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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint

 
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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/5/2010 6:35:06 PM   
Flaviusx


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Joined: 9/9/2009
From: Southern California
Status: offline 		Bob will punish me if I overextend myself. He has done it before and can do it again. His armor remains intact. Nor is 30 mps a solid base from which to ruthlessly exploit, particularly in blizzard conditions. I had them fully rested and past 40 mps (out of a maximum of 50) when I initially formed the pocket.

A number of my mechanized units were below 20 movement points, even.

So, no. Logistics dictated a pause here. I also hate getting too far ahead of my artillery and rifle corps. As sexy as the tank armies are, they cannot win the war by themselves. A contest purely between my armor and his is mostly to Bob's advantage. The Red Army proceeds with the majestic deliberation of a pachyderm.



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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/6/2010 12:02:54 AM   
randallw

 

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Joined: 9/2/2010
Status: offline 		I noticed that Bob's Luftwaffe is being pretty strained, with about 1.5k operational machines; strangely your own Air Force hasn't recovered that well, in terms of size.

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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/6/2010 6:28:15 PM   
Flaviusx


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Joined: 9/9/2009
From: Southern California
Status: offline 		Turn 27. Chernyakovsky's new tank army enters the line west of Vitebsk. Bagramyan's powerful 11. Guards Army pushes past Mogilev, assisted by two tank corps from Western Front. The German line barring the gate to Belorussia begins to sag dangerously under this pressure.






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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/6/2010 6:37:45 PM   
Flaviusx


Posts: 7750
Joined: 9/9/2009
From: Southern California
Status: offline 		Kiev was finally liberated on turn 26, just in time for the new year. Going into 1944, the Red Army tide in the Ukraine flows around a strong wall of panzers and continues to abuse axis infantry which is increasingly combat ineffective in this area. But the panzers can still strike back at my exposed spearheads. Bob is now falling back just enough down here to mostly stay out of contact with my artillery and rifle forces, so the burden of the advance is falling squarely on the Soviet armor.

Worse yet my replacement situation took a hit with the new year. I'm getting less manpower per turn now. Tank production just switched over to t34-85s, but this leaves my mobile forces in a somewhat awkward position of having to transition over to these new models produced in smaller numbers than the old models and losses greatly outpace even the large Soviet tank production capability. Everything is being thrown into the battle now, but this can't last for too long, I'll have to rotate units in and out of the front.






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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/6/2010 6:41:20 PM   
Flaviusx


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From: Southern California
Status: offline 		Axis lines in the South Ukraine are near collapse and the Red Army is closing in quickly on Nikolaev. The Wehrmacht could only spare a single panzer division to cover this area -- that one got routed during this turn.

STAVKA would like to drive Romania out of the war before the rasputitsa if possible. Failing that, the Red Army is well positioned to stake claims in Bessarabia before the mud hits and be in position to force a surrender in the summer.






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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/17/2010 1:18:40 AM   
Flaviusx


Posts: 7750
Joined: 9/9/2009
From: Southern California
Status: offline 		Sorry I haven't been updating this the last two weeks. We've decided to wrap up this game going into 1944; 6 months in game play time gave us some very solid data about the state of the scenario and various tweaks to it have been made. Bob and I have moved on to some other playtesting projects for now. We may come back to this scenario at some future point and give it another go.

I hope this AAR gave you folks an idea of how the late war period plays out. As you can see, if the Soviets can ride out the emergency period from 41-2, they can get their revenge later on.

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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/17/2010 10:05:22 PM   
Grisha


Posts: 355
Joined: 5/11/2000
From: Seattle
Status: offline 		Thanks, Flaviusx. I like how the game mimics the operational result of 1943 well. What would be interesting is if this sort of front wide offensive can be duplicated in 1944. Historically, it could not due to the losses in 1943, which were the heaviest of the war.

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Post #: 97
RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/18/2010 3:20:16 AM   
Flaviusx


Posts: 7750
Joined: 9/9/2009
From: Southern California
Status: offline 		The replacement situation gets increasingly tight as the war goes on, and you'll probably have to stagger your offensives with the Red Army in 1944 the way the Sovs did with Bagration. Already I was having to be extremely careful about refits towards the end of 1943, sharply limiting which units got constant flows of manpower to build up some kind of a reserve to deal with run down rifle formations.

Running an offensive across the entire front will dramatically increase your losses and risk burning out the Red Army at this stage.



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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/18/2010 4:18:51 PM   
Grisha


Posts: 355
Joined: 5/11/2000
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Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The replacement situation gets increasingly tight as the war goes on, and you'll probably have to stagger your offensives with the Red Army in 1944 the way the Sovs did with Bagration. Already I was having to be extremely careful about refits towards the end of 1943, sharply limiting which units got constant flows of manpower to build up some kind of a reserve to deal with run down rifle formations.

Running an offensive across the entire front will dramatically increase your losses and risk burning out the Red Army at this stage.




I agree for the most part. I wonder if it might be possible to put on a counteroffensive in 1943 that follows the 1944 pattern of layered strategic deception. If so, then losses might be lighter--though Kursk will always be Kursk. Personally, I don't think the Soviet's development of armored force structure was going to mature until the operations of 1944. Tank army TOE really didn't become refined until then. For instance, I doubt a tank army in 1943 could have done what Rybalko's 3rd Guards did in the Vistula-Oder operation of 1945. It would be fun to give a go in WitE though!

Lastly, a question back to you. Do losses impact future replacement levels, or are replacement levels hard-wired chronologically? For example, will lighter than historical losses for a side result in greater replacement factors in future? I realize it's not that cut and dried especially as there were factors outside the theater, but I would think such things would have some impact.

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Post #: 99
RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/18/2010 4:33:25 PM   
Flaviusx


Posts: 7750
Joined: 9/9/2009
From: Southern California
Status: offline 		Your replacement situation will depend on factories and population centers, so it is relatively hardwired. The factories have set limits as to what size they reach. You also have the option as the Soviet to evacuate factories (which temporarily drops their capacity.)

Manpower has a production multiplier based on the year, and drops over time. By 1944 it is becoming very tight even for the Soviet, and you definitely want to take back all those population centers in the Ukraine for that reason alone.

If you can reduce your losses early on, it is possible to build up a nest egg. Manpower in excess of your needs will accumulate in the replacement pool. You can also reduce the amount of manpower fed into units by controlling refits and replacements and starve the front line to build up a reserve in the pool. You even have the ability to reduce the TOE of units below 100% and accumulate replacements in that fashion (and feed those to another part of the front set at 100%.) Lots of options here.


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RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/18/2010 6:11:13 PM   
Grisha


Posts: 355
Joined: 5/11/2000
From: Seattle
Status: offline 		Well, I look forward to this game going gold. Thanks for the AAR, Flaviusx.

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Post #: 101
RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/19/2010 12:30:22 PM   
nicwb

 

Posts: 518
Joined: 4/26/2010
Status: offline 		Seconded - I'm sorry you've ended this AAR - it was a very informative read.

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Post #: 102
RE: 43 Campaign Flavio vs Bob, Soviet Viewpoint - 11/19/2010 12:46:47 PM   
typhoon

 

Posts: 387
Joined: 4/2/2002
From: United Kingdom
Status: offline 		AAR's always the best way to sell a game and thanks for this one. Not that I have any doubt that this game needs almost no sell at all GG and East front hell if there is one game that I really hope is out in time for Xmas it's this one

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