Beethoven1
Posts: 754
Joined: 3/25/2021
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Turn 5:
First of all, 132k losses this turn:
Somehow the air combat losses were only 2 to 1 in Germany's favor, which seems ridiculously good (I am not sure how they can be that good???)
And the pilot losses are almost equal, about 300 each with only slightly more Soviet pilots killed. I don't really understand how/why this happened with the air war, but I did notice a good # of the German recon planes getting shot down (but seemingly by flak). I will search through the battles I guess to try and find any battles where Germany took a lot of air losses.
Actually if you look at the particular planes shot down, it looks like a good # of the Axis air losses are "RU" which I assume stands for Romanian. Although there are also a pretty good # of German planes shot down
My OOB is now well above 3 million, thanks to the reinforcements. Also the fact that there was not much combat in some places like the south where I had retreated behind the Dnieper meant (temporarily) lower losses there:
It has been starting to rain a bit in the north and in some hexes there is already actually some light mud here and there:
Manpower on the map shooting way up (I am not really using the national reserve at this point, however, and basically just deploying stuff as soon as I get it, on the theory that it is better to have troops on the map even if they are refitting, because then they can build fortifications at the same time). I see a lot of AARs where German tanks advance through undefended Soviet territory; that will presumably be less likely to happen as much if I actually deploy the troops that I have, whether they are "ready" or not. The Panzers don't care if we are ready, they are going to come regardless.
Total men (not just on the map) going up, but only slightly, so most of the gains were from reinforcements newly deployed:
Total guns (not just on the map) had been going up, but went down this turn for some reason 
However, AFVs are actually going up! I have been generally trying to keep tanks and mech divisions as much as I can towards the rear of my lines to preserve them a bit more until they can get stronger:
Total planes are pretty stable. I have been training a lot on the biplanes in the national reserve and only deploying planes when I get up to 55-60 experience and morale. For fighters, I only am using MiGs/LaGGs, and Yaks, the biplanes are all just training fodder so that hopefully by the time I get more good fighters I will have more capable people to fly them.
Manpower pool:
Armaments starting to go up:
Also my logistics situation is for the most part fixed now, with about 10k trucks in the pool. Now for what happened on the map! In the north, there were a LOT of battles. It was the Great Patriotic Rout:
(Readers may start to see why I consider it in retrospect a mistake to have not put some turn 4 reserves in the north)
The 5 divisions that had previously been encircled but then freed by the motorized paratroopers, and whom I had airdropped supplies to, all routed out. Obviously he didn't really try to attack Pskov directly, where the defense was very strong, but pushed way up towards Novgorod... In fact he actually took Novgorod! I was not expecting him to get that far (if he attacked that way), but he did. I didn't actually have a ready division in Novgorod unfortunately, just a fort, and the fort surrendered:
However, the fort might have actually been very important because apparently he did not have enough MP to actually move into Novgorod and take it, but only enough to take technical control of it, and who knows, maybe he would have had enough MP if he could just walk in. IIRC I did have a depleted unit there that was refitting, but I didn't have a fighting capable division there, since I wasn't really expecting him to get that far.
This situation in the north has pluses and minuses for both of us... For both of us the front is longer and that means our lines are thinner. Germany is maybe overextended, but the problem is it is tough for me to retain strength and depth around Pskov and also react to this around Novgorod... I will have to think about how much depth to pull out from the Pskov area. Probably I will have to pull out a lot of my depth there in particular behind the strong fortified hexes where I have 3 units. Currently he has only weak regiments on the line there, but there may also be other infantry or something hidden behind.
And since I deployed 0 of my reserve divisions to the north, I have less leeway here than would be ideal. I could pull out of Pskov entirely, but that is probably not a good idea, probably it is best to maintain a strong defense there but to pull out the depth and start stacking up further north. I think that THE GREAT PATRIOTIC VELIKIE LUKI OFFENSIVE will probably have to continue to try to put pressure on his south-eastern flank.
If Germany has a problem here, they are going to be either:
a) Supply from not having Pskov yet
b) not having enough troops to fill everywhere on such a long extended salient, on both sides of it
quote:
Copy paste of DM discussion about the north/Novgorod:
[10:26 AM] Bread: i think in future im just abandoning leningrad
[10:26 AM] Bread: not worth it lol
[10:26 AM] Beethoven: It would have been a lot more worth it if I had not thrown such a huge # of troops there
[10:27 AM] Beethoven: Or really I should have been weaker elsewhere as a result of sending as many troops there
[10:27 AM] Beethoven: What is looking good for me there though is Pskov, but you got to Novgorod.
[10:27 AM] Bread: couldnt get a unit in though
[10:28 AM] Beethoven: yeah, that helps, but you destroyed my fort there lol
[10:28 AM] Bread: hail mary attack
[10:28 AM] Beethoven: the fort which had built all the way up to level 0
[10:28 AM] Bread: i fully expected to fail it
[10:28 AM] Beethoven: The problem there for you is that your line is very long and thin, so it is over-extended without much troop density
[10:29 AM] Beethoven: going all the way up to Novgorod
[10:29 AM] Beethoven: At this point that is somewhat the problem for me also lol
[10:29 AM] Beethoven: Because while I did put a lot of troops there, I did not put infinite troops
[10:29 AM] Bread: i have infantry coming to plug any gaps
[10:29 AM] Bread: and i doubt you can significantly dislodge me
In the center, somewhat to my surprise, he encircled Vitebsk:
He sent Panzers/Motorized up there to do this. Maybe it is more important for his strategy than I had thought. Nevertheless this isn't really that bad of a thing for me, since I only have 3 divisions there, and this delays there for one more turn.
[2:07 PM] Beethoven: Also it means those Panzers are at least somewhat out of position for attacking towards Smolensk and elsewhere further east the next turn.
My defense in Smolensk is relatively strong, but not super-deep, so I need to be somewhat careful here. I probably need to pull back to some degree from the Vitebsk area to reinforce the northern flank of Smolensk a bit more, as well as filling in so that THE GREAT PATRIOTIC VELIKIE LUKI OFFENSIVE can continue to push the Northwestern Front towards Leningrad and put pressure on the German flank there.
In general the routs seem to be getting a bit less bad, for example, this sacrificial division didn't get totally obliterated, just lost 1k men while routing:
I have been putting some of my weaker divisions in sacrificial positions to get attacked, with the expectation that they will get routed. In part because I haven't gotten many divisions encircled, it might not be the worst thing of some of them shatter, since I probably have in some ways "too many" divisions for my equipment. But this eats up German MP from the battles they have to keep fighting against weak divisions.
He attacked succesfully across the river here, but didn't have enough MP to actually move troops across. You can see all my reinforcements, which I will plug in to try to keep holding the river here for as long as possible. In the ideal case he won't cross the river at all, and this area will only get taken if/when he starts pushing from the bridgehead he already has.
Unfortunately the cavalry in the swamps that was going on a trip to Berlin was detected and routed
But the loss of 375 men is essentially irrelevant, and it will be a reminder to Germany that they need to cover their flanks to avoid rail lines etc being cut, so hopefully this will pull away German troops and cause them to be cautious. In the south, he is starting to get quite close to Kiev, but my reinforcements are deploying and troops are digging in:
Actually I might not have put enough troops by Kiev itself... that might actually be my weak point. I put a lot further back, but I probably was not fully taking into account that the logistics will take a while still to catch up. Ultimately though, if it comes down to it, I would probably rather lose Kiev (which is on the western side of the Dnieper) than allow an easy crossing of the Dnieper itself. I should have enough troops here in general to have ~2 and in some cases 3 divisions on every hex on the Dnieper... Hopefully that is enough to hold it for a while.
Now to the far south and Odessa... here is the really bad news... Probably the biggest single disaster I have had since turn 1!
I wasn't really even expecting it to be seriously attacked this turn, much less actually taken outright. I guess putting troops in that city fortress ended up not only being of questionable value, but actually being an outright total waste of resources. I guess I should have just outright abandoned Odessa. It is true that I had "only" 7 divisions there and I had not changed the general yet (I was going to do so this turn), but I think Fortress Cities are essentially worthless to Soviets if a Fortress City with 7 divisions can fall that fasts and easily when it is not even isolated, regardless of the general.
I will evaluate the situation later on, but due to this experience, IMO the only time you should use a fortress city is if you are going to put 10 full strength divisions in it. With anything less than that, if that means it can fall in a single turn when not even isolated, then there is just no way it is worth it. So I will probably not use fortress cities in other places like Kiev/Dnepropetrovsk/Smolensk. They are just going to fall when attacked, in the case of Kiev/Dnepropetrovsk they will likely fall a good # of turns earlier than historical and give Germany bonus VPs (although I am trying to play with minimal attention to VPs since I don't like the VP system).
In summary, ODESSA TOTAL DISASTER, NOT WORTH IT AT ALL
NOT REMOETLY
To anyone who is reading, if you play a game as Soviets against a competent Germany player, I advise you in the strongest terms to not defend Odessa with even a single division. Simply abandon it, save yourself from this! At least not unless/until city forts get patched.
1 division and 2 HQs are also encircled in Nikolaev, but I should be able to pull them out via naval transport. Sadly I cna't pull out any of the divisions from Odessa since we don't have Odessa, just empty clear hexes next to Odessa lol:
As you can see, I do have a good # of reinforcements here to deploy along the Dnieper, but it is definitely going to be a delicate balance now in allocating further reinforcements (more limited this turn) between North/South/Center.
If I had been smart and just pulled everything out of Odessa without a fight, it would subsequently be a lot easier to hold the Dnieper with an extra 7 divisions. In future games, unless the Fortress Cities get rebalanced, I am pretty sure that the only thing I will do in Odessa will either be to hold it with 10 divisions, all my best divisions with 14k men under Zhukov or Tolbukhin, or just abandon it outright.
Nothing in between is worth it if the Axis player has any idea what they are doing. And maybe it is not even worth it with 10 divisions under the best possible generals, if they know what they are doing (hard to say without trying that).
Here are the reserves I have to deploy, not a lot, just 8 half-strength infantry divisions, and 3 25% strengh cavalry divisions. That is not a lot, and I have a lot of potential weak points:
According to my OOB I am supposedly relatively strong for my army (I think?) at this stage of the game, but it definitely doesn't feel like it.
I would really like to deploy the bulk of my reserves in the south and center around Kiev and Gomel to hold firm against any future river crossings, but we will have to see what my deployment looks like at the end of the turn to see how feasible that is.
I do not want to let him have secondary river crossings other than the initial crossing in the Smolensk area. Ideally all of his progress in the center (and south) should have to emanate from out of that initial crossing. That may simply not be realistic (especially in the south, where you would think he will sooner or later find a way to cross somewhere).
At the same time, I DEFINITELY do not want to snatch defeat from the jaws of seeming earlier success (we probably should not quite call it victory though) in holding on in Pskov and delaying the push towards Novgorod.
The other thing is starting around turn 9-10 or so I should get fewer of the shell-reinforcement divisions than in many games, since I will have fewer divisions that got encircled early on (but more routed, and I took plenty of manpower/equipment losses from routed divisions).
I am clearly going to lose (now undefended) Tallinn earlier than historical, along with already losing Odessa way sooner than historical. The plus side is holding Pskov significantly longer than historical, but nevertheless with the Novgorod situation my position in the north is somewhat perilous. And Smolensk still holding for at least another turn or 2 looks good. But Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk will also clearly both fall earlier than historical if Odessa is anything to go by, since those will not even have fortress cities most likely (definitely seems like a waste of AP).
And I built this fortified region on the Luga line, IIRC, on turn 1. It might be have been turn 2, but I think it was turn 1. And it has not even built a fraction of a level 1 fort yet:
Meanwhile this one at Tula, which I built later, has built 40% of a level 1 fort:
My conclusions is that forts are simply not worth it at all, unless they are in a major city/urban area, or are super-far back. Otherwise they simply will not construct anything at all. Might be ok if it is not e.g. in Moscow but is basically right next to Moscow. I also can't assign engineers to any of my forts (note, this issue with engineers was subsequently worked out a few turns later).
In Cherkasy for example, this fort is probably just making me weaker by drawing manpower away from my infantry:
With forts and fort cities not very useful, so the only really useful things I can see for Soviet AP are:
a) Upgrading generals
b) Motorizing units to break pockets - especially NKVD border guards (lol)
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