Razing the Reich

[CowboyRonin]

This game certainly has characteristics of the "Sir Robin" defense from WiTP. The ahistorical view has been raised there, as well. However, Sir Robin (as a pure form) has been seen less and less often in the AAR world, becuase Allied players realized that a) there were viable options for forward defense and b) failing to put up any forward defense at all allowed the Japanese steamroller to blow right over the second-level objectives with no delay or damage at all. At this point, it certainly appears that Pelton is allowing Michael to set up the Red Army steamroller just as he wants it, but I do want to see what 1942 offensive Pelton is able to pull off. I would like to see the game played through, even if it is just as a warning to German players - "The blizzard may hurt, but running away will end up hurting worse".

[Michael T]

I don't know if this will be significant or not as I have never had a 1942 Soviet Air Force. But the general lack of combat since T14 has allowed me to spend many AP on the VVS (every turn I have to find some way to spend 50 AP) and subsequently all fighters are MIG's, LaGG's, Yak's, P40's or Hurricanes. All attack bombers are IL2's. All level bombers are IL4's or Pe2's. There is not one obsolete airframe in the entire VVS.

I am also building some brigades now so as to stay ahead of the curve if a AP crunch developes later. I can merge these in to divisions as required.

[Flaviusx]

It matters because your air force can do stuff in 42. Ground support missions will actually fly. Having 100 shturmoviks show up in battle is no joke. Spend some of those APs on air leaders, too, get everybody up to at least a 5 rating, you should have enough of those to cover all Fronts now.

[Michael T]

Yeah, air leaders, good idea.

[randallw]

The Red Air Force has the same 'quality' challenge as the army does, trying to close the gap in the personnel ( experience ) difference; even with modern fighters your death ratio will be bad for awhile.

[cpt flam]

personnaly I don't change so much to IL4, you get so few (21 a turn)
i prefer A20 and B25 they have shorter range but good enough

[mevstedt]

ORIGINAL: randallw

The Red Air Force has the same 'quality' challenge as the army does, trying to close the gap in the personnel ( experience ) difference; even with modern fighters your death ratio will be bad for awhile.

This is a fairly accurate point. I would suggest you put all the Hurricane/P40s on autoupgrade to conserve APs (as they will then switch to the better versions later on automatically). MIG-3s and LaGG-3s don't seem to upgrade very well while the Yaks usually do but sometimes too much (the exp cost for changing multiple versions get expensive then). I prefer to throw them back into the national reserve when they have reached a certain exp level (such as 60 for example) then convert to a better plane once available, usually Yak-7Bs or some of the Yak-9 types.

I prefer to put as many of those on the line as possible to drain the pool while gaining exp (as randall says they will still get shot down "en masse").

Same goes for IL-2s, they are useful but their morale dips (same as Stukas) so you need to keep an eye on them. Try not to convert too many of them to the IL-2M either as the productionnumbers won't be high enough and you will get the IL-2M3 before you have changed them all.

On a sidenote, I've had the AI randomly disbanding SB2s and LaGG-3s (not until late 43 though) but keep that in mind so you have them upgraded before then or you lose the squadron. It seem to occur sometime after the planetype has gone out of production but I've never figured out the reason behind it, anyone knows?

[Farfarer61]

Oh Really? M60' s top 3, Not even a mention? For those who have not seen our AAR with Kirov and Kazan under the Maltkreuze, that's what I do when I'm having irresponsible fun, and losing in 1944 as result. Now if you want a game where I am serious, strap in...

[Flaviusx]

The upgrade paths for the Migs and Laggs is very sketchy, yeah, everything else past 41 can be set to autoupgrade with decent results. Basically the trick is transitioning those Migs and Laggs to La-5 and the planes on those upgrade paths, and then you can leave those to autoupgrade. Yaks come in many flavors so the Yak 1 is taken care of. Production is so high that you may even want to manually upgrade some of the Migs and Lagg3 over to the Yak family of fighter bombers, although mostly they should transition to the La-5/7 line.

The shturmovik is good to go (although the IL2m can be a choke point) and level bombers more or less stay put after 41 in the Il4 and Pe2 types, supplemented by lend lease bombers as those come in.

All lend lease planes of whatever type can be set to autupgrade.

The Soviet upgrade routines need to be tightened up. There's a lot of holes in them and this forces substantial AP expenditures for manual upgrades. But by the end of 42 you should be past the worst of it and in a position to set it and forget so far as upgrades go and fully automate it.

[randallw]

Without having put in real study the later Soviet fighter planes are only a modest upgrade over the modern ones in 1941; there's some improvement in top speed but of course nothing like a German jet.

[Michael T]

A quick update. Lines pretty much the same. The odd skirmish between Soviet Cav and Axis Mtn/Sec/Cav units. Pelton is inching forward again in the south with his Mtn units and some sidekicks.

Soviet OOB is 7.6 Million. Next turn is 5 Feb 42 (T34). Proper update after first snow turn.

[mmarquo]

Michael -

You are approaching the most dangerous moment of all; this is the period when I tore out TD's beating heart by surrounding 40+ Soviet divisions in Southern Russia and ended up in Stalingrad in the Fall....


Mark

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

Michael -

You are approaching the most dangerous moment of all; this is the period when I tore out TD's beating heart by surrounding 40+ Soviet divisions in Southern Russia and ended up in Stalingrad in the Fall....


Mark

Yes, summer 1942 can be wild [:)]

Michael can see that from the various AARs. The many land he can easily afford to lose is possibly his best joker [8D] Because yes, as you had said the Red Army is a paper tiger. Morale around 40 sucks!

[Michael T]

Yes, summer 1942 can be wild

You guys are assuming he has the balls to actually attack me.... I reckon he will turn turtle after a few incursions. He doesn't have the stomach for a stand up fight. Pelton is all about stats and numbers. I study the art of war. I will kick his Germophile arse all the way to Berlin [:D]

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Michael T
I reckon he will turn turtle after a few incursions.

So that's your prediction? If he does that your natural, obvious choice would upgrading to Red Army v2.0 pretty soon... Because you will have tons of APs to do that.

Your offensive towards Berlin should be starting (and NOT stopping) by december 1942 at most! [8D]

By spring 1943 you would have tons of *ready* (aka good morale => good experience => make testament, Herr Pelton! ) rifle corps backed by a lot of artillery, rocket divisions... I can't see how he is going to stop that. He can't, that's all.

[Michael T]

Unless he does something astonishing I think he will call his great offensive off as soon as he realizes the balance sheet is going my way. Then he will turn to defence. I can't wait to see what he comes up with.

[76mm]

Well, he seems to have posted his strategy in the other thread you've posted in--causing an AP crunch by a encircling lots of Sov units. I don't see it happening.

[gingerbread]

Michael, did you get any partisan attack at all during the '41 summer/fall? Pelton does usually not garrison that well so I guess you got plenty of partisan squad recruitment, did you manage to drop supplies to the units and did they attack?

[Michael T]

Yes I was active in the partisan fight. There were some effective attacks. But when I saw he was falling back to Poland there was no longer any point in it.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Well, he seems to have posted his strategy in the other thread you've posted in--causing an AP crunch by a encircling lots of Sov units. I don't see it happening.

I don't either. The AP crunch works when the Soviet player is forced to make a stand to defend major targets as Moscow. All Michael needs is to deploy along natural barriers and establish a well fortified successive lines, with reserves beyond the reach of possible panzer spearheads breaking through such lines.

Soviet Morale might be lower than in summer of 1941, yes, but ground element experience will be much higher on average. Which means less losses being taken from retreats and more losses inflicted on the enemy. The lower morale level matters a lot when the Red Army suffers huge losses. If it doesn't, average ground element experience won't be lower due to replacements not being trained up to the level they could be under a higher morale level.

Given than Michael hasn't been given the opportunity of a proper blizzard offensive - which entails substantial material and manpower losses for the Red Army - the Red Army available to Michael will be qualitatively better than the one in 1941.

Pelton's Wehrmacht will also be stronger, but the attrition from combat will be much higher. It's likely that Michael's prediction of Pelton just 'probing' and then deciding to turtle up when assessing the massive losses in those carefully groomed Panzerdivisionen will be right on the money.