Aditia vs. Darbymcd

[Aditia]

At Tula I plan 2 pincers to remove a part of his front in preparation for Summer. The only sign that anything is planned is the formation encircled in blue. The southern pincer will jump off between Orel and Kursk. 3 Pz Corps are committed to this, with 1Pz and 1 Mot. Division in reserve to reinforce the most successful pincer.

[Aditia]

The most ambitious of the 3 offensives in the south. I hope to encircle a significant part of his forward divisions that are deployed North of Stalino. Unfortunately the Southern pincer is not yet ready with 1 Pz Corps transferring to Stalino from the Crimea and rail is lacking here. 1 FBD was used during blizzard to complete a line from Poland to Tarnopol in the Ukraine to have strategic redundancy, but this has slowed down rail building towards Stalino.
The Wiking remains in the Crimea to have some offensive capability. Note how I am occopying the the entrances to the Crimea with weak units to prevent strategic para drops here.

[Aditia]

Turn 36 production showing pools of A/C and AFV

[Aditia]

Turn 37, last turn of Blizzard. I am ready to launch my offensives next turn, witht he exception of at Stalino. The crucial Pz Corps there has not arrived yet, and all I have for mobile forces there are a strong Pz. Division and 2 motorised brigades.

See below the attack plan. Encircled in Red is where the Red Army seems strongest, on the shoulders of Voronezh. I have been doing tons of recon flights there for 6 turns to keep him there. The secondary objective of the 2 operations here is to hopefully force him to create a more unfavourable disposition of force in preparation of summer.

I did not do much recon this turn, so you are not seeing much of the red army.

[Aditia]

Turn 38, start of German snow operations.

At Yaroslav I learn an important lesson; Operating a solo Panzer Corps is a waste of resources.. I can already see how things here will fall short of objectives. At least it will force some sort of Soviet reaction and force using some rail points to evac Yaroslav and Ivanovo industry, which is all still there.

[Aditia]

At Tula the offensive starts well, although I had to redirect my southern pincer towards a shallower objective as the forces opposing it were too strong to reliably force a breakthrough.

[Aditia]

At Stalino I contemplated to wait for the southern pincer to be ready, but the Snow season is too short for such luxuries.

The offensive is launched. An easy breakthrough and good progress in the north, but the southern pincer flags, we are unable to create the crucial 3 Hex breakthrough. The panzer corps that was in transit has now arrived though.

[Aditia]

See below relevant data for this first offensive turn since mud.

- Stuka losses are again unsustainable
- Ground Combat losses are noticeably higher than in summer.
- I am very short on trucks
- In the air, I lose 6% of the luftwaffe, but destroy 12% of the VVS.
- I again turn off ground support at the end of my turn, to prevent unnecessary stuka losses.

Edit: With seasons changing I again reorganise TOE settings to prevent excessive usage of manpower/armaments where it is not needed. The logistics phase this turn a lot was used to bring units back up to strength after blizzard, but that is fine. I consistently have all support units using the 88mm FlAK at high TOE as it is so good.

[Aditia]

More tuns later. Darbymcd now has turn 40.

[Icier]

How did bombing HQ turn out..as I am thinking of including it in my next game?

[Aditia]

hmm, not much impact as of yet, I think it will be more of an impact late game when the red airforce is dominant. It is really hard to gauge the impact as it happens during your opponent's turn. Probably best tested in a late game scenario playing against yourself.

We agreed to both para drops and HQ bombing as it is realistic for the Soviet player to have that capability.

I guess with the amount of disruption that bombing causes, you could cripple leadership rolls late game, but whether or not overpowered; it really depends on the mechanics/maths involved. For now, I am just being diligent, stacking my HQs with 88s wherever there is a strong VVS presence.

[Aditia]

Turn 39

Second turn of my limited snow offensive.

At Yaroslav I lack the strength to accomplish any real objectives:

[Aditia]

Much better progress at Tula.

Pockets are not huge, but that wasn't the objective. I want to weaken the Red Army further in preparation for summer while keeping my lines short for mud.

[Aditia]

At Stalino the southern pincer is still having difficulties; the problem here is that I played this turn too hastily and neglected to do some proper calculations.

I really want to close a pocket next turn, so I can clear it in the last turn of snow.

The units encircled in red appear to be the rawest of recruits; very weak units. His stronger units in the south are the ones in danger.

[Aditia]

In the air, I am able to keep my losses very manageable. To be honest, I have no clue what the effect is on my opponent of the how I have been conducting my air war. Comparing to other AAR I do believe I am doing a very good job at keeping my losses light, thereby keeping the Luftwaffe strong with high morale/experience. So far the only air groups that have been spent are 1 Stuka Group, 1 He-111 squadron and 1.5 Ju-88 groups.

[Aditia]

Overview of the South:

[Aditia]

Turn 40, 3rd turn of snow and the last turn I can be offensive before having to organise the front for mud.

At Yaroslav, lack of movement points and the terrain persuades me to swing North to Yaroslav, as there is no way I will be able to reach Ivanovo AND not be in an unfavourable position for mud.

During mud I'll decide whether or not to relocate the Pz Corps here.

[Aditia]

At Tula, the pockets held and the infantry is used to clear them. I move towards Ryazan and remove a few more forts west of Tamboy.

[Aditia]

At Stalino I took a good while this turn to calculate the best approach to closing a pocket, as I really do not want to be on pocket duty during mud, and I redirect the Northern pincer towards a shallower breakthrough to link up with the Southern pincer. Maybe not so daring, but the result is a success and the LSAH had high enough MP to cross from north to south to make the pocket secure.

[Aditia]

In the far north, STAVKA has realised that the Finns are having morale problems and organises a successful attack.

I can plug the line, but I need to take some action to ameliorate the situation. I plan to create a rotational system between the front and Leningrad garrison duty to rotate units with low morale out of the line. I have good rail in the area so all I need to do is find buffer forces during mud to setup the rotation.