43 GC Soviet side

[Oleg Mastruko]

OK I decided to start this thread to try to dispell some myths and simply provide my outlook on the game, after latest fury in the "Pass the Kryptonite" thread: tm.asp?m=2767950 (fury started on the page 6, after Bob, Big Anorak abandoned the game)

Let me say that Bob was nothing but most pleasant as opponent and gaming partner for those 14 turns, and I accepted his apologies and reasons for quitting he gave in the mail. I jumped into his AAR just to find a replacement player who would take his place. Nothing else. I didn't even read the first 5 pages of his AAR. What I saw there, though, disappointed me.

Some posters authoritatively concluded that the game or scenario are broken (after mere 14 turns????) and that there is no point in playing a scenario so completely unbalanced, "simply horrible" and whatnot (I won't go back to that thread to get the exact quotes).

Is the scenario broken or unbalanced? I don't know, it looks good to me, but I'd want everyone to judge for themselves, after hearing both parties (a golden rule of law since Roman times). Someone correctly noticed in the last post I've seen in that thread (got it by e-mail) that oftenly the losing side finds the scenario broken, unbalanced or unplayable, while the winning side finds it perfect and playable.

That is probably the truth..... but in this case..... not the full truth, as I find the scenario fine, but I don't think I am actually winning the game. It's a long way to Berlin. We played only 14 turns!

I also think Bob did some things wrong in his defence. Now, I am not sure that doing things differently would drastically change the outcome(s), but I think we should at least TRY before concluding, in 14 turns, that things are broken. Anyhow, broken or not, we should play on until the game is fun, and this one certainly is at least for me.

First thing Bob did wrong is naming of his AAR thread (Pass the Kryptonite, Soviet supermen). I understand he did that in jest, but one of the reasons for playing 43GC is that it's after both sides' supermen periods, so the forces no longer have much help from the system (blizards, etc). This is war at its' fullest.

OK this was my introductory post, I will present my side of things. Mynok will present his side of things in the AAR he took over from Bob, and let everyone be the judge for themselves. I will post more in the following days, including a brief re-run of the first 14 turns.

Personally so far I find the 43GC immensely enjoyable scenario.

[squatter]

To be honest Oleg, I think you should keep your powder dry for another AAR.

This is going to be a cakewalk that proves nothing.

If it wasnt imbalanced, it certainly is now with the situation Mynok's inheriting.

My guess is after three or four turns Mynok will be wanting to quit in the face of an impossible task.

You'll just end up even more outraged.

I suppose that outcome will at least make for another entertaining rant though.

What would be more interesting would be you and Mynok agreeing to start again, this time with you as Axis. Then we might learn something.

[Oleg Mastruko]

squatter I am not outraged at people quitting or surrendering like men. Senno quit/surrendered our game I never said a bad word about him. If he comes back I will gladly continue our old game. I may be outraged at people bickering from the wings, seeing one side of the battle and concluding the game must be broken for one reason or another.

If those bickering guys are beta testers, that makes the situation even more bizarre.

Also, I plan to play Axis in 43GC but alas the day only has 24 hours.

In this game, among other things, I think Bob unnecessarily incurred huge losses to his forces that he could have avoided. He sometimes gave me huge German casualties as a "gift". By avoiding these kind of mistakes, his casualty rate could have been lower.

Would that make the game more "playable"? I don't know, but I feel I have to present the case before WITE community, and let everyone decide for themselves. Take a look at the current situation, and decide for yourself, how much of it is due to:

a) Soviet good/bad play
b) German good/bad play
c) "Bluntly horrible" scenario

So, this won't be classic "turn by turn" AAR, it will be recap and presentation of the Soviet effort in a manner of court dramas [:D]

Not a lots of pictures, but a lots of words.

[Oleg Mastruko]

Bob's defensive doctrine seems to have been based on presenting a screen of infantry, with Panzer units broken down in regiments, two hexes behind.

At first, he put Panzers into reserve mode. However, since I did attacks only where I had overwhelming advantage, it didn't mean much. Sometimes Panzers reacted, but it rarely mattered. Seeing this, in last turns I think he stopped putting them in the reserve mode.

He had some awesome forces at his disposal, SS units, Gross deutschland etc with CVs above 20 (based on my intel estimate). Instead of using them as fists to do some proper counterattacks, he broke them into regiments with 6-7 CV that were simply swarmed by Sov units.

Generally he did too much fighting (by trying to stubbornly hold the line during my turn and reacting to my breakthroughs during his turn) and too little of retreating. It is a very costly strategy in terms of casualties. To put it bluntly, I think he should have retreated a LOT more often. Territory is cheap, and he has so much of it in 43GC he can and SHOULD afford to trade land for casualties.

It is my impression his play resulted in a lot more casualties, but also more territory held, than historic Germans. If so, what's so wrong with that? He choose a doctrine (that might have been wrong) and should live with the consequences. I don't see anything substantially wrong with this equation. If you want to keep territory at ALL costs, you must be prepared to suffer casualties.

[Oleg Mastruko]

Soviets in 43GC can concentrate insane amount of artillery, and basically take any hex they want to take. In one turn I concentrated 6000+ arty tubes, 6-7 rifle corps, and took Zaporozhye against level 3 fort and unts there that were showing 4=X defensive factor.

It is very wrong for Germans to "insist" on keeping any one hex, and Bob oftently did just that.

In the north Dnepr, near Mogilev, I crossed Dnepr with 3 rifle corps, supported by 7000+ artillery. Initial crossing caused 8000+ German casualties. What, IMO; he should have done, is simply conceded that pointless hex and re-aligned his line. Instead, he ammassed Panzer Grenadier units, retook the hex, with massive casualties from both sides. Then, in the next turn, I again forced the attack with 6, and crossing with 3 corps, supported, again, by 7000+ arty that didn't even move.

In the end he suffered probably 30k+ casualties for a completely pointless, clear terrain hex, with no forts, under a deluge of arty fire, that he should have simply abandoned or conceded. Well he decided to fight for it, and suffered.

I hope some of the examples I gave explain why he had such a horrendous casualty rates (but also managed to keep more territory).

[Oleg Mastruko]

There were/are two things I was afraid of as Soviet in this game.

First is mud. We played with random weather (I like it more that way, even though it's harder for the attacking side). Mud means no attacks, no attacks mean no attrition, no attrition means good news for Germans.

The other is Germans retreating 2-3 hexes, just beyond the reach of Soviet delib attacks. Again, no delib attacks mean no attrition, no attrition means good news for Germans.

In my opinion, he should have retreated more, and less being stubborn about any one hex. Stubbornness cost him casualties, it's as simple as that.

[Oleg Mastruko]

For Soviets all this was IN NO WAY easy.

Every turn required meticolous planning, and was more time consuming than anything I ever played before (including 41 Germans). Since by turn 2 I realized that his strategy will be stubborn fighting, I realised that my counter strategy has to be - inflict as many casualties as I can.

For that, I needed to do around 50-60 successful deliberate attacks (resulting in retreats) per turn.

You think that is easy????

It is not.

But Bob helped [:D] As I said he oftenly presented infantry in the clear, fought stubbornly for pointless backwater hexes etc. So I firmly believe that with different strategy German casualties, that indeed seem very bad, could have been much smaller.

Also, keep in mind that Soviets start with most units FROZEN, and STATIC, and only 60 APs per turn. You need to activate unit per unit, army after army, front after front, to plan and execute attacks at the required rate (50-60 successful attacks per turn)

[Oleg Mastruko]

Hopefully, with these walls of boring text (tl;dr) I presented some of the challenges and solutions from the Soviet side in 43GC. Also, some mistakes I think my opponent did on his part.

Now, if you want so, feel absolutely free to think the scenario is unbalanced, broken, horrible, whatnot. I don't think it is. More precisely, I don't feel I have enough data to conclude that it's broken or unbalanced. I feel 14 turns we played so far went on in pretty realistic fashion. (I don't claim I know where exactly was 56th rifle division in July 43 though).

[Klydon]

Just to give some insight from the Axis standpoint of view (at least in one area anyway). Bob had a lot of issues trying to get his army activated fast enough to be able to get mobile and do as he wished compared to how fast the Russians can get going. Russian infantry divisions can get going with 2-3 CP if I remember correctly and German divisions generally take more and he has fewer CP's to work with. A lot of times early you were hitting on units he had not been able to get activated yet I think. 

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Just to give some insight from the Axis standpoint of view (at least in one area anyway). Bob had a lot of issues trying to get his army activated fast enough to be able to get mobile and do as he wished compared to how fast the Russians can get going. Russian infantry divisions can get going with 2-3 CP if I remember correctly and German divisions generally take more and he has fewer CP's to work with. A lot of times early you were hitting on units he had not been able to get activated yet I think. 

Could be so, but being attacked means, I think, a free activation [;)]

Activating Sov infantry is relatively cheap (2-4 APs), Soviet mechanized units though, require tons of APs to get activated. I had one Mech Corps in the south with CV 20, very strong, it cost me whole turn worth of APs (~60) to activate. In that turn I could have done nothing AP-related except activate that one unit! Since there were always more pressing things to do, activation of that particular unit waited till turn 10 or so, even though I needed services of every Mech corps I could find.

Another thing, I had some tank corps units assigned to weird HQs, like Moscow MD or Volga MD or something. Retransferring these units to proper HQs costs a fortune so I had to use them while still assigned to their ridicolous backwater HQs, paying large penalties in combat calculations.

Things are by no means easy for Soviets, and they need to capture territory (or inflict casualties, or both) at a staggering rate to be able to win by the scenario's end. I am not at all sure that my rate of kill/capture is enough to win, even though it may seem impressive at first sight.

[Oleg Mastruko]

Progress in this scenario is glacially slow. Posting screenshots is almost pointless as there is no progress to be seen. Flavio did an excellent job in his early beta AAR (Flavio is excellent writer and one of my favorite posters on this board).

You may notice, though, how rarely he posted screenshots, and commented something to the tune of "situation does not warrant taking a screenshot" as the progress is so incredibly slow.

In our game, as I explained, Bob very rarely retreated without combat, which made progress that much slower (and also costlier for him)

[Klydon]

Command is a mess for both sides at the start of these scenarios. While historical, I still would not mind going back through some of them and "fixing" them to make them more common sense for players, but I don't see an interest from the community in doing such a thing so I am not going to waste my time. We won't mention what crappy commanders are in charge of either. [:D]

Any mech/panzer/armored unit is going to cost a ton to make mobile. When I was messing around with the 42 scenario as the Russians, my rear areas are littered with static tank brigades that I just can't see spending 6 CP's a pop to get going.

Part of his issues with so many units locked down was he had difficulties in shifting troops around, etc.

I am not trying to give Bob an excuse. I think he had some defensive ideas as you mentioned that just didn't work out real well for him, etc. As time goes along, I am becoming more and more of a fan to do deliberate attacks for the Russians. You can lay some serious hurt on the Axis and the casualty rates seem to be far more favorable. Attacking with 80,000 guys against a 10,000 man defense and losing 4000 while causing 2000 casualties is only going to help my cause far more.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: Klydon
I am not trying to give Bob an excuse. I think he had some defensive ideas as you mentioned that just didn't work out real well for him, etc. As time goes along, I am becoming more and more of a fan to do deliberate attacks for the Russians. You can lay some serious hurt on the Axis and the casualty rates seem to be far more favorable. Attacking with 80,000 guys against a 10,000 man defense and losing 4000 while causing 2000 casualties is only going to help my cause far more.

Exactly. That is why I think that removing Soviet 1:1 modifier in 43, as one guy suggested recently, would not change the game at all. In 43 Sov attacks are done with overwhelming odds, and 1:1 modifier is not needed really. Removing it, would not change the game much if at all.

[Aditia]

All german mobile units are active in the 43-45 campaign. The problem for the germans lie with the static infantry being unable to respond to crises in the lines, and more importantly, anticipate to them. I am in turn 3 of my PBEM and will start an AAR when we get a decent number of turns in.

[squatter]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

ORIGINAL: Klydon
I am not trying to give Bob an excuse. I think he had some defensive ideas as you mentioned that just didn't work out real well for him, etc. As time goes along, I am becoming more and more of a fan to do deliberate attacks for the Russians. You can lay some serious hurt on the Axis and the casualty rates seem to be far more favorable. Attacking with 80,000 guys against a 10,000 man defense and losing 4000 while causing 2000 casualties is only going to help my cause far more.

Exactly. That is why I think that removing Soviet 1:1 modifier in 43, as one guy suggested recently, would not change the game at all. In 43 Sov attacks are done with overwhelming odds, and 1:1 modifier is not needed really. Removing it, would not change the game much if at all.

So the player who already has an overwhelming advantage should be given more advantages?

A game like this depends on the accumulation of events. Every little helps.

Actually, two of the few battle reports BigAnorak posted in his AAR were around 1:1. Both battles were important.

In one, BA showed how a reserve PzG unit just saved two inf divisions from being surrounded. The unit held at just under 1:1 by a single CV point. One CV more on your side and the magic +1 odds in Sov favour would have kicked in, the Germans would have retreated, and the inf divisions trapped.

Another, the assault on Ztown. The initial odds began at 1:1. Different dice rolls on both sides, this assault would have turned on the Soviet +1 modifier.

Furthermore, lets speculate that the German player adopted a retreat 2/3 hexes strategy you mention above. The Soviet player would be relying more on hasty attacks, just as you say. Many of these attacks would end up around 1:1, converted to 2:1 in the Soviets favour by the odds multiplier.

If a good German player is able to engineer through his skill multiple situations where the Sovs are attacking at 1:1, this will be for nothing because of the modifier.

It's nonsense to say that the 1:1 modifier is irrelevant in 43. Sure, it's less important than it is in 42 or 41, but still relevent.

In any case, if you say the SU doesnt need it, then why defend it remaining in place in 43?

[Oleg Mastruko]

squatter I am not defending 1:1 modifier in 43, I say I could probably live without it as Soviet, after summer 43. On the other hand, I am not sure removing 1:1 would make all those guys saying scenario isn't playable, suddenly change their mind.

1:1 is complex matter, and is interconnected with the higher Soviet casualty rate from defensive fire. It is my understanding that, as casualties during combat rise (and Soviet rise faster than German) Soviet CV falls, and 1:1 is there to compensate. Speaking purely as player, I feel I could do fine without it, but it's implications from a developer standpoint are probably very very complex.

[Ketza]

I would like to see some AARs get to later in the war so I am glad this game has continued.

My game with 76mm seems to have come to a halt coming out of the Blizzard with me as Axis. Dunno for sure but I have hope its not over.

I suppose we can all look forward to the day the game is patched to an extent that games continue on until 1945.

[Klydon]

I wish you were right Ketza, but from what I have seen, it is more of a German mind set. I have played a lot of East Front games as both sides and the Germans typically toss in the towel when they can't "win" outright. They have no desired at all to go through the 1944/45 time frame. 

[Wild]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

I wish you were right Ketza, but from what I have seen, it is more of a German mind set. I have played a lot of East Front games as both sides and the Germans typically toss in the towel when they can't "win" outright. They have no desired at all to go through the 1944/45 time frame. 

This is why i like playing the AI. The game only stops when i want it to stop.

[ComradeP]

For the record Oleg, I agree that Bob didn't use his mobile forces like he could have done. The problem he faced is that he didn't have much of a choice because even the best counterattacks would only hurt you slightly. As you can understand, attacks where he causes 3:1 losses won't really hurt you, but they will hurt him over time. As such he had a choice: don't use the mobile units at all/dig them in, or use them in a historical fashion. He used them to counterattack, they were burned out and he split them up (I again agree that was a bad idea). Mid-late war casualties just favour the Soviets too much, because they can only put the hurt on themselves, as the Axis can't really make counterattacks that the Soviets will feel without burning themselves out. Backhand blows are just not economical currently.

The slow Axis activation due to low AP's is something that can't really be overstated. You got 105 AP's on turn one, enough to activate more than a front's worth of Rifle units. He got 21 AP's, enough for a handful of infantry divisions. That's an enormous advantage for you, also because you get more AP's in general. That "infantry screen" you saw was in many cases also not an infantry screen, but a collection of static units trying to get the hell out of dodge. So on turn 1, there's already a factor severely limiting Axis chances of establishing a solid defence, whilst the Soviets can launch offensives earlier than historical (such as against Smolensk, which you captured ahead of the historical timetable, and near the Dnepr in the Vitebsk/Mogilev you're already at roughly the 1944 starting positions).

I don't know what you don't understand about him defending on the Dnepr/wanting to remove your bridgehead near Mogilev: it's the last major river before you reach occupied territory in Poland/East Prussia. Of course you can gather an enormous force against him, but defending on a major river is always better than in the mix of light woods and clear hexes between the Dnepr and Poland.