forces since this campaign began.

Do you have the battle result? Or results from multiple missions? The amount of TAC losses are extremely high for the week . Your bombing is from Ground attack, correct? Pretty sure it is.

I understand that the Soviet Union produces a metric crapload of TAC bombers, but I personally don't like handing Germans easy kills.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

If you do it right the low experience TAC bombers (even the old ones) can gain experience really fast if done right from their bombing . Also if done correctly these planes are not cannon fodder at all .

A number of the lesser experienced fighter groups will be bound for other theater boxes once the regiments drop in size and the AIR DAY percentages decrease.

And you are pulling the Experienced Fighter squadrons from the TB and upgrading to new models too? Or are you waiting?

[M60A3TTS]

If you do it right the low experience TAC bombers (even the old ones) can gain experience really fast if done right from their bombing . Also if done correctly these planes are not cannon fodder at all .

A number of the lesser experienced fighter groups will be bound for other theater boxes once the regiments drop in size and the AIR DAY percentages decrease.

And you are pulling the Experienced Fighter squadrons from the TB and upgrading to new models too? Or are you waiting?

I have only pulled one formation from the TBs and it was this one. Group experience is 71.


The others aren't as good so I am content to let them sit.


jubjub and I agreed as part of allowing open TBs that neither of us would abuse the privilege. So if I draw an I-153BS tac bomber group out of the TBs I am replacing it with an equal number of level bombers even though they don't count against the AIR DAY formula in any case. With fighters I'm working towards keeping requirements at 100% and I'm not just going to turn those TBs into another means of training. There really is no need for it.

Some formations are upgrading if the number of aircraft are available although soon the regiments drop to 32 aircraft and any excess will end up in a reserve state or be sent to the pool. Right now I still need to replace any lost modern fighters from the front line groups that are lost in action.

[M60A3TTS]

As promised to EvK, a report on the ground campaign through Week 5.

We'll cover the first and last turns. First turn first.

In the north the usual damage done. I guess Riga just falls no matter what now.


In the center, very similar pattern with Minsk taken and a large number of units caught up in encirclement. Panzers take Daugavpils.


In the south comes the Rovno pocket. The rail lines are all effectively cut in order to limit what gets out between Proskurov and Chernovtsy. Since Axis forces stayed in their lanes so to speak, Southern Front is frozen this week.


With continued forum contributions towards strengthening the opening Axis turn against what is effectively the scenario designer's Soviet deployment, one can hope we don't push things past a tipping point as more Soviet units get written off.

Maybe I just worry too much.

[M60A3TTS]

Week 5

Easily my biggest error shows after being out of Soviet action for so long. In the north I failed to put sufficient ground forces in motion towards that direction the first two turns. As a result jubjub blew past my flimsy defense and put Leningrad in a dangerous position after only a few weeks of battle.


The Baltic States are not being rolled up quite as quickly.


Velikye Luki is taken by jubjub without much resistance.


A defense along the Dnepr near the Land Bridge results in some units pocketed while Smolensk remains in Soviet hands.


Around Kiev the lack of units from the activities around Weeks 1 and 2 leaves less to defend the Dnepr with. The river defense falters as Kiev is quickly surrounded.


The pace of the advance is no less rapid in the far south towards the Crimea. There is no defense of Odessa.


OOB


Ground losses


Air losses


Destroyed units

[HardLuckYetAgain]

In the north the usual damage done. I guess Riga just falls no matter what now.

Yup, if you read my marked words from last year that is the case. Even though I took a crapload of horse malarky on it. I won't dig up the thread but feels nice to do a victory lap.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

This is not pretty in the North for the Soviets . In hindsight what do you think you could have done differently here? (I know that the Soviets are scrounging for every possible unit they can get their hands on, is this the case here?). Or just too many units in the south getting wiped out?

North.png (1.21 MiB) Viewed 2565 times

[EwaldvonKleist]

With continued forum contributions towards strengthening the opening Axis turn against what is effectively the scenario designer's Soviet deployment, one can hope we don't push things past a tipping point as more Soviet units get written off.

Maybe I just worry too much

Minmaxing the first turn is half the fun a minmax Axis player can get out of the game. Thanks for the ground update!

[M60A3TTS]

Week 4



An attack by tac bombers of the VVS created several hundred casualties within the 44th Infantry Division. Soviet air losses were substantial but it's a price to be paid in the early going. Virtually no Axis attacks have generated such losses among their ground forces since this campaign began.

Do you have the battle result? Or results from multiple missions? The amount of TAC losses are extremely high for the week . Your bombing is from Ground attack, correct? Pretty sure it is.

I understand that the Soviet Union produces a metric crapload of TAC bombers, but I personally don't like handing Germans easy kills.

Here you go, and yes it is ground attack. Certainly we don't want to give away free kills. I'd like to have had more escorts, but in the early turns it's not so easy as we leave the I-types with their limited range out of it. This is what we currently have to work with and goes along with airbase limitations, the latter which is no small factor.

[M60A3TTS]

This is not pretty in the North for the Soviets . In hindsight what do you think you could have done differently here? (I know that the Soviets are scrounging for every possible unit they can get their hands on, is this the case here?). Or just too many units in the south getting wiped out?

A couple things on what jubjub did and did not do. He did not send any motorized unit along the Kurland Peninsula. So that unit could be closer to Pskov. He took Riga by only committing 1st Panzer Division. That saved the need for more motorized units in that direction. This left the rest of 4th PG reinforced by XXXIX Motorized Corps from 3rd PG to move on Pskov.

My defense along Velikaya was admittedly unimpressive but what was in Latvia-Estonia were security regiments and a naval brigade. So it wasn't as though there were strong units that could have moved to Pskov from this direction.



Railing more units into Pskov from elsewhere has it's limitations as once rail capacity is used up, the last arriving units have little to no mobility. That would make them more pocket fodder. I could have set more units in motion towards the north, but Pskov would probably been doomed anyways.

Here is the start of Week 2.


Here is week 2 with the next set of defending units.


Any arriving reinforcements from elsewhere would have gone to the railyard at Shimsk and so perhaps the move here would have been give Pskov up for lost on Week 2 and focused the defense on Novgorod. That's the best I can come up with at this stage.

[M60A3TTS]

Air activity in week 5 was rather limited. Minor interdiction took place in the north to impede the advance on Leningrad.





Air losses for the week



Fighter aircraft on the map and in the reserves as well as pilots on the map, excluding those in reserves.



In two turns the air regiments will drop in size to 20.

[M60A3TTS]

Week 6 activities in the air picked up somewhat.





Air losses up somewhat as well.



In the reserves, at least 1/3 of a unit's TOE must have aircraft in order to be pulled from the reserves. Here, every fighter unit possible has been pulled out in anticipation of the coming week 7.


Another 948 fighter pilots are on the map to a total of 6,461.

Next up... The Yezhov Effect.

[M60A3TTS]

Week 7

We now come to the largely unknown purge of VVS pilots through what I have dubbed the Yezhov Effect.

Nikolai Yezhov, former NKVD Chief under Stalin, was quietly executed following his arrest and trial during the period 1939-1940. A well known picture of Yezhov with Stalin was re-touched, so the former NKVD Chief no longer appeared.

Yezhov had assumed the status of a non-person. And like Yezhov, Week 7 heralds the potential disappearance of many pilots within the VVS.

This week the size of VVS regiments drop from 67 to 32. They will drop again to 20 on Week 12.

We must consider the four elements of a reduction in regiment size. These are:

1. Aircraft on the map
2. Aircraft in Theater Boxes including the SR
3. Pilots on the map
4. Pilots in Theater Boxes including the SR

Let's start with aircraft on the map. Maximum aircraft regimental size drops to 32 and the maximum number of ready aircraft similarly goes to a maximum of 32. Excess aircraft are put in a reserve state. Over the next 1-2 turns, these reserve aircraft bleed off from the unit and are sent to the appropriate equipment pool.

Aircraft in theater boxes along with the SR drop to size 32, have the same number of ready aircraft, up to 32. Here though, aircraft do not go to a reserve state, the excess simply get shunted off immediately to the equipment pools.

Pilots on the map are all retained in their units. Any excess above 32 simply replace lost pilots within the unit. During this time while any excess are being used, no new pilots can be added. In this way, units with 67 pilots in an air unit on the map can retain that number indefinitely if not lost in action.

Pilots in Theater Boxes and the SR are treated completely differently. The unit retains it's existing experience level while any excess pilots above 32 simply disappear. So if you have this same 67 pilot unit in the Reserve instead of on the map, you lose 35 of these pilots. If nothing changes, 12 more are lost when the cycle repeats on Week 12, reducing the size of the regiments to 20 pilots, a potential loss of 70% from the original size.

It also bears mentioning that at any time after Week 6 that a large pilot formation goes to the reserves this change will take effect. It is not just a product of Weeks 7 and 12.

What all this comes down to is if you intend to keep a large number of formations in the reserves, you will minimize the need for ground support personnel on the many airbases, but the trade off is a lot of pilots will be lost in the process. Many of these lost pilots could be quite skilled as we see numerous at-start units with pilot experience in the mid 60's. Admittedly this does tend to make these large pilot formations a prisoner of the map until the excess burns off due to combat ops, but if you intend to keep as large a number of experienced pilots on the map as we intend to do here with fighter pilots, it's important to understand the pros and cons of these mechanics. As to why we are targeting fighter pilots in particular, more to come on that later. Suffice to say right now in this case we were willing to walk the middle ground by accepting the loss of a lot of level bomber crews in order to save on airbase support personnel.

[jasonbroomer]

With continued forum contributions towards strengthening the opening Axis turn against what is effectively the scenario designer's Soviet deployment, one can hope we don't push things past a tipping point as more Soviet units get written off.

Maybe I just worry too much

I’m inclined to agree. AGS only needs to HA and this removes any chance of activations thus reducing the random elements. The Rovno pocket is almost guaranteed if attempted.

[jasonbroomer]

Is it possible to do night bombing missions it’s the VVS?

Every time I’ve tried, I get a message that the bombers were not able to operate at night.

Are night missions worthwhile?

[M60A3TTS]

Is it possible to do night bombing missions it’s the VVS?

Every time I’ve tried, I get a message that the bombers were not able to operate at night.

Are night missions worthwhile?

Yes they are certainly possible, at least on 1.02.52.

If you are having issues, you might check to verify that not only the mission is set for night, but the bombers themselves are set to night on mission setting.

As far as worthwhile, ops losses are pretty high, especially if you try flying more than a couple missions on a single night. The 200 aircraft limit on Min/Req aircraft means you may need more than one mission with multiple air groups so you can work around that limitation.

I can give you results from a mission unrelated to this particular game where a combined 500 level bombers from Long Range Air Command struck the port of Gdinya at night with a damage of 21 while losing 78 bombers. 73 of those were operational losses. All LW fighters were set to rest. You can decide for yourself the value of such a trade.

[M60A3TTS]

Front lines on Week 7. Not particularly good from the Soviet side.