Burns vs. Flaviusx

[Flaviusx]

June 30, Moscow falls.

Oil production is now down to 38. The oil stockpile is just below 850. Production is at 556 after losing all of France and the Swedish ore.

My fighters didn't intercept a single one of these bomber strikes against the oil last turn. Possibly they were drawn into other combats and used up their allowance. My flak doesn't seem to be doing as much as I'd have liked, either. Every one of these oil sites has 6 flak.

Still. My oil stiuation is tolerably good considering the loss in production. I think I can maintain the current level of operations more or less indefinitely and certainly long enough for bad weather.

In the west the panzers strike out at two American infantry corps in bloody combat near Lille. High losses on both sides, on my end due to his air support, on his because of my tanks. I have sufficient forces here to rotate out the clapped out panzers with fresher ones, dress the line down, and give him difficult targets on his turn, although this does lose me the entrenchments. His ground forces really are not very strong and cannot sustain this tempo of operations. He will run out of corps before I do.

I do not think he can pierce my line, despite his massive airpower.

I have no answer to him clearing out Spain and can hardly blame him for doing so. It will solve his logistical problems. But thank you, General Francisco Franco, for keeping the allies busy for a while. With any luck this will take up the balance of the 44 summer season and the present lines will remain intact going into 1945.

[Jim D Burns]

30 June 1944

Strategic bombing causes 15 oil hits and suffers 6 bomber losses.

Moscow falls and the Soviets try and shore up their lines a bit. The new tank corps have arrived, but at only 10 strength they won't be doing much damage until the ground strike aircraft arrive to tear into the enemy panzers first.

In France I've fallen back to the Somme river. Germany is simply too powerful for my small force to face right now. If he advances he'll be in range of more air power and perhaps I can then push a few of his units around.

Portugal has enough units in place now and Spain will be attacked next turn. I am really struggling with doing this, I wish I could come up with another way to make Overlord work. So if anyone has any suggestions please mention them before I commit to attacking Spain.

[Flaviusx]

You're going to have to do it. I see no other way. Remember to guard the rail lines, partisans are a thing in Spain.

That's just the way this particular game shaked out. In different circumstances, Overlord is possible, it definitely is doable in the 1944 scenario the game comes with.

But I didn't let Germany get into this position in our game.

Once you have Spain sorted out, I am toast. Between the bombing of the oil and being able to stage in force in France, Germany will be ground to powder. In summer of 45 is my guess. So there is that. But I should have the game on VPs by that point.

[Flaviusx]

July 14. Germany sits tight on fronts, save some airstrikes at strategic bombers, in order to economize on fuel. Some minor adjustments in the west to rotate in fresh units in the front lines, and back out the bombed ones for R&R, but that is it.

Oil production stands at 33, the oil reserves are at 825.

Breakthrough tech maxes out this turn. I expect assault to complete by the end of July. That's going to be a serious drain on the production pool getting all the landsers to upgrade to 45 infantry. I guess I will find out just how much I have in the kitty here.

[Jim D Burns]

14 July 1944

Strategic bombing causes 16 oil hits and 2 bombers are lost.

Madrid falls and the allies are about half way to the French border by turn end. Both rail lines into Spain are cut, so I doubt we'll have much trouble mopping up if Spain holds on for a turn or two.

Allied and Soviet bombers cause 19 casualties and force German interceptors to continue to burn fuel.

[Flaviusx]

Nothing to report on my end, just watching my flak and fighters being totally useless above my oilfields. Production down to 27. Oil reserves at 819.

It may be time to deploy the new patch. Quite obviously this part of the game is broken under the old one.

[Jim D Burns]

28 July 1944

Strategic bombing caused 13 oil hits and 7 bombers were lost.


In Spain the second capital hex gets captured by advancing armor. Most units simply closed with the enemy. Next turn should see the allies push through to France. The allies begin landing more troops in France in anticipation of the supply increase.

In Russia the Germans go after my strategic bombers with tac air. I relocate some fighters to cover them in hopes of burning even more German fuel each turn.

All allies are building nothing but trucks now, so keeping my units topped off on efficiency should be a bit easier.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
It may be time to deploy the new patch. Quite obviously this part of the game is broken under the old one.

Got your PM, go ahead and patch. I'll patch before I do my next turn, after you've done a patched turn.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
just watching my flak and fighters being totally useless above my oilfields.

I wouldn't say that, some turns I lose about a bomber for every couple hits, other turns I lose just a few. It really does come down to the die rolls. If you intercept you do fine, if not then it's a free lunch. But I would not say you are ineffective when you intercept, you chew through a lot of bombers when that happens. It's the arbitrary system used to decide intercepts that makes you feel you have a problem.

Personally I think fighters should be slightly less effective (1 loss for 2 hits is too expensive), but intercept more reliably.

Jim

[Flaviusx]

I just switched over to the new patch and wow. Air combat is super bloody.

The new patch also fixes the production display so I finally know what I've got in the kitty. Just over 1100, and this is after upgrading all my infantry to assault 1945. Must have cost a fortune to do that, but I will never know now how much. At any rate, tech is for all practical purposes complete now. The Germans have allocated the points towards backfilling all the various techs they will never use.

My oil production stands at an abysmal 17, and the oil pool is at 745. This is not looking good at all. I can only hope the patch increases the butcher's bill on this strat bombing to a level where the allies feel the pinch.

It's not just that my interceptions have been off. It's that flak hasn't really performed anywhere near what I expected. Why did I spend all this production putting 6 points of flak everywhere? It hardly has made a difference. But maybe those guns will start firing for real now with the patch in place.

[Jim D Burns]

11 August 1944

Well this patch may spell the final death knell to the allied cause. I did nothing out of the ordinary as far as what I've been doing in the air and look at those loss numbers. I'd say air power is pretty useless now post patch. It remains to be seen if production can keep up, which I doubt, but the really significant difference is how ineffective ground strikes are now.

I actually flew about a dozen more ground strikes than I have been due to all the new allied air in Spain flying, but I only caused about half what I was causing before. So I doubt I'll be chewing up any Germans with low losses like these, we shall see.

The 10 naval was me trying to transfer a division in England by sea under my massed fighter cover, didn't help a wit.

I found a map glitch with a rail line in Spain, see the green arrow.

Jim

[Flaviusx]

It's very bloody.

The luftwaffe is also taking it in the chin here, though. Am seriously considering disbanding some of my bombers now.

[John B.]

Is your strat bombing unescorted? That may explain some of the allied air losses.

[Flaviusx]

Back from 3 day weekend.

Late August, Spain surrenders.

After reviewing the results of the new air system, I decide to start disbanding some of my bombers. 2 tac and 2 dive bomber go into the discard, and I build one escort fighter with the freed up logistics. I want to build more, but not immediately, too expensive to do all at once. And I want some of this logistics to activate garrisons, too. So I am not going to replace all these bombers with fighters on a 1-1 basis. Probably just going to add one more fighter besides the one I built.

My flak has finally showed up to the war. 11 hits by my count on his strategic bombers. And this is isn't counting his losses due to my air. He is going to have a much harder time trying to bomb my oil. But that oil production is down to 17 and I am deeply regretting not switching out to this patch much earlier. It may be too late now. Had this been in place from the getgo, his bombers would be swiss cheese by now.

Aside from a couple of airstrikes in the crimea, no combat. I really cannot afford any unnecessary fighting at this stage with my fuel situation.

[comsolut]

Thanks for the update. Needed my AAR fix.

When the economic and combat model get completely patched and play balance adjusted, this game will be a play by server gem / classic.

[Flaviusx]

Heh. They will all be classics. Nobody right now is playing what this game is going to look like a few months down the line. Lots of stuff is going to change, I expect.

[Jim D Burns]

25 August 1944

After a little holiday season R&R we're back at it.

Spain falls and the allies spend their turn moving north into France. Next turn I should be in position to begin attacks in earnest, though with the nerf to the airforce I'm not as confident as I once was that I can do enough damage to pierce the axis lines, we shall see.

Britain has a bad turn as it appears all convoys were turned off with the new patch and non-functional... I turn everything back on and hope it goes back to normal this turn.

All quiet in Russia, and no strat bombing this turn as the air units are still missing considerable strength even though I have every single plane for every nation set to priority reinforcement. All nations had well over 100 production in stockpile, so not sure why the planes are not fleshing out.

[Lascar]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

25 August 1944


All quiet in Russia, and no strat bombing this turn as the air units are still missing considerable strength even though I have every single plane for every nation set to priority reinforcement. All nations had well over 100 production in stockpile, so not sure why the planes are not fleshing out.

All quiet in Russia, and no strat bombing this turn as the air units are still missing considerable strength even though I have every single plane for every nation set to priority reinforcement. All nations had well over 100 production in stockpile, so not sure why the planes are not fleshing out.

I have noticed the same issue in a solitaire hotseat game I am playing. Looks like it may be a bug.

[Flaviusx]

September 8, just waiting for the allied hammer to fall. I took the liberty of bombing the Soviets in the Crimea again, but otherwise no combat. The Red bombers took quite a pasting, too.

The allies have a couple of paratroopers in the UK according to intel. I make a few adjustments in the West to deal with a drop possibility. I almost hope he does drop them...so I can crush them. Market Garden 2.0.

In the East, the Soviets look like they might start fighting themselves in a couple of spots, and I make minor adjustments to deal with that eventuality as well.

Oil recovers a bit thanks to the allied bombing pause, but production is still very low at 23. The oil stockpile has stabilized around 720 thanks to stringent measures to limit fuel use on my end. Disbanding those bombers helps, too.

Axis diplomats swarm Sweden and bring their status down a bit. An active Sweden could be very annoying and force me to garrison some Baltic ports I've been able to ignore the entire game.

I build another fighter, this one an interceptor. That's my last air build of the game in all likelihood. Saving the rest of my logistics for ground forces.

Germany is one turn away from clinching a minor victory. Pretty much a done deal, the question is whether I can run out the clock and get a major.

[Jim D Burns]

8 September 1944

Strategic bombing is no longer worth the cost. I managed to cause 6 oil hits at a cost of 35 (out of 60) bombers lost. That's a cost of 14 per bomber point lost for a total cost of 490 points for the six missions executed by three units this turn.

After these results, I didn't even bother executing missions with the soviets and will suspend strategic bombing in this game for good. In my opinion strategic bombing is broken and is no longer usable in game.

The allies closed with German lines in France but launched no attacks. Just about every air unit had rebased so I felt I lacked enough missions to push Germany this turn.

In Russia the Soviets launch an attack on Moscow and shattered the defender. It took all available planes in range and as the losses screen shows it was a very costly victory. These losses occurred before any other moves were done.