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From checking the combat reports, its clear he's using the core of Gds to generate a win and rotating the non-Gds formations presumably looking for later promotions. My game against Steven really made the point of how important the cadre of Gds are in 1942, not only can they actually stand up to an attack but they are pretty much the only counter-attacking tool till the Tank Corps start to improve their cv.

Can't forget about his calvary corps - my favorite unit in the game.

aye them too, if I'm playing the Soviets I reckon they trump the Tank Corps up to 1943 for their all round combat and staying power

T32 – 25 January 1942

Significant improvement in the weather to snowfall/snow. So a lot of the movement malus and other problems reduced (so far my opponent has only had 4 full blizzard turns this winter).

Weather forecast is much the same as this week, but that is more likely to produce blizzards over the AGN sector.



AGC

Soviet offensive on the northern sector seems to be fragmenting into individual drives by their better formations. Elsewhere, German lines starting to hold and even some limited counter-attacks.

The better weather meant the Ju-87s of L1 were deployed to good effect.



Even where they managed to break the German lines, they took heavy losses



While the German counter-attacks saw the near complete destruction of formations.



Much the same pattern at Kursk where the Soviets again tried to isolate the city.



The only difference here is that 2 PzA is now mostly pulled off the line to refit while 3 PzA is heavily involved in driving back/stalling the Soviet offensive.

AGS

While the retreat to the Stalino district was completed, AGS is badly weakened with over 50% of its formations in need of refit. The result is both steady Soviet gains and needing to commit 1PzA to the immediate defense.

Crimea was quiet.



Losses similar to last week (a lot of mine came when the Italian formations were hit by a full Soviet army).



Soviets now over 5m but on this evidence, that is a fragile army. My tank losses are so low that am wondering about retaining most of the replacement battalions either as conventional SU or for summer emergency refits.



Northern rail net. Starting to back fill, especially in the Baltic region.



South, again filling in secondary W-E links but had to divert some assets after the Soviet breakthrough at Kursk (to give me a new N-S connection). The auto-repair units have done a good job on some secondary W-E dual rails such as Brest-Rovno etc.

I'll use FBD5 when it arrives to sort out the western Ukraine.



The relatively good winter has helped here as the FBD have had low MP costs and less fatigue.

What are the chances of von Rundstedt resigning if the Fuhrer does not allow him to dig in at the Mius River line

I mean the Fuhrer cant have been to pleased at giving up Rostov.

Dam looks like both sides Air forces have been strip to bare basics.

If possible could you show your supply depot setup again, I think you did some time back but I would like to see how you have setup the depot priority rankings please.


regards

I've stripped the LW back to fighters and tac bombers. They have a relatively limited supply draw and are useful in the turns when the weather improves a bit. If I recall, at this stage the Soviets run short of AOG, so they prob have no longer ranged assets and not that many fighters etc.

Heres the two depot maps, same turn so roughly maps over the rail line above. If I recall I'd dropped Minsk from 4 to 2 the turn before to clear the freight to the front lines, Kiev is in a building up phase





AGS is a mess but AGN/C is well set up - one reason why they are making such limited gains there. If they had their best formations in the Donets then it could get grim quickly, but that would have meant not protecting Moscow earlier. So, while I'm struggling they are not really able to exploit the situation.

Only 4 full blizzard turns is quite a hit on Soviet potential.

looks like you are getting lucky with a weather in your pvp games

While you do have small clusters of depot mainly at the front line your rear areas for the most part are really spaced, you have quite a few 1's,2's a sprinkling of 3;s and quite a few 0's.

I have tried to follow the 5 hex spacing for depot but i have lot of clusters including around the front, also barely have any 3's or 0's I do have a number of 1's not a lot but its mainly 4's and 2's.

Now I am playing against the AI so its not crisis and the game is more or less in its death throws but I have extremely high truck issues that I would like to sought out for future games.

No rush on screen shot but next time you post a turn any chance at looking at your production page or even one before the first winter turns or both I just like to see what your truck repairs are looking like with the way you have your depot set up.

I don't know if I have way to many depots or just there to high level, or both, but I need to figure out how do get my truck repair faculties to repair them faster or something.

As of turn 66 I have over 111 thousand trucks under repair, either there is a shortage of trained motor mechanics or there is mas strike over a pay claim, but its seems to be going 2 steps forward 1 step backwards or the reverse sometimes on the truck repair front.

In my first 2 years of the campaign at last count it was around 86,000 plus trucks captured on top of German industry building home brand trucks, I figure out why I am in the Red so to speak, it does not make sense.

Stamb wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 11:58 am looks like you are getting lucky with a weather in your pvp games

yes, I'd have to agree - in this game the very wet October cost me time VP for Rzhev and Orel but getting to the end of Jan with only 4 full blizzard turns is a huge gain. By Feb, the worst of the deep snow malus drops away so they are less important in the late winter.

Oddly Steven set up to exploit blizzards at Leningrad in the last game - where they didn't occur. While in this game that sector has seen a lot of blizzards, but I've learnt how to arrange my defensive line better so its been negated by high fort levels and a good logistics set up

here's the truck data for this turn compared to T24:



how many are repaired each turn lurks in an odd corner of the logistics log - right at the bottom of the 'supply' tab. If there was one UI change I'd really love to see its to pull all the truck metrics into one screen, as it is they are all over the place and even if you know it exists, remembering where is a pain.

Some of this is hard wired into the game design - as a wider point this is why I thnk its better to treat the entire logistics system as a holistic system rather than to max individual elements. I realise there is a view that max control is what is needed but I think the more precise your attempt to influence the system the more likely you run the risk of forcing it to do something it actually can't.

In this case, my net usage is pretty much the same now as it was at the end of November, the only bit that is directly down is trucks/units but not bad (at a global level - clearly there are sectors where its really bad). German truck repair is low by design, I'm producing around 2,900 a week. So I gain say just around 8,000 a week (repairs plus new), the only real variable is destroyed and captured. for T32 I lost 2,500 (2,200 in the logistics phase) and captured 50 (clearly this would be higher if I was generating pockets). One number that doesn't exist (or at least I've never found it) is how many trucks you had damaged in a turn (as opposed to destroyed) _ I think the only way to work this out is this turn's pool - last turn's pool + repairs and new builds

Depot priority certainly influences relative truck spread. I remember in testing hitting a bug that flipped all my depots to pri4 in a turn (playing as the Soviets). It instantly dropped my truck/unit by about 1/3 with them all migrating to the depots. So its always a good idea to manage the volume*priority of your depots.

Its like a lot, I have come up with some rough numbers that make sense to me. They vary by time/front line but crudely I can have say 100 depot*priority at the front. Now that could be 100 pri 1 (pretty silly) or 25 pri 4 (or combinations of that). Now I never sit down and calculate it but I do scan my overall priority usage and try to keep inside that sort of total. So I manage the logistics very broad brush, I try for as much W-E cross-border links as I can (and in this game the auto repair have opened up 2 more than I generated with the FBD), I try to close off unused depots (even if just to shake out the trucks) and I try to link demand-supply by lowering unit priorities. I also look at the rails to a given sector and if they are green, I tend to up the pri demand of those units as clearly there is some under-used capacity.

There is a lot that is hard wired - slow German repair, relatively high usage - so I tend to ignore them as going concerns. I could put a lot of effort into a marginal gain or even into making things worse.

T33 – 1 February 1942

No real change to the weather and not next week either. So a harsh winter with very few blizzards.

Across most the front the Soviet offensive ended, with heavy losses where they tried to make some gains.





Recon indicated that the Soviet elite formations were being pulled off the line, whether to refit or redeploy was not clear.

At Kursk a limited German counter-attack managed to relieve the pressure on the city.

The only sustained Soviet gains were south of Stalino.





In response, AGS gambled on weakening its front line to allow formations to refit. AGC pulled back most of the armour to recover and consider their options.

More importantly AGN started to organise for the opening set piece of the German 1942 offensives. Substantial air assets were assigned to support the planned assault on the Leningrad bastion.

Losses reflected the slowing tempo of operations



Maybe a good time to return to the VP chart. I'm only -11 off the HWM, the Soviets scored the time bonuses for Orel and Rzhev (they will get the +6 for Kalinin when the initiative changes as that was never taken).

I need 630 city points to force them to exceed their historical performance to meet the HWM (with the standard caveat that everything else exchanges at 1-1).

The shown cities are what I'd call historical+feasible. My suspicion is that Leningrad and Stalingrad are a trade off (unless Leningrad is surprisingly easy to take), Kalinin out of reach as is probably Tula and Tambov (unless I make a real effort and that will probably cost me the Caucasus cities – so again a trade off).

But there are 150 city points so the 630 is feasible. But to get to 750 (for an auto win) implies a near clean sweep (so that is 680) and every remaining time bonus (42 – 722) and then some luck on the off map VP. So my feeling is an auto win is out of reach.



And a broad overview. For good or ill, am now fully committed to a Leningrad operation. My feeling is I can combine that with something in the Orel-Voronezh-Rostov sector but nothing more ambitious. While with the strong Pzr formations I know I can win vs 45 morale rifle divisions, I have too much allocated to Leningrad to be able to secure my flanks. 80 of the city points I want are in that region plus the Caucasus (and one of Leningrad/Stalingrad).

Of course deciding on Moscow changes every other calculation.

Looks like you took Sevastopol, did I notice this before and ask this before, déjà vu ? anyway that's good nothing worse than a strong point in your rear.

Generally most Axis players begin the culling of Commanders in the new year, will this be the case for you.

Has Goring done enough to remain in his post ?, what about OKH, I know Halder has the administrative skills and a high ranking officer but he was the Chief Of Staff, I still say Walther von Brauchitsch should be running the show until December at least.

I know the answer to this as both here and back in the old WITE 1 forum it was explained, anyway I digress,my view is the German Army is mechanised one so I put a Pz leader in there namely Heinz Guderian.

So will there be mass sackings across the board.

You want someone with a high political rating at OKH to decrease AP costs for replacing leaders. So Keitel works and should replace Halder. You don't want to wait until 1942 to replace your leaders, you should do it as soon as possible as both sides. Plus you don't need to create 15 depots per turn as Axis.

There are a lot of incompetent leaders in HQs that need to be replaced with better leaders. von Wietersheim is the first one to go in PzGr 1. Lemelsen is the definition of above average with 6 in every stat, he gets replaced. Kuntzen is average, needs to be replaced. PzGr 4 is the only one that has very good corps leaders from the start.

Yes, I just (luckily) snagged Sevastopol as the last act before the winter turns, its the units from 11A that are now rescueing me around Kursk.

I probably should pay more attention but I tend to leave the OKH/AG level alone, e-Adolf is far too keen on interfering at that level and they can be a AP sink. I find in 1941 I am marginal for AP with depots and lower level command shifts then improving the armies. Going by my game with Steven, in 1942 I had a massive stock and it seemed they were limitless, so I wasted quite a lot on fine tuning. Come 1943, I was doing so much fort construction (& removal) that there were turns when I was down to 0, so this time I'm going to try and build up such a store.

In that game I found a well placed line of 2/3 forts invaluable, its not that the Soviets couldn't break them but each forced a pause while they got their act together after a few turns of hitting infantry divisions in the open, or if I ceded ground and they had to follow up (at least briefly stretching their supply lines). So over time it shifted the wider dynamic from me trying to deny time bonus on VP to Steven having to stretch to get them - and as ever, its the player who has choices is also to some extent shaping the overall battlefield.

I tend to leave Goering alone, you can easily have 6 leaders in the Luftflotte, that tends to get you past most air rolls - in particular commitment to a mission. So again he's expensive, I'm sure there is a pay off but I think its marginal. I do sack him in WiTW but there its the LW that needs to get the most out of every encounter. My generic view is the LW matches the VVS for numbers then in 41/42 its a massacre, in 43 they get a shoeing and even into 44 its a clear LW win. Given that even into 44 the VVS is struggling for pilots a chewed up VVS air group has to go back to the reserve to retrain to absorb low experience replacements. So you can still have a decent feedback loop in your favour. Which is another way of saying I think the air war for the axis is all about placement, and ensuring you can match them on key sectors - and let them have control elsewhere?

T34 – 8 February 1942

Blizzards north of Smolensk (but this turn just snow on the ground) snow/snow to the south and much the same for next week.

The only sustained Soviet effort was around Stalino where the German lines start to collapse. Fortunately substantial reinforcements are on the way.

Two battles, at opposite ends of the map, perhaps defined the turn from the Axis perspective.

An attempt to break 31A around Feodosiya failed.



4 PzA crossed the Neva.



Elsewhere Axis forces launched localised counter-attacks [1]. 16A probed the Soviet lines in the Valdai.



AGC undertook a similar operation in addition to further relieving the pressure on Kursk – as an aside if I'd been more confident that the blizzard wouldn't produce deep snow next week then I'd have commited at least one Pzr Corps to escalate this offensive.

I was also worried that the two best Soviet armies have gone missing, they may be refitting or redeploying and they are maybe the only thing that could encircle an over-enthusiastic Pzr division and hold that pocket - if so all my relative gains so far would disappear in one badly judged action.



Around Stalino, AGS trying to hold its current line while releasing badly damaged formations for refit.



Losses remain much the same



Some improvements to the freight situation. LW is struggling to sort out all the new assets deployed at Leningrad.



[1] My goal is simply the retreat/rout routine, thus driving the Soviets towards 45 morale and inflicting relatively heavy losses.

[2] Maybe for obvious reasons, these turns were quick in that the Soviets have lost much scope to do anything and I can't really act with initiative till I finish recovering - but whether its weather or the patch changes this never really felt like a real opportunity for the Soviets (apart from at Rostov where I was logistically over-extended)

You mentioned 2 Soviet Armies, your referring to the 5th and 28th which had the Guards attached to them.

Pity 4 Guards would have been nice trophies to hang up on the wall,still there may another chance later on.

Just " re looked " at the strategic map and noticed the Soviet OB, I missed it first time round, 450,000 men in reserve

Scary numbers

yes its those 2 that increasingly were purely Gds and the only thing able to take out my defensive lines. While the move to snow is generally good for me (eases supply, rail repair and movement) it does allow him to exploit his relative movement advantages. Before those formations were in a belt of poor terrain/heavy snow so any major re-orientation was slow, since its now snow they could appear pretty much anywhere on the AGC sector (if they move tactically) or even around Stalino if they go by rail.

Now I don't think they will go south as that would weaken Moscow too much but I am still badly strung out around Kursk and if he got that back then its a nice +6 on his side of the ledger.

I think its inevitable that the spring of 42 brings a 5.5m army (on the assumption that neither side has a decisive 1941) so its a case of dealing with it. In my last game I panicked a bit (not helped by the consensus offered from the perspective of WiTE1), I'm now more pragmatic.

I took my old AI game and played a batch of May-June 42 LH-RH and it was very informative. A successful German attack will inflict >1,000 losses on a Soviet division (and often nearly 1000 if its a hold). This can escalate to 2,000+ if the retreat/rout routine kicks in.

Add in damaged elements and that seems to drop the Rifle Division under 60 TOE, at that stage if it fights again (even if not notionally unready) it risks rout/shatter. So the threshold is variable but crudely a non-Gds Soviet unit that fights and loses has to refit. That means one turn to a depot (or the reserve), one turn not moving on the depot (often 2) or one turn in the reserve and then back to the front lines. So basically its missing for 4 turns. So lets assume the Soviets have 200 RD, if you hit say 10-15 turn that is 40 or so out of use at any time, plus the incremental impact of small pockets (where training up a replacement and getting them to the map is 6-7 turns). Also the more they lose, the closer they get to 45 morale and at that level pretty much any action is a rout.

To that, sticking Rifle Brigades in front to absorb CPP is like a very tasty amuse bouche. They are guarenteed to rout and with up around 4k losses, last you see of them for a while and adding those 4k losses to everything starts to really hit even Soviet manpower.

With hindsight, I set the basis for winning vs Steven in 1942 (think we both agreed on that) for all it didn't feel like that at the time.

Or to put this another way, I think I can deal with 5.5m by turning that apparent strength back on the Soviets - its also why sticking with what looks like a bad position can be so informative as to your wider framing of the game and the options that you can see next time around.

Two battles, at opposite ends of the map, perhaps defined the turn from the Axis perspective.

What's the rationale behind these attacks? They are very costly even when you win.

well one means I am now north of the Neva and starting to threaten Leningrad - given how much I have committed there ideally I need to complete that operation asap. The other, the goal was to clear Feodosyia and lock the Soviets up at Kerch, then I could pull out the German corps that is bolstering 4 Rumanian (again I have better uses for it).

but the Rumanians managed to undermine the attack - most of the losses are from their formations

so one was a mistake (but with a worthwhile goal if it had worked), the other, I think, was pretty well chosen (if you think clearing Leningrad is a sensible goal)

T35 – 15 February 1942

Weather split much as before, blizzards on the north half, snow on the south. Next turn looks like blizzards across the map.

Soviet counter-attack drove back 3 Mot Division but they failed to secure the line of the Neva leaving a substantial German bridgehead by the end of the week. Series of attacks along the Volkhov drew off my reserves but didn't manage to break the defensive line.



At Kursk, I was very glad I resisted any temptation to commit 2 PzrA last week, while it remained snow/snowfall the Soviets have clearly been redeploying their best formations here. The result was the city was almost cut off before some desperate counter-attacks managed to restore the situation.



While the Germans finally managed to restore their front line, their first Corps level comander of the war was killed when von Selmuth's XXX Corp HQ was overrun by Soviet cavalry.

The Soviet offensive around Stalino continued. North of the city a series of small counter-attacks drove off the Soviet formations that had broken through and restored the front line but to the south the Soviets made further gains as the ad-hoc German line buckled.

As with 2 PzA, the need to restore a front line and avoid further retreats saw substantial commitment of the Pzrs.



Losses much the same as usual



No real change in overall numbers.



No real change to their reserve either, so seems this is that any growth in Soviet numbers will be slow till they receieve the next round of bonus manpoer.



On map tank numbers, I've started bringing back some Stug formations from the reserve. Soviet drop will reflect the disbanded Tank Divisions.



Still pretty much using up the weekly production but none of the Pzr divisions have less than 100 tanks and most many more.

T36 – 22 February 1942

Weather pattern remains much the same, basically blizzards in the north and snowfall in the south.

An attempt to extend the bridgehead over the Neva failed but fresh formations are being brought to the sector.

In turn the Soviets abandoned Oranienbaum, presumably to build up in Leningrad itself.



This time it was the Soviets who managed a disastrous attempt to resolve the stalemate in the Crimea. Each turn one of us attacks here and manages to wreck a substantial part of our army. Over 50% of the divisions of 4 Rumanian are pulled back to refit.



Some limited fighting around Stalino but it seems as if the Soviets are exhausted and just enough fresh Axis units have arrived to shore up the lines. Trying to pull as much of 1PzA out of the line to refit as is safe.

However, at Kursk the Soviets carried on trying to isolate the city. In turn, the German counter-attacks were limited to removing Soviet cavalry formations from the rear and restoring the front line. As with 1Pzr, 2PzrA badly needs to rest and refit.



Losses followed the usual pattern, except more German tanks lost than usual.



Suffering for low mobility with the Pzrs, mostly due to fuel delivery problems but also missing trucks.

My truck/unit ratio is around 90%, but that is made worse as another 20% are drawn into the logistics system. I've no long traces so this is a generic delivery problem for the winter turns.

I'm losing around 2,500 a turn (and, of course, more are damaged) and repair + production is around 6,200. Hopefully when the deep snow lifts and the rail malus is removed in April this will recover fairly rapidly.