Yet another grand campaign - GC 1941

[originalperson0]

Army Group Center

The progress I'm making is pretty fast at least compared to other people's playthroughs taking Smolensk on turn 4. However some of my divisions are too far away to receive any fuel/ammo and replacements so they just have like 8 MPs on the beginning of the turn. Ground support was turned off because no fighter escorts, maybe I should not rebase them for like a turn and see what happens.

Anyways, I am still deciding on continuing the advance with my depleted tanks or just considerate my lines until the infantry arrives. I got freight into Minsk this turn but it isn't receiving a lot of freight for some reason, maybe I just have to wait for a bit or something.

Its a common situation in my current game and basically any of the games I have played I was able use my Pz Armee's to sweep round behind the enemy and trap huge forces in the opening months.

I would use the infantry and some Pz's if necessarily to destroy the pockets, but no sooner had the Axis turn finished a Soviet it wall would appear in front of me.

So its was as they say " rinse and repeat " eventually the AI runs out of troops in the short term.

I focus on destroying the Red Army however I still try to push towards objectives at the same time, the thing is if you can quickly destroy the Soviets quickly it takes about 10 weeks for destroyed units to get back on the map.

I am probably not telling you anything you don't already know, of course the trick is having your Pz's fuelled and supplied so when the enemy has now units on the map you put the foot down, of course easy then done.

Obviously i cant tell you how to play the game as everyone has a different play style and I am far from a expert but as for you depleted units " go for broke " sure rest here and there drive them are far and as fast as you can go until the mud.

Then you could dig in and rest and wait till the supply lines catch up, they AI very rarely attacks in the mud weather, and so you can rotate your troops that are really bad out of the line.

If you can reach the forests in front of Moscow "dig in " you will either be forced back or give ground, either way don't be afraid to attack , not only counterattack but attack proper in the winter 41 /42, you have a better chance of holding in front of Moscow than in the South, which i found in my current game.

This was historically opposite, I did it wrecked my Pz's more or less but I was ready come March and really attack hard that month, of course i could try this tactic next time and it could end up being a total disaster and there are far far better players with better advice.


regards

I think I'm going to rest my panzers or at least limit their activity until my supply lines and infantry catch up because they are too far away to receive any supply at all.

[originalperson0]

Army Group South

I think I'm advancing too fast, I don't have enough infantry to clear the pockets since 6th Army is busy securing one and 17th Army has been tied down for like 2 turns already, maybe I can use the infantry corps of the First Panzer group. Supply is not that bad and my panzers are not understrength compared to Army Group Center.

I have decided to just continue the advance of my mobile units towards Dnipropetrovsk.

[Stamb]

unless front is static, which will happen later in the game, you should never leave HQs without combat unit on top of it
as there might be some mad cavalry, or other unit, that will displace it and as a result kill good leader

[originalperson0]

unless front is static, which will happen later in the game, you should never leave HQs without combat unit on top of it
as there might be some mad cavalry, or other unit, that will displace it and as a result kill good leader

It will probably be fine but I guess I will stack it on some infantry unit just in case.

[originalperson0]

A lot of AFVs were lost this turn, probably due to the things happening around Smolensk, most of the Soviet losses come from the big Lvov pocket in the south.

[originalperson0]

Army Group North

Not a lot happened here compared to the last few turns, the supply situation is going to improve soon with the ports in Estonia and the railway being connected with Pskov. The mobile units up here are much stronger than the ones in the center and south because there wasn't much combat until now.

The breakthrough at Novgorod will probably be contained so I just have to wait until more infantry arrives to support the panzers.

[originalperson0]

Army Group Center

Advance is really slow, probably should wait until the rail gets linked up to Vitebsk and Mogilev. The 29th motorized division currently holds the spot as the most depleted unit on the map due to me attacking that one hex like 4 times which I probably shouldn't have done.

Only got a few hexes this turn, going to until like 2 turns or longer until Vitebsk and Mogilev gets connected to the rail. Maybe I should turn off refit on my mobile divisions so they don't try to grab so much replacements.

[originalperson0]

Army Group South

Advance slowed down as usual, panzer units depleted you get the gist of it. Anyways Kiev got encircled and now 1st Panzer army will continue north and south of the Dnieper and 17th Army is just an army to clear pockets. Supply isn't that bad, Vinnitsa has been linked with the rail, I put some weak mobile units at the depot at Proskurov and put them on refit to see what would happen, I have like a couple hundred tanks in the pool but I can't get them to the units because of logistics.

[tm1]

Are you planning to push 16th Armee across The Valdai Hills before winter sets in ?

I consider it a high priority target area, vital to Army Group Norths survival over the first winter period.

[originalperson0]

Are you planning to push 16th Armee across The Valdai Hills before winter sets in ?

I consider it a high priority target area, vital to Army Group Norths survival over the first winter period.

If there isn't much soviet units on the Lovat, sure why not.

[originalperson0]

Army Group North

Novgorod is finally taken, I create a depot every time I come across a railyard and place like 3 construction units and priority repairs in it, more depots the better(I think). I only have 2 AP left for this turn and I have only completed the Army Group North.

Soviets finally formed a very strong frontline here, I don't think they have a lot on the eastern flank. The Estonian ports now work after like 3 weeks supplying 18th Army. I am sure the advance will continue once the rain stops(never), the terrain around Novgorod is a bunch of swamps and with a supply problem I will not get far even if I do manage a breakthrough.

[loki100]

Army Group North

Novgorod is finally taken, I create a depot every time I come across a railyard and place like 3 construction units and priority repairs in it, more depots the better(I think). I only have 2 AP left for this turn and I have only completed the Army Group North.
....

don't do both allocate and priority repair, that just costs you admin pts. Priority repair is nothing to do with cement deliveries etc, its simply an instruction to the auto allocation routines to send a construction unit here when it has one spare.

less clear cut, I've stopped doing either allocation or priority repair. Unless you are capturing a lot in a turn, the simple auto-allocation works well. Just try to always have construction units in OKH (or Stavka), with the axis 17A starts vastly overloaded, return those to OKH and that should be enough for 1941.

The other side to this, placing an army HQ on a damaged rail hex will redeem most of the lost capacity instantly. Its very unlikely a depot at the edge of your freight system will be operating near capacity in any case. So yes, you need that railyard, but in about 6-10 turns. That is when the depot is in the second echelon and its main role to store freight for onwards transmission to other depots.

Across 1941, that is a lot of saved admin pts, enough for a few more leadership changes to get the bigger numpties back to desk jobs in Berlin

Fully agree, every railyard gets a depot, just you don't need to invest in its fast repair

[originalperson0]

don't do both allocate and priority repair, that just costs you admin pts. Priority repair is nothing to do with cement deliveries etc, its simply an instruction to the auto allocation routines to send a construction unit here when it has one spare.

less clear cut, I've stopped doing either allocation or priority repair. Unless you are capturing a lot in a turn, the simple auto-allocation works well. Just try to always have construction units in OKH (or Stavka), with the axis 17A starts vastly overloaded, return those to OKH and that should be enough for 1941.

The other side to this, placing an army HQ on a damaged rail hex will redeem most of the lost capacity instantly. Its very unlikely a depot at the edge of your freight system will be operating near capacity in any case. So yes, you need that railyard, but in about 6-10 turns. That is when the depot is in the second echelon and its main role to store freight for onwards transmission to other depots.

Across 1941, that is a lot of saved admin pts, enough for a few more leadership changes to get the bigger numpties back to desk jobs in Berlin

Fully agree, every railyard gets a depot, just you don't need to invest in its fast repair

Oh ok, so does allocating construction units to a depot have any major impact at all?

[loki100]

yes buts its very situational.

In effect you know that there are construction units at that location doing the repair. So that is clear. Whats not is if its worth an admin pt (esp in 1941 when these are rare), as:

a) if you have a decent stock in OKH/Stavka, the auto-routine will often send one anyway
b) why do you need it repaired quickly?

The second one is maybe a bit unintuitive. If the railyard is hosting a depot that is close to the front then there are relevant factors. First, its unlikely to be processing that much freight (unless you have used the super depot concept). Second if you need to improve that processing an Army (or Army Grp/Front) HQ on the hex is more than enough to compensate. And if its a super depot you really should team the FBD/NKPS with a HQ.

So if the depot is simply part of your front line logistics speeding up the repair of the railyard via AP spend is a niche choice.

Over time that depot falls to the rear, then its more than likely to be picking up freight from the rear that can't reach the front and next turn sending it on to depots at the front. Here you do need the railyard (if it is 2+ size) as you need the 'trains' it generates. A good eg of this sort of place is Minsk/Kiev that can act as a sort of strategic reserve to be released when you need the freight.

But take your Novgorod eg, that front is going to be moving a hex or so a turn now due to resistance and terrain. So it'll be quite a while (if ever) before it falls into the category of working in a depot-depot relationship. As long as its role is depot-unit, you can readily compensate for the damage with a HQ.

Or in other words, i'd save the AP.

[originalperson0]

Another turn of launching some frontal assaults against the soviet lines, I will try to maybe send a few of the panzer/motorized units under 50 TOE to sit at a depot on refit next turn to try to refit them. I have a ton of tanks and equipment in the reserve that are not being used at the front.

I don't know why but my fighters are only escorting for like 5 battles and then after the bombers go alone and get destroyed, maybe some supply problems or whatever. I also sent the construction units from the Army Group headquarters to OKH.

[originalperson0]

Army Group South

Made some good progress, two pockets were cleared and now another one has formed(it will not last) and Kiev falls pretty easily. There were only like 2 divisions there.

Down south at Odessa I have to spend next turn cutting off the land connection and naval patroling, then wait another turn for the isolation effect to start and then attack. I stole a bunch of Romanian artillery and pioneer support units and assigned them to the corps, there was some support units at RM high command but I have to assign them manually by changing their HQ instead of just clicking them for some reason.

I put some units way back in the line dealing with leftovers of the Lvov pocket that were in the mountains onto refit on a depot, they only got like 1000 men in replacements which isn't a lot. Probably because I put it on a railyard with 64% damage.

[originalperson0]

Here are a bunch of things that I found interesting.

Kiev.png (204.42 KiB) Viewed 1597 times

East Kiev.png (199.78 KiB) Viewed 1597 times

I thought that I would have to wait a turn to get all my divisions to be able to deliberate attack Kiev but I overestimated the massive Soviet defensive CV. At the start of this campaign I wanted to make certain that my attacks were going to succeed not wanting to waste movement points and destroy a unit's toe making sure that I at least had double the CV value of the enemy unit. Now I have decided that if a unit's defense cv is about the same as my attack cv, the attack will most likely succeed due to my artillery disrupting half their elements.

nofighters.png (12.93 KiB) Viewed 1597 times

fighters.png (189.08 KiB) Viewed 1597 times

Anyways, I enabled ground support and this keeps happening where I barely get any fighter escorts for some battles and plenty for others. Ground support has a big effect with enemy units that don't have a lot of ground elements and can win the battle for you, very useful when you don't have a lot of good units.

[originalperson0]

Army Group North

Made some good progress compared to previous turns capturing Luga, I think I'm going to head north-east next and encircle those soviet units, but they will probably either retreat or rail like 10 more units to the area. Not much to say other than just belaboring about how my panzers are so weak or logistical stuff.

[originalperson0]

Army Group Center

T7AGC.png (4.83 MiB) Viewed 1504 times

We have a slight fuel problem on the frontline but it should be fixed when the rail gets linked up but that will take awhile and I feel like I'm wasting time and movement points not attacking the Soviets so I just continued to advance 1 hex at a time across most of the front.

veryminorfuelproblem.png (4.15 KiB) Viewed 1504 times

[originalperson0]

Army Group South

T7AGS.png (4.92 MiB) Viewed 1449 times

This turn has just been grabbing empty hexes and losing battles to massive reserve activations. It's very annoying to have this 0.1 cv unit get backed up by half the frontline and I lose like 30 tanks because of that. Anyways, I will attack Oddesa next turn, I don't think I can take it in 1 battle so I will just repeatedly attack it until the fort level goes down and they suffer the isolation combat penalty.