Matrix Games Forums

What happened to all your good commanders? Practically all your fronts are being led by sub optimal leaders with the wrong rank

It is an interesting remarks, thank you, i may have some management to perform in my chain of command.

The current result is mostly due to the fact that i have the habbit to keep very good leaders at Army command, because they have so much impact here, and i hardly ever promote them to front level.

So no leader ever get a promotion in my soviet army. If they are good at their current position, they stay here forever. Lol. I'am a terrible manager who never congratulate anyone. [X(]
They are still alive, it is already a good award, non ? [:D]

As example Aleksandr Vasilevsky is still in command of my Elite 51 Army, despite having the level to command at least a front.

I probably have to think about it more.

Also what is the normal rank of a front commander ? I have to admit i'am a little lost in soviet ranking.

looking at the disasters in 41 and 42, it's a miracle that some leaders still live.


Anything above Geeral leitenant is ok for front command. I would definitely promote them to front command.. more positive dice rolls for everyone

i still favour a powerfull tank and cavalery attack toward rostov in the winter. maybe you can pocket some units or you can force him to withdraw from caucasus and get tons of MP centers and a lot of territory.:)something like the originaly planed operation saturn in winter 42/43. that would be a hell of a ride.

Thanks for the advices, i will have to spend some precious political points to promote some leaders i suppose.

Turn 125, 04 november 1943

Last turn of mud before the winter and the snow !!

I regrouped some troops in the noted area, just in case something interesting can be done with them. A good amount of troops. Mobile troops.



November is also the month when my generous US sponsor decided to provide me a new toy :



Seriously, this tank is so bad. It is as bad as a T-34 in battle (with as the T-34 a bad 75mm gun that is not very efficient against panther currently), but worse, there is some much space in it, so much comfort that tank crews become lazy with it and forget all discipline.
Sad !!

Around the time of your game, these were most of the front commanders, north to south.

L Govorov - Leningrad
K Meretskov - Volkhov
M Popov - 2. Baltic
A Eremenko, then I Bagramyan - 1. Baltic
V Sokolovky - Western
KK Rokossovsky - Belorussian
N Vatutin - 1. Ukrainian
I Konev - 2. Ukrainian
R Malinovsky - 3. Ukrainian
F Tolbukhin - 4. Ukrainian

Most were the rank of General Polkovnik as a minimum and aside from Vatutin who didn't survive the war, the bottom four were Marshals at the end.

Thanks !

Turn 126 : 11 november 1943

First turn of snow, and obligatory motivational video !!! It is time to attack !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AsqikZhEMw

This turn my tank corps performed an important TOE upgrade to a more powerfull tank corps, which is now,once well trained, worth a german panzer division. Great news !!



The starting attack position !! Glory to the motherland !!!!

Would be nice to have "Super-Bagration" where northern and eastern pincers would meet in Voronezh. But I cannot see tat happening very easily... [8D]

Bad news.

Unfortunately the technical issue returned. The turn crashed on german side despite we managed to do some turns before that. My opponent cannot save the game anymore, he have to do it in one row and end the turn before quitting the game or crash.

We may probably be able to carry on but the fun is spoiled a lot. There are some questions on how the save was corrupted in the first place and my opponent and the software team do not work very well together, if you know what i mean [:D]

Whatever, this campaign is finished. Looking at victory point, i think it is wise to say that this game would have ended in a german victory. My opponent sent this acrobat file to me to explain its view on the subject (about who win), if you want to have a look :
It is safe for work. [;)]
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/640 ... on/130.pdf

On my side, i was quite glad to save moscow.

This game was a very interesting training for me. I learned a lot and discovered the late game for the first time.

I hope you enjoyed this AAR. There are so much thing that happened each turn. It is difficult to speak about all things in a small AAR. I tried to concentrate on the most important battles, such as the battle for moscow at the start which was really truely epic !!

I got so much thing wrong in my soviet army built and construction, and also have so much ideas to test. I hope to be able to restart a new soviet multi campaign soon with a friendly opponent. [:D]

(For now, i'am really more interested in the soviet side, it is really fun, even if it is time consuming. German side is so cheated. Just jocking [:'(]).

Thanks all.

Its too bad it ends on this way.
Thanks a lot for this very entertaining AAR and full respect for fighting on, no matter how bad the situation looked like.

Its quite obivious that Pelton used his experience to trigger the crashes cause he feared the Super Bagration which would have carried you to Berlin [:D]

Thanks for your good AAR and epic fight, it was a real pleasure to follow it.

Nice AAR.
You did well to hold on against the odds and it's paid off because this goes down as a draw in my book.
The first part of the game must have been a steep learning curve for you. I think you'll be a handful for your next opponent.

From experience, I can say that you learn a lot when you play someone like Pelton.

For all our differences, I can safely say that he is the person who has taught me the most about this game.

Congrats on a good AAR - and I hope to read more from your hand in the future.

Dinglir, others,

I was going to stay out of this. ?? But.. I agree fully with Dinglir. Pelton, despite certain "beta" aspects of his personality, has, if fact, made a huge amount of contributions to this game.

Besides, there has been plenty of other "beta" type behavior. Sometimes even me!!

ps, oh yeah, congrats to Stelteck.

Eeek! Charlie what have you done now???

I'am reviewing my AAR for the important moment.

This is were i lost Leningrad, turn 5, when my weak troops south of lake Ilmen were crushed.
And i had nothing in reserve.

I barely managed to avoid the encerclement of 2 fronts at Leningrad but the town was lost. Still the front which barely escape the area were available later for the defense of moscow.

The successfull defense of moscow. A glorious victory.
I managed to concentre 80% of soviet union army here. It was just enough to save the town. There was 5 front (renforced with everything with fighting value) involved, at least.

The disaster in the south in spring 1942 around Voronev, leading to general retreat of soviet forces in the south.



In fact, my line of defenses were very bad. I created multiple layer like this :


It was very bad. Instead of created multiple layers one or 2 hex deep. I shall have created only one line of defense, but 4 hex deep at least !!!

Maximum german extension :
Lots of territory, but the retreat saved my army and allow me to recover a fighting force in 1943.

And it was then possible to counter attack !!! [8D]