George vs. Seille - A Russia 1941 AAR over 60 turns

[seille]

You would need about 20 LB for a very good one time effect to major production sites.
Flak defense would reduce the effect a lot, so i would not call LB a safe bet.
In a europe 1939 game i used LB IV. They have power. This is real destruction.
But in a russia game i would wonder if somebody will go to levelbomber III or IV....

[seille]

Russian turn 32.

Not enough prodution this turn, but we needed all the PPs to egalize the german advance in tech.
German propaganda want the readers thinking we get our tech for free (like Germany), but we have
to work for !!

[seille]

The north:

A good place to be for a russian soldier. Here they survive at least 6 months
while in the south usually less than 2 month´s after the commanders threw
them into the fight without enough training.

The red army recaptured Leningrad using strong air and artillery assets
and is now on their way to attack Helsinki. In a second direction we go to Riga.
At least the russian command thinks the forces are strong enough to go for both targets.
We´ll see if this is true. We have to reduce the german production power and we have to force them to
reenforce the north.

[seille]

In the south the situation is dramatic.
We have actually no chance to fight the germans back to Stalingrad and reconnect Baku
to the russian empire. Near Baku it looks not much better. Even we installed a nice front
north of Baku (as a defense against AG south from Stalingrad) we have not much left to stop the romanians
west of Baku. All we can do is to retreat and use the terrain as good as possible.
Each turn we can delay the fall of Baku is good for Russia !! And it´s obviously yet that we can only delay the fall
of the city.

[seille]

For Voronezh/Kursk area i have no screenshot, but after the arrival of SS units there
and the Luftwaffe i´m now in full defense. Our lines are stable there.
Sevastopol the same. But Germany tries to cross the Kerch straight now.
They want Sevastopol. But the crimea is well defended....

[TheArchduke]

Is Sevastopol still able to produce anything apart from supplies as it is cut off now?

Can´t wait to see how this campaign turns out.

[seille]

Look at my production posting [;)]
I actually produce 820 supply and two artillery guns.
Lol, i must have been still optimistic here.....

[george1972]

Germany, Turn 33, March 24, 1943

Russia struck back as expected, but I'm not worried about that. What worries me more is the alarming rate at which new Russian armies appear in the steppe, which means that sending reinforcements North is out of the question... Baku, Baku, I need Baku!!

[george1972]

The situation in the North and the Crimea:

[george1972]

The "Death's Head" offensive is coming up against well-prepared enemy positions... Still, I scared the "mighty" Shock armies away from Kharkov and Kursk. Heroes of the Soviet Union, ha!

[george1972]

The offensive of AG South has climaxed as more and more Russian units appear and its position becomes very precarious. Despite continuing to attack, its Staff is already drawing up plans for a withdrawal.

The Romanians fail to achieve any quick breakthrough because suddenly a fortress appeared on the road to Baku. Throwing in all its forces, the fortress was stormed and demolished in the attacks, but losses were high. At least the Luftwaffe managed to move to a new airfield close to the front.

[Jeffrey H.]

Interesting commentary regarding your feelings about 'this whole campaign'. You've been very successful in general but yes, ultimately you can't kill the beast.

[Grymme]

George:
 
Congratulations on a very well fought campaign. No matter where the game ended you have made a huge comeback. One question though. Why continuing to produce flak? Did the USSR bomb you a lot. Doesnt look like it. You already have air supeority.
 
Instead of producing 2 flak everyturn you could make some 20 rifles.

[TheArchduke]

Judging from the amount of turns played, this campaign is not over. Though I strongly assume if George didn´t manage to take Baku, it will be a long slow retreat to Berlin.

[george1972]

To Jeffrey H: Well, reading back this AAR makes me think that defeating the Soviet Union is certainly possible (even against Seille), but you have to capture a major production center (or Murmansk) before 1943, if not, then the production defecit start climbing at an astonishing rate.

To Grymme: well, I did not know that I had overall air superiority, I assumed Seille had been building fighters all the time as well, so he would have had well over 150 fighters in the North. Keeping Flak production going seemed logical at the time, especially for the Northern fronts.

It's the impact of the fog of war. I never did any detailed research on what forces I could see or already had identified, correlate that with his possible production and then figure out how much he could have had where I could not see it. If I had done that, I might have figured out the Red Air Force had not grown. But I'm too lazy to do that, a computerized staff would be nice for tasks like that

There is still plenty of action to come, so keep your eyes open [;)]

[seille]

George is right, taking at least one major production center before 1943 is a MUST.
If the germans perform well they can usually win in 1942. It´s a hard nut for the russians
to survive the initial attack against a good german player and later the german bonus turns without loosing important
positions, but if they do they have a good chance to win this game.
 
Maybe George made a mistake not to engage the red airforce, but doing it and lose the battle can mean loosing the war
since i could replace my losses faster than he can. So from this point of view he made no mistake.
 
I did a lot of damage with my air units overall especially in the north. Flak forced me to use it concentrated even there was not much
enemy fighter activity. This is the plus of flak. Have it everywhere. Protect the important assets.
It can´t prevent the enemy from doing damage, but he has to pay for and is less effective.

[seille]

Russian turn 33.

Not a really interesting one on my side.
Killed about 40 infantry by artillery fire.
My fronts took a break during the returning bad weather.

Imho a big plus for player one (Germany) to use always first the good weather coming back.
While i can´t do so much in winter Germany can hit me hard when the good weather is back probably
next turn.
So my forces really need that break. Next turns will be hard enough....

[seille]

the quiet north....

[seille]

and the quiet south.

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, why did George not play it defensively in the south after taking Stalingrad?

Keep the city, blow the bridge and turn full force to Maikop. The slaughter on the steppes is rather useless and so it benefits the russian player.