Matrix Games Forums

@M60 Thanks for posting this. If I am understanding correctly you have 361 factories, 16 of which are damaged. I'm showing 279 factories 43 of which are damaged. In addition there are a bunch which are damaged less than 50%, that are damaged but not showing as damaged, because of strange design decisions.

Correct. The 50% rule says that any factories damaged over 50% produce nothing. So based on your numbers, you currently have 236 factories which may or may not be producing arms. The only ones for sure that are producing are those undamaged. 1-49% damage becomes a role of the die to determine if they do produce anything. The lower the number, the better the chance. So right now, you're not in great shape. At the start of the blizzard turns, you may find yourself without any arms in the pool. One common strategy here is to start conserving arms by reducing all artillery regiment TO&Es to 50%.

You should be aware that your damaged factories will recover 3% each week.

Here is the rule from the manual: Damaged factory production probability is Die (50) > factory damage. So having 1% damage will have 2% probability to have 0 production. 49% damage have 98% probability to be not produced this turn.

I usually flatline on armaments sometime in October. It's pretty much impossible to avoid this in 1941, indeed it may happen even faster if you get the evacuation right. What a good evacuation does is save your bacon for later.

Turn 18 For the first turn since T1 I did not use all my rail to pull factories out, instead I am moving armies. A big chunk of Kalinin front is now in the center, Leningrad front is part way to being rebuilt and is taking over the position opposite the Finns from NW front.

Northwest front in moving South, further south a stavka army is taking the spot between the germans and Western Front, allowing Western to rest, refit and gain moral.

You can see my over all deployments on the map. I am thinking I need another front in reserve soon if I really want to make hay during the blizzard. For those wondering, we are playing old blizzard.

I’m moving light formations up to stay in contact and drag Saper222s moral down. I’m moving some depleted stuff to the front because as I understand it, 38 men in a depleted armored brigade have the same moral effect as thousands of men in an infantry division. We’ll see how this works for me.

Strategically I am trying to surprise Saper222, so far he has not flown much recon to the rear of my fronts, so I don’t think he really knows where the combat power is. I think my best bet for catching him is in the South so that is where I am going to start. I am aware that he can just run, which is part of the reason I am pushing forward. I’m also seeing some RR repairs moving West, and every hex of repaired rail is a good thing for me.

In the air I hit back harder than any turn prior. Over all losses are 2.5 Soviet to 1 German in the air. Mostly I blew up HS129s, but I also got 15 Me109s, which is the first time I’ve shot down a significant number of German fighters in a turn.

In the South I actually achieved air parity on a number of bombing attacks, you can see a 100 fighter sweep hitting 46 Axis and shooting down 7 for a loss of two fighters and a few bombers. I think the airwar is turning from a massacre by the Luftwaffe into a series of punches and counter punches. The fighter force is doing ok, and continues to improve in moral and quality. The next step is to get the bomber quality and moral up.

The Red Army is up to 4.5 million men, 38500 guns, 2200 tanks, and 6850 planes. The Germans are growing a bit too, 3.4 million men, 33,400 guns, 2900 tanks and 2600 planes. My arm pools is drifting downwards, it 27000 now, down from 45k last turn. Manpower is up a bit as I recap towns, but the pools is also down. Trucks are 198k (86k) reflecting the effects of mud, but I gather still alright.

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

I’m moving light formations up to stay in contact and drag Saper222s moral down. I’m moving some depleted stuff to the front because as I understand it, 38 men in a depleted armored brigade have the same moral effect as thousands of men in an infantry division. We’ll see how this works for me.

I don't think that presence of any unit lowers the morale (unless you are talking lowering the morale due to zone of control movement cost which may lead to lower supply which in turn may lead to lowering the morale). The presence of units does affect the attrition losses - and for the attrition I am not 100% certain whether the number of troops next to enemy unit matters or not.

Also, you need to be careful - very small/weak units can be easily attacked in mud. Also, remember that you will be attacked during the snow turns...

Your manpower and armaments situation is difficult, but I would not say totally hopeless. The game will be decided in '42. If you can survive '42 you are on your way to win (or at least a draw, but my bet is on win as surviving '42 will require a lot of skill from you - and probably some overconfidence from your opponent side).

You need to be very careful what you refit and what not, you do not want to waste armaments and men to refit subpar units...

T.

To *only* lose 91 Arm while losing all the cities you have lost probably means you have lost lots of Heavy IND and lots of other A/C factories as well. In my considered opinion you are certainly heading for defeat and only a minor miracle can save the USSR. But getting a good thrashing is sometimes good for the soul [:)]

I am surprised by your light loses in troops though. You could have afforded to lose a few more men and save some ground/IND. This is easier said than done though....

Your armament situation is terminal and the same for manpower.

You will not recover from your own offensive losses during blizzard.

T19 in Saper222s turn each side lost about 10,000 men and small numbers of guns, I lost 2300 trucks moving supplies and units. In the air Saper222 lost 50 planes including 16 fighters and 22 recon, I lost 147 inlcuding 33 fighterbombers and 80 level bombers, mostly SB-2s.

During my turn I continued re-deploying my armies, most of the troops in the North are now in the center or south. Saper has pulled much of his air back, so my attacks were not as successful as I would like, I lost 108 planes and he lost 40, mostly HS129s and Slovakian fighter planes. He has large concentrations of Rumanian airbases near Rostov, I am going to start setting up an offensive against the Rumanian airforce.

I also did a lot bombing of ground units, based on Bozo’s post about training up the bomber force, I am hoping this will boost their experience.

The Red Army is up to 4.65 million, the Germans are steady, I’m also pushing toward 40,000 guns and have about 7000 planes. The Luftwaffe dropped below 2000 planes for the first time.

I gather that is possible but difficult to get Red Army units about 50 moral, I’ve managed that will a small number. I am trying to fill out my most experienced units with full TOE when possible. Alas no guards yet, next time around I am going to focus on that a bit more.

You will not get guards till well into blizzard. IMHO you have army which can bite Sapper during blizzard, unless he will retreat and retreat and retreat. If he does that, you will get back the terrain you lost, so you will have much space to fall back. If not, you will fight and win. Each city you capture will cause migration back, which means that on recapture you will not lose that much manpower. During your whole game you will need to be careful about your armaments, but you can still make it, just be careful about what you build (I guess you will not be very artillery heavy in your game, but you will be doing a lot of aircraft bombing before most attacks instead). Also, as your army will be relatively small (otherwise you will not have armaments for the unit TOE conversions) you may need less tracks than most - which means that you may be able to have more mobile mechanized or tank corps. Bear in mind that in '42 you should only use corps for counter-attacking and falling back behind front.

During blizzard your toe may fall a bit, but Sappers toe will fall even more. And if you can get 1 German soldier for 1 Soviet, it is always a good trade. What is important is to keep your good units supplied and as high toe as possible - if necessary use brigades and merge them with good units. With cavalry, you may even consider a hq buildup or two at right time. Also, build only brigades, no divisions - brigades will get to 50 morale by themselves, and than you can build divisions from 2 brigades. That is a known technique which counters low national morale of Soviet troops in '42.

Sapper air force seems to be doing badly, he is having serious issues with morale now. To counter that he is sending lots of planes to national reserve - that is why you see such small numbers of planes.

Good luck with your blizzard!

T.

ORIGINAL: Toidi

You will not get guards till well into blizzard.

Is this a situational specific comment or a general one? In general, one can get a lot of guards units prior to blizzard if one fights forward, which the new rules thankfully encourage. Have a game going in T24 where I have taken about 3.3M in losses but also have fought the Germans hard and have about 10 Guards divisions pre-blizzard...they will form the core of any assault.

I had a combined 30 guards cavalry and rifle divisions in my game against Mehring the turn before blizzard.

Its situation specific. I took on Saper222 to learn the game, so I was not optimizing for counter attacks in the first 12 or so turns. I also took many losses that will not occur in my second game. Toidi is right, and he is also foreshadowing my blizzard strategy.

I have no opinion on the subject of me winning or losing the game, I don't have the experience to tell, and this AAR is not playing out like the ones I read. My goal is to get better at the game. Saper222 is an excellent teacher, Toidi has provided a lot of useful commentary, and a few others have been helpful as well. Right now my strategic thinking seems to be running 3 turns ahead of Toidi's observations, though he is commenting from the side, and might very well have the same thoughts at the same time if he was looking at the game, and not the AAR.

If you overbuild a Soviet front, so it has negative CP, but put a portion of the troops far in the rear, say 30 or 40 hexes, does it still lose the ability to send support? Anyone know?

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

If you overbuild a Soviet front, so it has negative CP, but put a portion of the troops far in the rear, say 30 or 40 hexes, does it still lose the ability to send support? Anyone know?

Yes, the malus is for units under the HQ, not just for units under the command range. I tend to do one of two things with stuff I send to the deep rear to recover. Either transfer to one of those 3 rear area Military Districts or over to Stavka. Since both are free of AP cost when you swap back, its quite efficient. The first trick is handy for keeping things organised (ie I have a quick clue as to what I was thinking about 4 turns ago - useful if like me you can forget why you have just walked up the stairs [;)] )

Unlike MT, I do not buy into this absurd anglo saxon notion that thrashings are good for the soul. (This is right up there with rum, sodomy and the lash.) The best way to learn the game is to play it against someone at or near your own level and gradually improve along the way.

Getting steamrolled is neither pleasant nor edifying nor even very interesting for the person who is doing the steamrolling. (Unless they are like, you know, sadists.) A good competitive match is the best gaming experience.

You are not going to be able to stuff the experience of many games into one "good" thrashing.

Speaking from first-hand experience there is something to be learned playing Sapper. Not all the lessons learned are fun and I would not play him again without house rules. I believe the fewer house rules the better and only a couple are definitely needed:

Spam bombing Osinovets to cut off Leningrad from supply - Soviets must put 4xPVO AA there by turn 4 but I don't know if that would provide enough protection. The house rule against spam bombing ports is probably necessary.

After isolating Leningrad Axis must kill the surrounded units by November (if possible) to allow them to come back as reinforcements.

Prohibit both sides using suicide paratroopers to cut rail lines to Leningrad (early game) and AGS (mid-game). (Sapper didn't do this)

I did learn a couple of valuable lessons:

Soviets must put an airbase with each HQ for protection or lose 1-2K men each from a few Stukas every turn. A house rule can be used but it isn't absolutely necessary.

The best play-balancer is random weather. It won't help in June but certainly makes Germans think twice about over-extending supply.

Like it or not, Sapper's extended Lvov opening will become standard until 2x3 does more to prevent it. Until then the Soviets must run away with the remnants of Southern and Southwestern fronts or face defeat in Barbarossa.

@Shupov

I’m against house rules, I’m more in the if its built its ok camp. The game does not play historical, look at the late war AARs with the huge numbers of forts. More on that later.

I did see Saper222 ground bombing my troops and killing lots of them earlier in the game, there is less of that going on now, in fact he hit just one hex this turn, as you will see I launched 59 attacks on him. I’m afraid he killed more of my troops in one attack than I did in 59 but at least my experience level is growing.

T20 Lots more bombing, I’ve been experimenting with the way I attack, and I think I am seeing some patterns in the air combat model. For example units which will no longer ground bomb will hit airfields, and vice versa, the AI air commanders hold some of their planes back for other types of missions.

A second observation, I bombed airbases early in the South, and the Axis fighters were winning even when heavily outnumbered. In the North I bombed ground units and some airbases early, but mostly ground units first. Then I hit the airbases, and did quite a bit better, the Germans still shot down more of my planes in air combat, but between air victories and blowing up HS126bs on the ground I did ok. I bombed ground targets 59 times and airbases 17 times. Total losses were 154 to 38, which is not great but its being driven by ground bombing

I’ve also noticed that some ground bombing targets get Luftwaffe help. I’ve started looking for these, flying a single bombing group to hit a hex that can be hit by many groups, and seeing if the enemy fighters show up. I experimented with this in T20, I am going to do it in a more systematic way in T21.

The Germans moved air back to the front, Saper222 is showing 3100 planes again. I pounded the Slovakians last turn, and they are off map, I assume their moral got hurt when they lost 12% of their airforce in a week.

All armies continue to grow, the Red Army is up to 4.77 million men, 40,000 guns, 2600 tanks and 6900 planes. The Wermatcht has 3.4 million men, 33k guns, and 3000 tanks.

I’ve been doing a lot of reorganizing during the mud, and also during the turns prior to mud when Saper222 slowed down. This is the area in front of Moscow, in Winter I am going to push with NW front into the difficult terrain North of Moscow, and have Western and Bryansk push South of the city. My strategic goal for all this is keep Saper222’s armies in Moscow from leaving. I’ve put a Stavka army in the front line to allow me to concentrate forces.

The amount of time it takes to get all this done is pretty high, I spend hours on it. I'm enjoying the game, but not sure about the practicality of something that takes that much time. I'm certainly not going to run more than one of these at a time.

I counter attacked in Crimea. Saper222 is far from his railhead, I have naval supply, the Rumanians are not very good and out of supply. With a bit of luck I’ll bag a couple of divisions. The other thing I want to do is set up the Sea of Azov as an area for flank attacks during the winter. I’ve got airbases on trains heading down South, and more armies forming in the Stalingrad and Caucasus area. I think I can get 4 and maybe even 6 brigade equivalents onto the North coast in one turn if I use paras and amphibious invasion.

I’m having problems because I do not have enough fronts, I’m trying to stack them one behind another to give my offensive more momentum, and I really need one more. Instead, the N. Caucasus MD is filling in for a front.