Nix77
Posts: 561
Joined: 10/2/2016 From: Finland Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Psych0 My first ever Soviet T1 done. What a marathon session last night it was!! Nothing was familiar and I felt I had to figure everything out for the first time. Exciting but daunting. Is T1 supposed to take 6+ hours? My Soviet turns take everything between 4 and 24 hours... no matter what turn it is :D quote:
ORIGINAL: Psych0 Will I have enough rail cap? Seems I did, just. All available units from deep in Russia railed to / towards the front or to positions to start preparing defensive lines. Before factory evacuations start rail cap isn't likely a problem, but it will become really hard balancing act against a good opponent, especially during the late summer '41. If you're planning big walls of steel on the land bridge or Leningrad approaches, you might be hitting the cap though, there's some heavy lifting to get those big motorized monsters to the north. Try to schedule your evacuations and update the schedule according your opponents movements. Get all critical rail movements done before factory evacuation. quote:
ORIGINAL: Psych0 What the heck do I do with the Red AF? For now I just gathered them together in concentrated spots on rail lines in forests/swamps near Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev. And deployed most of the air groups from the reserve, mostly to the north. Most of the RAF (haha) should be probably sent to reserve right away to raise the morale, and keep the reserve rotation going to get constant morale boosts to the weaker air groups. There was a hint recently to keep the airbases stacked as threes to prevent bombing opportunities, that's a good practice. Keep them out of the swamps, you can fly missions only from clear, light woods and city/town hexes (iirc urban prevents missions also?). Concentrating the air forces may be a good idea at the start, just as you have done. quote:
Where do I defend in the south? I felt I had enough units to make use of the line of level 2 forts from Shepetovka area to the SW and S. Plenty of defense in depth too. Too far forward? I'd say Shepetovka is definitely too forward at least against a decent opponent. The panzers have sooo much fuel at the start. quote:
What to do with the pockets or units about to be pocketed without hope of escape? Lvov pocket was reopened and combined with my stand around Shepetovka-Proskurov. Some are at least an annoyance to the Krauts and it'll cost him a lot of MP to reseal the pocket. Even more to enlarge that pocket, something I'm judging I prevented sufficiently. Then the Bialystock pocket-to-be I just made as spread out as possible hugging the Germans. The Courland pocket escaped mostly to Leningrad while the rest moved into the way of the German advance. The only 2 pockets I didn't manage to open are around Kaunas and Kovel. Get the strongest units to air supply! That's a major annoyance, and who cares if some SB-2s drop in the process! Make the units in the pocket as annoying to remove as possible, use all the rough hexes and fortifications to your advangtage. Try to block rail building and if the opportunity arises, strangle the PzCorps supply lines. Basically just try to buy time. In summer '41 trying to save pockets is a lost cause in most cases. If you can open it without serious commitment, it's probably worth it though. Keeping the pocket area as big as possible is a good thing especially if you're air supplying the units. quote:
Pskov and south along Sinyaya strongly defended (plus some leader changes too boost CV) so that the Germans are very unlikely to breach there this turn and maybe even next. Screen of retreating troops on the approaches to the land bridge while that's being occupied with fresh units. In Pripyat a bunch of units should be able to rail out next turn and a few did this turn. Since Daugava hasn't been crossed yet, making the German pay some extra for the crossing might be a good idea if you can spare useless units to ZOC the obvious crossing. Major rivers are a major annoyance for the German motorized units :D quote:
ORIGINAL: Psych0 Oh and what cost me a lot of time was to put TOE of all to be pocketed units to minimal (20%) so they don't get reinforcements just before they're isolated. Is there any reason not to put TOE of all others to 100%? I play around a lot with Soviet ToE, not sure if I'm doing it right though. You might want to have a silent part of the front where you can keep ToE toned down, or you just might be running out of manpower at some point and just have to decide where to direct the recruits. Be aware of your equipment pools, having Max ToE on all BM Howitzer Regiments might end up with you having units without howitzers or using weaker guns. Toning down the ToE you can spread the big guns more evenly. One rule to remember is that Soviet units get replacements for ground elements only up to 60% no matter what the max ToE is, after that they need to be refitted to fill up to max ToE.
< Message edited by Nix77 -- 10/8/2017 3:41:29 PM >
|