T127 – 21 November 1943
So we seem to have a war on with the start of three major Soviet offensives ... but first some weather news. Thats for next turn and in a normal winter would imply blizzards by early December. Here it will end up as snowfall but just possibly might make a mess of the Soviet rear area (in the same way that the heavy rain hit me).
Back to the air war and back to the railyard war, as before my goal is not to disrupt current depot capacity (any damage will be offset by HQ allocation) but for when these railyards are needed for depot-depot freight.
The other shift is a return to GA-interdiction, I'm picking spots where the Soviets are advanced into poor terrain but behind them its clear, goal is to remove admin movement (principally for the supply trucks).
There's a fair bit of predictable misunderstanding of the Soviet logistics in WiTE2. Its actually very fragile in this phase and I'm hoping that by niggling away at aspects, those problems slowly worsen, if their armoured formations are around 30MP and the Rifle Corps 12MP a lot of my problems start to ease.
Moscow probably wasn't worth it, Kharkov was flattened. So distance is a real constraint but the NSS' rail yard is *20 for capacity so 13% of damage is a bite out of it – but I doubt I can sustain this.
The experimental interdiction probably hit the wrong target area, I'll keep this under review. Clearly any reward is slow and indirect.
To the map, Soviet offensive aimed at Smolensk opened but took heavy losses for a single hex in my fort belt.
Given the commanders involved, they do seem now to be serious about this sector.
Wider Smolensk sector. No counter-attacks, let them have their gains but equally I have multiple lines (even if Smolensk itself is presumably a death trap).
Bigger problems in the south – not least the first pocket (not really counting early turn cut-offs) at Poltava. Now the nice thing about being pocketed is there are often juicy, over-extended, targets now available, so time to do to the Soviets what they did to me in 1941.
Usual pattern, isolate and rout.
Now that used most of 1 PzrA but 4 PzrA had the week off.
In terms of terrain that was a loss, but no point giving the Soviets the chance to take some revenge and the rail net here (for them) is very odd with some important gaps.
Took a different approach in the Dnepr bend, one localised attack to protect a retreat route but generally opted to hold the current line. I want to make the ZoC costs for the Dnepr pay – and it maybe (hopefully) the counter-attack at Poltava has removed their more mobile assets for a few turns.
So some things start to change. The ratio of units in refit/ready has started to increase, at the moment its still mostly a single turn state (apart from the Pzrs) but its a steady stream of units out of the line. And I mostly have to accept terrain losses and indeed start giving it up voluntarily to avoid needless losses.
Overall not bad, almost 80,000 permanent losses must be enough to stop the Soviets actually building up their manpower. And I very kindly cleared out a lot of their soon to be obsolete tanks so they have slots for the new stuff.
Also the artillery losses are enough to cause them problems, at a guess they are getting around 900 guns and larger mortars per turn (and no more than 40 heavier guns) so that is more than a turn's production.
Air war was a bit worse than I'd like but generally my formations are more robust (high enough morale that the losses don't render them in need of a break) and I have plenty of planes in reserve. Also, come early 1944, I really start to lose a lot to the west so its delivering a useful benefit.
The big numbers have changed quite a lot since T125. So that is a net 300k off the Soviet on-map numbers (and they have taken 150k out of reserve), a net 1,000 tanks have gone missing and the VVS is down almost 2,000 on map.
Germans are down (net) 70,000 men (some withdrawals), 400 tanks and 300 planes.
So that is just off 2 turns of active operations – its going to be a long winter.
16 Pzr is due to arrive next turn (axis players of WiTW curse this withdrawal as it usually comes just as the Allies push on Rome).
Have started to track Soviet truck losses, its the only proxy measure I readily have available to guess at their wider logistics network and unit mobility.
The second line is just their truck losses in their logistics phase – I guess that is the best single measure of how efficient their supply network is functioning (since clearly its correlated to actual truck usage in that phase with that affected by the sum of all the MP costs involved).
Their production is made up of around 130 truck factories (I'm going by an old vs AI save here) so that is 130*10*.55, approx 700 and 4,500 from LL. So knocking out1,300 (even assuming some is offset by capturing mine) is 25% of weekly production and they have the problem of getting new trucks to where they are needed. Also if 1,300 are destroyed, there will be a second group of damaged – that I have no means to unpick.
The 1944 LL value is 6,000, their domestic production may go up a little depending on recaptures and repairs but if I recall stays at around 700 per turn. 1945 sees a drop in LL receipts but by then it should all be going into the logistics system.
No gains or losses for off map VP so the only changes are the predictable core city values. Basically the Soviets are up +21 for the Dnepr bend and will get another +36 next turn (when they finally reach Sevastopol). Smolensk will fall in the next few turns.
From my perspective, all that is factored in, I'm not going to hold the current line till the end of December 1944 – I doubt I'll hold in the south till January 1944 without having to start a significant retreat.
