The Sky’s the Limit- PBEM GC 41 jubjub (Axis) vs. M60A3TTS (Soviet)

[M60A3TTS]

In the center, we have had to try and hold the best defensive terrain east of Smolensk. Western and Reserve Fronts hold this area.




Bryansk has fallen and the panzers are moving on Orel.




Two tank armies are pulled together under Cherevichenko's Central Front to operate in the area south-southwest of Tula.

It bears mentioning here that Georgy Zhukov was dismissed by AI Stalin over the last several weeks; replaced by our favorite cavalryman.

[M60A3TTS]

In the south, the situation is at the level of organized chaos. Little has improved since the mauling of Southwestern Front in the Rovno region during the opening of the campaign.

The Crimea simply does not have sufficient defenders to do more than fall back and then fall back again.




Southwestern Front is able to avoid a complete rout, but the rear guard is eventually outrun this week in the Kursk-Belgorod region.




Stalino and the Donbas have fared no better.




Big picture, there simply aren't enough Soviet ground units at this stage to hold a continuous front.

[M60A3TTS]

Now for some stats.

We are just able to break over the 3 million man mark at the start of the week, but slide under that by the end.

German armor is suffering from some operational issues after this rapid advance, so hopefully there will be some pause somewhere.



Soviet ground losses cross the 2 million mark.




Air losses are all largely the modern fighters and tac bombers which is what we are concentrated around. Despite the losses, the VVS has drawn blood from the Luftwaffe.




Destroyed units.




Lastly the VP count. We should survive the Week 16 check unless there is some dreadful mistake made in defense.

[Stamb]

interesting that you have no freight in Leningrad
you was not having depot on 4 there from the start of the game, or losing double rail made such an effect?

[M60A3TTS]

interesting that you have no freight in Leningrad
you was not having depot on 4 there from the start of the game, or losing double rail made such an effect?

There was about 20.8k of freight in Leningrad on turn 8 and then 4k and change on turn 9. Units began running short but that stopped being an issue later.

[jasonbroomer]

Great to have a 9 political leader at Stavka.

I'm surprised that you deploy a full defence line around VL and the Lovat marshes. This is rarely an Axis target, especially now that the Leningrad rails have been cut

[M60A3TTS]

Here is an example of one offensive lineup that I'm dealing with around Leningrad.

[gingerbread]

Have you disbanded your artillery SU?

[Beethoven1]

Here is an example of one offensive lineup that I'm dealing with around Leningrad.

And with reference to the discussion of artillery divisions on the main forum, that is one example of why you don't need artillery divisions. Jubjub is attacking their with multiple corps commanders, and as a result, he gets quite a lot of artillery into the battle. Axis obviously does not have artillery divisions, but if they did, I doubt he would need them.

For many battles, it is often just better to attack with multiple commanders rather than a single one, despite the command penalties, because the extra artillery more than makes up for it.

[Beethoven1]

Big picture, there simply aren't enough Soviet ground units at this stage to hold a continuous front.

There also are not enough Soviet ground units to hold a continuous front later, in 1942. If you try to do that, you will be committing suicide. Or possibly not if you are playing jubjub's mod (not sure if this is a vanilla game or his mod?).

[M60A3TTS]

Have you disbanded your artillery SU?

Not for the purpose of recovering manpower. I'm close to the max allowed. Some are being disbanded to make room for what I consider to be more effective types over the long term. An example of that would be eliminating '41 BM Howitzer Regiments for Heavy Gun Regiments. The BM Regiments lose half their guns in 1942 while the Heavy Gun Regiments do not.

[M60A3TTS]

(not sure if this is a vanilla game or his mod?).

It is vanilla.

[M60A3TTS]

And with reference to the discussion of artillery divisions on the main forum, that is one example of why you don't need artillery divisions. Jubjub is attacking their with multiple corps commanders, and as a result, he gets quite a lot of artillery into the battle. Axis obviously does not have artillery divisions, but if they did, I doubt he would need them.

For many battles, it is often just better to attack with multiple commanders rather than a single one, despite the command penalties, because the extra artillery more than makes up for it.

A lot of German artillery also starts with an experience level of 90 which the Soviets will never get close to throughout the game.

You can assign an army to Stavka and pack it with on-map artillery, but you will have to accept the Soviet artillery malus of a non-assault HQ until 1944. The controlling battle commander has no effect on that.

[FortTell]

An example of that would be eliminating '41 BM Howitzer Regiments for Heavy Gun Regiments. The BM Regiments lose half their guns in 1942 while the Heavy Gun Regiments do not.

Edit: please ignore the first passage, I mixed up the Heavy Gun and Gun regiments. But still, BM regiments demand 203mm in their ToE directly, while Heavy Gun regiments demand the effectively non-existent Br-2 gun. So the game system will look for replacements. And you need to be lucky for them to be 203mm and not the 152mm ML-20 guns, as they share the Heavy Artillery type.

I would caution against disbanding 203mm howitzer (BM) units. Even 12 of those deal massive damage in massed combat or in dense terrain, both relevant for the struggling Leningrad area.
18 guns of the Gun regiment are not great. The superior arty units are Army art. regiments (36 152mm guns), Cannon regiments (48 122mm guns, though you can never fill them before the corps arty ToE switch in the winter of 41) and later Howitzer brigades (84 122mm howitzers).

[M60A3TTS]

An example of that would be eliminating '41 BM Howitzer Regiments for Heavy Gun Regiments. The BM Regiments lose half their guns in 1942 while the Heavy Gun Regiments do not.

Edit: please ignore the first passage, I mixed up the Heavy Gun and Gun regiments. But still, BM regiments demand 203mm in their ToE directly, while Heavy Gun regiments demand the effectively non-existent Br-2 gun. So the game system will look for replacements. And you need to be lucky for them to be 203mm and not the 152mm ML-20 guns, as they share the Heavy Artillery type.

You build Army Artillery Regiments first to draw down the ML-20 152mm gun-howitzer pool. Then, when you are ready to start the BM conversion, take what remains of the ML-20s in the active pool, add what is in the transit pool x.25 to account for the next pool transfer plus 20 for the following week's production. Divide by 36 and round up. Take that number and build those Army Artillery Regiments. It is then safe to build the heavy gun regiments for the 203mm guns as there will be no ML-20s to go there.

[M60A3TTS]

Week 11

The air regiments will drop from size 32 to 20 next week, so all fighter regiments in the reserve get moved to the map if they have over 20 pilots.

We have crept up in air support crews for the airbases to 104,274.

Air losses this week were 93 Axis to 423 Soviet. Pilot KIAs were 47 to 356.

Air-to-Air engagements took place in the skies of the Greater Leningrad area. VVS flew supplies into the Leningrad defenders.


The German 6th Infantry Division took some casualties from a ground attack mission near Yartsevo, northeast of Smolensk.


Kursk was captured and Orel/Belgorod are surrounded. Some VVS ground support is being committed, but few bombers among them.

[M60A3TTS]

Week 12

The disbanding of the scheduled air units means those pilots can now be assigned from the free pool. The infusion of some quality pilots allows us to fill several regiments with 80+ experience 1st Flight leaders.


Now that air regiment size is 20, most restrictions are lifted among the reserve fighter regiments so their planes can be replenished to full strength.

More air action around Leningrad with largely the same results.


Around Sevastopol, a series of unescorted Luftwaffe missions go in and meet our fighters.


Unknown at the time was that the expended fuel from these missions would not be replaced when the port was isolated, even though tens of thousands of tons of supplies sat at the Sevastopol depot.


Total air losses for the week were 167 Axis to 342 Soviet.

[jasonbroomer]

Pavlov being alive is actually really inconvenient - his stats are pretty decent (morale aside) but that political rating is brutal if you want to replace WF commanders under him.

The Soviets have so many excess HQs, just allocate the HQ to a front with the highest political rating. Pavlov is good compared to most Soviet front commanders. Thankfully I've never lost him yet!

[M60A3TTS]

Week 13

Now that some regiments are at full strength, we can look to send a few formations to the reserves.

Here is one of them.


Now since all pilots have 50 experience, none of them will get any value from training. So what would be the point?

Well, since we have a full 20 pilots and planes, the unit that comes out of the SR will have the same unit experience level as the one that went in. The difference though is the pilot data will all be changed.

This unit has an experience level of 63. Let us suppose that when the unit comes out of the SR, 18 of the 20 pilots have an experience level of 63. Pilot #19 gets experience level 43. What experience level does pilot #20 get? The answer of course is 83. So, the lead flight #1 pilot of this unit will go up +7 in experience along with the other 11 in his flight when in combat benefit the same. Meanwhile the pilot with experience of 43 gets put in the second flight with a skill of 63, so he benefits quite nicely.

So all in all we get an improved fighter unit from the SR, not really from training, but from the law of averages. As we lose pilots and unit experience drops off, we will be able to disband these reserve on-map formations, put in the pilots to get the experience level into the low 60's, then off to the reserves to get quality lead pilots.

Now, this isn't perfect, it's quite possible a lead pilot will come back from the SR at like experience 77 and you may want to start the process all over again. It does take the unit out of the picture for a bit of time and for a lot of players, the micro may not be worth it for them, but the process will work. And lastly it isn't really OP, the whole process is only really able to get going after most of the '41 Campaign has run it's course. The main benefit will be available in 1942 while the formations stay at size 20. Once 1943 rolls around, the unit size will go to 32 and reduce the effectiveness of the lead flight pilot within the unit formation. But then the guards air units kick in and will help with overall pilot experience.

[M60A3TTS]

Week 13 continued

A lot of light rain falls this week.

Air action was largely restricted to the area around Leningrad. Losses were manageable.