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Here's what the north half of the front lines looked like at the end of turn 5:

Here's what the south half of the front lines looked like at the end of turn 5:

Here's what bessarabia looked like at the end of turn 5:

Here's the total Axis losses as of the end of turn 5:

Here's where some of the axis aircraft are at the end of turn 5. Green circles for fighters and blue circles for bombers. I didn't plot them all because some of the aircraft are based with the same range aircraft and after a while it all becomes confusing to make out any sense with too many circles.

Wow, you are taking some horrific losses against the Stalin line and trying to get across the Dvina River at places like Daugavpilis (sp?), and you aren't gaining much ground.  I wonder if minimum losses is the best way to go here.  In real life, a series of probing attacks against a very strong defensive position might just lead to a series of losses with no real chance of ever taking the position.  For instance, assaulting a river line with only a fraction of your troops, or pulling out after losing a few hundred men, means you will never cross the river.  You have to be willing to take heavy losses to get across the river, and finally get stuck in with the enemy.  You take heavier losses on the crossing, but you hopefully only take them once vs. a very long campaign of probing attacks that constantly cause you casualties.  In other words, perhaps the heavy losses of an all out attack will be less than the constant drain of a long series of minor attacks.  And perhaps the game is correctly modeling this set of circumstances.
 
If so, it might be better, when confronted with a strong defensive position and the need to attack it frontally, to do it with normal or ignore losses.  You might gain the ground faster, and end up doing it with less total losses.
 
I have no proof to back this up, but maybe I'll try to run some experiments to find out.  Your thoughts?
 
 

ORIGINAL: lojishen
Wow, you are taking some horrific losses against the Stalin line and trying to get across the Dvina River at places like Daugavpilis (sp?), and you aren't gaining much ground.  I wonder if minimum losses is the best way to go here.  In real life, a series of probing attacks against a very strong defensive position might just lead to a series of losses with no real chance of ever taking the position.  For instance, assaulting a river line with only a fraction of your troops, or pulling out after losing a few hundred men, means you will never cross the river.  You have to be willing to take heavy losses to get across the river, and finally get stuck in with the enemy.  You take heavier losses on the crossing, but you hopefully only take them once vs. a very long campaign of probing attacks that constantly cause you casualties.  In other words, perhaps the heavy losses of an all out attack will be less than the constant drain of a long series of minor attacks.  And perhaps the game is correctly modeling this set of circumstances.

If so, it might be better, when confronted with a strong defensive position and the need to attack it frontally, to do it with normal or ignore losses.  You might gain the ground faster, and end up doing it with less total losses.

I have no proof to back this up, but maybe I'll try to run some experiments to find out.  Your thoughts?

Wow. Great idea. My thinking was that a series of minimum losses attacks would cause the Russian to eventually flunk a readiness check and retreat before my guys would 'cause the Axis proficiency is higher than the Russian proficiency ( 80% vs. 60% or 70% ). But those Russian airborne troops must have a higher proficiency than the normal Soviet division 'cause they DO stand there and fight.

Your idea is pretty good in my opinion....I admit, I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to run some tests and see which is better. OR better yet, try out some attacks along the lines you describe and see which works better.

Keep those good comments coming. And thanks for the idea.

I learn more about this game all the time thanks to you guys.

Here's the Soviet front lines as of the beginning of Soviet turn 5. As you can see there's a few gaps to be filled in yet but for the most part it takes advantage of natural defensive obsticles ( spelling ? ) like rivers and can be substantial when finished. Kiev stands out like a sore thumb however. Maybe that's intentional....maybe Menscenfresser thinks it can't be adequately defended in any case, and has made it a hard point instead. The Stalin Line is about to be outflanked and I'm wondering if the Z man is going to pull back all the guys that can move ( armour ) or just leave them there to defend to the last man. I'm thinking that I would be inclinded to entrench and fight it out there rather than be caught running to Kiev and the river. And there are precious few Soviets inbetween Smolensk and Leningrad so far. That just invites an Axis attack.

Menschenfresser is out of town so I took it upon myself to do the Soviet turn. There was precious little to move. Most of the units that weren't in reorg and able to move just moved up closer to the front lines. Those units already adjacent to an enemy unit just dug in deeper. I shipped these guys by rail to the place shown in the picture since I thought that's what the Z man would have done.

There were some Soviet counterattacks....four in round 1 and two in round 2.

Here's what happened at 100,186:

Here's what happened at 107,170:

Here's what happened at 108,108:

Here's what happened at 110,109:

And for the round two attacks:

Here's what happened at 108,107:

Here's what happened at 110,109:

Here's what the northern part of the front lines looked like at the start of turn 6:

Here's what the front lines look like around the Minsk area:

And it looks like the Pripet marshes are wide open from this shot ( this is just south of Minsk ):

And south of the above shot we have the Stalin Line area:

It's the job of one regiment of the 1st Inf Div to destroy what remains of that Soviet NKVD motorized infantry division so that the 1st Panzer Div can relieve the 1st Brandenburg and attack the Soviet arty from the northeast side of Riga. The silencing of the arty is the only thing holding up the massive assault(s) of the Axis infantry surrounding Riga.