Toidi
Posts: 200
Joined: 8/31/2011
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Sapper stopped as he could not supply the troops anymore. If he cannot supply them, they lose morale. That is the major reason for not getting any further. Well done for preserving your army reasonably well - if you can keep it like that in '42, you will win this game.
I think you need start to think about the blizzard offensive now.
During blizzard, I expect that your biggest enemy will be the length of your supply lines. I expect Sapper to fall back slowly in the south, so you will not be in contact much and will not pocket anything - his stop line will be probably around Voronezh - Stalino. You will not be able to hold south in '42 (and probably only delaying will be the option), but you need to regain as much ground as you can, so you can have more space to fall back. I expect that your progress in south will be constrained by your supply and how quickly you can repair rail (which is 1 hex per turn, mostly). If he is falling back fast and your infantry cannot really keep up, to gain ground quickly, use cavalry divisions (not corps). It is very important to be in contact with all the units at the end of each turn to ensure max attrition losses on Germans (if they break contact in their turn, you will suffer less attrition - but contact in the end of your turn affect attrition of Axis troops)
Sapper will most likely stay in the north, but in the north on marshes and heavy forests, when Germans are in lvl 3 forts, attacks are very difficult even with all the blizzard bonuses; also there are Finns which will meddle if things will get tough. As such, I would not count on major gains in the north, and move the majority of units from the north to middle (and possibly south). You will not get Leningrad during blizzard and sapper does not have any further objectives in the north - so you just need to make him man the front for maximum attrition. Of course, if you can attack, attack - that will lower morale of sapper units, but the morale will drop for most units below NM anyway due to automatic morale losses. Once it is below National Morale, each successful attack often results in multiple morale points increase, which means that the army will get back to National Morale quickly. Sure, if you can drop the morale during blizzard more, it is good as attrition losses increases - and the casualties during fighting add up too.
It leaves middle as the major offensive area. My guess is that Sapper will likely want to fight for Moscow. The terrain there seems to be defensible and he may try to dig in and make a stand, especially in January. However, you can still attack there if you mass your best troops. Think that cavalry are your tanks during blizzard. As for tactics, I would suggest to use 2 groups of cavalry corps in a pincer movement, aiming at encircling the Germans. In analogy to tanks, I would use the cavalry mostly as exploiting troops, with infantry doing as much heavy fighting as possible. In December cavalry corps will be immune to attack (unless things will change in the next beta) and in January they will be tough to attack (currently you need 3 full stacks of infantry needed for uncertain outcome).
During blizzard you need 10-20 divisions encircled to give you decent chances for surviving '42. Obviously the more the better. The other goal is to get space and manpower centres. Problem is that most cities will not repair before Sapper will get them back in '42 - but still you need the land which you can trade for time in '42.
The most devious strategy Sapper may employ is to fall back everywhere (by say 15-20+ hexes altogether till end of January) combined with quite massive sending troops to Germany to prevent morale losses. In such case you still need to encircle whatever is possible, but that will make your '42 as tough as it gets (as a 90 morale infantry division is 12+ cv, whereas 70 morale division is 7-8 cv - it does make a tremendous difference in combat and in attrition losses).
On a separate note, you are winning air war (well done). If you can keep 3:1 losses in fighters vs fighters, you win in the long run. If you get 5:1 losses in fighters you are losing... Of course, at the moment the balance may appear slightly shifted as you lost your MIGs from Moscow early, but 3:1 is still not bad.
As for '42, I guess your strategy will be to lose as few troops as possible while preventing the auto-victory conditions to trigger. If you can survive '42 with less than 100 divisions encircled, I am quite sure you will be able to win the game later on.
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RE: T14 Pockets in the North - 
so I have not developed a strong opinion. 
since the movement to position is already made . 
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