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tyronec wrote: Fri Jul 26, 2024 3:27 pm Have decided am going to abandon Lenningrad during the mud and pull back to Narva, fortifications there under construction.

Abandoning Leningrad puts the Soviets on the fast track to kicking Finland out of the war. Don't you think you could hold the Neva line at Leningrad with naval supply? It should be impossible for the Soviets to isolate it because you have overland contact with Finland.

I can't hold anywhere against strong Soviet pressure, so eventually they would be able to cross the river and work their way around to make a pocket.
Maybe it would have been worthwhile holding out in Lenningrad and sacrificing some units, though would probably need to be a whole army to put up a reasonable defence.

T120.
Just 3 Soviet attacks this turn, we pull back a little abandoning one fortified hex. The Soviet stacks are all too heavy to attempt a counter attack.
In the North retreat back to Lenningrad and am beginning to ship out some of those 25 divisions between Lenningrad and the Pskov lakes.
Bring on the mud, maybe 4 turns to go.

T121
Quiet turn, one Soviet attack and 4 Axis counter attacks.

T122
Just a couple of Soviet attacks and German counters. Mud is moving in.

T123.
Mud on most of the front.
All quiet from the Soviets, we do a couple of attacks to keep our guys on their toes.
In the North am gradually pulling back to the Narva line which should be up to 3’s before the winter arrives.
Have deployed the Finns down to the Kursk area to use up some of their manpower.

T124
Quiet. Nearly all mud.

T125.
Mud.
Manpower pool is growing.
Part of the blip a few turns ago was the Italians leaving.
About 1k Panzers in the pool and almost unlimited aircraft.
The problem facing Axis is that unit morale and unit sizes are dropping - this is an anomaly in the game, German divisions had reduced TOEs because of the shortage of manpower but in this case I simply cannot deploy the manpower or equipment that is available.

The game was designed with the early end victory conditions in mind. By those standards, you won the game long ago. TOE changes are predicated on those early end conditions, keeping the situation from becoming what you have, where you've had much lower losses than the real war yet the game continues. I realize many players want to play the game to the end. The ideal game would try to adjust TOEs and national morale based on losses. We looked into having national morale be based on losses, but could never get that to work well and gave up on it years before release. Having players decide when to implement TOE changes would require another game entirely. All that said, thanks for the AAR!

Having players decide when to implement TOE changes would require another game entirely.

It's not a big deal, expect I will get to use the manpower eventually !
There are other aspects of the game where it follows an historical path that I would prefer it to be under player control but as you say that would be a different game.

T126.
Snow arrives.
Major breakthrough in front of Moscow, 4 divisions pocketed. Nothing I can do to rescue them so just rushing reinforcements to the area.
Pic is at the end of the turn after the Panzers have arrived.

T127.
Potential pressure in three areas of the front; Pskov, Moscow and Kursk. So far things are holding and am getting in the occasional counter attack but it is getting more difficult.
The plan is to hold onto as much ground as possible through the winter and avoid mass retreats.

T128.
Quiet in the North, Soviets just slowly finishing off the pocket and presumably building up CPP for the next push.
Around Kursk they trash the Finns in the main defensive line and I don’t have any more forts so just pull back and leave a hole in the line. I don’t think they have too much Tank units here. We do a couple of counter attacks and hit the same stack twice, the first one was costly but the second paid off.
Some stats I forgot to record during the mud.

T129-137 Blizzard.

Fairly quiet across the front, Soviets making a few attacks most turns and occasionally Axis counterstrike. No significant change in the front lines.

And some more battles.

T137 battles.

Blizzard is ending.
Soviets break through around Pskov, we rush more units over to plug the hole.

Pskov is fairly quiet, just a couple of infantry divisions beaten up and our reinforcements are ready for a counter attack next turn.
While near Rostov there is another breakthrough and 5 divisions pocketed. Get a couple of counter attacks in and also break the pocket for this turn, but those divisions are likely doomed. Not much Axis can do to stop these breakthroughs, Recon is rubbish during Snow so I cannot spot where they are coming and just don’t have enough combat power to form a defensive line in depth. The only safe option would be to retreat every turn, but for now am willing to sacrifice a few divisions to hold the front line and hope there is enough strength to avoid a major pocket.

T140.
Soviet offensive continues around Pskov, nothing we can do except pull back and try and hold a line in the swamps. There are a lot of Infantry Corps in heavy stacks. Have most of a Panzer army there to cut off any breakout.
Near Rostov they close off the pocket again and wreck most of our sacrificial Romanian infantry. Am able to get a bit of a counter attack in and rout a couple of Tank Corps and reopen the pocket. Not so many strong Soviet units here but if they have more unseen units am going to get severely hammered next turn.