1.05 PBEM AAR: Another Year at the Front with Field Marshal Noob

[karonagames]

oops wrong screen shot - will edit.

[karonagames]

Sitrep End of September/Early October

Turn 16 was the turn I think I saved my summer campaign which has been looking pretty poor up to now. I was determined to stick with my grinding deliberate attacks and pocketing instead of city capturing. In consequence my territorial gains, particularly around Smolensk had been awful, but by Turn16 I had a breakthrough in more ways than one:

In the North, Leningrad was occupied and 4PZG on its way to support AGC.

[karonagames]

T16:

Rzhev raided. This is a case where I expect to be isolated but where I want him to move the outflanked units so my infantry can advance.

[karonagames]

T16: Smolensk is finally isolated - I can't believe it was still Soviet occupied on T16. I will never weaken AGC this much ever again!

[karonagames]

T16: I manage a decent pocket near Belgorod.

[karonagames]

T16:

And a more important,bigger pocket between Poltava and Kharkov. Kharkov still had un-evacuated factories, and I debated long and hard whether to go for the city or the pocket. In the end I felt I could wreck his southern flank and weaken his Blizzard counter-offensive if I could take out 20+ units.

[karonagames]

T16:

I am also on track to capture Sevastopol and the Crimea. (The city fell on T17)

[karonagames]

T16 OOB:

The Sovs are at 3.5m, but have the mud and snow turns to expand. Still less than 1000 running tanks. 18th panzer has 27 runners.

[karonagames]

T16: Rifle squads number are at 22k - this is borderline for going into the blizzard when 3k will get damaged on the first turn - although the new rules may reduce this.

[karonagames]

T16 Losses: 300k more added to the POW cages, with 50+ units in pockets this turn.

[karonagames]

T16 Unit Losses: Good numbers being added to the undead pile, with a good chance that many of them won't be ready for the blizzard offensive.

[sveint]

Must admit the situation at Smolensk looked very worrysome, but your kills and units destroyed are very good. Don't think you've destroyed much if any Armament though?

[Flaviusx]

Armaments?

Piffle. He's chewed through the entire Soviet stock of them, I'm sure. This is part of the reason grinding works. The Soviet stockpile craters, zeroes out, and the continual heavy losses put the Red Army in a perpetual shortage.

Look at the Soviet artillery count here. He has fewer guns than the German. That tells the tale.

[karonagames]

Don't think you've destroyed much if any Armament though?

No, I don't think I got many Armaments at all - Leningrad and Kharkov were definitely empty when I got them, but as Flavio noted, my theory is that you can have all the armaments you want, if you don't have the men to give the rifles to.

This has been my first opportunity to try out the theory that I laid out here: tm.asp?m=2705668

[ComradeP]

Soviet gun totals matter a lot when they get artillery divisions, but not all that much for artillery regiments or divisional artillery. Currently artillery rarely fires, the Soviets have ammo shortages for heavy artillery, and their units have poor to mediocre experience so they're not all that likely to fire to begin with. Also keep in mind that the downsizing of Soviet divisions means many divisions lose a good chunk of their artillery. The 41b Rifle divisions have very few support weapons in particular.

Mortars matter because there are a lot of them and some basically always fire, artillery less so because there's generally few of it and only a few tubes will fire (even for the Germans, with 90 experience artillery).

You might be attriting armaments, but you've probably knocked out less manpower than his replacements+starting pool thus far and with the mud turns coming up his OOB totals should go up, especially with clever unit management to minimize attrition losses.

On the other hand, your Axis KIA losses in particular are quite high. I wouldn't worry about the AFV losses too much. You're 2-3 turns ahead of the curve, but the majority of the tanks you have now won't be worth much in 1942.

[Flaviusx]

The gun totals are just a shorthand here for my main point, Pieter.

Namely that the Soviet armament point pool has surely dropped to zero and the Soviet is living hand to mouth. There's a lot of dead rifle divisions, and it's going to take a lot of armament points to reequip them when they come back as shells. Production won't be able to meet this demand for quite some time, and possibly not ever if the grind can be maintained. Not even the blizzard period will be much of a respite, given the heavy losses involved even in a successful blizzard offensive.

Grinding pays. Bob isn't doing anything differently in principle than what James did in my game, he's just doing it much more cautiously and at a point further west. (But with possibly more decisive results in terms of sheer attrition to the Red Army.) I saved virtually all my industry in that game, too. Didn't matter, Jame's incessant attacks dropped the pool to zero and production couldn't keep up with demands, not even for existing units, let alone shells.

The Red Army cannot afford a full forward defense in 1941 -- at some point it has to break contact in order to recover morale and stop the grind. This is particularly true when no fort line exists, and German attacks prevent one from being thrown up in the front.

Bob's cautious advance actually suckered the Soviet into staying in range of the Wehrmacht longer than it should have.

[ComradeP]

It could work, but it'd better work because he has essentially based his entire strategy on grinding being a viable strategy.

I'm also not entirely sure yet who's being grinded. Axis KIA losses are high and there are lots of 4-5 CV infantry divisions in those screenshots with little to no clear fort preparation taking place. Very bad news for when the blizzard hits.

In order for grinding to be a viable strategy, you still need to preserve your own strength whilst reducing enemy strength to the point where the ability of the enemy to mount an effective defence is crippled. I don't see either of those points in action yet. German CV's are low for the time and the Soviets are holding more territory than they tend to hold in other 1.05 games. Maybe the Soviet armament pool is empty, maybe it isn't. Fact remains that Soviet armament production will increase soon, Bob has already said that he didn't destroy a lot of factories, and that through efficiency measures the Soviets can do a fairly good job of keeping a good chunk of their army at full strength. At this point if my opponent would grind my forces down a size, I would seriously consider disbanding all artillery regiments.

His territorial gains and losses are worse than in other 1.05 games, or what could be considered average. I have no idea how some of his advances can be so slow to begin with. For example: he was 7 hexes away from Dnepropetrovsk on turn 11, but he still hasn't captured the place. That's extremely slow for 1941 standards.

We both know that even if the destroyed Rifle divisions wouldn't come back, which they do, the Soviets essentially have a surplus of infantry units. A significant surplus. And they can build a corps from 2 divisions and a brigade, they don't need 3 divisions.

Another thing to consider is that the upcoming mud turns will provide a breather, and that the blizzard will provide another one. Keeping in mind that two of the goals during the blizzard are reducing Wehrmacht strength and recapturing territory, and that Bob is doing the first for him and the second isn't all that necessary at this point, I'm not too optimistic about what Bob's mid/late game will look like.

Of course, he has already played the first year, but even if the Soviet armament point pool is empty, I'd be pretty happy with the current situation as the Soviets as a worst case scenario, even though I don't think I'd let it happen.

[karonagames]

Sitrep End of October 1941

This might be the report where I get accused of gamesmanship, because I know that Stéphane was a bit miffed that I kept 50+ units coralled in pockets during the mud, and did not force their surrender until November, when they would not come back for free and would cost APs to replace. Obviously I feel it is a legitimate strategy or I would not have done it. Many rules can have cut off points that can be used to the advantage of one side or the other.

In the north I start preparing for the Blizzard as linebackers start moving into position:

[karonagames]

T20: Smolensk

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T20: Poltava/Kharkov Pockets.