Beethoven1
Posts: 754
Joined: 3/25/2021 Status: offline
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Start of Turn 11 - First of all, on the macro level, my OOB is getting to be fairly good. I have 3.356 million men in the field, and if you count reserves, I have almost 3.6 million men: In the north, he continued, unfortunately, to gradually push forward towards Leningrad, a few hexes at a time. Nothing can really seem to stop him, despite tanks not being the best in swamp/heavy forest. This is probably the most striking of the battles. I had 3 infantry divisions with a combined defensive combat value of 39 on a swamp hex, and they were just brushed aside by a Panzer division plus two motorized divisions, despite me having Zhukov in charge of those 3 divisions also. Leningrad seems to be the case of the unmoveable object against the unstoppable force, except the unmoveable object is not unmoveable. Even Zhukov can't even defend even in swamps, and also even when Soviets have air support and Germany has no air support: Copy/paste of DMs with Bread: In the center, not much happened except for some more slow grinding forward with infantry. A brave German infantry division entered the clearing in Yelnia again. The question is, is Rokossovsky really going to allow that? Around Bryansk, surprisingly there were no attacks at all. I guess that is coming next turn probably: Around Dnepropetrovsk, he basically just brushed aside the cavalry and advanced a few hexes, probably could not do more due to being cut off. At this point though, the Dnepropetrovsk-Zaporozhie salient is becoming pretty exposed. I probably can't hold on here too long without a significant retreat, but I still don't see any super-strong infantry coming for Dnepropetrovsk, although there are a handful of German divisions, most of those are broken down into regiments: Southern Flank of the D-Z salient, and more grinding into the entrance of Crimea: In the north, I am not sure how much, if at all, I should retreat from the obvious salient, or if I should pretty much just sit there. There is a case for both. I think ideally it would be better to stay if I can manage it, because even if I ended up getting troops encircled, the process of eliminating them would take time, and time is probably the #1 critical factor right now. Also, since to some degree I am going to be supply constrained in the Leningrad area, if I lose troops it is not purely a loss, in the sense that this means that my other troops that remain will end up getting better supply. If I have time, I can also throw in more reserves if need be, though it is getting more and more difficult to move reserves in (since you have to deploy new troops on a rail tile 10 hexes away from the enemy). Anyway, so to help figure out the best possibility, it seems like the first thing to do is try an attack. Specifically, I am going to attack this one single Panzer division with a total of 15 divisions from 5 different directions (!). That is a lot of Soviets, which furthermore are all under the command of Zhukov/Vasilevsky/Govorov, and also have Eremenko as their front commander (yes, the Bryansk front is actually the Volkhov front, since I have to wait a while before the game creates the Volkhov front for me). If I can push the Panzer division back, that will make this salient, at least for now, a lot less dangerous for me, and make positioning my troops easier (and it lessens the immediate risk to my railroad by 1 more hex, and every hex matters here). Note I am doing a deliberate attack here, but can only take a screenshot with hasty attack selected, because I can't hold down shift while hitting window + prtsc: The attack succeeds with 2.6 to 1 odds, I am attacking with 170k men, nearly 2000 artillery, and 159 tanks: Germany lost a lot of tanks, 93 tanks in this battle. A lot of those losses are retreat losses. I lost 85 tanks also. The tank division that I had there had fairly decent equipment (I had been refitting it for the last few turns) and had 77 T-34s and 23 KV-1s. I lost 36 T-34s and 3 KV-1s out of those. Germany lost mostly Panzer 38(t)s, which were obviously outclassed by my tanks in the gun/armor departments: The T-34s were (I think, if I am understanding the battle display correctly) my most effective element, they also had 22 AP hits, which I assume was largely knocking out German tanks (the KVs for some reason apparently had 0 though, hmm): I may also try one more attack in the north, in particular attacking this infantry division, which seems relatively weak. The reason for doing that would be mostly that this is a "quieter" part of the Leningrad front where he is trying to get away with just having small amounts of infantry. But nevertheless I have to keep decent troops here to guard against the risk that suddenly his Panzers turn direction and start attacking there instead. As a result, I have somewhat stronger troops there than I would need to defend just against the infantry he has there now. But yet, I can't really move them too much (at least not without replacing them), so I may as well use them in some way. And if I can push a bit into his flanks and infiltrate a division or two to create extra ZOC, that would not be a bad thing, if for no other reason than to remind him he needs to be at least minimally concerned about them. However, I am not 100% sure yet if I want to do that, because I am concerned about the 3 hexes to the north-east of this (with the 25/15/25 defensive values), and might need to move some better troops there. So I will come back to that after I have started moving troops: In the center, I don't like how he is marching his infantry forward into the clear hexes between my swamps (Those are MY swamps). I don't like the 3 divisions in the north, but 3 divisions is probably too strong to do too much about now. However in the southern part, he is marching infantry into the Yelnya gap. So we already had the 1st Battle of Yelnya a few turns ago, now it looks like it is time for the 2nd Battle of Yelnya. This division here is very weak with a CV of just 4. Behind it there is a bit stronger of one with a CV of 12. What I would like ideally to do is to push back the one with the CV of 12, and then put 3 good divisions on that hex (between the two swamps) and try and make that into a more solid defensive line. I am going to try to attack that division with the CV of 12, with the hope that I can do that. However, if I can't do that, I should still be able to at least push back the division with the CV of 4. As a bonus, if I can push back the division with the CV of 12, then the division with the CV of 4 will be surrounded and then I should be able to rout it out. If I were really brave, I could even try to isolate it and eliminate it, but that is probably too much of a risk, as Germany might well break it out the next turn and then my defense here would probably end up in a worse position: With overwhelming #s in my favor and under the command of Tolbukhin, the attack succeeds. However, the combat value dropped from 346 to 90 (lol) so I probably got lucky: Next step now is I will occupy the one empty hex to the north-west of the division with 4 CV, and then it has nowhere to retreat to, so if it loses another battle it should then automatically rout out. And Rokossovsky just so happens to have a large number of good tank divisions ready to do the job. Then I can put 3 strong divisions on that clear hex in between the swamps that is the entrance to Yelnia and can try to hold there. In the worst case, if I can't hold on to that clear hex at the entrance to the Yelnia clearing, doing this (if successful) should mean that it takes an extra 1-3 turns or so for Germany to finally take Yelnia. Also, at this point, even if I can't beat the division with 4 CV, I can definitely put 3 units in the clear hex and in the worst case it will be isolated for next turn. Which might actually end up being better (but it is riskier). The other nice thing about this is it ought to be a pretty easy battle to win given the low CV value on the German division, so by attacking it with a large # of my divisions, I can (hopefully) get a "win" which will get them all closer to eventually getting guards status. I am looking forward to the Rokossovsky Guards Tank Army. Here is the setup, with a pretty big CV advantage for me even if I did a hasty attack (I am going to do deliberate to be sure though): Although Rokossovsky's combat value gets cut basically in half from 312 to 154, it is still plenty high to win. 1000 tanks is pretty tough for a single infantry division on clear terrain to stop (lol): I did lose 52 tanks here, which is mildly unfortunate, but the losses were mostly T-26s and T-38s, and it is probably worth it if for no other reason than to raise my troops morale and give them all an easy win on the way to guards status: Now the path is clear, and I can put 3 very good mech divisions right there, with CVs of 7.5, 7.9, and 11.4, and a combined total of almost 600 AFVs between them. Also none of the 3 mech divisions participated in either of the two battles against the infantry divisions, so they have basically full CPP and almost no fatigue. It can be tough to hold clear terrain against a determined German attack, but if anything can do it these guys can. What I am hoping will happen is that they can hold long enough for a fort to get built up, that will make it easier. If this holds like I hope it will, then I can shift some of my tanks north to deal with the infantry that is trying to infiltrate there. But this will also probably be a reminder to Bread that he may want to be a bit careful about that, unless he wants to risk getting more divisions routed by Rokossovsky's (and Tolbukhin's) thousands of tanks and hordes of infantry. Also I can hopefully shift some troops south south towards Bryansk to defend in depth against the expected Panzer attack around there. What is in Yelnya? Rokossovsky's house. And Rokossovsky says, "get out of my house." Rokossovsky speaking with some German infantry that knocked on his door, in the Yelnia sector in late August 1941: One thing about counterattacking here, however, is that it will definitely mean abandoning Dnepropetrovsk (and presumably also Zaporozhie. But I pretty much have to do that this turn anyway. Also I can pull some of the tank/mech divisions to the north around Kharkov down to help as needed. That might mean that Kharkov falls slightly faster, but it is going to fall within a turn or two at the most regardless of what I do at this point. First attack: One win for Vatutin, and 12 German tanks destroyed for a loss of 27 of mine: 2nd attack: At this point what I would like to do is try to beat that same regiment I attacked previously one more time. It is sort of unfortunate it retreated in the direction that it did, if it had retreated straight to the west it would be a bit easier. But if I can do that, then the 14th Pz division (that is the one with 2 CV) along with the motorized SS unit (it is the LAH) can hopefully be surrounded so that they cannot retreat, and then routed. The order for doing this is important, because i want to make sure that if things don't go as well as I would like, that I will have MP to be able to retreat etc. So the best order seems to be to first re-attack that regiment and get it to retreat to the west, then surround and rout the LAH unit, and then if MP and the state/quality of my divisions allow, try to rout the 14th Panzer division: 3/9 Panzer retreats, although it only loses a single tank in the process. It is annoying that the losses are so low in terms of # of German tanks, as trying to reduce their AFVs is pretty much the primary reason for trying to counterattack like this: It actually also occurs to me now that it is probably better to try to rout the 14th Panzer division first before the LAH, because that would be a more important thing, and I can easily just move divisions into the 3 hexes where it could retreat now to make sure it can't retreat. I think to be on the safe side I will pull down some of the tank/mech divisions north of Kharkov to help also: I select divisions to attack (for a deliberate attack), being careful to not pick any mobile divisions to participate that don't have a couple extra movement points > 16 available, so that they will be able to retreat, and also that any CAV/INF has enough in excess of 8 MP for a deliberate attack that they will be able to get to a (hopefully) safe enough defensive position: The attack succeeds, although Germany doesn't lose quite as many tanks as I would like ideally (only 13). But this tank division only had 55 tanks (now make that 42). Probably that lack of tanks is one reason, in addition to the fatigue/fuel/etc, why its CV is pretty low, which is what makes it possible to counterattack like this in the first place: Since this is a mobile unit routing, Germany also lost 263 vehicles. Hopefully over the longer term that little extra bit lowering Germany's truck count will hurt Axis logistics: Divisions in place to attack. I similarly make sure to have enough MP to move away after. However, I do want to start my defense somewhere around here so it is ok for the infantry/cavalry to only have a few MP left after this: And LAH routs, with another 207 vehicles also lost (I think that I capture at least some of those that are lost also, so not only does it hurt Axis logistics (a bit) over the long run, but should also help mine slightly: Looking at the counterattack as a whole know, what it has achieved is not just routing the 14th Pz and LAH units (and also repeatedly beating the regiments of the 9th Panzer division), but also it converts back 4 hexes which now Germany will have to move through to the east again next turn without having admin movement. Also looking at it now I see that I should be able to displace the routed tank division also, will try that. I might be able to also attack the 2 regiments of the 9th PZ again, but will have to look at it carefully to figure out if the MP will really allow for that: I do have enough MP for one more hasty attack here (also the routed panzer division was displaced in moving here): Also, I thought I was done, but I realized I can get in one more hasty counterattack on this other Panzer division (the 13th) which has 2.9 CV. This one won't be great odds, but it should make sure that this division is also fatigued/lower CPP/etc for next turn: This one failed. Vatutin's CV dropped from 70 to 22, if not for that maybe it would have succeeded. But in any case by my count that is: a) LAH motorized routed b) 1 Panzer division (14th) routed and then also displaced c) Another Panzer division's (9th) regiments made to lose 4-5ish battles and made to retreat repeatedly and take retreat losses d) Another Panzer division (13th) which was already fairly low strength and had only 65 tanks counterattacked, and although the counterattack was unsuccesful, it lost 9 more tanks and should not be fatigued/lower CPP/etc for next turn So that should be about half of their (German) mobile forces in the south beaten up fairly significantly. However, there are still a couple untouched mobile divisions which I will have to worry about defending against. But most or all of those were encircled the previous turn and should be low on fuel, and also in general they should be having at least some logistical problems. Nevertheless I will have to set up a good defense in depth in front of Stalino. Also obviously Dnepropetrovsk is going to fall imminently. One question I still have to decide about is whether to totally abandon it or to leave its current garrison (right now that is just this mountain division, which is VERY good. 11 unmodified CV and 116 modified by the urban terrain and a fort. Alternatively I could rescue it and move in a worse INF division that would nonetheless create a speedbump. I have these other 2 inf divisions which have 5 CV each right nextdoor also. (note, I ended up leaaving 1 of the infantry divisions that had about 70 modified CV rather than the Mountain division) HMMM one thing I just realized is these two divisions apparently do NOT have enough MP to retreat as far as I would ideally like, despite having 4 and 5 MP. I had thought that it costs 3 CV to enter an enemy territory, and 1 combat delay adds 1 extra movement point to leave a hex? So the 10th tank division which has 4 MP ought to be able to retreat 1 hex? And the 15th mech div ought to be able to retreat 1 hex into the territory that was originally enemy controlled for 4 MP and then do 1 more MP of admin movement into my own territory? But neither of them can move? from the manual (22.2.7.): The effect of the delay is that when a unit moves out of a hex, it expends an amount of MPs equal to the combat delay if a non-motorized unit, and three times the combat delay if a motorized unit. So I think my calculation would have been right if it were a non-motorized unit, but apparently it takes more to move a motorized unit from a combat delay and I didn't realize that With that rule about combat delay being 3x higher for mobile divisions, that makes combat delay especially important for slowing down German Panzer divisions also. I didn't realize the effect was that large, that makes defense in depth very good for Soviets in stopping Panzer attacks. Because in addition to using MP for attacks, you also use that much MP from combat delay, Overall in these counterattacks, Germany lost 4k men and 138 AFV (most of which are from Panzer divisions), I lost a total of a bit less than 8k men and 390 AFV: Also the air trade in the ground support battles is pretty good, Axis lost 42 planes and I lost 55 planes. About 2/3 of the Axis losses are German also (14 of 42 are from Hungary/Romania). With the exception of not realizing the math was different for combat delay with mobile units and non-mobile, this turn is going very well so far I would say. But now the fun part is over and it should be pretty much just movement placement and admin stuff.
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