A Clash of Titans, Xhoel (Axis) vs Bitburger (Soviet)

[Bear1888]

Sorry for hijacking the thread but you asked for the information. Here is the actual OOB in early 43 and the strongest soviet stack according to Intel:

[joelmar]

Thanks, really interesting.

but I really meant the full OOB that could be extracted and sorted from the Commander Report exports, in order to see the quality ratio of his troops, that is of course not something that is available to you.

But from your map screenshot he seems to have quite a few powerful stacks.

[Crackaces]

Actually Bear has a very interesting report. The Soviets have enough now to slow the Germans down. That is stack 4 deep and not leave huge holes to get munched .. the next milestone is 7M where the Soviets can pick a front and start pushing ..

[joelmar]

Yes, of course, that is a calculation that has logic to it and makes sense in the context of usual Soviet use of mass as I already stated.

But my initial comment was more a questionning about whether a Soviet player that has been badly mauled and so with a relatively small army but with high quality units would be able to do as well as a Soviet player with a bigger OOB containing many units of lesser quality that are usually used as cannon fodder.

When on the attack in 1941 and 1942, the Axis player doesn't need to cover all his front multi hexes deep since the Soviet player will have to create deep fronts to stop him where he hits, in great part because his units are weak. So can a depleted Soviet player do the same and play a strategy more based on finess than mass if he concentrates on farming high quality units?

[xhoel]

@Crackaces: I think that is a good rule of thumb, but ofc there are many more variables that come into play when determining the shift of the initiative.

@joelmar: I don't see why the Soviets cannot hit hard on a certain sector and be successful. That does not mean that they will win the war. The advantage of numbers would give the Soviets the ability to hit in multiple parts of the front and tie up German reserves which would make break out operations impossible to achieve. That is why the OOB numbers serve as a good indicator of where the initiative is.

@Bear1888: That is very interesting, thanks for posting. The Soviets seem to have a lot of Rifle Corps concentrated there. How many Guard Tank Corps? A few other questions if you don't mind: I see you didn't get the split of Army Group South, did you not take the Caucasus in your game? I see you have your best commanders assigned to the Army Groups, is this yielding good results?

Cheers!

[Bear1888]

I am happy to answer the questions.

-The main attacks are carried by rifle corps. So far no tank corps participation. He lost only 2 tank corps during the summer along with 10 rifle corps.

-I went for Moscow and captured it. I tried a surprise attack on Rostov but was not able to capture the city. Now he has 3 divisions there with level 3 forts.

-The commanders did a good job with the Moscow offensive. And i guess they are not completely useless in the defense. The loss ratio in the last turn was 20k vs. 70k. I could need some more reserve activation with the high initiative rating of the Army/AG leaders.

[xhoel]

-Seems like you did well during the summer. Do you have the losses screen?

-Congrats on taking Moscow. Too bad about Rostov and the surrounding area. It would have granted you the AGS split.

-Hmmm ok thanks for answering. I asked because as far as I know higher commands only affect CVs and everything else by very little. Check the reserve rules, you will learn fast how to optimize your unit positioning so that you get the max reserve activation.

[Bear1888]

Sure things. Here is comes:

[xhoel]

Seems like you are doing quite well for yourself! Thanks for the screenshots and for answering the questions. Good luck with the campaign

[xhoel]

T56, 9th of July-16th of July 1942
AGN

Army Group North continues the offensive towards the Volga. Very heavy fighting as the Soviets put up fierce resistance. However even multiple Soviet holds have been unable to stop the German advance. The 3rd Panzer Army has pushed hard and encircled 4 Soviet Rifle Divisions and 2 Rifle Brigades. Forward units are now 20 miles away from the Volga. The 3rd Panzer Army is in dire need for a rest and should be granted one next week.

AGN sector at the start of the week:



AGN sector after German moves:

[xhoel]

AGC

Soviet forces located south of the Oka in the Ryazan sector have been pushed back in most places, but 2 bridgeheads still remain, the city itself is one of them.

The rest of the forces prepared for the crossing of the Oka. We conducted two attacks in two crossing points, each of them supported by heavy artillery and air support. On both occasions we committed 7 divisions into battle, the Soviets had 2 Rifle divisions on the defense and had deployed Cavalry Corps in the rear, but these units failed to counterattack at the right time (no reserve activation). Once across the river, our armored forces attacked Soviet secondary positions and pushed the enemy back. The 29th Motorized division was pressed into the gap and is now in contact with Soviet Guard Cavalry Corps and Guard Rifle divisions. The division is in an exposed position. Other than that, German forces north of the Oka have secured a strong bridgehead even though the presence of such strong Soviet forces here is cause for concern. The goal for next week will be to expand the bridgehead to a 30 mile wide one to enable faster crossing.

Both troops on the ground and commanders had nothing but praises for the LW during the operation. Fliegerkorps I and Luftflotte 1 performed splendidly, providing fire support and constantly harassing enemy units.

After 6 weeks of siege, Voronezh has finally fallen to the 4th Panzer Army, yielding around 21.500 POWs and many more captured guns from the surrendering AA batteries that were located in the city. The fall of the city allows for the redeployment of the infantry divisions of the 4th Panzer Army to the north and it also frees up the Hungarian and Rumanian forces that were cordoning the city.

Positions start of the week:





Positions at the end of the week:





Battle of Voronezh:



LW strikes:

[xhoel]

AGS

There were multiple partisan attacks in the rear this week in the AGS area. The partisans have been dealt with swiftly and they have not managed to cut off the main rail line leading towards Stalingrad (which is supplying most forces in the area).

The 6th Army has cleared the last Soviet forces west of the Don and is now holding defensive positions on the river line.

In the Rostov sector, instead of running away and reforming their line on the Yeya river to the south, the Soviets have retaken the lost ground and are hugging our forces. At the same time they are trying to extract forces out of the semi pocket that has been formed.

The Soviet recon and intelligence seems to have missed the massive buildup of forces that is the 17th Army which went on the offensive this week. These forces cleared the way for the 1st Panzer Army, which has now unleashed its full might upon the Soviets. In the open fields south of the Don, the Panzers perform excellently, pushing back Soviet forces and closing a pocket containing 10 Rifle Divisions and 3 Rifle Brigades. 3 Panzer Divisions have been resupplied by air and will retain their mobility for next week. Just like the 3rd Panzer Army in the north, the 1st Panzer Army in the south is in dire need of a rest.

Partisan attacks:



Positions at the start of the week:





Positions after Axis moves:

[xhoel]

Crimea

The Soviets launched more air raids against our airfields in the Crimea, claiming 15 fighters and 2 bombers. Interestingly no AA on our side activated, even though the V Fliegerkorps had a lot of AA battalions attached and was in the same hex as the Air Bases. We are hoping that AA will activate next week.



The 11th Army launched 2 attacks against the fortress of Sevastopol this week. These attacks failed to dislodge the Soviet defenders but managed to reduce the fortifications to a 4.56 level. Losses were heavy on both sides again. It will take at least 2 more weeks until the fortress falls.
(I made a mistake while coordinating the attack on Sevastopol by not checking the MP of forward units. I should have been able to pull the infantry back and press the reserves forward for 1 or 2 more attacks.)

Crimea at the start of the week:



Crimea at the end of the week with battles shown:



Losses from the battles in the Crimea and partisan clearing operations:

[xhoel]

Casualties

The casualties this week were high as the Axis offensive continues in all 3 fronts. The Axis suffered around 14.500 irrecoverable losses, while the Soviets took around 50.000 irrecoverable losses. AFV losses on our side were quite high too around 144 were lost during the week.

In the air, Axis forces lost 148 airframes, of which 50 were Fighters and Fighter-Bombers while the Soviets lost 488 airframes.

[xhoel]

Soviet Production for the Summer of 1942

Intelligence organs have finally compiled a report of military material produced by the Soviet Union as of this week. The list does NOT include everything that is currently prodcued by the Soviets, it only includes material that is being produced en masse. The entries have been color coded by type.

Maximum production capacity, current production output and the respective factories are noted in the list as well.

NOTE: The heavy tank KV-1 M1941 will cease being produced after July 1942. It's place will be taken by the improved KV-2 M1942. The U2-VS is no longer produced due to factory overruns.

[Telemecus]

I am a bit surprised the factories at Stalingrad have not been evacuated? They will not want to lose the light tank factory at Stalingrad if they want to keep their units ToEs filled for now. And even (if) they have lots of medium tanks why not evac at least one point of T-34s?

Even though most others are not too near the front lines - I would be getting nervous as a Soviet player. Having to evacuate all of them in an emergency in a future turn ...?

You have not captured Kazan etc - so no U2VS production means they evacuated them towards your ground forces?

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

I am a bit surprised the factories at Stalingrad have not been evacuated? They will not want to lose the light tank factory at Stalingrad if they want to keep their units ToEs filled for now. And even (if) they have lots of medium tanks why not evac at least one point of T-34s?

Even though most others are not too near the front lines - I would be getting nervous as a Soviet player. Having to evacuate all of them in an emergency in a future turn ...?

You have not captured Kazan etc - so no U2VS production means they evacuated them towards your ground forces?

Ditto on the factories. The later they evacuate, the better for me, since production will take some time to be brought up to full speed. Moscow has not evacuated its truck factory either (30) or the T-60 factory.

In my long term plans I want to threaten Gorky as it is the most important Soviet city in terms of industry it contains. I will post a screenshot of the city once I get the turn back. Forcing the Soviets to evacuate those factories would cause a lot of disruption to the Soviet industry.

The list shows the new locations for the factories, the game we started under had other locations, but yes from what I can tell and from what Bitburger told me, those factories have been evacuated towards my forces and were overrun (without me knowing about it too).

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: xhoel
In my long term plans I want to threaten Gorky as it is the most important Soviet city in terms of industry it contains. I will post a screenshot of the city once I get the turn back. Forcing the Soviets to evacuate those factories would cause a lot of disruption to the Soviet industry.

I once got the Scenario data and worked out how much rail capacity is needed to evacuate Gorky. It came out to more than the typical total rail cap a Soviet player would have. At a guess your Soviet opponent should have well below 100k rail cap now, so evacuating all of Gorky would take maybe three turns now. Remember that is using rail cap only to evacuate Gorky - not other cities or moving troops. This means even if you were not intending to take Gorky, being in a place to be able to do so within three turns would mean having to use rail cap then to start its evacuation. My guess if you do capture Gorky though is that it will come with quite a bit of industry due to not having that hindsight, or not prioritising some of its factories.

[xhoel]

@Tele: I just checked my screenshots. The Soviets have 102.000 rail capacity, so you were quite close That is very interesting data, I hope I can threaten the city but that remains an objective that I will strive for only once Operation Clausewitz is completed. It is also interesting to know that there is only 1 rail line that goes through Gorky, if you cut it in any section the industry will be trapped.

[joelmar]

@xhoel

I don't see why the Soviets cannot hit hard on a certain sector and be successful. That does not mean that they will win the war. The advantage of numbers would give the Soviets the ability to hit in multiple parts of the front and tie up German reserves which would make break out operations impossible to achieve. That is why the OOB numbers serve as a good indicator of where the initiative is.

Yes, I can see the logic of this