Rhine or Ruin (no glvaca)

[Klydon]

I may be misreading where you think his tanks/mech are. It sounds like he has just a little extra with PG4, but you make it sound like PG2 and PG3 have been reduced to just one PG and the other one sent south so that there are 2 mech groups in the south.

I sort of like to think in terms of panzer corps. (PG1 has 3 corps to start, PG2 3 corps, PG3 2 corps, and PG4 2 corps). That is 7 corps north of the marshes and 3 south. I usually like to send 1 corps south from PG2 and will run a extra corps from PG3 with AGN. AGN has 3 corps, center 3 corps, and south 4 corps.

Very narrow salients by him on his advances north and center.

[M60A3TTS]

I like the thinking that is going on over how to reduce certain production to keep the supply base stronger. Too many Soviet airplanes in production is a factor in weakening the supply chain over time. The one other factory type that seems to need a step up in recognition is trucks. Save enough of them and you can strengthen the Soviet mobile formations down the road in Fall '42 and swing the strategic initiative to your side sooner.

[Peltonx]

Good job so far MT no major pockets or minor ones given up so far and hes under control (so far).

[Farfarer61]

HI discussion follow up. Since the tank battalion to regiment upgrade in Sep 42 boots all your KVs into the pool ( like 2-3000), I am reconsidering the standard evac i.e saving "all" the KV1 factory from Leningrad. I'm thinking 1 point only at the last minute.

[Michael T]

So far no serious factory losses apart from the HI left behind.

Thanks for the info re bracketed supply state.

From my recon I gather he has from AGN 4 Pz xx, 3 Mot xx, AGC 7 Pz, 5 Mot, AGS 6 Pz, 5 mot. 1 Mot unaccounted for.

The far northern front still holds. See pic. 100 Fighters plus 140 bombers. A leader with a 6 rating for INF combat. I am confident this line will hold for now.

[Flaviusx]

Now isn't that much more cost effective than running away to the Svir, spending gobs of APs on forts, and having the Finns blow them up and drive to the rear of Leningrad Front when Leningrad falls? With a grand total of 9 divisions, all that is shut down. (You could even throw a couple of brigades up there in the rear to act as reserves, but strictly speaking, not necessary.)

You don't even need that many planes up there. The bombers are superfluous. A single base with some fighters is good enough.

[76mm]

I'm surprised by how strong those Sov divs facing the Finns are. This early in the game, almost all of mine have a CV of 1; did you cherry pick and send good units up there, or does their commander have a good admin rating or whatever leads to increased CVs?

[Michael T]

All my best units are in the Northern and North Western Fronts. 5 out of the 9 xx shown here are moral 48 to 53. These were all refitted. I pulled one out this turn and replaced with a 42 morale. I am paying much closer attention to morale in this game than in my other Soviet games. Basically any xx of 45 morale or better gets 100% TOE. 44 and below 60% to 80% depending. My OOB is 4.63 mill at turn 7. I like.

[randallw]

Those hexes being defended are great in terms of being a bottleneck for the Finns; each hex is a forest ( light or heavy ), with the two lower hexes on the eastern side of a river.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: randallw
Those hexes being defended are great in terms of being a bottleneck for the Finns; each hex is a forest ( light or heavy ), with the two lower hexes on the eastern side of a river.

Well this is kind of any eye-opener--I've heard Flaviusx go on about this, but with typical ant divisions didn't see it as practicable. Howeber, with a couple of good divisions, and some level 3 forts (not sure how that happened before the Finns swept them aside!), looks like a great approach.

[Flaviusx]

It was always possible to get a fair number of these divisions early on, 76mm.

Until the wretched 41b TOE kicks in, anyways. That's the real killer of rifle division CVs.

[Tarhunnas]

But to what end? Defending a lot of swamp and forest? Once Leningrad is lost there is nothing to defend up there. And you have to abandon that bottleneck anyway as soon as Leningrad falls, unless you have a very good defense line on the Volchov.

[Seminole]

With a grand total of 9 divisions, all that is shut down. (You could even throw a couple of brigades up there in the rear to act as reserves, but strictly speaking, not necessary.)

Until you get hit with a bad roll and see your CV crippled while the Axis triples.

But to what end?

Avoid building 11 fortified regions on the Svir, potential for wins (my earliest Gds units have come from such a line before). I suppose cost/benefit on that is in the eye of the beholder.

I'm impressed by the rapid fortification, as any units you move north of Leningrad before the Finns attack automatically become immobile. If you can't rail them into position and get them off the trains in the same turn, they'll be stuck until the Finns attack.
MT, did you boost sappers/construction SUs in 7th Ind Army?

[notenome]

Maybe he put down some FR in those hexes early?

[Flaviusx]

Seminole, that's what reserves are for. I'd backstop that line with two or three brigades just for that purpose. (Yes, brigades. Good enough to stop the Finns, and higher chance of activation.) I fill out 7. Army to command capacity, in truth. But this is possibly overinsurance, and I think Michael has the cork on pretty tight up here.

I don't think the Finns are going anywhere here.

As far as digging goes, 7. Army already starts with a nice set of SUs. I add two sapper regiments to that and call it day. They dig in surprisingly fast up there. Those early 41a rifle divisions can have very high engineering values, too.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

But to what end? Defending a lot of swamp and forest? Once Leningrad is lost there is nothing to defend up there. And you have to abandon that bottleneck anyway as soon as Leningrad falls, unless you have a very good defense line on the Volchov.

To make sure that the fall of Leningrad doesn't become a total crackup in the north, as seems to happen each and every game to everybody else. People are giving up way too much ground up there, it's totally false economy.

With the Finns bottled up, the Soviet line naturally stabilizes at the Volkhov. This is immensely and quite self evidently better than running back to Yaroslavl.

[HITMAN202]

This is great insight. But after the fall of Lenigrad, why keep the quality Soviet army up north and hang on to the Volkov with another army or two past the 41 blizzard. ??? Likely they will be facing only Finns north of the "Finnish No Move Line." Granted the Soviets are giving up a ton of space, but freeing up those units to slow down the Axis '42 offense may more than offset the negatives. Looking at the Farfarer/M60 game, in spite of the loss of all the territory in northern Russia (which would be a very extreme outcome of abandoning the Vokov line ), Pelton feels M60 has a very winable game. This seems extreme (and even more so "gamey"), but ... ???

[Michael T]

I intend to eventually remove the higher quality units and replace with lower morale dudes as time and fort levels permit. I will eventually, if the line holds at the volkov build level 4 forts. This thing pays for itself after time. FWIW I invested 3 extra xx on the front line facing the Finns before they attacked and as a result I did not lose a single xx from the inital border units facing the Finns.

I ran tests against this defence before the game started and I was not able to breach it after 3 turns of attacks and horrific Finnish casualties. I like the setup and and will keep using it.

To avoid the 'freezing' of units before they get in to position you need to creep up close with dudes entrained and then get into position in one go. I did get burned with one division getting stuck but all went well in the end.

[timmyab]

That's good advice, I'd never thought of doing that.Difficult to avoid losing two or three divisions otherwise.

[notenome]

One must also remember that the Finns don't have many replacements, so anything which bleeds them is cost effective.