Of Course Not, The Entire Game Is An Anti-German Design [8D] - Bread (Axis) vs Beethoven (Soviet)

[Beethoven1]

Bread and I are starting a game for the purpose of trying to test if it is possible for the Axis to win, or if, alternatively, the entire game is an anti-german design [:D].

Accordingly, we are going to be giving some special handicaps to the Soviets in this game, i.e. some special rules...

1) Soviets may not use armies (HQs) or corps (HQs) to organize their troops and to have generals commanding their troops. Soviets may only keep a handful of armies behind the lines, for use solely in rallying routed regiments (since they have to be in range of a HQ to be rallied).

2) Due to not having any armies, Soviets are also unable to use any artillery or other similar support units such as AT regiments, mortar battalions, AA regiments, etc (unless directly attached to a unit).

3) The Soviets may not have an air force. The VVS will be disbanded in its entirety on turn 1, and will remain disbanded for the rest of the game.

4) Soviets may have assault fronts, but these are the only fronts that can be used (and no armies or corps may be used under the front level). All other units must be directly commanded by STAVKA. However, the fronts may not have particularly good leaders. Hopefully Grigory Kulik can be one of the Front leaders.

This will obviously make it harder for Soviets. My guess is most people would probably agree that it ought not to be possible for Soviets to win under those circumstances, unless the Axis player is totally incompetent or something.

So, we are playing with sudden death rules, and the Axis will be trying to get a sudden death win. Soviets will be abandoning the south, other than a very light possible defense of a few screening units, up until Stalino/Kharkov or so.

These rules are subject to possible alteration later when we see how things go.

On the bright side, however, this will make it easier for me to do turns quickly since I will pretty much not have to deal with the air phase or with OOBs etc AT ALL. This means we should be able to get far enough in the game to see the effects of these special rules quickly. I will also try to be quite a bit less careful than I normally would be, to do turns faster.

[Beethoven1]

Bread/RedJohn has killed some Soviet generals! Quite a lot of them, too! What a horrible murderer of generals he is!



Fortunately for me, this does not matter, because I will not be using generals or armies in this game.

Bread has also done the Lvov pocket in the south, and pocketed some high morale units from the Southwestern Front, including a 64 morale Mountaineer division:



This is a lot more unfortunate for me than the leader deaths, because I WILL be using high morale units, at least as much as I can.

[Beethoven1]

Bread has advanced in various directions. Namely, in the north, in the center, and in the south.








We have not lost that many planes, but that doesn't really matter, since we are going to disband them all. So in a sense, I guess he has destroyed our entire air force:




250k losses so far:



In addition, 632k men are isolated:

[Beethoven1]

The first step is to disband the Soviet Air Force. We won't be needing the VVS. I hope not, anyway.

This GREATLY simplifies the air phase. I can just click through it, and it is even faster than AI air assist, since I don't have to run any sorties.



POOF, it is gone. Unfortunately a couple of planes are left in the theater boxes and also some on the map which are in pockets or are frozen. Will have to move the pocketed planes out so I can disband them next turn:

[RedJohn]

My opener is the standard Lvov pocket. I am partial to copying Tyronec's approach and going as far east as possible for the followup encirclement, as this also risks killing off Malinovsky turn 2 due to the southern front staying locked.

However this game I wanted to ensure nothing of value escapes Lvov. Chances are the majority of the units in SW front will be sent to reserve, and there's very little I could do to stop that if I went with that long opener. So, Lvov is taken and the area encircled. PZG1 will be split and likely continue to Odessa, taking Crimea ASAP. It is one of the few places Beethoven might defend, and it is a bitch to take if the soviets prepare.

[RedJohn]

For supply, I will be trying a different rail route than I usually do. Depots will be spammed as per carlkays AAR which works very well.

Some say logistics is the counter to the southern strategy, so let's really see if that's true! I spend all 19 of my AP on depots. I also put the rail repair SUs on 3 corps, and send the 2 rail repair units from Norway to the map. They will arrive turn 4. I also bring all of the transports back from the various TBs, to maximize the amount of airlifting I can do.



I did forget to set my ports, so I'll do that next turn.

[Beethoven1]

Actually, I tried sending planes to reserve also, and was able to get rid of some more that way. Now there is only one air group left on the map that I can neither disband nor transfer to reserve this turn. It is the 11 SAD.



This is very sad, it makes me unhappy.

It is our hope that by not having an air force, we will deny German fighter pilots air to air kills. Accordingly, hopefully they will not get skill bonuses from shooting down our planes. With lower skill, the German pilots are more likely to crash and have operational losses.

I don't know if it works that way, but it is funny to think about. If it does work like that, then this could possibly actually be inadvertently a good strategy.

[Stamb]

haha, I like that title [&o], was hoping to see Loki as an Axis player here!

[Beethoven1]

Using the Commander's report, I set all units which have more than 50 morale on refit. Then I picked the map view hat makes refitting units appear highlighted in blue. So now we can see where my high morale units are. Although some of them are only barely above 50 morale, there are a decent # of infantry/mountaineer divisions that are at or close to 60 morale. These are definitely worth paying special attention to.



Notice a good # of them are near Rovno. It might have been a mistake for Bread to not do a Rovno pocket, as there is a 57 and a 60 morale infantry division there that he could have pocketed (and one or two more that might possibly have been on the edge of gettable). The tank/mech units are only barely > 50 morale though.

Next, I set units with less than 40 morale on reserve, so they get highlighted in pink for easier identification:



This doesn't find them all since unready/depleted units can't go on reserve, but at least highlights some of them.

[Beethoven1]

My next order of business is to deal with some routed and depleted units. These do not have SMP, which means they cannot board trains. So it will be harder for them to escape, and I need to pay special attention to evacuating them first.

For example, here are 2 routed units, a 41 morale rifle division and a 35 morale tank division (with 149 AFVs):



I can move both of these more than 8 hexes away from the nearest enemy unit and on a rail line. So I send the infantry division to the reserve.

I could also send the tank division to reserve (or more likely to the Transcaucasus), but I am just going to disband it so that the AFVs can go into my other tank divisions that have higher morale. Then they will be a strong threat immediately against Bread's Panzers.

So fortunately, the men in both of these units will be able to escape safely from Bread's clutches.

I will do similarly with other units, possibly some in other parts of the map as well such as ones trying to escape from the Bialystok pocket. But the most important place to do this is in the south.

[carlkay58]

I like your highlighting strategy. Very useful.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Beethoven1

Bread and I are starting a game for the purpose of trying to test if it is possible for the Axis to win, or if, alternatively, the entire game is an anti-german design [:D].

Accordingly, we are going to be giving some special handicaps to the Soviets in this game, i.e. some special rules...

1) Soviets may not use armies (HQs) or corps (HQs) to organize their troops and to have generals commanding their troops. Soviets may only keep a handful of armies behind the lines, for use solely in rallying routed regiments (since they have to be in range of a HQ to be rallied).

2) Due to not having any armies, Soviets are also unable to use any artillery or other similar support units such as AT regiments, mortar battalions, AA regiments, etc (unless directly attached to a unit).

3) The Soviets may not have an air force. The VVS will be disbanded in its entirety on turn 1, and will remain disbanded for the rest of the game.

4) Soviets may have assault fronts, but these are the only fronts that can be used (and no armies or corps may be used under the front level). All other units must be directly commanded by STAVKA. However, the fronts may not have particularly good leaders. Hopefully Grigory Kulik can be one of the Front leaders.

This will obviously make it harder for Soviets. My guess is most people would probably agree that it ought not to be possible for Soviets to win under those circumstances, unless the Axis player is totally incompetent or something.

So, we are playing with sudden death rules, and the Axis will be trying to get a sudden death win. Soviets will be abandoning the south, other than a very light possible defense of a few screening units, up until Stalino/Kharkov or so.

These rules are subject to possible alteration later when we see how things go.

On the bright side, however, this will make it easier for me to do turns quickly since I will pretty much not have to deal with the air phase or with OOBs etc AT ALL. This means we should be able to get far enough in the game to see the effects of these special rules quickly. I will also try to be quite a bit less careful than I normally would be, to do turns faster.

Sorry, I missed the catalyst for this game to be played like this. I read your reason above but I thought I glimpsed something in another thread similar verbiage as the games title. Was that it? Plus this seems to go with Breads(RedJohns) tongue in check AAR. I do admire the enthusiasm on pursuit of the subject matter.

Thank you for your answer.

[AlbertN]

I believe the game won't last long played that way though - but hey - if the Soviets hold even this way paint me massively surprised.

Front HQs are few, will fail buckets of tests, and the units have a CV of 20% less if I've read well the manual. (And by that I am not sure if they also fight 20% worse too)

[Lovenought]

Kulik will sort it all out

[Stamb]

You could leave transport planes to supply pockets.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

Sorry, I missed the catalyst for this game to be played like this. I read your reason above but I thought I glimpsed something in another thread similar verbiage as the games title. Was that it? Plus this seems to go with Breads(RedJohns) tongue in check AAR. I do admire the enthusiasm on pursuit of the subject matter.

Thank you for your answer.

It is pretty straightforward. We think that it is pretty much impossible for Soviets to lose, especially if they abandon the south, and this is an attempt to test out that theory. And yes, that is consistent with the other tongue in cheek AAR. A good number of players have argued that the Axis should win a sudden death victory if Soviets abandon the south. Given the large nerfs to Soviets from our special rules (especially the complete lack of Army HQs and generals), if Axis can't win with a sudden death victory (and win fairly easily), that should prove the point to a considerable extent. At least that is the idea. We'll see if it plays out like that or not though.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: Stamb

You could leave transport planes to supply pockets.

What pockets? You are imagining that I will get pocketed, other than minor unavoidable small pockets? [:D]

If I had not disbanded my transport planes, they would also be useful to supply newly deployed units, to get their CVs up quickly. That is where I will really miss the transport planes. But I don't expect to have particular have logistical difficulties in any case after a few turns, because I will put my whole army on supply priority 4. Even with having bad admin rules due to lack of leaders/HQs, I should end up with just fine supply after the initial shock wears off.

[Stamb]

Without army HQs I guess that there will be pockets, so transport planes might be very helpful as they do not get shot down easily and you can sustain their losses without a problem.

[Stamb]

But overall - thanks for doing this test. If Axis can not win this game then... We all know what does it mean.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: Stamb

Without army HQs I guess that there will be pockets, so transport planes might be very helpful as they do not get shot down easily and you can sustain their losses without a problem.

They would probably get shot down more easily in this game though, considering that I have 0 fighters to escort them because all the fighters are disbanded. [:D]