Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: bwheatley

T39 i'm spending a lot of AP to upgrade all my old I* planes to either migs/yaks/laggs or il2's.

No winter german blitz. It appears my opponent is husbanding his strength until after mud. Good for me time to build forts. Hopefully this will slow the german monster down.

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Don't bother wasting APs on upgrading fighters, the AI can handle that job reasonably well for free. This is why its a pretty good idea to throw in your obsolete fighters into combat and let them get hammered in 1941: it runs down the replacement pool on obsolete models and the automated system w

quote:

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

quote:

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

T39 i'm spending a lot of AP to upgrade all my old I* planes to either migs/yaks/laggs or il2's.

No winter german blitz. It appears my opponent is husbanding his strength until after mud. Good for me time to build forts. Hopefully this will slow the german monster down.

quote:

Don't bother wasting APs on upgrading fighters, the AI can handle that job reasonably well for free. This is why its a pretty good idea to throw in your obsolete fighters into combat and let them get hammered in 1941: it runs down the replacement pool on obsolete models and the automated system w

Lol, well considering I'm your opponent I can tell you that the axis armed forces are in no condition for any offensive actions. After 13 turns of blizzard and constantly attacking sov superhuman units, my army is too depleted and I see no point to risk any senseless attacks as manpower is in short supply. Keep in mind I lost 1.2 million men in Dec41, Jan42, and Feb42. Just the fact that one could think the axis could mount anything in March 42, tells me how much they don't understand the axis issues after the 41-42 blizzard turns. Playing as axis against sov AI will not give you a great perspective on this.

So I have to wait until maybe May to launch any sort of attack. However, I can see the sov lines are already 3-4 hexes deep in all but maybe the far north. So I'll be fighting against a Kursk type line all over (minus the minefields) in spr-sum42. Doesn't look promising as he also has reserves lurking of a shock army and GUARDS units (nice little red guys) to check any break through I might achieve. Where ever I go, I can expect him to react and react quickly in force.

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Don't go overboard with airplane upgrades. This is a nearly bottomless pit for APs, and you've got huge expenditures coming in 1942. You should be thinking ahead and trying to bank APs for corps conversions.

The only airplane upgrades I ever do is to shturmoviks from U2Vs and the I15bis bomber groups. Don't bother wasting APs on upgrading fighters, the AI can handle that job reasonably well for free. This is why its a pretty good idea to throw in your obsolete fighters into combat and let them get hammered in 1941: it runs down the replacement pool on obsolete models and the automated system will respond accordingly, switching those groups to newer models gratis. The Luftwaffe is your silent partner here, they need to kill thousands of I16s and whatnot and clear the decks.

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ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Don't go overboard with airplane upgrades. This is a nearly bottomless pit for APs, and you've got huge expenditures coming in 1942. You should be thinking ahead and trying to bank APs for corps conversions.

The only airplane upgrades I ever do is to shturmoviks from U2Vs and the I15bis bomber groups. Don't bother wasting APs on upgrading fighters, the AI can handle that job reasonably well for free. This is why its a pretty good idea to throw in your obsolete fighters into combat and let them get hammered in 1941: it runs down the replacement pool on obsolete models and the automated system will respond accordingly, switching those groups to newer models gratis. The Luftwaffe is your silent partner here, they need to kill thousands of I16s and whatnot and clear the decks.

Well, I got that part of my strategy 100% wrong then. I should have let the Luftwaffe kill as many of my aircraft and pilots as possible in order for my Air Force to modernize more quickly! Counter-intuitive at least, strange game design option at best...

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ORIGINAL: raizer

one of the benefits of being soviet in a pbem games, is that the sov player can sir robin to the rear with stuff he wants to save and box car willie all the stuff he does not mind losing, forward, into the swamps.  I find it amazing that I can rail infantry with their HQs into choke point swamps hexes, and get them right in front of axis units,off load them and have them ready to fight.  Not sure how sir robin to the rear and box car to the front can happen simultaneously-I mean is their any congestion rules/variables that could be introduced to make it a bit more hard for the soviet player to flit all over the map on the same rail lines, axes of advances/retreats? 

Im deep into glantz on blau I II III and one the of the concerns Bock had was that the assigning of strategic/operational axes had to be planned in such a manner as to prevent armies/corps from competing for the same approaches to their separate objectives.  Only a limited numbers of roads/rail exist and "becoming neighbors" with fellow divisions and corps, while providing concentration/mass of effort was a good thing, it was many times outweighed by badness (lol) of competition for rail and roads and bridges.  And this is in summer 42, pretty much the high water mark in terms of organization/coordination for the german army-and they had problems-namely outside millervo, with crowding and congestion and competition for operational avenues of approach.  But in our game, in june/july 41, the soviets can pull off amazing feats of strategic movement and coordination, never suffering any ill effects of moving armies and their corps about the map, and more importantly, right out of the rail cars into fighting  positions in swamps, rough, heavy woods etc.  Seems to me this makes them a real tough out by late 42.

It seems a little off to me, and almost a little too easy, the way the soviets can move masses of men into strategic/operational locations with such ease all the while retreating at the same time.  

(maybe the closer you get to enemy units when moving toward them in rail, the more it costs in strategic movement to come out of rail, and maybe you forfeit all your MPs once you come out of rail/// and make it more expensive to go into rail, initiate rail movement, the closer you are to an enemy division)

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ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

Thanks for posting the OOB numbers. The Axis effectives strength is 200K higher than the benchmark figures we have been using for the start of the 1942 campaign (3,013,936) and they have more 600 more AFVs(2862)and almost exactly the same number of Aircraft(2951). I've misplaced the Soviet numbers but It looks like they with be 1000k higher than the bench mark, their AFV numbers look really low and their aircraft really high.

Edit: any chance of posting the air losses? And did you play any house rules with air operations?

quote:

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

Thanks for posting the OOB numbers. The Axis effectives strength is 200K higher than the benchmark figures we have been using for the start of the 1942 campaign (3,013,936) and they have more 600 more AFVs(2862)and almost exactly the same number of Aircraft(2951). I've misplaced the Soviet numbers but It looks like they with be 1000k higher than the bench mark, their AFV numbers look really low and their aircraft really high.

Edit: any chance of posting the air losses? And did you play any house rules with air operations?

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ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

quote:

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

Thanks for posting the OOB numbers. The Axis effectives strength is 200K higher than the benchmark figures we have been using for the start of the 1942 campaign (3,013,936) and they have more 600 more AFVs(2862)and almost exactly the same number of Aircraft(2951). I've misplaced the Soviet numbers but It looks like they with be 1000k higher than the bench mark, their AFV numbers look really low and their aircraft really high.

Edit: any chance of posting the air losses? And did you play any house rules with air operations?

Interesting benchmarks. Look at his production pools, though, on T-40; I count over 1500 T-34s and KVs alone. Couldn't he quickly reach the benchmark just by creating a pile of Tank units? He certainly has the Tanks to fill them with.

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Yeah, the Soviet AFV numbers will adjust themselves once tank corps come into play and the Soviet player starts building tank battalions.

In early 1942 there's a tendency for obsolete models to linger in the existing tank brigades even if they are well below TOE, and this can distort the AFV numbers. The situation corrects itself in due course.

I'm actually mildly impressed with the German figures in this particular data set. They are very respectable.