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panzerball or not panzerball....[&:]

I tried both ways in 1942 aand I found that spreading the Pzd is the best way to gain ground. And it creates more uncertainty for the russian player.

But your right, it generates less encirclements.

And concerning russian counterattacks, from my experience, they aren't an issue in summer 1942

Turn 55, 2nd july 1942

As scheduled, russian army is unable to hold the line South of the Oka.

Below, the map before my moves

Some rifle brigades act as rear guards. In the Manych area, Stelteck seeems to be still underestimating the mobility of german Pzk

[

So I do the left hook near Manych aand gather several Pzk east of Voronejh to reach the Volga.

A single Pzk will advance to Stalingrad from the South west



The losses



And the OOB

Turn 56, 9th july 1942

Hot summer, hot battles.

In the center, Stelteck did an interesting gambit to cut supply to my spearhead threatening the Volga. One week against one tank corps. a good deal from my point of view.

In the South, the HQBU done during the previous turn allowed me to take Vorochilovsk and cut the direct rail line between Krasnodar and baku. Fine

The previous passive Stavka leader was sacked and a new energic and manly leader took command !!
It was quite funny.



I had another picture of my offensive :
I disloged some italian divisions south and a moutain division north with 2 cavalries armies and 2 armored ones and sent an heroic tank corps and some brigades in the breach.



In the south south , well done i was not really expecting the panzers to come that way.

Looks like i need all my railroad pool ASAP to transfert troops from West caucasus to East in emergency though the moutains ....
The trans caucasus front is at this time 100% on the wrong side of the panzer divisions.

Turn 57, 16th july 1942

Below, the map before my moves.

Most action will occur south of Tambov. Some ground given by the russians in the center but Stelteck seems to be determined to fight for Stalingrad.

In the South, he wants to use the direct road Krasnodar-Baku



In the center, direct push to the Volga. Some rifle brigades trapped. Our spearheads are 20 miles from the Volga and from Stalingrad.



In the South, we block the russian units moving the the east and run to Grozny. I want to keep my momentum.



And the OOB

panzerball or not panzerball....

A 100% panzerball is a scary thing in 1942 but personally I think that 2/3 + 1/3 is more difficult for the Soviet player to defend and more mentally taxing as well.
The 1/3 is about 11 or 12 mobile divisions which is big enough to make a major breakthrough so the Soviet player has to defend in depth everywhere not just where the 2/3 is committed. The 1/3 can pick it's place and time for an explosive breakthrough or reinforce the main offensive depending on circumstances. This second force also introduces the possibility of a massive, and possibly game ending, double envelopment.

Very interesting game as always Stef.
I love to see a Southern strategy even if the game doesn't simulate it terribly well in my opinion.

Personally I think Stelteck's tank corps sacrifice was well worth it. I'd happily sacrifice one per turn in Summer 42 to take a pz army out of the game. In Summer 42 I keep some at low TOE on the flanks of the pz armies for this purpose.

ORIGINAL: timmyab
Very interesting game as always Stef.

Thanks!

I love to see a Southern strategy even if the game doesn't simulate it terribly well in my opinion.

I think that supply shortage is well simulated.

On the other side, some of the Caucasus hexes should be impassable. It's not realistic to have mountains divisions advancing 20 miles per week with their material.

I agree with Timmytab re the sacrifice.

Nice move on your part but you need to give priority to getting your rail line cleared and converted, and to cutting the line to Tuapse if you can.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

Nice move on your part but you need to give priority to getting your rail line cleared and converted, and to cutting the line to Tuapse if you can.

You're right. I do my best to repair the rail line at high speed but Caucasus is so big... and I have only one rail line from Rostov to Makalachka...

Concerning the Touapse railline, I had not enough Mp's to cut it... I decided to drive as hard as possible to Baku

Turn 58, 23th July 1942

An overview of the southern part of the front.
We begin to clear the western bank of the Volga and press the salliant formed around Stalingrad.
In the Caucasus, Caspian sea is ten miles away.



Closer view on Stalingrad. The city has level 4 entrenchments.



In the South, moutains divs are arriving in order to cut the Baku-Batumi rail line. It will be difficult as russian troops in western Caucasus will escape... I cannot be strong everywhere!

I hates mountain divisions so much [:@]
Even mine. I'am not even sûre to understand how they are working for supply purpose. Looks like magic to me.

Time for a little funny pictures :

These are my best fighter squadrons :



And my best tactical bombers, which is very funny :

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

I hates mountain divisions so much [:@]
Even mine. I'am not even sûre to understand how they are working for supply purpose. Looks like magic to me.

Time for a little funny pictures :

These are my best fighter squadrons :



And my best tactical bombers, which is very funny :

I love mountain divisions Soviets can field half an Army of these Elite little F'rs I combine them all together into one army starting turn 10+ along with some other high Exp/Morale units the soviets have. They have a nice little punch When the mountain units hit guard status it makes my pee pee hard.

Your fighters experience on turn 58+ is just slightly better than my fighters experience on Turn 8 What happened? I know a lot of Soviet players don't like loosing Airframes but I don't mind. I don't worry until I don't have any airframes left in the pool as reserves. What matters to me is getting "experience" first then "Morale" which usually is a by product of the experience getting. I will gladly lose 1,000 airframes in a turn to increase Experience and Morale. I will fly any type of airframe for a fighter too since I-16 & I-153 can still shoot down planes

My mountain divisions LOVE the Carpathian Mountains.

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

My mountain divisions LOVE the Carpathian Mountains.

That is where they need to be, but I reassign mine to the open plains to kill Germans instead of banging mountain goats ;-}

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
I will gladly lose 1,000 airframes in a turn to increase Experience and Morale.

In game terms, there is nothing that will let an Air Group gain more experience than losing half it's manpower turn after turn after turn...

Just in comparison, best axis air units at the same time. Less units, less planes, higher morale; higher experience except for some tactical bombers which are suffering heavy losses

Fighters



Fighters Bombers



Tactical Bombers

ORIGINAL: STEF78
Just in comparison, best axis air units at the same time.

The problem, I think, is not the Axis experience and Morale. I assume HardLucks screenie above is from the game he and I are playing (if not, the situation in that game will be very similar). In that game I have several Air Groups with both Morale and Experience at 99 (I wonder if it is capped or if it is just the report not showing higher numbers???).

The problem is that sooner or later, HardLuck is going to swap his Air Groups from flying obsolete fighters to flying good fighters. When that happens, he will change his airforce from being inferior to being very good overnight.

In theory, if an Air Group has an experience and morale of 80 and then looses half its aircraft, it should have replacements at low experience (say 20) and National Morale (say 40). That would average out to a new experience level of 50 and a Morale level of 60. It certainly seems the drop is very much less than that.

I also believe that losing aircraft should have a negative impact on the Morale level of the Air Group. Historically, by beginning of August 1941, the Soviet airforce was a complete shambles. I remember reading a biography of a Luftwaffe fighter pilot who claimed, that when they came across Soviet SB-2 bombers, the crew often bailed out of their functioning aircraft immidiately upon sighting the German fighters. They simply knew they would be shot down anyway. In game terms, that does not sound like an Air group with high morale.

Instead, HardLuck has played his airforce very well and made it into a solid base for creating a very strong airforce come winter. Obviously, HardLuck might just be that much better at the airwar than me. However, I prefer to think that the air system favors the Soviets, if you are content to micromanage your airforce (that is also the experience I had when I was playing the Soviets against Pelton and Hermann).

My advice to Stelteck would be this: Look at you reserve pools of fighters. If you have a lot of obsolete fighters, outfit some low experience/low morale Air Groups with them and start flying aggressively (but don't be stupid about it). You'll loose A LOT of fighters, but you will also be building experience for when you wish to change the aircraft back into good fighters.

You may have a point and i probably have a big progress margin in the management of the air force.

The fact is i'am quite lazy and care a lot about time efficiency, that means if i can increase the strengh of my army by 5% while increasing my turn lenght of 50%, i will probably not do it.
I also try to minimize precious AP and ressources spent in the air force, and for example mostly use automatic upgrade/swap of planes models.

I mostly send planes when i want to fight a ground battle and do not seek air fight for the sake of air fighting.

I was not aware that getting your air force being slaughtered in the air actually was a good thing for experience building [:D] (I was expecting the reserve from common sense, but ok). I may try to be more aggressive. [8|]

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

You may have a point and i probably have a big progress margin in the management of the air force.

The fact is i'am quite lazy and care a lot about time efficiency, that means if i can increase the strengh of my army by 5% while increasing my turn lenght of 50%, i will probably not do it.
I also try to minimize precious AP and ressources spent in the air force, and for example mostly use automatic upgrade/swap of planes models.

I mostly send planes when i want to fight a ground battle and do not seek air fight for the sake of air fighting.

I was not aware that getting your air force being slaughtered in the air actually was a good thing for experience building [:D] (I was expecting the reserve from common sense, but ok). I may try to be more aggressive. [8|]

Your airforce is going to get slaughtered anyway, so why not build experience and morale. The Soviets have a TON of airframes in the pool so I will gladly sacrifice 100 of the "I" series planes to shoot down a few Germans(not to mention fatiguing the Germans in the process). The way to Berlin lies with the Airforce in my honest opinion. The longer the Germans control the skies the harder it is for the Soviets. As such starting on turn 8 of my game I build fighters every turn, 6-7 and 1-2 Tac for a total of 8 air units a turn until I have all the fronts with 6 airbases of fighters & 4 bomber bases (will take some time but that has been my plan in my games). The fronts that are getting attacked by PZ's (or I want to hold something) I put a total of 20 airbases (12 fighters & 8 bombers bases) in front of them. Having air support makes a huge difference in the ground war. Not to mention Soviet tac bombers do a ton of damage and what better way to cause casualties. (P.S. Notice how many trucks I have in the picture I posted ;-} )

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

You may have a point and i probably have a big progress margin in the management of the air force.

The fact is i'am quite lazy and care a lot about time efficiency, that means if i can increase the strengh of my army by 5% while increasing my turn lenght of 50%, i will probably not do it.
I also try to minimize precious AP and ressources spent in the air force, and for example mostly use automatic upgrade/swap of planes models.

I mostly send planes when i want to fight a ground battle and do not seek air fight for the sake of air fighting.

I was not aware that getting your air force being slaughtered in the air actually was a good thing for experience building [:D] (I was expecting the reserve from common sense, but ok). I may try to be more aggressive. [8|]

Your airforce is going to get slaughtered anyway, so why not build experience and morale. The Soviets have a TON of airframes in the pool so I will gladly sacrifice 100 of the "I" series planes to shoot down a few Germans(not to mention fatiguing the Germans in the process). The way to Berlin lies with the Airforce in my honest opinion. The longer the Germans control the skies the harder it is for the Soviets. As such starting on turn 8 of my game I build fighters every turn, 6-7 and 1-2 Tac for a total of 8 air units a turn until I have all the fronts with 6 airbases of fighters & 4 bomber bases (will take some time but that has been my plan in my games). The fronts that are getting attacked by PZ's (or I want to hold something) I put a total of 20 airbases (12 fighters & 8 bombers bases) in front of them. Having air support makes a huge difference in the ground war. Not to mention Soviet tac bombers do a ton of damage and what better way to cause casualties. (P.S. Notice how many trucks I have in the picture I posted ;-} )

I'm not saying this is the best way nor the most efficient. It has just been my way in my games. I have to micromanage the Airforce but it does pay off in the end.