TheDoctorKing vs Isaac 1941 Campaign

[ICalli]

Looks like this blob which is composed of more than 1/2 the GER ARM/MOT units will be in Leningrad by the winter. I have been throwing everything I can in front to seemingly no avail. Accepting that Leningrad will fall, I will rail out before suffering the double rail penalty but continue to bleed the GER Dr. every step of the way. A benefit is that these are units not over-running manpower centers elsewhere.

[ICalli]

-Dr. has been doing a fantastic job of partisan suppression. I thought there would be more by this point in the disaster. What are the assumptions for what it takes to create? I am assuming he is holding every population center to 100% but don't know the force strength to accomplish this.
-Lastly, my lack of experience as the GER player on my part prevents me from properly anticipating thrust distance. I assume that units in AGS are 20-25 hexes from railhead but I can’t estimate how much movement will they have left as a result. The Dr is also very meticulous at air dropping supplies as needed so I have to count on full movement every turn until my experience shows otherwise. To the trenches comrades!

[xhoel]

@ICalli: -Partisan squads are recruited from Cities that have no Garrison present/are not fully garrisoned (<100%) and from destroyed Soviet Infantry formations. I think it is still early for partisan formations to form though, but you should be seeing some cadres forming later. Chapter 17 of the manual deals with Soviet Partisans and Axis Garrisons so you should probably take a look at that.
-Air Dropping of supplies has been nerfed for 1941 so even though you may be seeing all those battle reports that indicate air transport of supplies, the amount of tons reaching the units will actually be pretty low. You should watch out for HQ Build Ups and big concentrations of armor/mot units.

I don't think you are doing that bad so far. The more you delay the Axis advance in the north the better it will be for you. The terrain and narrow front here favors the defender and is not ideal Panzer Ground. From what I have seen, Leningrad can only be taken in 1941, after that it becomes a very hard task.

If you want my advice you should pull back in the Center and reform a defensive line on the Vyazma-Bolva axis.

[thedoctorking]

My feeling is that this game is not going well for me. We just did turn 10 and, while I have made some progress, Isaac's defense is very strong. There is obviously a lot for me to learn still about this game, particularly about attacking.

[ICalli]

Its funny in this game seeing the grass greener on the other side. Every turn I open I am thinking "how the hell did he break thru/encircle/rout there?!" I have slowed down your advance to Leningrad but it is still turn 10. AGC is stonethrow distance from Moscow and AGS is across the Dnepr. Seems like it is in your favor

[thedoctorking]

AGC's advance has been a pleasant surprise to me. I think if you send sufficient forces there you should have no difficulty defending the city.

[ICalli]

-Turn 8. I cant seem to stop the Germans no matter how hard I try. I threw everything I could in front of Leningrad and can barely slow down the determined Panzer(ish)ball. It appears that if the German side has a sole purpose, it can achieve it. Only time will tell, and remedy my lack of experience.
-It is hard to tell with the latest mod but hopefully some things way in favor of the SOV player. Looks like maybe entrenchment is faster.
-On a positive note, I have started to expand my comfort zone. I made an attack and encircled a few forward PZR BDEs
-Pivoted my Ukraine line to hopefully entice his armor to head S towards Dtown vs completing the encirclement of Kiev and the SW Front- Don’t understand the engine enough but hoping that buying Kiev an extra couple turns of manpower production is worth it

[thedoctorking]

Turn 9 AAR:

This turn was a little more exciting than the last few, but no more satisfying for me. The first thing to say is that, with Isaac’s turn 8, we upgraded the game to v. 1.11.02. This version brings significant changes, including particularly the serious nerfing of the Red Air Force. Units that get spanked now won’t recover morale nearly as easily since the base morale of Russian air units is 20 in 1941. Also, new pilots coming in to replace casualties will start at 20 experience, meaning that they are almost worse than useless in combat. I decided at the beginning of this turn to do my best to exploit this by bombing as many of Isaac’s air bases as I could. Well, nerfed as they may have been, they put up a stiff fight.

Normally, I don’t use dive bombers in airbase attacks because they are too vulnerable to low-level flak. One attack this time, I incautiously send the Ju87’s. Oops. Fifty of them got shot down. This is going to be a major blow going forward, I’m afraid. I just started getting the new Ju87D’s, but that represents over four turns of production. You’ve got to be alert at every moment, the Germans are very fragile and can screw up at any moment.

[thedoctorking]

My northern front was a mixed bag. My intended line of advance due east looked well-defended. I took a stab at a move due north up the west bank of Lake Ilmen. The defenses looked weak in that sector, but when I attacked they proved sufficiently strong. Four failed attacks later, I turned away, did an HQBU for one panzer corps, and settled for cutting off a few divisions that had remained incautiously ahead of Pskov. At the other end of the northern front position, I did manage to punch through the Narva line and at least threaten a bigger pocket. Hopefully, I’ll get at least some of the host of Russian troops south and west of the Luga. I also managed to overrun a couple of those airbases, so maybe in the logistics phase some of the aircraft that I damaged in my airbase raids will be lost.

[thedoctorking]

Farther to the south, what was intended as my diversionary offensive is making good mileage against limited resistance. Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Army is now only 100 miles from Moscow. There are now some Russian troops in the way. I managed to push them back a little bit, and hopefully at least I remain at least a bit intimidating. In a clumsy move, I sent a cavalry division through a hole the armor punched at the north end of his line, aiming for Rzhev. But some junior officer in the scouts couldn’t read a map and I ended up moving into a hex one to the south of what I intended (my wireless mouse ran out of batteries and I was using the track pad on my laptop…) So Rzhev can now be garrisoned by Soviet defenders and will no doubt be a tough nut to crack.

[thedoctorking]

In the Belarus-Ukraine-Russia border area east of the marshes, it turned out that those swamps and rivers are tougher to cross than I thought. We are making progress, but the big envelopment I was hoping for doesn’t look like it will happen. Isaac is free to withdraw, and I expect he will. Sixth Army was reduced to urban combat in the outskirts of Kiev. Second Army is facing very limited resistance in the Chernigov region, while Fourth is pushing towards the Desna.

[thedoctorking]

Over the last several turns, I had been planning to push across the Dnepr at Cherkassy. However, this turn Isaac piled on the reinforcements in that sector. A classic Russian three-deep defense line was appearing northeast of the river. To achieve this, he had drastically shorted his Southern Front defenses from the river to the Black Sea. So, I redirected my forces. XXXXVIII panzer corps, which did a HQBU last turn, was able to scoot forward and get across the Dnepr between Dneprpetrovsk and Zaporozhe, putting both of those cities in ZOC’s before their considerable industry was evacuated. If I can get them, these will be the first industrial cities captured with their industry intact.

My defenses along the river from Cherkassy to Kiev are a variety of odds and sods – Hungarians, Slovakians, Romanian cavalry – but I can’t see him counter-attacking given that I’m across the river to the north and south. I think he’s going east as fast as he can and maybe I’ll get to Kharkov!

My attack on Odessa is taking longer than expected. I did manage to displace the army HQ (Coastal), but even without their artillery support they managed to stand off two attacks. Ah well.

Total ground losses were 9,222 to 62,894. Deployed personnel are 3,719,678 USSR to 3,451,434 German and the usual 1,500,000 Axis minors.

[thedoctorking]

ORIGINAL: ICalli

-Turn 8. I cant seem to stop the Germans no matter how hard I try. I threw everything I could in front of Leningrad and can barely slow down the determined Panzer(ish)ball. It appears that if the German side has a sole purpose, it can achieve it. Only time will tell, and remedy my lack of experience.
-It is hard to tell with the latest mod but hopefully some things way in favor of the SOV player. Looks like maybe entrenchment is faster.
-On a positive note, I have started to expand my comfort zone. I made an attack and encircled a few forward PZR BDEs
-Pivoted my Ukraine line to hopefully entice his armor to head S towards Dtown vs completing the encirclement of Kiev and the SW Front- Don’t understand the engine enough but hoping that buying Kiev an extra couple turns of manpower production is worth it

So, he wanted me to try to cross the lower Dnepr near Dnepropetrovsk. Either I've stepped into his trap or he stepped into mine...

[xhoel]

Can we take a look at the losses so far?

[thedoctorking]

The AAR is a couple of turns behind the actual game. As of turn 11, total losses are 1,795,028 Soviet to 215,505 Axis. Aircraft 8,117 to 884, AFV's 11,678 to 1,701. I don't think I'm going to get to the historical loss level.

[xhoel]

Don't worry about reaching those numbers, no one achieves that as far as I know. Just try to destroy as much of the Red Army as possible before the blizzard hits. Am looking forward to an update of the AAR.
Cheers!

[SparkleyTits]

Don't worry about historical losses 1.7 mil is ok

Try to hit 2.5+ mil if possible by the end of summner and try to keep your ratios of manpower losses between 8-10 times less than Soviets, garrison your non SS panzers over winter and set all panzers to 20% TOE at least throughout the blizzard (You can set panzers to 20% through muds and snow too to squeeze out a couple more AFV numbers if needed) and everything else will set up fairly naturally for a competetive 42

[ICalli]

So, partisans. I was reluctant to track partisans in an AAR for fear of retribution. But, a stronger case is that now my opponent has seen these, any anti-partisan movements could be seen as underhanded and therefore avoided. Of note, the Dr. has been very meticulous about garrisoning cities and I was surprised to see these units pop up.

[ICalli]

While not much to comment on in the N and Center, the Axis are now at the gates of Dtown

My attempt to entice AGS away from Cherkassky towards Dtown worked perfectly. To my dismay he actually made it which I calculated as being impossible. Looks like just being next to the city makes factory evac cost double. I will try to open them up and rail out-Nope, that didn’t work. Was able to clear the approaches to Dtown but could rid Zap of the brigade zoc’ng it. So had to pay full flavor price for factory evac &#61516;

[ICalli]

Feeble attempts were made to slow this train down but as future turns will show, it is easier said