TopEverest vs Admiral Kamikaze - the rematch

[topeverest]

And air commanders not much to do here. I have no better commanders.

[topeverest]

Not sure how common this is
2 executed
2 KIA

Haven't really tracked removed, but I guess it is somewhere between 0.5 and 1 per turn. I could check through the reports, but I am not willing to do that right now

There are 15 or so political level 0 and a similar amount of 1 and 2s. The lowest commander I have is a political 3. Maybe that is why no more executions. Don't pick a rated zero or one political commander I must assume.

[topeverest]

Best infantry rated and mech rated unassigned commanders

[topeverest]

Look at the army commanders by mech and infantry focus

There are some opportunity to swap out a few commanders, but it would only be for a point here and there.

[topeverest]

Been a while since I posted this.

39 on map units disbanded since last update including 4 army HQ
137 off map units disbanded
=====
176 total units disbanded since last update

[topeverest]

Nothing terrible here some things short

A couple questions -

[M60A3TTS]

ORIGINAL: topeverest

Probably switching Zhukov and Shaoshnikhov to get armor rating. Stavka is set up for the attack on Berlin

From this it looks as though you're still missing a basic concept which although it doesn't manifest itself in a lot of losses, makes things more difficult than it needs to be.

The basic concept is simply this. STAVKA is not a fighting command. It is a planning and coordinating entity that issues strategic orders once the plans are formalized and approved at the appropriate level. Most times that meant Stalin was being briefed by the operations head of STAVKA, A. Antonov or one of the STAVKA inter-front coordinators like Vasilevsky and front commanders most often Zhukov, Konev and Rokossovsky towards wars end. Of course that wouldn't prevent Stalin from contacting lower level commanders when he was displeased, but that's another conversation.

The game provides these various level of commands so you can maximize your chance to get the needed leader rolls. If the army leader fails, the front commander has a chance to step in. If he fails, there is still lastly the STAVKA to fall back on. Again, this is another conversation but I have always felt the STAVKA HQ at this point is really the STAVKA coordinator such as Vasilevsky as the real STAVKA simply sat in Moscow and ran the war.

You are planning to attack Berlin where the army commander will roll the dice and if he fails, your only backstop is Shaposhnikov. For what it's worth, Boris Shaposhnikov had been essentially invalided out of meaningful service by mid 1942 due to illness and did not outlive the war, dying in March 1945. But that aside, he's a fine administrator, again what a high ranking STAVKA officer should have, but what I'd call his "fighting numbers" are just above mediocre.

What you have is a bunch of fronts that have some good commanders and some that by now had proven themselves unfit for command such as Budyenny and Voroshilov. Your fronts are to some extent also a bit light in the tooth. In the battle for Berlin, both Konev and Zhukov had started with fronts that exceeded a million men. Your largest front of 1st Belorussian at 760k. It's west of Katowice and headed in the direction of Breslau. Ok, but then you have Tyulenev as front commander. His initiative level is 4. Really? Your largest front commander basically feels he has to contact STAVKA in order to get permission to go to the latrine. Again, he has to try and cover for failed leadership rolls, and in the case where he does, passing the initiative roll is hardly promising for someone like Tyulenev.

Also, you're talking about swapping out Shaposhnikov for Zhukov for the armor rating. But Zhukov's infantry rating is 9. That is what matters. Your infantry corps have to do the brunt of the fighting, not the tanks. You might have had a better case to make if earlier you had built more mech corps that are far superior to tank corps, but that ship sailed a long time ago. The army commanders with armor ratings of 6 should manage all your tank, mech and now cav corps where possible. That's plenty good enough if you have an Ivan Konev as front commander backing them up. You happen to have no less than 5 front commanders with a mech rating of three. That's no big deal so long as they have no tanks.

Here's the bottom line. You should have along the main directions of attack strong army leaders with 6+ as their primary combat skill, backed up by a 6 or 7 infantry/armor leader in front command as appropriate. With that, you can co-locate your STAVKA HQ there so you have two backstops for failed rolls.

What I would challenge you to do is figure out where you can consolidate more forces under Purkaev, Govorov and Sokolovsky. Excluding Zhukov, those are your best front commanders (although as a point of interest Sokolovsky was quietly sacked as front commander in early 44 due to the poor performance of Western Front that was disbanded shortly thereafter). You don't really need a Leningrad Front and 3rd Baltic was likewise gone in 1945. Budyenny has the largest tank force in the Red Army but he has an unimpressive armor rating. Maybe Purkaev with an armor rating of 6 would be a better choice?

Enough pontificating. Keep on chugging and as always, good luck

[joelmar]

Interesting take M60.

My own way of seeing leader appointments, inspired a lot by Telemecus and the game rules, is that only the IHQ can use the full ratings of a leader with no penalities, except for morale, which doesn't suffer any range or command penality at any HQ level, except when there is a CP overload.

Which means that the more the leader have a good morale and not so good everything else, the better candidate he is for command at STAVKA/OKH, or front/Army groups HQ's.

So simply use leaders with the best ratings other than morale at IHQ levels with lots of combat units attached, and use the leaders with good morale but low other ratings for HHQ's, like fronts and STAVKA with only HQ's attached.

Seeing things that way, a guy like Kirill Moskalenko would be the ideal candidate for STAVKA when he gets the rank. Meanwhile, Timoshenko is an almost "as good" alternative. And Shaposhnikov a very poor STAVKA leader... but a good one to use in an HQ with lots of damaged combat units that need repair with his high admin rating.

Bottom line, if you want a corps or army performing, make sure it has the right leader on the spot. After that, there is always a way to choose HHQ's leaders to maximise other ratings, but they are of much lower importance in the mix.

That said, I agree with you M60 that the spearhead infantry HQ's should get priority when assigning leaders, because they must take the brunt of the fighting. Tanks have all the spotlights, while infantry do the real important job! Same is true for Axis, but Axis has so many good leaders.

[M60A3TTS]

Given what happened historically, I wouldn't mind if it was coded to kill Shaposhnikov after say July 42. As it is I normally put Vasilevsky at STAVKA as soon as he makes rank while the Big 3 of Zhukov, Rokossovsky and Konev make the push towards Berlin. Some may consider historical as boring, but it works.

[joelmar]

Vasilevsky gives better overall morale to the Red Army than Timoshenko, and doesn't have as good overall ratings as the other 2 morale 8 leaders, so I see the logic, though it's a trade off because you loose a great part of his admin rating, which is the best of the Red Army. But it can be argued that local very good admin ratings for a single army is not as important as 1 more point of leader morale rating for the whole Red Army.

Rokossovski and Konev are the best overall leaders after Zhukov, Tolbukhin and Vatutin, almost on a par with the last 2, so very logical too.

[topeverest]

Much appreciated the advice

[topeverest]

VPs = 80 Bresslau and Prague falls to assault this turn
Trucks = 140K / 146K (6K). Good to commit last three armor armies
AP usage = 207 available. Most recently used for disbanding and commander changes. Upcoming reorg to clean up sloppy front boundaries as I cant seem to keep them clean in this battle of maneuver
Destroyed Units = no major events
AFV Losses = 203G / 415R
Airframe Losses = 117G / 972R ----- those ME262's are basically untouchable in certain mission types

The last three turns have seen a battle of maneuver develop as the Reds continued to drive west and NW from Ostrava and Katowice. This was the weakest part of the enemy MLR. Over a series of three turns, the Reds drove from Ostrava to Bresslau and crossed the Sudeten Mountains and took Prague. The enemy has pulled out of the Warsaw and Lodz salient, retreating in the middle faster than I can keep up to shore up the weakness in the SW.

1. Hungary Falls this turn even though Budapest was not captured (the 2 other cities that can cause surrender long since were captured). Enemy had 1 SS and 2 other German divisions in the hex, so the roll was just unlucky. Enemy retreating to the Vienna line, also evacuating Slovokia.
2. Red forces in Hungary advance unopposed and reach 30-50 miles west of the Danube. Preliminary assaults on Budapest reduce the fort but do not take the now surrounded city.
3.The Ostrava Brunn mountain gap is still held by German forces, deleterious infantry assaults are pushing that line back slowly.
4. further north at the Elbe gap between Prague and Bresslau, enemy only lightly held the pass. Red armor punched a hole across the mountain gap last turn. This turn, Armor attemted to continue to push NW on the eastern rim of the Sudeten mountains west of Bresslau, right where the moutains turn west. The idea being that getting around that corner would open the enemy to enfiade and flank attacks and force another mass retreat - or massive armor battle. Hex 19.69 (4 hexes west of Bresslau) turned out to the the key hex in the defense. Red forces attacked in mass three times and failed at high odds three times. Pretty frustrating, as I used artillery and ground attack and massed ground support. It wasn't meant to be. Reds were forced to do something else to get around this corner. Air recon suggested that the mountain passes north of Prague were not held strongly, and some not held at all. I turned three armored armies and pushed west to Prague under token resistance. The three passes to the Dresden and Goerlitz plains were in fact sufficiently held to prevent an armor exploitation attack north into the passes. reds pushed as many units as possible over the Sudeten range as a part of attempting to bypass the bulk of the enemy presence. Though I am not optimistic this is good path, I have units to burn that cannot engage the enemy. At a minimum it can split the enemy in 2 and threaten Dresden / deplete enemy reserves
5. Russian infantry, mech, and armor attack headlong into the primary German armor shield west of Danzig both to occupy and grind these units down. Slow progress was made, and many planes were shot down by 262s.

[topeverest]

A big battle of maneuver has been occurring as the Reds followed the path of least resistance over this last turns.

The reds are at a battle of maneuver crossroads. There is the chance that the westernmost passes at Eger and calsbad may be open. Or that I can find a weakly held pass that armor can blitz. otherwise, it is a grind from here in. enemy is defending in depth.

[topeverest]

So Im working to try to undo some of the NOOB issues I have with leaders, and clearly I have neglected leaders, despite thinking I wasn't doing half bad. I think that is a general comment I have on my performance in the game. I come to realize that just about every managerial point to measure is poor or worse. I missed the Vasilvski option. he is embedded as an arm commander and cannot take STAVKA. Tolbukhin has the best cumulative ratings of my available.

I think there is another related problem that I have pondered for a long time, why my combat rating are much lower than Russian units in other AARs. This command issue clearly is part of it, but I have long believed I didn't construct the right mix of support units for the bulk of my armies. Still working to figure that out for the next game. In order to reduce the number of fronts, my units have to be stronger, but not sure how to do that within the confines of where the game is.



[quote]ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

From this it looks as though you're still missing a basic concept which although it doesn't manifest itself in a lot of losses, makes things more difficult than it needs to be.

The basic concept is simply this. STAVKA is not a fighting command.

[Telemecus]

From that picture I would chose Vorohilov for STAVKA. Best Morale with worst everything else as you want the better other ratings in lower commands.

[topeverest]

Thanks

[topeverest]

VP = 60 Budapest falls to assault. In western Hungary Gyor, and Szombathely are occupied
Trucks = 151K / 162K Still under control
AP Usage = replaced 2 front and STAVKA and spent rest of points on reorganization of 3 fronts
Destroyed units = 3 German divisions surrendered by assault at Budapest
AFV SP losses = 379 & 85 German / 518 & 10 Looks good
Airframe Losses = 172G / 1398R The ME262 just continues to rule the skies

Russian armor pushes to the western map edge west of Prague splitting Germany into 2 parts. Unclear if rails will still work off map. German forces in south forming a pocket around Brun

1. Red armor and infantry on the far side of the mountains facing Dresden push but don't make it across to the Berlin plains
2. Reds begin a transfer and disband campaign in their southern armies, armor and strong infantry corps being transferred and minimal forces left behind
3. Germany solidly defends the turn in the Sudeten mountains NW of Bresslau; as a result, the Russian infantry attack in waves against strong defenses in a NW direction, reaching but not taking Liegnitz. Progress was modest an average of 2 hexes
4. Russian forces in the Danzig sector continue to fight titanic battles and take heavy casualties. That said, Germany did not defend the peninsula NW of Danzig in depth, allowing Red mechanized forces to attack and make progress of 5-7 hexes right up against the Baltic Sea. The Fuehrer Berleit Panzergrenedier division makes a stand at Stolp and halts what might have been the key breakthrough needed to get to Berlin

[topeverest]

Here is a view of the turns changes

[topeverest]

reds definitely taking it on the chin in the air war. In summary, in air battles where ME262 are present, Red losses are extremely heavy, event as the 262 don't take the majority of airframes. I took to bombing the airfields, but that hasn't had much effect. I am assuming it is the sole bright spot in the German tool shed at this point, as the Red steamrollers still is grabbing turf. As heinous as the loss ratios are, it is not stopping the Red army.

[joelmar]

topEverest, well done! And bravo for your resilience. I have read a few pages and did many jumps into this mighty AAR which I hadn't yet done before to my great shame. Very impressive work! I will certainly read more of what has went on and what is to come.