Soviet Turn 8 (January 7, 1943)
In the Velikie Luki area, I gathered my forces to attack the clear hex to the left of V.L. Again I attacked with overwhelming numbers, with 48 CV (screenshot displays the CV for a hasty attack because I can't take a screenshot while holding shift) against 14.9 defending CV. With pretty overwhelming numbers and more than 3x the CV, I figured it should be a fairly easy win this time.
And the attack did succeed! But just barely.
Unfortunately, I have been having some internet problems, which resulted in me not being able to save this to the server properly (tech support thread here
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5077470). So I had to reload and do it over again. This time I attacked with, apparently, slightly more CV (I think I had some different support units attached):
And unfortunately, this time the attack failed, and failed with pretty bad losses. Since this was such an important attack, I was pretty annoyed, but I figured it would be cheating to reload again to try to re-get the original result. And ultimately, I am playing the Soviets, I can afford the losses in the long run. Nevertheless, this pissed me off and it is frustrating that Galitsky keeps failing. I may need some sort of better leader over here or an assault front or something, I guess:
Next, I went over to the Orel area. I took Orel itself easily with 2-3 rifle corps against weak German Luftwaffe + regiment defenders. The unit I am attacking in this screenshot had a ? at the start of the turn, so I went to scout it with some of my broken down tank corps which was battered the previous turn by counterattacks. The defender was a Panzer division. I figured that I needed to attack this, with as strong forces as I could muster, so I looked at what units were available and how many MPs I had, and moved them into position. I was going to attack with 4 units here. But when I clicked the attack button, only 2 of the divisions actually attacked. I checked and the mech corps and cavalry corps that didn't attack had 16 and 6 MP respectively, so they should have been able to attack:
It took me a while to realize what was going on. Eventually I turned off the weather graphics, and then I saw there was a river in the way, which had been invisible with the weather graphics on:
As far as I was concerned, that is BS, and I was not going to sit back and take that, especially when I had already been screwed over by not saving my first Velikie Luki attack. It was not my fault that I couldn't see the river with the winter graphics on, and if I had been able to see a river there I would have made sure to move different units that would have had enough MP to be able to attack. Ideally the game's UI ought be better at showing when you move a unit forward to position to do an attack (or cross a river), if you will have enough MP to be able to do the attack/move that you intend. The game should definitely have fog of war, but I don't think the intention of that is for you to (sometimes) not know which of your units will actually join an attack until you click the attack button, and it would be nice if the UI could make that clearer, with some sort of button or something where you could check if you move a unit to some location, if it will have MP to move to some other hex or to attack some other hex or not. I would not have launched the attack (or moved those units) if I had known they wouldn't join the attack. Note that when I say this sort of thing, I am not trying to be overly critical of the game (obviously I like it very much or I wouldn't be playing it), just to offer constructive criticism about problems that I have encountered where improvement might be possible.
So I reloaded (with the winter graphics turned off) to try again, with moving units that would actually have enough MP to attack as I had intended. If anyone thinks that was the wrong thing to do, I would be interested to know your reasoning and if other players have run into situations like this and what you would do. I definitely don't want to cheat, but to me, reloading here is not cheating. Am I wrong, or am I right?
So then I re-took Orel again in the reload as I had done before:
And then I moved that 1=2 light blue tank brigade to re-scout the German ? unit (Panzer division) as I had done before.
And then I moved all the best divisions that would actually have enough MP to attack into position, I was ready to attack with 14.4 CV against 6.3:
The attack failed, with Zakharov missing some leader check or something somewhere and the CV dropping from 134 to 52. I am happy to take a loss in an attack when it is a fair loss like that where the units that should be able to attack actually do what it appears like they should be able to do:
What I had wanted to do here was an HYLA-style trick, where I would get the German units to retreat towards my own territory, with ideally the 3=3 and 4=4 as well as the two 1=1 divisions doing that. However, with the attack on the Panzer division having failed, that looked out of reach.
So I tried a hasty attack against the 3=3 Panzer division with my troops that had been used to attack Orel, which failed:
In general I have not had much luck with hasty attacks with Soviets. It seems like to reliably get a win, you need to do deliberate attacks, with good generals, with significantly superior numbers. But if you do attack with those 3 things, the attacks are very strong.
I cleared away some of the weak units (probably should have done that first in retrospect), and then brought in more units to try a deliberate attack against the Panzer division (also with 1 infantry division there):
This attack succeeded, and because the hexes to the south-east had been converted to my control, there was nowhere for the Panzer division to retreat except to the north-east towards my territory:
When I was almost done with the turn, I had the internet problem again where I could not save to the server. I took a screenshot of the situation then. I had saved pretty recently, so barely anything ended up any different here (no attacks), but I ended up with some units near Voronezh in slightly different positions when I re-did it.
Final end of turn overview
I evacuated Oranienbaum. I wasn't completely sure, but I thought if I lost that hex the units would surrender rather than retreat, since it is impassable to Kronstadt when you hover over it. And since the fort had been lowered from 4 to 2, it seemed like they would probably end up surrendering at some point over the next few turns. So I evacuated to save the units, unfortunately. Not sure if there is anything I could have done differently to defend there, or if it is just doomed if Germany actually attacks it like this:
In Demyansk I reluctantly withdrew from the light forest hexes in my little salient to swamp hexes. However, Germany left some regiments in the Demyansk pocket, including just 1 regiment on a rough hex, and 2 on a clear hex, both of which I attacked successfully from the north. When Soviets attack a regiment with 10x as many men or so, the regiment seems to almost always lose, regardless of terrain/forts/etc. I also sent that 1=9 brown division up to provide some extra cushion next turn to hold and get forts building to stop the German attack on my southern flank:
In V.L. I just had my one attack, successful the first time and failed when I reloaded
In the Rzhev salient, I just wiped the isolated division and otherwise rested for a turn:
Final Orel/Voronezh. I could have pressed my advantage further, but thought it was better to be as sure as possible that the isolated units would not get freed. I thought it would be pretty tough for Germany to break out the isolated units (IIRC 2 infantry divisions, 1 regiment, and a Panzer division), but might be possible with Wiking out there somewhere and the SS corps that Germany gets:
Romanians got a surprising hold on the Don, a couple other attacks were successful though:
Romanians got ANOTHER hold here (I guess I need to stop underestimating them. However, there was an empty hex across the river where Tolbukhin could cross with 3 strong units. 1 Guards Rifle Division, 1 Guards Mech Corps, and 1 Guards Rifle Corps. I stacked all of these with strong support units (mostly rifle brigades, so this had a very high CV. I was hoping I could hold this from counterattacks next turn, and figured there was a good chance, but you never know.
Also regarding the Guards Rifle Corps, I formed that this turn from two guards rifle divisions and 1 rifle division. I moved those 3 divisions into the hex across the river, pressed B, and then... nothing happened... I double checked, and I should be able to form a guards rifle corps (I had the AP etc and the right divisions all together), but apparently you can't form one from units that have 0 MP left, and they had 0 MP left after crossing the river. So, I reloaded, formed the guards rifle corps BEFORE I crossed the river, and then it was no problem. This seems to me like another instance where what you can and cannot undo is not related at all to actual fog of war, and thus it is legitimate and in no way cheating to reload. I would say it is a bug that you apparently can't form a rifle corps after you have moved your units if they have no MP left, but instead have to form it before they are done moving.
In the Caucasus, another failed hasty attack. The German flank is threatened by cavalry, lots of rails cut off etc. But I think the most important lesson I am learning is pretty much just don't do hasty attacks with Soviets. If you don't have enough MP for a deliberate attack, just wait until next turn:
Anyway, I wonder if readers agree that my reloads were legitimate. It is definitely not my intention to cheat. To me, cheating is if you re-do attacks because you don't like the result, or if you move units into enemy territory to flip hexes and gain intelligence and then re-do on the basis of that intelligence. The reason both of those two things are cheating is that they violate fog of war. Are there other things that qualify as cheating? Not really that I can think of. But the game stops you from undoing some things that are NOT violations of fog of war, unless you reload (like the cases here). I wish that what you can/can't undo were tied more closely to things that are actually violations of fog of war.
To me, the only ethically suspect thing I did this turn is definitely the retreat path manipulation/herding in the Orel pocket. I suspect it is not really intended that players be manipulating retreat paths so that enemy units retreat towards your own territory (that is why they are programmed so that Soviet units generally retreat east and Axis generally west), and it seems like doing this might make it too easy to get pockets that the enemy can't break. Poor HYLA thought he was showing Germany players how to achieve historical losses in 1941 by herding... But now it turns out he is helping Soviet players to destroy irreplaceable German units in 1943... I am not sure this makes sense, maybe if herding is not really intended, it should be changed so that if units can only retreat the wrong direction, then they rout instead or something. And then just change it so that Germany can get more historical losses against Soviets in 1941 without having to use herding.
I am not sure it is balanced if I can herd Axis units and then they will run out of units and not be able to build more units, and then might collapse faster than historical due to not having enough counters left. (?) If it seems too strong and too easy over the coming turns, I might try to refrain from deliberate retreat herding as Soviets.
