From Russia with love, STEF78 vs Beekeeper

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 2:56 pm

ORIGINAL: Pelton

he is across the major river now and it is only April so a clear turn is possible also.

He is in a good position be carefull

Unless if you have overplayed the german in 1941, the soviet player will suffer major encirclements in 1942. Mobility of Pzd and Mot is so big that units in Kursk can hit from Tula to Stalino.

Of course I will be careful but the german can easily break a four hexes deep defence

Peltonx · Post by **Peltonx** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 6:21 pm

ORIGINAL: STEF78

ORIGINAL: Pelton

he is across the major river now and it is only April so a clear turn is possible also.

He is in a good position be carefull
Unless if you have overplayed the german in 1941, the soviet player will suffer major encirclements in 1942. Mobility of Pzd and Mot is so big that units in Kursk can hit from Tula to Stalino.

Of course I will be careful but the german can easily break a four hexes deep defence

Not true, vs Chaos I have issue breaking 1 or 2 hex lines, as with all good Red players. You need several mobile armys that always stay to the east of German panzers 6-8 hexes behind front so you can counter attack.
Your not going to save all the pocketed units, but you beable to reopen pockets so it take several turns for Germans to finish them off + you can hits panzer units allot.
This will slowly grind down German mobile units. You will lose units, but by November or sooner vs not so good German players you be in the drivers set.

The key to the big German pockets is Infantry. If he can crack 1 or 2 lines with infantry his panzers can easly crack the rest
with 6-9 following up.

Just make sure you have a solid wall Oka north with 8-10 rifle corps every other hex in front of Moscow.

Nothing wrong with withdrawing and giving up south as long as you hold Oka north

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 4:26 pm

ORIGINAL: Pelton
Not true, vs Chaos I have issue breaking 1 or 2 hex lines, as with all good Red players.

I think it's much harder once the soviet player gets rifle corps. Before June, it's more easier.

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 4:31 pm

Turn 46, 30th april 1942

We had mud during the other turns of april except on the northern zone.

Both OOB grew significantly

Beekeeper begins grinding South of Voronejh

He lost all but one hex acroos the Don. I give some ground in the South

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Sun Sep 06, 2015 12:19 pm

Turn 48, 16th may 1942

2 turns of mud early may in central russia,

2 questions now:
- where will he attack? Between Voronezh and Orel or in the South?
- will my line absorb the strike?

And the OOB

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 7:12 pm

Turn 49, 21th may 1942

Snow in the north, clear in central => heavy attack!

I was obviously too confident and didn't give enough ground. Another disaster!

But I bet on mud next turn and decide to fight. I get a bad result on my main attack too free the trapped units.

chaos45 · Post by **chaos45** » Mon Sep 07, 2015 7:33 pm

Interesting to see how it turns out.

Looks like your about to lose another big chunk of your army hopefully you can save those guards cav as losing 2 right off at the start of the summer would be painful. From your screen shots it doesnt look like you have many cavalry corps....gonna be a long summer. I went into the Summer of 1942 with 15 cav corps almost all of them guards. Building 5 more and getting all of them guards.....right now in December I have 21 guard cav corps and 3 regular cav corps. An this is after losing 3 corps to encirclements I still have that many in the field.

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Tue Sep 08, 2015 4:01 pm

ORIGINAL: chaos45
From your screen shots it doesnt look like you have many cavalry corps....gonna be a long summer.

At this stage I have 9 Cav corps. 5 near Voronezh, 4 near Boguchar.

It will be a long summer but I find spring already too long!

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Tue Sep 08, 2015 6:05 pm

Turn 50, 28th may 1942

Mud in northern russia! [:)]

The Pocket will survive one more turn but Beekeeper used massive Fuel airdrop (I show one of the 6 air ressuply) and his mech spearhead was able to attack and advance despite a very bad supply path.

I had very bad dice roll on a decisive fight

chaos45 · Post by **chaos45** » Tue Sep 08, 2015 6:31 pm

Stef, keep in mind dice rolls arent all that modifies CV, as least I dont think so. Defenders Supply level, distance to HQ, disruption/fatigue all factor into that final CV.

As I have had many attacks against top German generals roll in at less than the starting CV. Now usually I prep the battlefield with 2-3 airstrikes and that seems to reduce CV a good chunk if a decent amount of planes are in the air strikes. Air strikes IMO are critical for Soviet attacks. If im able to soften up a german stack with 200+ bombers from a couple air strikes it can mean the difference between winning and losing a battle often ive found.

Its why I disagree with Pelton who says the Luftwaffe isnt worth anything. Just having fighter cover to mitigate large soviet bomber attacks can prevent some soviet assaults from success.

If you can before you counterattack German panzer units bomb them a fair amount and you should see much more successful counterattacks esp if you have a fair amount of bombers get through fighter defense if he has any. Often times the panzer spearheads are far from german fighter cover so you can bomb the lead German elements at will basically.

Just remember you have to bomb units as your air units first action for the turn....and this includes even recon escorting. Its why I turned off recon escorts because it was tapping all my fighters so they werent escorting my bomber raids, or I now recon after bombing raids.

BrianG · Post by **BrianG** » Tue Sep 08, 2015 6:44 pm

That was bad mud result. but you were probably not dug in, had high fatigue, and attacked prior to the main attack(thus extra low on supply).

and 2 were tank brigades.

If you don't retreat soon the whole front could blow open. 2 clear turns would be enough to do the job.

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 2:38 am

ORIGINAL: chaos45

Stef, keep in mind dice rolls arent all that modifies CV, as least I dont think so. Defenders Supply level, distance to HQ, disruption/fatigue all factor into that final CV.

As I have had many attacks against top German generals roll in at less than the starting CV. Now usually I prep the battlefield with 2-3 airstrikes and that seems to reduce CV a good chunk if a decent amount of planes are in the air strikes. Air strikes IMO are critical for Soviet attacks. If im able to soften up a german stack with 200+ bombers from a couple air strikes it can mean the difference between winning and losing a battle often ive found.

In this case it was a defensive fight. I you look at my major counterattack on the previous turn, I think I did what was necessary:
- changing the leader to Rokossovsky Arm 5 Inf 7
- not overloading the army
- having a unique commander
- heavily airstriking the 2 german divs

result 1,84/1 and almost no losses for the germans

Refering to others AAR, I also have a recon issue, I'm not able to recon all the front and the number of missions available has sharply decreased.

Its why I disagree with Pelton who says the Luftwaffe isnt worth anything. Just having fighter cover to mitigate large soviet bomber attacks can prevent some soviet assaults from success.

At least air resupply is very useful... but on the long term, I agree with Pelton. At the end of one of my games as german, in 1945, I had a marvellous Luftwaffe with all fighter units with 99 exp, 99 morale but without ground units, it's useless!

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 2:44 am

ORIGINAL: BrianG

If you don't retreat soon the whole front could blow open. 2 clear turns would be enough to do the job.

I will not spoil the AAR [;)]. We are 5 turns ahead and the situation has changed....

It's my fisrt game as russian in 1942 (I won or lost all the others before march 1942) and I'm Learning.

It's hard but next time I will not do the same mistakes!

beekeeper · Post by **beekeeper** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 3:59 am

>I also have a recon issue, I'm not able to recon all the front and the number of missions available has sharply decreased.

i think main target on 1st turn,if you want play long ger game, not poket and etc, main target SB2(r) - it so stupid that only 3 type sov plain can recon, and 1 type - po2 so smaall range,it best way for big sov poket 42-43, sov cant detect concentrate german tanks, and you can doing easy attack.
On 1st turn can kill 200-400 SB2(r)
Pe2 R ,6 on week - it 4-8 recon mission and all, sov not have long recon.

ps i think it maybe little exploit but need change rule that only recon plain can doind recon mission

chaos45 · Post by **chaos45** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:49 pm

Another key note on the bad mud defense....look at the airforce.....69 axis bombers hit you in the battle. With their experience/morale thats a pretty big negative to Soviet CV/Bonus to axis CV.....Im guessing with the low CV numbers on both sides that huge Axis air onslaught is what won the battle. As some of the axis fighters may also have been fighterbombers.

didnt even think to look at the actual airpower in the battle....its why I feel airpower matters alot more than people think. It doesnt do alot of casualties but it seems to invovle some decent swings/modifications to final CV from what ive been seeing from alot of the fighting in 1942. Seriously, I can attack and fail with no bombing or do the same basic attack with air support/several bombing strikes to soften up the target and win.

M60A3TTS · Post by **M60A3TTS** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 2:43 pm

ORIGINAL: beekeeper

>I also have a recon issue, I'm not able to recon all the front and the number of missions available has sharply decreased.

i think main target on 1st turn,if you want play long ger game, not poket and etc, main target SB2(r) - it so stupid that only 3 type sov plain can recon, and 1 type - po2 so smaall range,it best way for big sov poket 42-43, sov cant detect concentrate german tanks, and you can doing easy attack.
On 1st turn can kill 200-400 SB2(r)
Pe2 R ,6 on week - it 4-8 recon mission and all, sov not have long recon.

ps i think it maybe little exploit but need change rule that only recon plain can doind recon mission

Look at your aircraft pool on the production screen. You will have R-5, R-10, Yak-2 and Yak-4 aircraft there, all of which are recon types. You can form new units from them as needed.

beekeeper · Post by **beekeeper** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 3:03 pm

all yak4 in air base north Minsk, all destr on1st turn

yak2 souft kiev - all destr on 1st turn

R-5 small range

and ok i wait 97 R-10 =)

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 6:04 pm

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

ORIGINAL: beekeeper

>I also have a recon issue, I'm not able to recon all the front and the number of missions available has sharply decreased.

i think main target on 1st turn,if you want play long ger game, not poket and etc, main target SB2(r) - it so stupid that only 3 type sov plain can recon, and 1 type - po2 so smaall range,it best way for big sov poket 42-43, sov cant detect concentrate german tanks, and you can doing easy attack.
On 1st turn can kill 200-400 SB2(r)
Pe2 R ,6 on week - it 4-8 recon mission and all, sov not have long recon.

ps i think it maybe little exploit but need change rule that only recon plain can doind recon mission

Look at your aircraft pool on the production screen. You will have R-5, R-10, Yak-2 and Yak-4 aircraft there, all of which are recon types. You can form new units from them as needed.

I will have a look

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Wed Sep 09, 2015 6:12 pm

Turn 51, 3rd june 1942

Another turn of mud. Looking at the weather random table, I'm lucky.

But this time, it's over, I won't be able to save my units

I retreat...

STEF78 · Post by **STEF78** » Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:05 pm

Turn 52, 11th june 1942

Sometimes when you open your turn, you feel like an idiot....[&:]

Why wasn't I able to prevent such a DISASTER! My southern front is broken, 4 armies are trapped near Rostov!

My first reaction is to give up... game, set, match! Hats off Beekeeper!

But it doesn't correspond to my character and I finish my turn even if I know that the agony has begun.

I took only one picture at the end of this turn, I think that it's clear enough.