Case Blue: Keunert(Soviets) vs Olivier(Axis), no Olivier

[Keunert]

South

The pressure on Rostov rises as Sevastopol is about to fall. Our evacuated troops from there are underway by sea transport. In front of the Wiking SS and Slovak Mob. i was able to form a three hex deep line.

[Keunert]

The german Panzers took some hits this turn. Most of them suffered losses in the medium tank sector. alone this turn 80 medium were lost. I know they recieve only like 5 med. tanks per turn. But Olivier will have enough PP points to spend on request more tank cards. still i hope he will have his units in a bad shape within the end of next week.

[Keunert]

German oil reserves are continously going down. but i still don't think that this will have any impact on his situation.
i wonder if these stats are real or rather fog of war estimates?

[Keunert]

Strategic map:

[Keunert]

i am currently playing a Case Blue campaign as axis against the ai on normal setting. if i compare both games, i had not half the tank losses at this stage compared to Olivier. he can buy additional tanks but it's expensive. and after checking it: there are turns where no tanks at all are arriving: i really hope his tank losses will slow him down soon.

[ComradeP]

The German losses are huge, they'll lose nearly as many men in 1.5 weeks as in the entire month of July historically.

[Keunert]

June 6th 1942, turn 5

Not that much happening. Kill / loss ratio steadily changes from a 1/4 into a 1/5. Against the AI i won a major victory with a 1/6 ratio. Looks like things are not working for me. Stavka was generous and sent over 40 aircraft this turn. this tempted me to use some of them in two different airstrikes: the first one with three fighter units into german held gorund, trying to attract some interceptors. i got them and they got me. we lost a lot of fighter aircraft and killed only very few. the other attack was on an exposed german tank spearhead. same depressing result. i will stop any airmissions and wait a few weeks until my units are re equipped and our Command & Control level doesn^t reduce readiness anymore.

[Keunert]

Control & Command is still low. Our best army, 5th TA gets a penalty every turn so far. [:@]
Either a C&C AP penalty, or an organizational attack & def. penalty or both. This army made not even
one successfull attack so far.

[Keunert]

Air units have their problems too:

[Keunert]

and issueing airstrikes makes the problem even worse:

[Keunert]

North

In front of the 11th and 24th Panzer, the slovak PZ and Grossdeutschland i managed to build a thinnly manned thre hex deep screen. the biggest problem will be to get 13 A behind the Don.

[Keunert]

Just behind the huge pocket of shame i pull back the newly formed line. This line will not halt any attack right now. the goal is to pull back behind the Don. In other words to run faster than the Panzers drive.

[Keunert]

Center

North of Belovodsk will most likely be the next breakthrough. I am railing in whatever there is left in the Caucasus. still everythings looks weak.

[Keunert]

Center South

Front line disengaged from 60th Pz Gren and SS Wiking.

[Keunert]

South

Nothing happening here. We look forward to the arrival of the Sevastopol Garrison.

[british exil]

Keunert I am following both AAR's.

Would it be possible to write what turn you are doing? A bit easier to follow both threads.


Mat

[Keunert]

there is the turn number and date on the first post of each turn. but you are right it's not easy to find. will maybe add it on every post

[british exil]

Thanks.

Mat

[Blind Sniper]

I would add my compliments too, you are the first players posting the big campaign.
I'm following both AARs therefore I will be neutral.

C&C AP penalty really hurts your defence, especially in the 2nd turn you lost the possibility to avoid some encirclements, your opponent has been lucky because it happens when his units were in very good shape, of course he has been smart to take advantage of that.

I still don't have any experience but his losses seem a bit high.

Keep it going and good luck [:)]

[Keunert]

June 8th 1942, turn 6

Time to draw some first conclusions. My first turns were mostly about avoiding encirclement and i clearly failed in doing so. With the AP penalties and the lack of railroads i still have to figure out how i could have slowed down the advance of Oliviers Panzertruppen.

Combat

Despite severe AP penalties, combat penalties, and readiness losses i tried several counterattacks. My airstrikes were failures and caused me incredible losses. all groundattacks besides maybe two were failures too. next time i will get my airforce back and set interception to zero for a few turns. after a few turns of reinforcements (the soviets seem to have a rather high plane output) i will set the fighter on intercept, but will refrain from ordering airstrikes. better first have a look at how they do once they intercept a german airmission and then judge if the airforce is ready to play an active role.

groundunits can attack if: there are no penalties, there is artillery available and preferable if there are cards to increase their effectiveness are playable. never attack with a penalty.

Defending

first line of units with low loss acceptance (25-50%). they will suck up air & artillery strikes and if lucky will retreat. second line with a high loss acceptance and hopefully with good entrenchment. when the attacker reaches the second line he may have used up most of his artillery and air assets and the units have to attack with lower AP, resulting in less combat rounds.