Matrix Games Forums

16Jan2020: I start the night by checking all VVS units and making sure their bombers are set to night missions - about ten were transferred in last turn and needed the update. VVS units now at about 80% planned strength, and I’ll transfer a few more units in at end of turn. Then I do some SU shuffling and creation to get some newly arrived armies equipped.

More things to do this turn - disband fort.reg near front. Garrison all key cities within 20 hexes of front. Build LOTS of construction for Leningrad and Moscow final defense HQ. Several AA to Ladoga ports. More AA to Air HQ. Pull remaining AA next turn from Tallinn, Pskov, Vitebsk if still held. HQ assignments are shuffled around a bit in the north and south, then my attention turns to Southern Front.

The newly arrived Coastal Army is added to this front. I consider pulling back from the Dnestr River, but decide to stay put. Six strong German ID will be able to retreat my armies, but almost the whole line is Fort 2 so the Germans will be hurt after some tough fights. The Rumanians will probably only be able to force one crossing point since their units are so weak. This is the best chance SF has to bleed the Axis in this sector for the next couple of turns. It looks like all three AGS PanzerKorps are farther north in the Proskurov/Rovno area so that greatly reduces the risk of pockets and losses SF will take by standing and fighting. Six or so new units are railed in to make a secure second line. Next turn SF will fall back to the Bug river and set up for Odessa siege. Odessa itself is up to Fort 4.16 and has two RD digging away.

Southwest Front, on the other hand, is eyeball to eyeball with eight panzer divisions. Only the three in the south have good fuel supplies; those around Rovno are probably in the 30-60% range but are only ten hexes from railheads - dangerous. Plenty of infantry are on the line and ready to attack as well. Time to fall back and checkerboard so I don’t get caught in a huge pocket. First line is made about 20 miles east of the enemy, then I make two more mostly complete lines about 40 and 60 miles deep, using terrain and existing fortifications as much as I can. You can see all the Fort 2 hexes I abandoned, and I really hated to do that. Trying to hold that line would be an open invitation for a grand Axis envelopment of Proskurov and 12-15 divisions. The pull back means German Infantry won't be able to do as many attacks and panzers will be stretched further. GamerDad should still be able to make a nice pocket but only of 5-10 divisions.

Work continues as I move back up the line, finishing and reviewing unit moves. Western front faces strong forces, but all the panzers are at 25 hexes or more from supply and will get little or nothing. The Dnepr is too strong a barrier to give up without a fight. Forces are shuffled and organized better; Orel and Kharkov MDs each take a stretch of the Dnepr, while Western Front coalesces around the land bridge and Smolensk. Second and third lines are made for future turns and preventing panzer penetrations.

Northwest Front faces mostly infantry, so they fall back 20 miles, then set up another line 20 miles further back. I do keep strong units in and near Pskov. I should hold the city one more turn, but there are lines forming behind it just in case.

I rail forward a couple more divisions to fill weak spots. Moscow still has a dozen divisions there preparing fortifications. Some more fort.reg are added to boost the possible fort levels. Most of the final line now has fortified regions. I’ve now spent 125/175 of my AP on assorted things. One of them was changing the Reserve Front commander to Zhukov. Timoshenko replaces Pavlov in Western Front.

Attention now turns to air units. TransCaucAC does some bombing of Rumanian units. SouthAC does a mix of ground and airfield attacks. Ground strikes generally go well, but the airfield attacks are costly. A couple do manage to drop some bombs, and Axis fighter losses are moderate. SouthwestAC shuffles bases and planes, then they take some more shots at the LW Bf-109s in Rumania. Minimal losses on both sides. Ground attacks on Panzers use up the rest of their weekly bomb allotment. Kharkov and Orel Air Commands do two raids on each of the panzer divisions near Mogilev. 20 casualties here..30 there..whittling the panzers continues. The LW doesn’t contest the later attacks. WesternAC then bombs the rest of AGC’s panzers around Vitebsk. Moscow and NW Air rain bombs on the units they can catch in clear terrain north of the Dvina river, with good results. Northern hits the units by Pskov. Overall, ground attacks cause over 1.2k casualties to the Axis this turn. I then tour the air commands and distribute about 25 air units from national reserve.

Southwestern Front is the only formation over CP limit (by 40) - I guess I haven’t lost enough units there yet, though that number will drop by 9 when the holdouts around Chernovtsy die next turn. I should be able to fix it around turn 6 or 7 when several new Army HQs arrive. Almost forgot to use night bombers in Long Range. They don’t do much, but better than nothing. I then did some night supply drops to the Chernovtsy orphans, maybe they can put up a tougher fight.

Factory evacuations: Kharkov-Baku 12 Su-2, 10 vehicle, 5 arma. Odessa-Batumi 2 arma, 1 HInd. Gomel-Orsk 2 arma, 2 HInd. DtHq is checked, and a couple of HQs are moved to get units in range. Some AA units close to the enemy are recalled. There’s a couple of towns north of Odessa that have a number of AA SU that I’ll need to snag once Axis gets closer. I finish the rest of the turn-end cleanup, replace a few poor army commanders, and build fortified regions in Rzhev and Vyazma to prepare defenses for six weeks from now. Turn then saved and sent to GamerDad.

Turn 4 Epilogue:
16 hexes to Osinovets, 31 to Moscow

CurrentTurn/Total losses at end of Soviet Turn 4:
Axis 15283/54777 men, 165/657 gun, 78/500 afv, 12/52 spac.
Soviet 94852/952448 men, 940/12711 gun, 387/6201 afv, 97/1992 spac.
Net loss of about 3300 vehicles this turn: 2.7k lost, 0.6k captured by the invaders, minimal seized.
Air losses: Axis 24 (this turn), 120 Total. Soviet 329 (this turn), 4332 Total. 14:1 ratio is better. Half Axis losses were Bf-109 (13).
Important Soviet type losses: 14 MiG-3, 21 LaGG, 2 SB-2 Rcn, 4 IL-2.
Unit Losses: 1 TankD, 2 RifleD, 3 MtnD, 1 AT Brig, 4 SecRgt, 6 Fort.Reg (all disbanded).

Pool of modern planes: 283 MiG-3, 137 Yak-1, 230 LaGG-3, 77 IL-2, 336 IL-4, 368 SB-2R, 8 Li-2. Numbers going up
German OOB: 3353552 men, 33764 gun, 5036 afv, 3695 plane. Sov OOB: 3967286 men, 48940 gun, 15591 afv, 7070 plane.

Things are going all right overall - I’m falling back and taking losses but no new pockets this turn, and low risk of major pockets in Axis Turn 5. It looks like GamerDad is having even more problems than I did dealing with the 25 hex supply path bug in v12.02. I also suspect he doesn’t do as much micromanagement as I do on air units, as well as managing TOE for ground units. He never set up VVS bases for partisan supply in our first game for example, while I am already getting good results and should have my first partisan units filled and active in 3-6 turns.

With 13 more turns of clear weather, my plan is to keep losses to one defense line (1-3 hexes) per turn until he gets to the final defense lines at Leningrad and Moscow, which will be fort 3 or better by then. German panzers will upset my plans some turns, but so far their progress is roughly at historical levels and supply restrictions will keep hurting his unit MPs each turn. Leningrad will probably fall (isolation is almost certain) but Moscow should be safe til snow turns at least. We’ll see.

I do have some questions on when certain unit types become available to build, mostly for SUs. I’ll be looking in the rulebook for that and other things while I wait for Turn 5 to arrive. (later that night) A-ha! Rulebook 26.2, Appendix B. YAY - though it is only for on-map units. Further searching didn’t find anything in the rule set but did find some old posts in the Matrix forums. It doesn’t quite match the options I see when trying to create units, but I’ll settle for 90% accurate for now.

One thing I am pleased with is how organizing and using the Soviet Air Force is coming together. In my previous solo games, trying to manage and keep up with the hundreds of air units, nearly a hundred air bases, and dozens of disparate plane types was a daunting task. I’d spend perhaps an hour or two a turn endlessly clicking, getting maybe ten or twenty bases updated, but never really managing to see or deal with the whole issue. Now, all the information I’ve picked up from AARs and experience in my earlier games, combined with using spreadsheets to sort and evaluate air units, finally makes this a manageable task. Now I can get all the units that need rest and refit into the NR, and also get the best rested units where I need them (Moscow and Southern Front, currently), during each turn.

I think it is looking good for you. I think in particular the Axis are making a mistake not moving down 1st panzer army further to the south - they get both much better supply and get to target more important areas like the Donbass.

The Su-2 factory closes down in 1941 I think? So perhaps did not need to be evacuated?

Yeah, it probably could have stayed. Thanks for the tip. I've only got a couple factories on my mental list for 'don't bother evacuating'.

Agreed that 1st Panzer is less effective stacked in northern Ukraine. Axis player has shifted them south slightly in upcoming turns, but not having any German mobile forces to help break open and outflank the Dnestr river defenses early on was a poor choice. Everyone will see in the next few AAR turn reports just how long the Dnestr line held and how much wasted time the Axis suffered. Rumanian railhead is still west of the Dnestr on Turn 8, which is awesome from the Soviet POV. This AAR will likely turn into a good example of cautious, conservative Axis play which results in poor territorial advances.

Love this AAR! As far as a cautious axis tactic I think come winter it will be decided wether this was good or not

Cautious axis play can lead an Axis player to understand first hand the real power of the Soviet Red Army.

Woe to the German player who doesn't take either Leningrad and Moscow and can't block the Red Army going back over 5 million men before Blizzard. That was the result of my first Axis multiplayer game. Great learning experience.

But just for the record, in that game, I too kept 1st pz in the Kiev area for much too long... but in the end, a (rare) error from my opponent meant that I could surprise him and I ended up taking both Sevastopol and Rostov before the start of blizzard. Like Von rundstedt, I had to give Rostov back soon after, but still, it was a nice little morale victory in an otherwise tough game.

20Jan2020: First glance shows Axis gains of 20-40 miles on most sectors, but almost no action on the Moscow axis. Finns advance around three hexes from their border. My units facing them will fall back to the prepared lines by Leningrad and Lake Jan. Tallinn was lost, along with the Bay of Riga islands. AGN made slight progress toward Narva and Pskov but the Red Army still holds both. AGC made almost no advances - they just moved up infantry to engage along the whole line, but didn’t start any offensives. I’m rather surprised.

AGS was in an offensive mood, and the results in Ukraine are much as I expected. 1st Panzer Group surrounded two RD and a mech corp in/around Proskurov, and pushed through two of my three defensive lines just north of there. The Rumanians did not challenge my line on the Dnestr, though the Germans did shatter one RD. Our holdout units around Chernovtsy were finally forced to surrender this turn. All in all, the situation is a bit better than I’d hoped. I’m going to have to make some careful decisions about whether certain Fronts continue to stand fast, or withdraw.

Vehicle Pool: 128k (42k needed), still growing. RailCap starts at 51611/136914. That should be enough to rail the units arriving.
Manpower-3463, Port-143, Railyard-294, Vehicle-150, HInd-232, Oil-128, Fuel-149, Resource-196, Armament-366.

Event Log shows eight isolated units (five mentioned above, near Proskurov, plus the three Hanko garrison units). Arrived Unit list shows about 30 divisions (mostly rebuilt shells) and one newly-formed Army HQ. Over 40 Rifle and Mech Corps HQ were disbanded - that seems different that in 11.03. I seem to remember losing 8-10 a turn over all the August turns? It will at least cut down on map clutter. Nine air units upgraded to late model planes. Only one air battalion (10 plane) unit was renamed and upgraded to air regiment (20 plane) this turn.

Key stats from EvLog production totals: 88.3k Armaments produced, 1400 vehicles, 290 aircraft, 148 afv, 190k manpower. About 850k armaments and 0k manpower surplus after replacement phases. Down at the bottom of Event Log, Resource Status shows Rail at 100% - 183k free, 167k needed. That’s a good buffer; I think the 15% reserved setting will be fine until fall arrives. Might even drop it back to around 10%. 16 partisan battalions now formed, and 11 supply drops done from VVS airbases.

CR Battles tab reports 91 battles of all types. 50 or so recons, including some peeks at major goal cities. Axis recon escort still on. 20 ground battles across the whole front - that is two consecutive turns of very light combat. My opponent’s operational style is very different from mine - he seems to like forming strong lines on both defense and offense it seems. Fourteen interdictions by Soviets with minimal results.

Axis main-line rail repair progress: 65,30 W of Pskov. 62,48 NE of Vilnius - Huh? No progress? Not sure if he forgot FBD, but all those stacks of units by Mogilev are still out of supply range. Oh, I think I see what happened - hex 59,51 SW of Vilnius was converted this turn. That little dog-leg is easy to overlook - I can remember forgetting that hex myself in solo games. 63,61 towards Minsk. 57,87 next to Tarnopol. 72,104 E of Kishinev.

This is really interesting - I can probably safely contest the upper stretch of the Dnepr one more turn. After next turn his supply range around the land bridge will jump forward about 5 hexes. Meanwhile, down on the Dnestr near Odessa the Rumanian rail is fixed almost to the front line. I’ll have to check with recon to see if any panzers were moved down there. Even if that isn’t the case, it may be time to run away.

Time for some CR/spreadsheet management of ground and air units. My strongest partisan battalion is ‘P’ now, not just a ‘PC’ cadre, and is at 45%Toe and 50 Morale. It is also very close to the Brest/Minsk main rail line. Hopefully it’ll activate in the next few turns and mess up some German plans. There are only about 25 Rifle and Mech Corps HQs left - we’ll see how many disappear next turn. 207 total infantry units. Average morale is 43, EXP is 35. Pretty flimsy. Only about ten RDs have managed to get above 50 Mor+Exp so far.

National Reserve has about 35 air battalions (10-plane) of all types, and 95 regiments. I may have to pull some of those battalions out; a dozen of them are MiG/Yak/IL-2 with good to excellent morale numbers. We’ll see. I sort all the regiments in NR to find the ones ready to pull out. On-map air units also sorted. Looks like 3 MiG and 10 I-16s I should rest. Level bombers are in good shape. Recon and Tac as well. Sheet says 17 units need to go to NR, and I mark 20 to send back forward. After the beat up ones are sent off to NR, I scroll around the east edge of the map and rail forward all the new units that showed up in the Urals. There are only about 8 appearing there - the rest seem to be arriving mostly around Moscow and cities south of there.

Here’s a look at the far north of the map, where I’m going to try and hold the Finns along a 3-hex line based on Lake Jan and the rivers. I almost got this to work a couple years ago, under v1.06 or 1.08, whatever it was. This absolutely didn’t work under v11.03 last year when I tried it. RD morale, and more importantly entrenchment level increases, were nerfed/bugged. Both those seem to be back to normal levels in v12.02 so I’m going to give this another go.

The three hexes with red stars are the defense line - each hex has 2 RifleDiv and a FortRegion. The green star is going to have a strong RD set to reserve. I’m going to juggle around the divisions a bit to make that middle hex the strongest. Fort levels for the main line are at 1.86 (north), 1.92 (middle) and 0.16 (south). That southern hex, next to Lake Ladoga, is low fort level due to being not fully manned until last turn since it is the least vulnerable. With fort levels over 2.0 after my turn end, the Finns are going to struggle to get through the two hexes they can reach. If GamerDad is cautious and waits a couple turns to attack, my RDs may be above fort level 3.0 and that may stop the Finns cold.

There is no great benefit to this operation, as it doesn’t give me another port eligible to supply Leningrad. There are minor benefits of keeping a few more manpower points, and probably causing larger attrition on the Finns. The cost is three extra RD that I railed up here on turns 2 and 3, and a couple of AP to reorganize 7th Ind. Army. TBH I’m really just experimenting on a very small scale to see how quickly 2 RD and a Fort.Reg can build up fort level, and how long they can stand up to Finn attacks. If the line holds it may save me a nice chunk of AP - I won’t have to build 40+ AP worth of forts below the Karelian No Attack Line. If this line *is* broken, I’m just going to fall back all the way to the no-attack line and use these RDs to defend Volkhov and Tikhvin.

Looking further west, I’m not quite sure why Hanko is isolated - two Baltic ports are still open and connected to rail within 25 hexes. Probably another 12.02 supply glitch? Closer to Leningrad, my units near Vyborg are going to fall back and not contest the Finns. They will be pushed south of the Neva in future turns. The three AA units in Vyborg are also recalled, using 3 AP. Northern Front is at 74:72 CP so I assign two Fort.Region back up to STAVKA.

Recon flights find 2 panzer and 2 motorized divisions facing my weak Narva line. I see only 1 panzer and 1 mot down by Pskov. Interesting..supply chain to Narva isn’t great, but it is closer to Leningrad. Narva will get some serious reinforcements this turn. 3 units are railed in, and now I have three defense lines, the third on the Luga River. More units will be needed but that can wait for future turns - AGN is going to have it’s work cut out even to take Narva and Pskov on Turn 6.

Having all those Corps HQs dissolved has scrambled command structures quite a bit. It’s going to take some time to sort out NW and Western fronts. [also a lot of AP - sigh] Kharkov and Orel MD both need a second army as well. Northwest adjusts positions slightly around Pskov, forming a sacrificial screen then a strong second line. Farther south the line pulls back 20-30 miles towards VeliLuki.

The next evening I start with getting armies attached to needy HHQs. I’ve got six Fronts (starting five plus Reserve) and four MDs with units on the front lines (Kharkov, Orel, Moscow, and NorthCauc). N and NW are fine with four armies each. W has five armies, but it is lots of AP to move one out. I’ll probably leave it as is.
SW has only 3 armies, and is still overloaded with CUs. S is also at 3 (though both S and SW have an airborne corps which will stay a while). Reserve just has two - one more needed here soon. For the Districts, Moscow has one, NorthCauc has none (can wait a few turns), Kharkov one, and Orel one. Priorities: Orel, Kharkov, SW (but stay attached to STAVKA), Moscow, Reserve, NCauc.

There are six armies currently attached to STAVKA - let’s play mix and match.
16th at 73,83 - This is already one handling extra units in SW Front area.
19th at 87,88 - Four div and an RC, currently digging in on the Dnepr below Kiev. Probably leave as-is.
26th at 76,88 - 3 RD and an AT. Could stay and relieve CP pressure on SW, or be transferred. [it stays]
29th at 81,81 - Empty, sitting at Kiev. This one can slide north and join Kharkov MD.
34th at 92,49 - 4 RD, digging in SW of Rzhev. This one can join Moscow MD and keep building defenses in the Rzhev area.
38th at 88,84 - empty, SE of Kiev. Move north, join Orel MD.

That scheme will do for now. I’ve got an average of two more armies arriving each turn on Turn 6-10. Some armies are moved as noted above, and I rail up some new units and fill in gaps around Smolensk/Dnepr. I leave that incomplete, as South and Southwest Fronts also need units and are higher priority. Southern gets the first work. My big decision is whether to hold this good defense line on the Dnestr River, or fall back a couple hexes. GamerDad was so cautious last turn he only launched one attack on this Front - which did shatter my RD. I decide to hold one more turn. Six German ID northeast of Kishinev are going to be able to blow out my line, but not get far. The Rumanians, on the other hand, are going to struggle to retreat any of my units dug in at fort level 2 across a major river. I’ll take my licks, then run away next turn.

I’ll want to come back on Turn 6 and review this choice. My Soviet play style in ‘41 is on the aggressive side, and sometimes I stay a turn too long and lose a dozen divisions in a pocket. I don’t think that’ll happen here, and it’ll put the Rumanian push a turn behind schedule. Standing fast will need about four units railed in, as I’m going to pull back the paratroop brigades. [spoiler - my choice was a good one. Axis did not get very far against my defenses in their Turn 6]

Here is pre-move screenshot, with Soviet units showing attack=defense CV. I’ll have to fill in that hole by Kishinev then get some backup units in there. Cursor was over Odessa so you can see the DV built up there so far. I plan to swap in better divisions next turn.

After unit moves, my Southern Front defensive position is stronger. I expect the six German ID will blow the Kishinev section of my line back 20-30 miles, but the Rumanians down near Odessa will be lucky to take even a couple of hexes. We’ll see if my skill at estimating results is accurate or not. Picture again displays CV values, and you can see how I've tried to alternate stronger and weaker units, plus put better ones in front of those German ID.

Moving north, SWFront is a bit of a mess. Five divisions are pocketed at Proskurov, and I don’t think I can get enough CV there to break it. 13th Panzer might be vulnerable? Yeah, this should be worth a try. I can get 25+ CV attacking from four sides, looks like. Two prep air attacks are done, then a big attack retreats the PzD. My losses are high (nearly 1500 men), but attriting and temporarily pushing back panzers is worth it. This division is now down to just over 100 afv, and this is only mid-July.

I’ve got one more exposed Panzer I can strike, 1st SS Mot. Two air units are transferred up from Southern Front first, since SWFront only has about 140 planes ready before my transfer. This battle starts with about 3:1 base CV, but result is closer due to poor Soviet leader rolls. I scrape by with 2.06:1 and put a nice hurt on the 1st SS. If I include the air attack casualties, losses totaled about 500 men on each side. Beating up on 20% of 1st PzGruppe is probably a bit too ambitious this early in the game. I did confess to being an aggressive defender! If nothing else, my willingness to attack full panzer divisions is really going to make him think twice about breaking down into regiments while trying for grand encirclements. Both of these attacks needed 6 or more divisions to barely succeed so they won’t be repeated very often in future clear weather turns.

I better quit while I’m ahead, and set up a serious defensive web. The Proskurov defenders can’t escape, but now they’ll be a stronger roadblock next turn. A LOT of unit shuffling and reassignments are needed to get HQ assignments mostly OK after the mass Corps HQ deletions this turn. A couple hours careful work gets units from SW to NW Fronts fairly well set up, and all the newly arriving units staged. Here's the final defensive dispositions for Southwest Front.

The Battle of Smolensk should start in earnest on Turn 6. Germans are barely in supply from Orsha to west of Vitebsk, and I expect a 20-50 mile advance on the land bridge. Everything south of Orsha is 26+hexes from rail so out of supply. Eight panzer/motorized divisions and ten ID near Mogilev will get nothing - again. That’s the only reason I didn’t abandon the Dnepr line this turn.

There’s still a little more ground moving to do, and then air attacks. Speaking of air, there were a decent amount (~20) of Axis interdictions. Results of those: Axis lost 3 ftr, 1 bmr. Sov lost 44 ftr, 450 men, 20 guns.

A quick look at DtHQ report on out of range units shows I did well with my army shuffling. I start the evening with air attacks, then doublecheck my ground units, before doing end-turn management. SWFront Air is already tired, but I run bombing missions on six German mobile divisions anyway. The lion’s share of air units from NR will be coming to this Front shortly; the worn-out ones can go to NR next turn.

NCauc and Southern air armies pound on ground units at the Dnestr, and do two airfield attacks on a Rumanian fighter base. Results aren’t great, but the Rumanians are down to less than 60 ready fighters at the end of all my attacks. The LW fighter base a bit farther north still has 90 ready fighters so I’m nowhere near parity, let alone any advantage.

Darn it - forgot to set night missions on new VVS air units. Just used one in 2nd VVS in a daytime attack. Time out while I fix the rest of them. Grr - even worse, that was the only new bomber unit NOT set to night. Oh well. Back to some thorough and time-consuming bombing by Kharkov, Orel, Western, and Long Range. Mobile units are targeted first, but I have enough planes in the central sector so every unit on the front line gets two deliveries of Air Parcel HE. Moscow, NW, and Northern target Germans in the clear north of the Dvina River.

It looks like some infantry is coming through the Pripyat Marshes; I’ve blocked one ID and ZOC changes tell me a couple more are there. They are still a couple of turns from reaching the Dnepr south of Gomel, where I’ve started some units digging in. Here's a pic of the Mogilev/Kiev stretch.

Some AP are spent replacing the Western Air leader, balancing out Orel and Kharkov MDs, then building SUs in my new Army HQs. I also bumped up all HQs from 92% to 100% ToeM. Troop count is doing well enough so I can afford the extra support squads to get the slight boost.

Factory Evac: Kiev-Sukhumi 4 Arma, 4 HInd. Leningrad-Magnitogorsk 30 KV-1, 7 Arma. Only 8k troop and 1k factory rail left unused. Rest of cleanup work is done, then one final check and turn sent off. Here's the Air Loss screen for this turn.