loki100
Posts: 10920
Joined: 10/20/2012
From: Utlima Thule
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Turn 4: 10-16 July 1941
When I opened the turn it was clear in the north that Stef was going straight for Leningrad.
I'd already pulled out the specialist factories and this turn moved 5 of the HI, 4 (of the 15 AP) and all the trucks. Thats enough to keep me on track for my rough goal of 200 HI-300 AP and all 140 truck factories.
The centre was a bit quieter. One small breach in the defences west of Smolensk Most of the action seemed to be connected with destroying my pocket on the Berezina.
My assumption is there will be action here next turn once they have recovered some supply. I can only presume a HQBU has taken place.
South was the biggest surprise.
Given all my effort to cut supply lines I was really surprised at how far they were able to move (I've indicated roughly where the front line was). On that basis, its clear that Stef is after Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye. Over the next two turns I manage to evacuate 5/9 HI and 15/24 AP factories from those cities.
I doubt I am going to save much more than 200 HI, if I need to I'll start to prioritise HI evacuations over AP.
In the centre, I made an attempt (failed) to push back the GD brigade behind my lines. Otherwise both at Moscow and Leningrad focussed on creating secondary lines.
In the south, as you can see I'm trying to hold onto Odessa. Lots more pocket breaking and cutting off of spearheads (the stars on the map are where I either opened a pocket or cut off the advance guard). Pulled almost everything back to the Dneipr – too little rail cap after the factory moves to do much more – ideally I would have sent more to the lower Dneipr.
But I was fairly content that two turns of badly disrupted supply deliveries would slow the German lunge in the south.
Just for info, here's the OOB. No real surprises at the moment.
My losses increased as the early pockets were finally destroyed.
The Germans lost 16,000 men (6,000 kia), 64 tanks and 31 planes, I lost 222,000 men (14,000 kia, 190,000 prisoners), 1,800 tanks and 200 planes.
So far my permanent losses are 86,000 kia and 600,000 prisoners. In comparison against Vigabrand I'd lost 70,000 kia and 670,000 prisoners. Perhaps reflecting Stef's more aggressive opening he's lost 257 tanks so far (compared to 218).
Couple of game play points. One thing I do at the start is to set myself a series of 'budget' that I can then expend.
So for example, I have a budget of 2 million pows. Now I have changed my mind on this as the game develops and my own views change (it used to 1.8m). The idea is that I am quite prepared to sacrifice up to that number in 1941 in order to protect other things that really matter.
For industry, you start with 240 and around 135 are completely safe in 1941 (depending on how 1942 goes you may need to move some of this). Here, I've decided I have a budget of 40 (but can survive if I lose 60). So far (Stef78 has T9), I've lost 17 (I'm including HI cut off in Leningrad here).
My budget for truck factories is 0. I want all 140 to be available for the entire game.
For Arms Pts, you start with 370, 161 are safe in 1941. My rough goal is to lose no more than 70. But I treat these now as secondary. More is good to ease you over the 1942 army rebuild (and the new rules on post-Nov returns won't make any real difference), but sooner or later arms pts cease to be a concern. Usually around mid/late 1942. So the volume you have influences how early you return to surplus and perhaps how easy it is to reconfigure the army in 1943. But its not game ending to have less than ideal.
In effect, my mental model is I have 2m prisoners I am prepared to trade for no losses in truck factories and no more than 40 HI factories.
Second bit is pocket breaking. I tend to set the at start tank and motorised divisions to 50% ToE. My logic is they tend to be unready if they have fought, they shed cv when you move them and you want to save the trucks for later.
But even 'unready', with around 18MP, they can retake hexes that are in Axis control but outside zones of control – and flip adjacent hexes.
But the best tool is the cavalry divisions. They tend to have higher morale (ie lower MP costs) and can often move past a ZoC. From playing a couple of new German players (mostly in the scenarios and one early ending campaign), I think they tend to under-estimate how disruptive these can be. A lot of Soviet players I think are over-cautious. The cavalry is valuable, and hard to replace (a squad cost 4* arms pts compared to a rifle squad), but its a case of working to your priorities. My hope is that by breaking pockets and cutting off spearheads, I buy some of the time I need for industry evacuation.
< Message edited by loki100 -- 3/8/2016 11:49:58 AM >
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Sympathy for the Devil: Loki100 vs Stef78 (Stef78 welcome) - 
. And we won't use gamey tricks. 
The 50 starting NM is a big plus and combined with reduced industry railing costs relieves the strain quite a bit. It's still a challenge to get the industry out, but that's as it should be.
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