Hell bent on Lebensraum III (no Kamil)

[Michael T]

End Axis T37 (26th Feb 1942) Blizzard

There is a great sense of relief knowing the next time I open this game it will be snow. The Soviet attacks are winding down at last. The Axis will hold on to Voronezh and Stalino by the narrowest of margins. The Axis forces are not in any state for a concerted drive anywhere during March. But some minor offensive action will be attempted here and there. My tank numbers are very low, less than 1000 operational AFV's. TOE of non vehicles in most units is pretty good actually, probably around 80% on average. Morale losses are bad.

But I am still confident of crushing the Reds. But it may take a while longer than at first thought, 1943 perhaps?

The yellow dots on the map represent the Red rail heads.

[Flaviusx]

MT, don't get gun shy now. Make as many attacks as you can, that will restore your morale better than anything else. And get your beat up infantry involved in some cheap and easy wins in particular.

Once snow arrives your disableds will drop quickly and your strength will go up accordingly. You've got literally hundreds of thousands of men tied up as disableds right now, I'm sure, that's all phony baloney blizzard stuff that will go away.

The Soviet, for his part, has blown his wad for no good result, he would've been better off stopping in February, rationalizing his lines, and getting his army growing again. The Red Army has been stuck for weeks now at 5.7 million. This is not a good number for this stage of the game. He has plainly hit a wall replacement wise. You need to keep him right up against that wall, so that the Red Army doesn't get any breaks outside of mud.

The Red Army in the center in particular is way ahead of its railheads and must be ripe for counterattacks.

[timmyab]

You look to be in good shape here.I think you could win by a submission or even a K.O in 42.I certainly wouldn't want to be defending that position.Very interesting job to plan the summer offensive from there, lots of options.You can play mind games with the Soviet player in May and early June before the real show starts, he'll need to be on his best game if he's going to survive.

[Michael T]

I agree with all what you say. And I will do the best I can to wreak some kind of havoc. Gun shy I am not. Just being realistic as to what is acheiveable.

Can you tell me what is the go with Blizzard disableds? I mean are they in some seperate pool or something? The normal rate return is 1%. Is it more for blizzard attrition losses?

One thing I am pleased with is my Artillery. They seem very good.

[Flaviusx]

I don't know the exact particulars, but my observation is that the blizzard drives up Axis disabled losses heavily and keeps lots of bodies stuck in that pool until the blizzard effects go away. Then those pools drain very quickly indeed. You might be growing by 50k a turn or more a turn until that pool stabilizes.

It's stuff that is in transit, more or less, not dead, but out of action pending repair. There should be a report for this in one of the screens, I forget which, showing this. Maybe in the production report or the logistics report.

This is besides the 1% you get back from the dead pool, btw.

[Michael T]

Ok thanks. I will have a look.

They really should document that.

[Flaviusx]

The hardest part is getting the stuff back into units on the front line, alas. Every time I think we've gotten this fixed for good, somebody has a report showing their pools not getting drawn on, even when the manpower and armament points are there. I know the tricks to get around this as the Soviet, but it's tougher on the Axis. It's one of the few areas where friction is, if anything, more exaggerated in game than in real life. The logistics in WITE may be incredibly lax, but the replacement mechanics are much too stringent and have a tendency to bug out for the Axis.

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I don't know the exact particulars, but my observation is that the blizzard drives up Axis disabled losses heavily and keeps lots of bodies stuck in that pool until the blizzard effects go away. Then those pools drain very quickly indeed. You might be growing by 50k a turn or more a turn until that pool stabilizes.

It's stuff that is in transit, more or less, not dead, but out of action pending repair. There should be a report for this in one of the screens, I forget which, showing this. Maybe in the production report or the logistics report.

This isnt in line with my observations, but i could be wrong. Blizzard drives up the disabled pool. A common number before the blizzard starts is 400k +/- in the disabled pool and after the blizzard its risen to from 800k-1000k or even higher in some cases.
As far as i know there is no seperate blizzard pool. Disabled pool just gets driven up and then u get 1% back of those.
If 1000k thats alone 7,5k(other 2.5k goes to minors) +10,4k from replacements per turn and then u get in the early months of 1942 quite alot of more reinforcements than withdrawls.
March 5 divisions for a gain of 80k so the gain before losses and attrition is around 150k.
April 112k the gained. From disabled pool(38k), replacement(52k) and reinforcments(22k). Again before losses.
May 170k 100k more reinforcemnts than withdrawls
June 180k 110k more reinforcements than withdrawls

21.1.10.1
In addition, each turn one percent of the manpower listed as disabled will return to the manpower pool.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
This is besides the 1% you get back from the dead pool, btw.

Is there a mistype here Flav? u mean disabled pool right?(if ppl comming back from the dead we can really call it a Nazi zombie game[X(]....)

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Disgruntled Veteran]

He should easily have around 3.4-3.5 million come June.

[Walloc]

MT could list or show us ur losses page, please. As u stayed and fought would be interresting to see what ur disabled pool / losses landed at at end of blizzard.

Ops, Edit: u alrdy had. Man its close to that 1 mio man mark[:)] nothing unuusal here. Fron now on and until the end of june, u will get 612k troops minus the losses u incure until then. Should be around the usual the figurs of the uusal "42 bonus" army.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Michael T]

If you have a look at my disabled pool its almost the same as the Soviet. 1.2m each. I can tell you though a fair proportion of the Axis would be Minor Allies, especially Rumanian. They were used as cannon fodder, merely contacting the Red line to increase Soviet attrition as I withdrew in the south. He certainly got many cheap wins from this but his attrition losses went up for sure.

[Michael T]

My losses are there on the map. There is still one more Blizzard Turn of losses to obsorb though.

[Walloc]

Yeha sorry i saw but i didnt edit my post fast enough.

Thx,

Rasmus

[Wuffer]

for dramaturgy only, the auditorium really hopes the Sowjets to hold and to come back.^^

this AAR had the chance to become a reference

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

If you have a look at my disabled pool its almost the same as the Soviet. 1.2m each. I can tell you though a fair proportion of the Axis would be Minor Allies, especially Rumanian. They were used as cannon fodder, merely contacting the Red line to increase Soviet attrition as I withdrew in the south. He certainly got many cheap wins from this but his attrition losses went up for sure.

Eaxctly, ppl often overlook that fact in the "run" strategy. U "save" ur army but the russian also gets bigger cuz of less attrition especially if the russian in that case hold unnecesarry units back. If u can stay and fight without losing ur army u get the best of all worlds.
Yeah i seen the use of minors as fodder so i would expect the % in this particular game to be a bit higher than usually. Still you got 579k left in their OOB number so all that many more u cant have lost. So i do think its higher as the number was 600k at end of june in the HB/sapper game, ofc it depence on how u use them until june and what losses they take until then. Guess we can check the numbers at end of june. Can u give us the number in the rumenians Manpower pool, currently please?

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Flaviusx]

Rasmus, I'm referring to the stuff that gets banged up, then the elements get repaired and go back into the production pools. That's completely aside from the hard disableds. The difficulty is sometimes getting that stuff out of the replacement pool and on to on map units.

During the blizzard these kind of soft losses go up a lot, and at the same time the Axis gets behind in kicking them out of the replacement pool. Then they get caught up once the blizzard goes away.

Late in the game we've been deviled by reports of some Axis players not being able to get stuff out of the pools at all and seeing those pools blow up. But it doesn't happen consistently. My own view is that this is an artifact of the replacement system not being able to push replacements on to front line units in a guaranteed fashion and people getting into some kind of bad feedback loop where they can never recover. Ironically, this dynamic tends to help whoever is on the offense.

Anyways, whatever the particulars, I see Axis numbers bounce back very quickly post blizzard.

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Rasmus, I'm referring to the stuff that gets banged up, then the elements get repaired and go back into the production pools. That's completely aside from the hard disableds. The difficulty is sometimes getting that stuff out of the replacement pool and on to on map units.

During the blizzard these kind of soft losses go up a lot, and at the same time the Axis gets behind in kicking them out of the replacement pool. Then they get caught up once the blizzard goes away.

Late in the game we've been deviled by reports of some Axis players not being able to get stuff out of the pools at all and seeing those pools blow up. But it doesn't happen consistently. My own view is that this is an artifact of the replacement system not being able to push replacements on to front line units in a guaranteed fashion and people getting into some kind of bad feedback loop where they can never recover. Ironically, this dynamic tends to help whoever is on the offense.

Anyways, whatever the particulars, I see Axis numbers bounce back very quickly post blizzard.

Ah, ok Flav. You were refering to the rules concerning half of the damaged devices going back into the pools and other half gets to dies in each unit, every turn. Yes that indeed fills the pools too.(incidently i think that is why some see's pools of "useless" stuff that they think the AI build but is merely a result of that) Sorry i didnt get that. ur 1% of dead comment threw me off.
Yeah i see MT at end of June possibly being 3.7-3.8m ish, if he has some thing build up in the Manpower pool now. Ofc depending on exactly how the spring goes. All those disabled rumeanins comming 3/4s back as germans [:D]

Ok, gotcha,

Rasmus

[Flaviusx]

Does the replacement system not distinguish disableds by nationality? Wow. Well, whatever. I'm not going to raise too much of a stink about that because honestly, the replacement system is kind of stacked against the Axis anyways due to the refit restriction. The Soviet has a much easier time rotating stuff out of the front line.

[Walloc]

Pretty sure the game just has one large pool. Or the text of teh rules are very odd.

In addition, each turn one percent of the manpower listed as disabled will return to the manpower pool. A percentage of returning disabled Axis manpower goes back to Axis allied countries as follows:
„h Rumania - 10 percent
„h Hungary - 9 percent
„h Finland - 4 percent
„h Italy - 1.5 percent
„h Slovakia - .75 percent
The remainder of the returning disabled men will go to Germany.

[Michael T]

It rubs both ways though. Coz if you keep the Allies in the rear during blizzard then they get 25% of the German losses returned as Allies.

Bottom line is you should aim to have some Minor Allies as casualties otherwise you get robbed.