Back in the USSR

[Flaviusx]

Down south the German stops doubling down and the overstretched PG1 falls backwards. With Proskorow in enemy hands I assume an FSB transfer is imminent to that location. I'm going to lose more units here than I'd like had I just run away. But by and large most of the stuff in this theater is retreating backwards in tolerable order. PG1 has a long term 2 division deficit and probably could use some R+R, which I consider to be a good exchange for units lost.

So I got a bit lucky with my posture change. It could've turned ugly on me.

Now that things are settling down here a bit I can consider redeploying Zhukov to the center. Up until now there's hardly been anything to command there.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

Looks like he has sent his FSB to Vilnius...

Yes, but that's not going to work for him given my own moves. It's a long ways from Vilnius to my new line.

He's going to have to push it forward again. And he can do so, easily, it's not like I can stop him from pushing it to Orsha.

Presumably he's going to kill the Minsk garrison first, then do so. Not sure if you can transfer forward with that in the way. He doesn't need the big guns to do this, either, just surround it even with a PG and smash it. PG2 can do this job quickly if he doesn't want to wait for 4th army.

[Speedysteve]

You can't move an FSB forward without a valid rail link to it as an FYI

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

You can't move an FSB forward without a valid rail link to it as an FYI

Ok, thanks for the heads up, makes sense. He's got a lot of clearing to do in that case. I'm fine with that. I need time to put things in order in the center. Going to have to rebuild this front from scratch, nothing got away. That's the price I paid for stressing the south.

[Jagdtiger14]

Is it possible the MOT that made it to Tallinn had sea supply?

[Flaviusx]

Turn 5. No paranoia. This is becoming a bit annoying. I actually want to get it over with. It is presently clocking in at 43. That's just too high for me to feel safe stockpiling PPs, particularly when Minsk hasn't yet fallen.

Up north Khruschev arrives and shoots Voroshilov, which lowers paranoia by 30. But that will be offset by Minsk falling which it surely must very soon. I'm none too happy with his replacement, too. Vasilevsky arrives clocking in at 10/-9. Pretty feeble. Between my 3 new marshals, I've got over 30 threat per turn now. Yikes.

I catch a break on activations with BMD waking up, this allows me to exfiltrate some units out of Riga and reconnect overland supply. This cuts off a panzer division and presumably also the motorized unit lingering near Tallinn.

I deploy another regular army here, diverted from the center. Next turn a conscript army arrives in the north. Infantry is approaching the Pskov line. We'll see if it holds. The FSB appears in Ostrov. All around a quiet turn up here as the enemy sorts out his logistics.

Am starting to feel slightly more secure about things up here now. The 2 regular armies diverted here make a huge difference. Otherwise, Lenigrad would be in serious trouble. Not that it is out of the woods yet or anything. But I'd hate to be relying on just conscripts and the 23. Army alone since none of the other regulars got out.

No sign of the siege guns next to Riga. Where are they? Did he send them elsewhere? Or are they delayed in arriving?

[Flaviusx]

In the center I catch another break, as several orphan divisions attach themselves to 4. army, wandering through the Pripyet marshes. Even better, that army activates. I might actually get some stuff out of this mess.

Minsk is down to a single rifle division, as one of the orphans adopted by 4. Army came from there and I decided to bug out of Minsk with it. Very surprised it has held out this long. Doubt it's going to last past next turn.

The new main line of resistance is gradually taking shape. I add another fort near Vyazma. 2 regular armies are due to arrive here next turn.

[Flaviusx]

Down south I continue to fall back, and some stuff is now on the east side of the Dnepr. There's a few stragglers he might catch.

I should be largely on the east side of the Dnepr near Kiev by next turn. With that accomplished, I can send Zhukov elsewhere. Shaposhnikov and the focus card can manage the south.

Conscripts will start arriving in the south next turn.

The FSB appears in Lvov, rather to my surprise. I thought he'd send it to Proskurow. He's going to have to move it again almost immediately since I'm well to the east of there by now.

I thought long and hard about banking 6 PPs here. In the end zeroed it out and flipped 3 armies from offensive to neutral posture. (BMD, 4. Army, and 26. Army were still on offensive posture.) Everything on the map is now on neutral posture.

[Flaviusx]

Been getting amazingly lucky on posture rolls, btw. Not a single one has failed so far, despite a 30% chance of that happening each time. 7 armies flipped in total.

[Flaviusx]

Turn 6. Didn't take screens, not much happening, the enemy is still sorting things out. Plus mud hit.

Stalin's mental health is proving to be quite robust in this game. This is the longest I've gone without him losing his sh*t. His paranoia level actually went down this turn. Minsk, which I assumed would fall, did not. Micheal took a whack at it, failed, and then contrived to retreat 2 divisions into it actually making the garrison stronger. Tactical blunder or brilliance? You decide. Frankly, it's kind of screwing me up on this end. I actually need Stalin to go nuts so I can start banking PPs. I asked Micheal to hurry up and take Minsk already in email, lol.

I spend the 10 PPs on a major garrison for Leningrad. I flatly refuse to bank PPs as yet, but am beginning to run out of cheap things to do. Maybe I'll replace another Marshal next turn if Stalin stays sane -- Rokossovsky's threat level is very high, 18, and he's not that amazing at +14 initiative. My Marshal draws in this game haven't been especially good so far.

The retreat down south continues satisfactorily and I judge this to be a good time to send Zhukov to the center. AGS takes a whack on Odessa and fails but reduces the entrenchment levels.

Still no sign of the siege guns anywhere. My assumption is that they are heading towards Riga.

[Flaviusx]

Turn 7. German R+R appears to be over more or less everywhere and things are moving forward again. Minsk FINALLY falls, paranoia shoots to 71, and Stalin blows the roll. The 28. Army commander in the central front is shot to appease Stalin as he repairs to his dacha for endless rounds of vodka. I got lucky here on various counts: the timing, the choice of commander (a crap toady with a mere +17 initiative) and his replacement (a loyal soldier with +20.)

Now I can count on 20 PPs in the bank next turn. Do I spend this on improving army C+C? Or getting my defense stance costs down? I'm actually doing well on activations more or less everywhere. Southern and Central theaters have good bonuses, +39 and +34 respectively. North is only +10 but here I don't need to maneuver so much and things are mostly activating anyways.

Conscripts are arriving in substantial numbers now, and they kinda suck. So that means probably its time to bring down those posture costs. What I hate about this is that it feeds paranoia, but that's life in the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, so far as the Northern theater goes, the siege guns arrive next to Riga this turn, as anticipated. So kiss that place bye bye. The Pskov line is holding and the German seems reluctant to even attack it. I think he's trying to maneuver around it.

The Finns launch a cross border attack next to Leningrad. I hope that costs him lots of PPs. These count as border violations according to the rules. Will be monitoring this situation closely. For the moment, I'm rotating fresh units into the hex in question. I may need to build a fort NE to Leningrad and fall back there. Leningrad itself has a major garrison in it already.

[Flaviusx]

In the center enemy is rapidly approaching my new main line of resistance. This isn't as well manned and fortified as I'd like. Reinforcements (all regulars) are rapidly pouring in. None of this stuff is infantry in all likelihood. Let's see if I can create some panzer traps for him.

The FSB is still in Vilnius. My bet is he'll poke at the MLR with the fast units, stop, push the FSB to Orsha, and wait for the grunts to catch up. Unless he can create a hole somewhere. But I'm defending in some depth and if he gets too clever here I can smack some panzers around.

Am concerned about the soft spot north of Kalinin, though. He might plunge 3 PG into that hole regardless of the ability to sustain the drive.

[Flaviusx]

Down south I continue to backpeddle. Conscripts are arriving in large numbers. I abandon Kiev to its devices. Hoping to stall him in the Dnepropetrovsk area. Not seriously concerned about PG1 down here, hes got to do another supply base change before they can really go anywhere.

[Flaviusx]

For Stalin's listening pleasure while he's on his paranoid bender:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRpAANsoG8I

Got the next turn back from MT, but am kind of hungover myself, went out for cocktails and pool last night with the boys. I'll grind it out later today.

[governato]

Does the game model the industry evacuation ? (I have not played the Red Army side yet to avoid spoilers ). I understand that it'd not affect the Russian production in this scenario, but it was certainly a constraint in the real campaign.


I ask because you seemed to have been able to move back pretty fast, even leaving Kiev and Smolensk behind so fast that the industry evacuation would likely have been affected (historically it really started going only in late July, even if the first industry displacements started in early July).

In a similar vein, the Red Army did not really place many garrisons, due to poor C&C. The Wehrmacht famously stormed a number of major cities with their panzer spearheads...instead DCB's Riga is always hard to take..

I think Garrisons should be handled the way bridges are, i.e only Zhukov should be able to place one.

In other words, maybe the penalties for such strategies (fast retreats and dropping major garrisons) should overall be a bit higher? Note that I mention it here and not in an OKH fanboy thread for obvious reasons

[Flaviusx]

The game doesn't model production at all and the reinforcement schedule is fixed.

The penalties in this game come from paranoia. Yet ironically in this game I've been somewhat frustrated at the lack of paranoia.

So if I have a lot of garrisons, it's because of the lack of paranoia. You can drop one every turn for free so long as Stalin is sane. The major garrisons do cost PP on an escalating basis, and I've only bought two so far. They are now up to 15 PPs and not cheap at this point.

So far as running away goes, well, at least we no longer have the Iron Wall in the center issue. I ran there because I had no army to defend with and with all the cities in the area flipped over, no good place to feed in reinforcements. Plus Leningrad required 2 armies diverted from the center. So I've had virtually no army in the center at all up until the last couple of turns when the regulars began arriving in force. I wasn't going to dump them all in Smolensk.

I could actually defend more forward in the south. But the open flank in the north is dissuading me from doing so. I'm backpeddling in order to align the south with the center and not have Guderian turn up and say HI GUYZ in my rear. Unfortunately this means defending in clear terrain in the middle of the Ukraine, which is not such a great thing. I do have the lower Dnepr to work with, and intend to do so.

So the fast retreat is a combination of no army in the center (the original borders armies are all dead, save a few stragglers) with reinforcement arriving at the rear, and in the south I went all in with command resources sufficient to nearly guarantee activations and have full freedom of maneuver. I saved the regulars in the south at the cost of the regulars in the north and center being wiped out almost to a man.

We'll see how this shakes out. The enemy is going to have a lot of clear weather to work with from positions further east and this could blow up in my face. The Soviets face a reinforcement crunch in September, too.

Really need to get back on this game, took yesterday off for my own personal R+R.

[governato]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx


So if I have a lot of garrisons, it's because of the lack of paranoia. You can drop one every turn for free so long as Stalin is sane. The major garrisons do cost PP on an escalating basis, and I've only bought two so far. They are now up to 15 PPs and not cheap at this point.

Exactly, and yes, let's see a few good games going to completion, but *if* it turns out that there is a need for a Soviet rebalance I'd argue that Garrisons and an abstraction of industry evacuation 'd be good places to start with. They were operational headaches, and so they should be for the DCB players.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: governato

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx


So if I have a lot of garrisons, it's because of the lack of paranoia. You can drop one every turn for free so long as Stalin is sane. The major garrisons do cost PP on an escalating basis, and I've only bought two so far. They are now up to 15 PPs and not cheap at this point.

Exactly, and yes, let's see a few good games going to completion, but *if* it turns out that there is a need for a Soviet rebalance I'd argue that Garrisons and an abstraction of industry evacuation 'd be good places to start with. They were operational headaches, and so they should be for the DCB players.

Russia had no problems moving industry and troops at the same time.

But as rail movement does not exist for the Soviets.....

[governato]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: governato

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx


So if I have a lot of garrisons, it's because of the lack of paranoia. You can drop one every turn for free so long as Stalin is sane. The major garrisons do cost PP on an escalating basis, and I've only bought two so far. They are now up to 15 PPs and not cheap at this point.

Exactly, and yes, let's see a few good games going to completion, but *if* it turns out that there is a need for a Soviet rebalance I'd argue that Garrisons and an abstraction of industry evacuation 'd be good places to start with. They were operational headaches, and so they should be for the DCB players.

Russia had no problems moving industry and troops at the same time.

But as rail movement does not exist for the Soviets.....

They were a C&C problem, not just a logistics one. Same as blowing bridges in game terms.

OK I will stop here ..back to Flavs AAR .

[Flaviusx]

Turn 8, shaken and stirred Stalin nonetheless resumes command. No screens here, mostly just maneuvering. Riga falls. AGN convinces me to fall back from the Pskov live into the woods just north of it. He's also sending some stuff into the gap between the Northern and Central theaters and I'm having problems covering it.

Odessa resists yet another assault and this is starting to get expensive for the Romanians. But it will fall in due course, even without the siege guns. The 2 divisions in there are getting run down.

The Finns decline to take another whack at the Leningrad border. Presumably the bill came in for their last attempt. Germany doesn't have that many PPs coming in that they can afford this luxury.

After hemming and hawing over the 20 PPs in the kitty I decide to buy a major garrison for Moscow and Zhukov gives Rokossovsky a stern talking to, raising his initiative to 24. That zeroes out PPs. Better safe than sorry so far as Moscow goes. I keep putting off the big ticket items, namely the CC improvement and the defense posture cost reduction.

Hopefully Rostov won't need a garrison anytime soon, because that's gonna cost 20 PPs. Ouch.

Not happy with Rokossovsky's threat of 18 but it looks like I'm committed to keeping him.

The panzers all seem to have been set to sustained offensive posture. That's very clever. He's going to accumulate plenty of fuel this way. He can switch them over to blitz later on, no immediate need for that.