Chaos(SHC) vs Pelton-T131- Game Over-Soviet victory.

[chaos45]

Also as to losses looking at your game:

vs Smoking Dave T25:

German losses men- about 400k, vs my game 500k- 20% higher losses inflicted in my game.
German losses AFV 2270, vs my game 3,731- so 35% higher AFV losses inflicted in my game.
SP/AC- 300 vs my over 1000.....so I inflicted 3x as many SP/AC losses.
Also a quick look at guns...Ive inflicted almost twice as many gun losses on the German army

VS Rkimmi you didnt post losses so I cant compare...but I think it shows that I may have a smaller army but did alot more damage to the German army than Smokindave did up to T25. So I have 18% fewer men but more industrial strength, more manpower strength = more recovery power....and I inflicted overall in pretty much every category at least 20%+ higher losses on the German Army over the same 25 turn period.

[Bob12]

As far as the blizzard goes I'm guessing progress will get easier as the germans get beaten up a little more. He looks like hes put most of his strength in the center aswell at the expense of the south which'll make progress much harder. I do agree mild winter should be made a little harsher, in default blizzard the germans couldn't hold anywhere but in mild it is perhaps a little easy for them to hold. Never the less I don't think it would need much adjustment and mild is much closer to the reality than default.

[MattFL]

ORIGINAL: chaos45
I can afford to lose more men because I still have most of the Large manpower cities. I made a decision to sacrifice troops for recovery power and I think in the long run it will pay off. Gonna be interesting to see 1942.

To me, this is at the heart of playing the SHC and I play very much the exact same way. Divisions come and go, Manpower is forever, a gift that keeps on giving.

[MattFL]

ORIGINAL: chaos45

Also as to losses looking at your game:

vs Smoking Dave T25:

German losses men- about 400k, vs my game 500k- 20% higher losses inflicted in my game.
German losses AFV 2270, vs my game 3,731- so 35% higher AFV losses inflicted in my game.
SP/AC- 300 vs my over 1000.....so I inflicted 3x as many SP/AC losses.
Also a quick look at guns...Ive inflicted almost twice as many gun losses on the German army

VS Rkimmi you didnt post losses so I cant compare...but I think it shows that I may have a smaller army but did alot more damage to the German army than Smokindave did up to T25. So I have 18% fewer men but more industrial strength, more manpower strength = more recovery power....and I inflicted overall in pretty much every category at least 20%+ higher losses on the German Army over the same 25 turn period.

I took a quick look at the losses you posted before reading this post and my initial thought was that German losses at over 500k before blizzard is high. Further, to me, Soviet losses don't matter nearly as much as GHC losses. By any standard of measurement, Barbarossa has failed in this game. Quite similar in terms of territory to historical.....

As for winter offensive, don't forget to build 9 million ski battalion SU's......triple CV in blizzard....

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: mattp

ORIGINAL: chaos45
I can afford to lose more men because I still have most of the Large manpower cities. I made a decision to sacrifice troops for recovery power and I think in the long run it will pay off. Gonna be interesting to see 1942.

To me, this is at the heart of playing the SHC and I play very much the exact same way. Divisions come and go, Manpower is forever, a gift that keeps on giving.

agree with this, there is so much to factor in to an understanding of how well you are doing and Soviet losses are just a part. I used to think that the critical range for 1941 losses was 1.5-1.9m (ie below that and the German was doomed, over that and the Soviets were in trouble), I'm now of the view the range is 1.8-2.4m if your industry is intact. Under 1.08 you simply have to be prepared to treat the 1941 army as expendable in pursuit of your overall goals.

[Fishbed]

And congrats with the guards. Now, keep promoting as much as you can while the blizzard lasts, but don't waste them, rest them and start to build yourself some powerful "fire brigade" teams to punch noses. That's quite a luxury SHC players can usually very rarely afford... As long as you can avoid a Kharkov-like blunder of course. [;)]

Edit: oh, and by the way - if you ever manage to survive 1942, don't forget to write a book or a walkthrough for all the other players [:'(]

[chaos45]

Well we are moving into January now and for the most part I have achieved my limited Blizzard objectives with only 1 failure.

I have generated a massive amount of guards units so that was a success- up to 12 guard cav corps, 50+ guard rifle divisions, and more and more support units are converting to guards. I was maxed out on guard rifle divisions going into 1942 so had a ton of units convert on the first turn of 1942, and I think im maxed again.

I have regained parts of the Valdai hills to give the more protection to the south flank of my leningrad front. This was critical as otherwise a lucky/decent German push from the south could have made this untenable- now I think he would have to commit to a major 1942 operation to make this a reality.

I regained some hexes to the west of moscow, not a massive amount but another hex or two buffer zone of heavily fortified hexes he would have to frontally assault....Critically I got most of the woods hexes along both sides of the river to the west of Tula- honestly two of those woods hexes were strategic objectives for the winter.

In the south I reached Stalino which is heavily fortified so most likely cant push it. However my Southern front achieved its objective of beating on German/Romanian forces as they retreated and continuing to build guards/morale.

Only failure was the Leningrad front- reason for this is a massive committment of German forces to that front 30+ German divisions committed to AG north just between Lake Illmen and Leningrad I did manage to retake a couple hexes I lost in his final offensives of November but was not, nor will I be able to relieve the city this winter. Despite not achieving the winter offensive objective to relieve the city it is heavily fortified and tying down massive amounts of German manpower while at the same time still generating replacements for the red army. Not to mention all those german units are taking attrition losses all winter- every nickle and dime of casualties I can generate [8D]

Overall not a stunning success of a winter offensive but I still have the rest of January to make some headway in a couple sectors and I have managed to massively reinforce/rebuild sections of the line and get a very stongly manned and fortified sector between Moscow and Leningrad- 3+ hex manned fortified belt along the entire line in mostly bad terrain. German losses up to about the middle of January have climed above 700k+ now so I am continuing to bleed the German army through attrition/assaults all winter. Now Soviet losses are heavy as well heavier than in other games but so far Im still keeping a manpower surplus....also once I get enough armaments to swap out 6,000 squads of obsolete Sappers that should fix most of my squad shortage issues or they fix the game to allow them to keep being used until swap/armaments is available. As Ive built near 200 Sapper regiments already and those 6k squads would bring the sapper strength of the Soviet army in total to about 90%+ ToE.

Was really surprised to see I had 6k+ squads just hanging out on vacation when my army is so short weapons to arm new men to fill out the returning divisions. Equivilent to about 15+ Soviet divisions at full strength in manpower/armaments just sitting in the pool not being used. Also explains why my army didnt grow much first turn in January 1942 because my guess is thats when the game pulled all those squads out of the line and sent them on vacation lol.

[chaos45]

T26 Zoom out of North and Center sectors with attack locations pinged. As you can see first turn of blizzard isnt all that impressive. Although I have regained Tula and am putting heavy pressure in that sector and the Valdai hills sectors.

[chaos45]

South T26- Germans begin a slow retreat its hard for me to catch them to do damage and many hasty attacks fail but some succeed.

[chaos45]

T31 North so you can see some slight changes from Gains. So over 6 Turns I have made progress but nothing super awesome.

[chaos45]

T31 Center- Most gains to the West and SW of Tula. Slow steady progress.

[chaos45]

T31 Center/South- Shock Armies w/lots of guards hammer the germans steadily in this sector.

[chaos45]

T31 South- Limited attacks as Ive hit the Stalino fortified belt which has CV values in the 30+ along the entire line so no use wasting troops trying to shift it I shift main effort of attacks north to areas of almost no forts.

[M60A3TTS]

With the SS units where they are, I would assume he intends to clear out your position south along the Oka sooner rather than later.

Also, watch yourself around Taganrog Bay. Plenty of folks have gotten pocketed by being too far forward in that area.

[chaos45]

1942 is going to be interesting, as I dont think the Germans are going to have an easy time of it. Also old screens....I got Orel and Kursk last turn- 1st and 2nd Shock army cav corps leading the assaults. Hes on T36 now. Im finding the red airforce to be extremely useful since he isnt using the luftwaffe at all, all winter.

[Bob12]

Germans look like they're having a rough time, what are the casualties sitting at?

[chaos45]

At T35 abit over 850k for axis and 3.7M or so Soviet. Soviet OOB is about 6.3M, German 3.6M

Actually kinda surprised as I took much heavier losses than Rkimmi did in the summer/fall of 1941 but my army should be very close to the same strength as his come March 1942 as his March 1942 was only 6.8M

I think most of this is because I held Leningrad and Novorissk in the North as well as all those little towns that most ppl lose after leningrad falls. As basically I held the Axis to a more or less historical advance with pretty historical losses for Soviets. So far it looks by the end of Winter Axis and Soviet losses will be I think less than historical. Soviet Im not so sure on, but Im pretty sure they lost a ton of guys during the blizzard even when they were "winning" lol

Axis Losses look to be about 250k-350k less than historical. As the axis total is all combined so if they were historical you would be looking at 1 million+ easy by the end of february.

This game Im guessing the Axis losses will be just over 900k by end of February, Soviet losses prolly very close to 4 million.

[MattFL]

Sure would be nice to knock that Security stack out of the front door of Lenningrad along with the one that you can attack from 3 hexes next to it. Probably a difficult attack, but with stacks of reserves behind perhaps one that could be achieved as it would really set him back on the Lenningrad front to relink the city with your ground forces and make him grind through them again should he decide to go for Lenningrad in 42.

[chaos45]

Ive made alittle progress in the leningrad area I tried a push earlier in the blizzard but my losses were very high for no gain. That stack is a full infantry division with a security unit- not just a security unit and its fairly dug-in.

Believe me relieving leningrad was on my agenda just not achievable based on CV levels.

[HITMAN202]

I think he will try to take St Petersburg 1942. It's front is the shortest distance to Berlin.