Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vic

I am playing tweber as you can see in all the earlier posts since he posts his turns too.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vic

Evaluation of my defense of the USSR

In retrospect i made some really poor decisions. My main two mistakes where:

(1) Sending all my new production directly to the frontline. I should have given my reinforcements 2 or 3 rounds of training and entrenchment. Not only did i waste my troops but it also increased the experience of the germans a lot. Not being able to keep a defensible line quickly led to a feedback loop where i kept pooring in inadequate reinforcements piecemeal into the german meatgrinder.

(2) I went to quickly to producing counter attack weaponry like the expensive Medium Tanks II. I should have focussed on infantry, fighter defense and at defense untill after the german summer offensive. If i would have used those defensive troops to man well prepared defensive lines i should have been able to stop the germans well before they got anywhere near moscow, leningrad and stalingrad.

(3) I commited my strongest units, the Medium Tanks II piecemeal too. I should have focussed them all on one piece of the frontline.

But i must say Tom played very aggressive and exploited my mistakes skillfully!

Kind regards,
Vic

quote:

ORIGINAL: jjdenver

Hey Barth - thanks for the reply. I find blowing bridges to be difficult in practice on turn 1. For example the Odessa HQ needs to move 1 hex to blow the bridge NW of the city. However if any of the Odessa Front units get cut off then the Odessa HQ is not able to distribute their supply and so is left with "in stock" supply points. The Odessa HQ has 40 carry capacity and 40 unit weight with no supplies. However with for example 553 in stock supply points the carry weight of the HQ jumps from 40 to 95 - thus leaving it with an "immobile" unit movement type and a movement allowance of one. So if it moves one hex NW to be next to the bridge it needs to blow then it has exhausted its action points and can't blow the bridge. Is this a bug or is there any other option available to the Russian commander to get the Odessa bridge (for example) blown on turn 1?

Thanks

quote:

ORIGINAL: seille

Hehe, moving, blowing and moving back in turn 1 of the russians ?
You can be really happy when your engineers come to the bridges

Ok, want to blow bridges ? Then you have to prepare this in turn 1.

Save as many of your front engineers as possible. They are often in front HQ´s.
Let new engineers (not more than 15 per bridge) arrive in Baltic HQ (Riga) and Kiev HQ.
There are very important bridges. In the turn they arrived you try to blow the bridge direct out of the HQ.
After that you create engineer units in the same hex. You can use them in the next turn to blow up neighbour
bridges. Upper Dnjepr you can let arrive some engineers in Charkov HQ, but i think there are already some engineers.
And you have lot´s of engineers in Stavka available. Here you have to decide if your use them for fortifications
or for blowing bridges or for both.
In turn 2 you start to blow up the bridges, but make sure all your forces moved over before.
It´s often a question of luck, but it´s important for the russian defenders
since it makes attacks much harder and delays the germans a lot.

When you plan the upgrades my first choice (russians or germans doesn´t matter) would always be rifle II.
As russian player you have to save tons of PP´s for new units.


Defense against German tanks ? Choose the right terrain for your defense ! Build fortifications !
Fight behind rivers and in forests ! I use bazookas as AT weapon here. Attack them if there is a chance !!
No AT guns (need trucks for better movement, not flexible enough) and no Med tanks (too expensive
and a too good target for german Luftwaffe). Read the AAR and you´ll see Vic said the Med tanks has
been a bad investment. AT guns you could use for a very static defense line and if you think you won´t do a counterattack.
In winter 1941/42 these AT guns will prevent you from hard attacks since they slow down your forces.
But in bad terrain with masses of infantry they could do a good job. But I tend to use most of my troops for attacks in winter.
That´s why i prefer the bazooka or simply higher infantry number (SMG II and Rifle II)

Defense against planes ? If you play russia you can go for both, flak and fighters.
But there are several disadvantages. Most important is that the flak makes the units slow if there are no trucks.
It´s more a static defense. At key points and in the right terrain it can be useful.
Good protection is not to put too many tanks in one unit. Split them ! When i see as german attacker
a russian tank unit with 6 tanks i´ll attack until at least 4 of them are dead and the others in bad shape  
When you use flak as protection in your more static defense lines it´s the best to spread them ro the german
can´t fly concentrated attacks to destroy them.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jjdenver

Hey Barth - thanks for the reply. I find blowing bridges to be difficult in practice on turn 1. For example the Odessa HQ needs to move 1 hex to blow the bridge NW of the city. However if any of the Odessa Front units get cut off then the Odessa HQ is not able to distribute their supply and so is left with "in stock" supply points. The Odessa HQ has 40 carry capacity and 40 unit weight with no supplies. However with for example 553 in stock supply points the carry weight of the HQ jumps from 40 to 95 - thus leaving it with an "immobile" unit movement type and a movement allowance of one. So if it moves one hex NW to be next to the bridge it needs to blow then it has exhausted its action points and can't blow the bridge. Is this a bug or is there any other option available to the Russian commander to get the Odessa bridge (for example) blown on turn 1?

Thanks