Odessa

[nukkxx5058]

Hi, is there any benefit/VP to take Odessa ? Should I fight for it or simply ignore it as the battle will surely be long and deadly ?
Thanks

[WingedIncubus]

Huge bump in Paranoia if the Soviets lose it.

[nukkxx5058]

Cool, thanks.

[James Ward]

You also should get a few PP's for it.

[nukkxx5058]

I'm trying to take Odessa but I'm very unsuccessful. (same in Riga in fact ...)
Soviets just have on GAR [67] and I have 3 massive piles of counters surrounding the city, attacking with "ALL in" but won't work
Amy advice ?
Thx

[Moltke71]

The "All In" may be causing crowding. Where's your siege arty.?

[Speedysteve]

Yes for any of the major garrisoned cities you either need:

A.) surround them on 6 sides with 12-18 divisions and be prepared to many casualties over many assaults.
B.) move Siege Guns and once the Death Star has been activated you can walk in.

Problem with Riga and Odessa is you can only assault on 3 sides....

[willgamer]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Yes for any of the major garrisoned cities you either need:

A.) surround them on 6 sides with 12-18 divisions and be prepared to many casualties over many assaults.
B.) move Siege Guns and once the Death Star has been activated you can walk in.

Problem with Riga and Odessa is you can only assault on 3 sides....

C. Examine your troops Effectiveness. If it's lower than about 90, wait until it recovers.

D. Use an infantry army that has theater arty attached. Again, examine the units to ensure their ammo stocks are full, or wait until they are.

E. Assign Tac Air to the infantry army; the Panzers can live without for a short time.

[:)]

[nukkxx5058]

Thanks everybody
So I clearly have a problem with readiness which is quite low.

(@Willgamer, did you mean readiness or effectiveness as you wrote ? If effectiveness then I don't know where to check it ?).

Also, My field arty is busy on another front as well as the Luftwaffe
And my siege arty is near Riga

I will wait until readiness fixes and I reallocated field arty the the Battle of Odessa. Will also check possible overstaking with 'all in' and various solutions proposed.

Will keep you posted

Thanks again !

[nukkxx5058]

Forgot to say that I'm attacking Odessa partially with the 4R Romanian army (that might also explain, no ?) plus 3 infantry divisions of the 11th Army.

But in RIGA, the situation if different. ELite troops [18th and 16th army], with tactical air support. But same, a miserable readiness, on from two hexes only (( Will rest and refit one turn ! And re-think my strategy !

[Isokron]

You want to attack from as many hexes as possible at once and with troops from a single army for maximum bonuses. And keep the troop total attacking as close to maximum stack as possible. Also keep the hq within two tiles of all attacking troops. And of course make sure they are rested so that their readiness is high. The four sides allowed on riga should allow you to take it with a good setup regardless of what the soviets left in it, for Odessa with only three sides its a bit more iffy without siege artillery and the romanians definitely wont cut it.

[willgamer]

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

Thanks everybody
So I clearly have a problem with readiness which is quite low.

(@Willgamer, did you mean readiness or effectiveness as you wrote ? If effectiveness then I don't know where to check it ?).


Thanks again !

Readyness

[ChuckBerger]

Artillery, air support, attack from all hexes with max readiness troops from a single army, with the HQ within a range of 2 of all attacking units. That will get you the max bonus. Feel free to overstack - you're losses will be higher, but the additional firepower may be what is needed to get the job done. For really important assaults, I find overstacking up to around 100 stacking points over the limit can work well. More casualties, but greater likelihood of taking the hex.

Finally, if you really can't crack it: either (1) set up a rotation where one army can attack one turn, and another army the next while the first army is resting; or (2) use a Panzergruppe - the heavy infantry in the Motorized divisions (especially the SS ones) can often succeed where regular infantry armies don't have a chance. Plus, with a Panzergruppe, using blitzkrieg posture with focus to give additional offensive bonuses will increase you're attack power even further.

[jhdeerslayer]

I'm playing with Beta 1.03 M3 as Germans against the Russian AI and Odessa is one tough nut to crack and resisting all effort for the whole 11th Army to take it. I need to try some of the comments in this thread (like readiness) now but since the railroad is not converted to Odessa no way I can get my siege arty there. Do I just wait for the line to repair and then assault with siege arty? Of course I have the line repairing to Kiev so that not helping either.

[lancer]

Hi,

Historically it took the Romanians (with German help) 73 days to take Odessa and they lost 93,000 casualties in the process.

In game turns that's 18 turns and ten divisions.

It's a lot easier in-game than it was on the day but this is offset by the difficulty of taking Riga (if it's got a major garrison).

Cheers,
Cameron

[ninja81]

With a good blitzkrieg manouver Riga fall at the third turn.

[MrLongleg]

Readiness is key. I usually take it by attacking with both Rumanian armies after I rest them and assign artillery. Then even the casualties are manageable.