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Hi,

This is turn 17 and I did have this battle in a heavy wood hex, heavy rain and a lot of more stuff but the result is this.




As a newbie just want to understand what happend because i dont get it. I see a lot of battles like this, seems like you have high CV but then the battle is a bluff and the unit undeperform in an unusual way.

Thanks in advance and regards.

This was a decent Soviet division in a super fortress position. Against a large attacking force, the defenders were not enough to hold out. 1/2 the defending force was destroyed/damaged or disrupted. Since most of this goes against the combat elements in the defending unit (which contain the bulk of the CV), The end of battle CV dropped dramatically. The attacking force probably made some good leader rolls (7 infantry rating is quite good) and more than made up for its losses which are a smaller percentage of the attacking force. Even a slightly larger defending force would have held. Basically, one division is not a large enough force to hold this fortress against a major assault.

Judging by the fact that your division had no support in the defense, it was far from its headquarters and this gives a heavy penalty. In general, there can be a lot of other reasons, but this is what I see for sure.

Joel Billings wrote: Wed Sep 14, 2022 8:56 pm This was a decent Soviet division in a super fortress position. Against a large attacking force, the defenders were not enough to hold out. 1/2 the defending force was destroyed/damaged or disrupted. Since most of this goes against the combat elements in the defending unit (which contain the bulk of the CV), The end of battle CV dropped dramatically. The attacking force probably made some good leader rolls (7 infantry rating is quite good) and more than made up for its losses which are a smaller percentage of the attacking force. Even a slightly larger defending force would have held. Basically, one division is not a large enough force to hold this fortress against a major assault.

Ok, but in such situation, heavy mud, fortress, heavy forest, the enemy loses are surprising very low, I still dont understand this. The idea of the fortress is to be easily defended with less bodys. This suspose to be a really good fortification, well planed and so on, so this advantage of the attacker just in manpower doest seems to me a very good explanation.

malyhin1517 wrote: Wed Sep 14, 2022 8:58 pm Judging by the fact that your division had no support in the defense, it was far from its headquarters and this gives a heavy penalty. In general, there can be a lot of other reasons, but this is what I see for sure.

Well, the HQ is on Leningrad and game says that there is direct conection with the unit. I guess because the baltic sea the support is not able to cross.

it was very close battle, almost hold

also amount of men + arty plays a crucial role
one division is not enough to defend any hex in any conditions

initial CV does not mean a lot, with experience you will get an idea how many units do you need to win a battle or to have pretty solid defense

as an example it would make no sense to attack since CV was almost the same, but knowing how game works there was no doubts if to attack or not, i can provide many more examples

It's mostly due to German firepower - they have 800+ guns. You start with 1022 ground elements out of which 292 are support squads. So you have 1022 - 292 = 730 ready combat ground elements. German firepower causes 396 disrupted + 180 damaged + 47 destroyed = about 623 ground elements out of combat. This leaves around 730 - 623 = 107 that still count for your combat value at the end. This is around 107/730 = 15% of your original strength. Vasilevsky actually had some excellent rolls since 143/580 = 25% (and this is after retreat losses). However Lindemann also had good rolls and the Germans only suffered 10-15% combat losses.

Long story short, you started with a higher CV but suffered 85% loss in combat while only inflicting 15% loss on the enemy. You had a chance to win but only if the Germans had pulled out at long range, which they didn't.

The division actually fought really well since 5:1 numeric superiority for the Germans on '41 is usually a bloodbath. If it was a 45 morale division with a second-rate leader you'd probably see the unit routing out in a depleted state instead.

Thanks to all, now I have a better picture of what is going on.

I understand now that combat system has his way to work, but for me still si akward too see. Is like german units have perfect intel almost better than USA in Ukraine, disableing the 85% of the soviet forces with more acurated artillery than HIMARS in a place that supose to be a concrete fortification design for sieges, hide in woods, with high morale and best leaders you can find.

Just like near Kharkov a week ago in Ukraine, there were too few Russians. You had to put several divisions in the fortress. Odessa cannot be held by the Russians even with 10 divisions in the hex.

Leumas06 wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 7:03 am Thanks to all, now I have a better picture of what is going on.

I understand now that combat system has his way to work, but for me still si akward too see. Is like german units have perfect intel almost better than USA in Ukraine, disableing the 85% of the soviet forces with more acurated artillery than HIMARS in a place that supose to be a concrete fortification design for sieges, hide in woods, with high morale and best leaders you can find.

can you share battle details where we can see how much damage German elements did?

fortifications, even lvl 1 reduce effectiveness of arty
i would say that mortars and pioneers/infantry did most of the damage, but it is just guessing from my side

only screenshot with battle details will tell the truth