Slitherine

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@telemecus

They will be killers come summer!

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@redrum68

Any thoughts on how these OOBs and loses compare to other games at this point? Or on how the loses during the blizzard compare to other games?

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ORIGINAL: Zorch
So the blizzard offensive did not have a large personnel effect on the Axis. But in ... AFVs?

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Mamluke, Soviet South Commander
to be blunt, the reason [for] such success is because the Germans were very reluctant to use Motorize divisions and refuse to send out panzer divisions
not to mention keeping very high quality Infantry in the back.
coming February, that is going to change, drastically.
in one of my games , I played my winter offensive well, however as it it March, the Germans lost the 1st winter penalties and went on the offensive. he caught the red army with its pants down and the Soviet front in the South disintegrated. and I had about 5 Million men, a much stronger army then in this game.

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ORIGINAL: Zorch
So the blizzard offensive did not have a large personnel effect on the Axis. But in ... guns ..?

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ORIGINAL: redrum68
Any thoughts on how these OOBs and loses compare to other games at this point? Or on how the loses during the blizzard compare to other games?

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Darojax, Soviet Centre Commander
Not bad, +1 million

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Mamluke, Soviet South Commander
a mere 3 months later, We recover So much Strength!
I'm curios, are you guys surprise on the Red Army quick Recovery? when I was analyzing the results for turn 18. even I though the Soviets would only make meager progress in Winter.
the Strength of the Red army, compared to how it was, even surprises me! of course a good part of that is because of the many rifle divisions we receive as reinforcements before the winter months.
I am surprised about it. Considering the losses the Soviets took it baffles me that such offensives are possible at this time

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Mamluke, Soviet South Commander
the Red Army has made a remarkable recovery and was able to push hard consedering the situation.
however, the truth is that our army as remain below 4.7 million men and 49K guns since the winter despite taking "reasonable losses" by Soviet standards
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in one of my games , I played my winter offensive well, however as it it March, the Germans lost the 1st winter penalties and went on the offensive. he caught the red army with its pants down and the Soviet front in the South disintegrated. and I had about 5 Million men, a much stronger army then in this game.

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KenchiSulla, former Axis South Commander
Good thing we know that even with moderate losses the soviet army is not growing
They might get up to 5 million summer '42
That is not enough

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Mamluke, Soviet South Commander
might as well talk about it now. I set the 70% ToE for rifle divisions as a desperate measure. but I can see it doesn't work very well since they end up with 60% or less. manpower is not as bad as it looked, we should change to average to 80% ToE
just to let you know, I'm keeping all Rifle Brigades at 80% since they are manpower efficient and to be cold, they are expandable, good rifle divisions are NOT!

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built a ****load of ski brigades which don't have any experience the first winter, so they are next to useless.
...
would have been better off by spending ap on more tanks, not infantry. We have a current shortage of over two million men, with too many infantry heavy units which we will never be able to fill out. Our new builds need to be low manpower units,tank and artillery, and infantry corps formation will release men back into the pools.
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amazing amount of cavalry corps, cav squads are limited now, and maintaining them, nevermind rebuilding if lost, is now near impossible.
...
The russians don't do well in this game by building a historical russian army of low toe ants- they do well by focusing on the guards infantry corps, loaded with tank support, backed by artillery divisions.
...
We currently have more t34 in the pools than in units.
The only way to get the tanks into the army is to build tank battalions, and to be patient. They will upgrade to regiments on their own and when attached to the new infantry corps are a powerful addition.
...
should have done more construction and rr consruction units. They help get up fort levels for defence which is critical. Our fort levels everywhere are very low, few construction units to assist and overloaded commands hinder fort building too. And if we do get on the offence, their rail conversion will be especially needed. The only way to make up for the extra territory that must be regained, is to convert rail quickly and keep the truck pool healthy. A truck shortage results in lower movement points, something not everyone realizes.
...
In 42, the german rail is all caught up and ants and open ground only leads to more now unaffordable manpower losses.

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a terrible armaments shortage after blizzard, it is ok now, but that's because we don't have any manpower to build much and have done some disbanding.

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Neogodhobo, Soviet Supreme Commander
Send Vodka's and showgirls along the lines as well

Darojax, Soviet Centre Commander
I'll send them some political officers?
THey work wonders for motivation

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ORIGINAL: Beria



The problem is though we had a bad summer 41, and the blizzard has not made up for it since. I think Mamluke put it very well themself.

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Mamluke, Soviet South Commander
the Red Army has made a remarkable recovery and was able to push hard consedering the situation.
however, the truth is that our army as remain below 4.7 million men and 49K guns since the winter despite taking "reasonable losses" by Soviet standards
-
in one of my games , I played my winter offensive well, however as it it March, the Germans lost the 1st winter penalties and went on the offensive. he caught the red army with its pants down and the Soviet front in the South disintegrated. and I had about 5 Million men, a much stronger army then in this game.

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KenchiSulla, former Axis South Commander
Good thing we know that even with moderate losses the soviet army is not growing
They might get up to 5 million summer '42
That is not enough

As a result we have had to choke the ToEs of many units as we do not have the manpower to fill them up. This has led to the army of ants phenomenon without a core of really good units able to take the Wehrmacht on.

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Mamluke, Soviet South Commander
might as well talk about it now. I set the 70% ToE for rifle divisions as a desperate measure. but I can see it doesn't work very well since they end up with 60% or less. manpower is not as bad as it looked, we should change to average to 80% ToE
just to let you know, I'm keeping all Rifle Brigades at 80% since they are manpower efficient and to be cold, they are expandable, good rifle divisions are NOT!

Some of the units created some think are not useful anyway. One Soviet commander in 1942 commented

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built a ****load of ski brigades which don't have any experience the first winter, so they are next to useless.
...
would have been better off by spending ap on more tanks, not infantry. We have a current shortage of over two million men, with too many infantry heavy units which we will never be able to fill out. Our new builds need to be low manpower units,tank and artillery, and infantry corps formation will release men back into the pools.
...
amazing amount of cavalry corps, cav squads are limited now, and maintaining them, nevermind rebuilding if lost, is now near impossible.
...
The russians don't do well in this game by building a historical russian army of low toe ants- they do well by focusing on the guards infantry corps, loaded with tank support, backed by artillery divisions.
...
We currently have more t34 in the pools than in units.
The only way to get the tanks into the army is to build tank battalions, and to be patient. They will upgrade to regiments on their own and when attached to the new infantry corps are a powerful addition.
...
should have done more construction and rr consruction units. They help get up fort levels for defence which is critical. Our fort levels everywhere are very low, few construction units to assist and overloaded commands hinder fort building too. And if we do get on the offence, their rail conversion will be especially needed. The only way to make up for the extra territory that must be regained, is to convert rail quickly and keep the truck pool healthy. A truck shortage results in lower movement points, something not everyone realizes.
...
In 42, the german rail is all caught up and ants and open ground only leads to more now unaffordable manpower losses.

Added to this we have a relatively low number of arms factories (236)- an intentional decision as commented before. [Note: and something that would not be discussed in an AAR as something we would want secret from our opponents, but it was published in many different threads in matrix forums before the author was banned - but I have to commend my Soviet team mates for deciding to continue with the game anyway] It means now we have no bank of arms points at all and a long time before it look like we will start a turn with any. This means there will be a long delay before we start building the Red Army 2.0 One new soviet team member commented

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a terrible armaments shortage after blizzard, it is ok now, but that's because we don't have any manpower to build much and have done some disbanding.

Time for Plan B?

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Neogodhobo, Soviet Supreme Commander
Send Vodka's and showgirls along the lines as well

Darojax, Soviet Centre Commander
I'll send them some political officers?
THey work wonders for motivation

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ORIGINAL: @Beria

but I have to commend my Soviet team mates for deciding to continue with the game anyway

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ORIGINAL: @Beria

A truck shortage results in lower movement points, something not everyone realizes.

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ORIGINAL: @ancient Soviet commander

The russians don't do well in this game by building a historical russian army of low toe ants- they do well by focusing on the guards infantry corps, loaded with tank support, backed by artillery divisions.

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@Zorch

A very informative debate. The Soviet players are very aware of their relative weaknesses. Is the German appreciation of Soviet status close to the mark? And what of the Soviet appreciation of Axis strength?

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This was to make sure we banked as many arms points so that there would be a pool at the end of blizzard with which to rebuild the infantry divisions.

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ORIGINAL: joelmar

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The russians don't do well in this game by building a historical russian army of low toe ants- they do well by focusing on the guards infantry corps, loaded with tank support, backed by artillery divisions.

Interesting remark and a big question: better to have less units of better quality, or more units of lesser quality for the Soviets. And if that remark is true, doesn't it put a big break on the idea that the total manpower in a Russian OOB is itself a big indicator of how well the Soviet army can resist?

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Interesting remark and a big question: better to have less units of better quality, or more units of lesser quality for the Soviets. And if that remark is true, doesn't it put a big break on the idea that the total manpower in a Russian OOB is itself a big indicator of how well the Soviet army can resist?

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ORIGINAL: Bitburger

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Interesting remark and a big question: better to have less units of better quality, or more units of lesser quality for the Soviets. And if that remark is true, doesn't it put a big break on the idea that the total manpower in a Russian OOB is itself a big indicator of how well the Soviet army can resist?

It is often quoted that the russians need an oob of 6 million to hold their ground, but there is a big difference of 6 million in an army of 500 low cv, low experience divisions short on armaments,and an army of 6 million in 160 high cv corps. The russians at this point had no manpower but plenty of tanks, so tank brigades made sense at the time. better to lose a 1000 men in a tank brigade than thousands in a infantry unit.

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surprise was seeing how little importance to command capacity that was shown.The armies and fronts all overloaded with manpower depleted units. All one ends up with is very low cv

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ORIGINAL: Bitburger

It is often quoted that the russians need an oob of 6 million to hold their ground, but there is a big difference of 6 million in an army of 500 low cv, low experience divisions short on armaments,and an army of 6 million in 160 high cv corps. The russians at this point had no manpower but plenty of tanks, so tank brigades made sense at the time. better to lose a 1000 men in a tank brigade than thousands in a infantry unit.

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@Beria

A final point should be made about chain of command and leaders. A lot of the best leaders had been appointed to front commands which very overloaded - making them effectively useless. They could also be split up in armies up and down the front further reducing the ratings of the higher commands and making ground support from air in the same front very difficult. Some serious administrative reorganisation was needed to make contiguous fronts without too many or too few armies in each one and without overloading any.

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@Beria

If what has been said about vehicles not being a constraint anymore then perhaps you could create 100+ tank corps and manpower would not matter. But if that is not quite right you would need to get some kind of unit density, and too little manpower would stil make that impossible?

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ORIGINAL: tyronec

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This was to make sure we banked as many arms points so that there would be a pool at the end of blizzard with which to rebuild the infantry divisions.

Can you give any estimate for the numbers, so for example if you had 100k German manpower in the pool after the Blizzard how many armaments would it take to top up infantry divisions with them ?

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ORIGINAL: eskuche

Are ground elements lost proportionally in fighting? If you took a survey of 10 infantry divisions before and after blizzard, would rifles and artillery both be at x% and (x-y)% TOE?

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ORIGINAL: Telemecus

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ORIGINAL: eskuche

Are ground elements lost proportionally in fighting? If you took a survey of 10 infantry divisions before and after blizzard, would rifles and artillery both be at x% and (x-y)% TOE?

No. Rifle squads are damaged or destroyed proportionately far more. I do not know what is the mechanic or why. Perhaps the foot soldiers were the ones more exposed to the elements and so were the guys with frostbite or hypothermia?

Whatever it is by the end of blizzard when you look at infantry ToEs element by element the rifle squads are noticeably lower in their ToEs than the others from blizzard fighting.

(BTW the British had the same thing from roughly July 1944 onwards - a constant shortage of riflemen compared to the other arms. And with British manpower pretty much exhausted they had to extensively start retraining other types of soldier to join ordinary infantry squads from then onwards. Britain was the only major power to see its ground forces OOB shrink in the last year of the war. And everytime a division was disbanded its artillery and so on had to be made into infantry replacements for other divisions.)

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@Telemecus

No. Rifle squads are damaged or destroyed proportionately far more. I do not know what is the mechanic or why. Perhaps the foot soldiers were the ones more exposed to the elements and so were the guys with frostbite or hypothermia?

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Britain also decommissioned a lot of warships to free up manpower.

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ORIGINAL: tyronec

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Britain also decommissioned a lot of warships to free up manpower.

One of my teachers from school (who taught me chess) was in GCHQ, don't know what he was doing there but he was a very intelligent and thoughtful guy with a background in classics so am sure it was something interesting. Anyway, towards the end of the war he joined the infantry.

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Neogodhobo, Soviet Supreme Commander
Hell is coming