tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (Full Version)

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tyronec -> tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/12/2017 8:19:15 AM)

My first game under v11.1.01 so looking forward to seeing how the new patch works out.
The AAR is running one turn behind, hope this works out without impacting the game. Am looking forward to some entertaining debate with my opponent.
We are playing all default rules; no bonuses, no para drops, restricted amphib, server game, Sudden Death.

Standard opening move.
The big change is the air war: I have now started two games and T1 am getting 6-800 less kills. The reason is the degrading of the Romanian TACs and two German ones to Ground Attack. This should also see the Soviet TACs reduced in effect as don't think they have any dive bombers, however the result may be mitigated in their case if they are taking less losses. IMO this is a good enhancement, the two super weapons of the early war were German tanks and Stukas and WITE reflects this well.

Strategy.
Not much change from the previous version. I will push hard on all fronts and see what opportunities Grognard gives me.
Am glad to be playing without the '+1', which rather cramps the Axis freedom of movement.
With the increased cost of HQBuildups am planning to spend my APs as follows:
T1 - Leaders. I assigned Kluge to OKH and got that twit Jodl again as his replacement but can't be helped.
T2 - Reorganising 11th Army, infantry out of Pz. and overloaded Corps, Leaders
T3 - Probably more leaders
T4 onwards - Perhaps 1 HQB a turn on average, SUs to the right places, Leaders
Also need to consider how best to organise my Pz. Corps to make best use of the HQBs.
Have noticed some players assigning security divisions out of AGN/C/S, am not doing this and unsure if it is worth the APs


[image]local://upfiles/52296/BAEAB31FDA504DD8A393E33DB1D73CDD.jpg[/image]



Telemecus -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/12/2017 10:50:43 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec
Have noticed some players assigning security divisions out of AGN/C/S, am not doing this and unsure if it is worth the APs


I do this for North and Centre - but not South. My only reason is to get effective north and centre army group leaders come blizzard - often by reassigning one army to north. Getting rid of the extras in 101 and 102 RHG makes a huge difference if you are removing 6 command penalties over an army group to leave it with none - an effect over the whole army group. Although I consider it only to be valuable for the morale (in which Jodl is quite a good candidate? - and in your case it would get him out of an army command too!) Doing it at the beginning means it only costs 6 points. Doing it after broken into regiments would mean 18 points. You can assign them back in to 103RHG if you do want them to not have a battle penalty.



tyronec -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/12/2017 4:09:57 PM)

Would have thought it would be 6 and 9 APs rather than 6 and 18 but have not checked.

I thought all leader checks except combat (Infantry/Armour/Air) got passed up the line and so Admin and Initiative are important as well as Morale ?



chaos45 -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/12/2017 4:15:15 PM)

My understanding is they do get passed up the line unless they changed it in one of the patches. So having multiple levels of good leaders helps. Its why the soviets have much worse leadership as they go army/front/stavka....while germans get corps/army/AG/OKH. So Germans get in general better leaders and an extra level of leadership checks before complete failure.



Telemecus -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/12/2017 4:23:53 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec
Would have thought it would be 6 and 9 APs rather than 6 and 18 but have not checked.

Once split apart there are eighteen regiments (from six divisions) and each one is a minimum 1 point to reassign ....?

quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec
I thought all leader checks except combat (Infantry/Armour/Air) got passed up the line and so Admin and Initiative are important as well as Morale ?


This has been debated a lot and I should say my view is not shared by others. But the crucial difference is the range modifier - none for morale, while there is for admin and initiative (I thought infantry and armour worked the same way too? I know now though that air does not). If a unit has a corps and army in its chain of command then the army group HQ has to be within two hexes to have no distance penalty, five hexes to have one penalty, eight hexes to have two penalties etc.

The challenge I always give to anyone is to take any old game save they have, open it, and count how many units are within two hexes of an army group HQ - something you could try now. Usually it is not many. If you keep army group HQs on rails and dedicated to rail repair in 1941 maybe even none. Once you get multiple distance penalties the chances of passing an admin or initiative check at that level goes to zero (very nearly).

So the only really effective rating, given where players often locate army groups HQs and OKH, is morale. And you can make a virtue of it by putting into them any leader with high morale and bad everything else.... such as Jodl.



chaos45 -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/12/2017 6:17:59 PM)

I would disagree- telemecus---the absolute best spearhead is to concentrate- the entire chain of command within 5 hexes if possible- you get maximum support to all units the sector and absolute best chances for all dice rolls.

The soviets can start doing this very early on with stavka and front command in key areas. As well this allows you to stack for HQ rolls for support unit allocations to both dig in now that it was fixed and to support battles as support untis can be sent from Army/Front/stavka if they are all within 5 hexes. You can only do this to one section of the front but allows for maximum effort, if you want...and is realistic. Like leningrad being under threat in 41 and zhukov being sent from stavka with all available support, more or less represents those things very well.

The germans have really good generals so alot of the time their corps generals will make most if not all the rolls. So not as crucial for them, but it allows a forward thinking soviet player to mass a critical effort of command.

This one thing the modders still working on the game didnt seem to understand when the support units got shut off for digging in---still think this was done on purpose not on accident.



Nix77 -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/12/2017 6:28:36 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec
Would have thought it would be 6 and 9 APs rather than 6 and 18 but have not checked.

Once split apart there are eighteen regiments (from six divisions) and each one is a minimum 1 point to reassign ....?

quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec
I thought all leader checks except combat (Infantry/Armour/Air) got passed up the line and so Admin and Initiative are important as well as Morale ?


This has been debated a lot and I should say my view is not shared by others. But the crucial difference is the range modifier - none for morale, while there is for admin and initiative (I thought infantry and armour worked the same way too? I know now though that air does not). If a unit has a corps and army in its chain of command then the army group HQ has to be within two hexes to have no distance penalty, five hexes to have one penalty, eight hexes to have two penalties etc.

The challenge I always give to anyone is to take any old game save they have, open it, and count how many units are within two hexes of an army group HQ - something you could try now. Usually it is not many. If you keep army group HQs on rails and dedicated to rail repair in 1941 maybe even none. Once you get multiple distance penalties the chances of passing an admin or initiative check at that level goes to zero (very nearly).

So the only really effective rating, given where players often locate army groups HQs and OKH, is morale. And you can make a virtue of it by putting into them any leader with high morale and bad everything else.... such as Jodl.


It doesn’t work like that. First HQ makes a check against RND(10). After that the chances are halved for each HQ step, and distance divided by the range factor increases the difficulty.

Lets say an army fails it’s RND(10) check. The AG HQ, at 21 hex distance and divisor of 3 now makes a check RND(20+21/3)=RND(27).

In the above example, with admin rating of 9 in both Army and AG HQ, chances to pass the check would have been 90% at the army and 33% at the AG if the Army check failed. If the AG wouldn’t have had distance penalty (2 hexes from the unit), the chance would’ve been 45%.




Telemecus -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/12/2017 6:35:35 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: chaos45
I would disagree- telemecus---the absolute best spearhead is to concentrate- the entire chain of command within 5 hexes if possible- you get maximum support to all units the sector and absolute best chances for all dice rolls.


If you do that then you would be correct - if do put your higher commands within a short distance of a large number of units the maths is entirely different. Few however do. It is a choice you can make, understanding the costs and benefits. But if you are a player that leaves higher HQs to the rear, and I think most should look at what they do do in their games rather than what they think they would want to do, then I think the original point still holds.

The other side you have to remember is the transport cost of moving higher commands around. If you have a large number of SUs in higher commands then their transport cost can regularly reach 50,000-100,000 or more. That is the equivalent of moving an entire army or more. So the cost of the localised effective higher command ratings is a lot of lorries used, and lost in use. The Soviets have the option of using rail instead, Axis usually do not at the beginning - but then the Soviet side does have a question of do they want to use their rail cap for that.

For the Axis deploying army group and OKH HQs near the front at the beginning could, sometimes, mean their construction SUs are not in range of where you want them to be to repair rail.

(If you do not have a large number of SUs parked in higher commands then you are paying the same transport and supply costs dragging them around in lower HQs - and you would have to ask yourself are you really using all of them each and every turn. But that is a different question.)



EwaldvonKleist -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/12/2017 9:35:14 PM)

quote:


This one thing the modders still working on the game didnt seem to understand when the support units got shut off for digging in---still think this was done on purpose not on accident.

From my conversation with morvael regarding the construction unit and max fort level bugs I can confirm that the bugs were not there deliberately. Why should the devs do this chaos45?



Grognard1812 -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/13/2017 12:45:19 AM)

I wish to thank Tyronec for the opportunity to post the Soviet view point on his AAR.

As an avid reader of all the AARs on this forum I have learned a great deal.

Game turn one for the Soviet is difficult to say the least, and there isn't much a Soviet player can do to prevent
the loss of most of his frontier forces against an experienced German player. All a Soviet player can hope to
do is to try to slow down the Axis juggernaut a bit. I feel the key to play as the Soviet player is to think
long-term and not to let the short term tactical disasters demoralize you. Even if the Soviet players loses
Leningrad and Moscow in 1941 (which I will do my best not to let happen) I feel the Soviet player can
still capture Berlin by the summer of 1945 and win the game.

Proposed Soviet strategy

1) Delaying the Axis forces enough turns to allow the proper building of defenses around Leningrad, Moscow, Stalino
Voronezh and Rostov. It will be interesting to see the impact of the new Beta we are using. Also with
fortifications only costing 4 after June (instead of 8) - I will be building lots of those and attaching
sappers or construction units to speed up the building up of fortifications.

2) Can't overstate the importance of Recon, which I will be using to determine where the Axis major offensives
are. Will be using a mixture of solid defenses (2 to 3 units in a hex) and checkerboard (deep defenses
only one unit per hex), depending on the situation

3) Avoid as much as possible having units encircled - nothing worse for the Soviet player than losing 10 to 20
units at a time.

4) At all times try to block the panzer spearheads from receiving fuel by isolating them. Will try to have
some cavalry units on the flanks of any major German panzer spearhead to try to cut their supply.

All advice would be welcome.



Grognard1812 -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/13/2017 1:46:36 AM)

Soviet Game Turn 1

Large Lvov pocket which could not be opened. Disbanded all the fortifications that were not essential to the
Soviet defensive line of GT 2. Railed out all the Soviet units next to the Romanian border west of Odessa to
prevent their being encircled on Axis GT 2.

Was able to isolate 5 to 6 panzer/motorized divisions just West of Minsk, opening a small pocket.
No extra gasoline for these units next turn.





[image]local://upfiles/56401/FC493AF02F6C4A888C330E389094D9C6.jpg[/image]



Stelteck -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/13/2017 7:07:49 AM)

One remark, as you manage to isolate the 2 panzer corps in front of minsk, you could have kept your fortified line of defense here instead of retreating to the berezina.



Nix77 -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/13/2017 7:28:40 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

One remark, as you manage to isolate the 2 panzer corps in front of minsk, you could have kept your fortified line of defense here instead of retreating to the berezina.


I wouldn't say that's a sound advice, even isolated panzers will have close to 100% fuel on turn 2.



HardLuckYetAgain -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/13/2017 1:01:23 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Nix77


quote:

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

One remark, as you manage to isolate the 2 panzer corps in front of minsk, you could have kept your fortified line of defense here instead of retreating to the berezina.


I wouldn't say that's a sound advice, even isolated panzers will have close to 100% fuel on turn 2.


Concur with Nix77 here, that would have been "suicidal".



chaos45 -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/13/2017 3:01:48 PM)

concur lol



Stelteck -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/13/2017 3:04:52 PM)

Let me try to help the axis by unwillingly giving bad advice please !!! [:'(]

Now i'am wondering which % of fuel they have. I will do some test.



bigbaba -> RE: tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome. (11/13/2017 3:14:04 PM)

i agree here. for the first 2 turns run as fast as you can forrest. make your stand against the panzerkorps at turn 3 whern their tanks are dry.



tyronec -> T2 (11/13/2017 5:56:41 PM)

They had ample fuel and 40-48MPs, I concur that a forward stand at this stage would have been costly.

T2.
The bad news is he has cut off my two Pz. Corps from AGC around Minsk, and in the process broken half of the AGC main pocket - need to be more careful with my flank cover. Otherwise a general retreat across the front, I note Stavka is down to 3.3m instead of the usual 3.8m at this stage - perhaps something to do with the patch. Any thoughts on this, has anyone had a game where STAVKA is as low as 3.3m for T2 even after getting rid of corps ?.

AGN. I mop up most of the pockets and advance towards Pskov. The river line is not strongly defended so one attack gets a Pz. Division across; he doesn't seem to have a lot of troops in the area so am hoping it can hold out on it's own. If he does muster a strong counter attack then they may be vulnerable in their turn. It is always tempting to charge across the river with more panzers but I think they just end up too extended to do anything next turn.

AGC. Cutting of the two Pz corps is a pain, not that it effects them so much but because it delays the clean up of the surrounded units. The priority is to flip terrain this turn so I leave two mot. divisions to screen the pocket and continue the advance with the rest. Minsk is too much hassle to surround so the garrison gets driven out and routed. I do no attacks on the broken pocket.
Have made some progress north of the Dvina so can threaten Vitebsk from both that directions or via the landbridge. The two in supply soviet infantry divisions attacked seemed to have higher defence values than I'm used to so perhaps the entrenchment modification is coming into play.

AGS. Pocket clearing going better than usual, had more infantry set up to attack the three small pockets south of B-L than usual so will have them cleared next turn. Steady plod through the L'Vov pocket.
PG2 advances towards Kiev, have pinned one armour division and he could leave himself vulnerable to being pocketed West of the river if he doesn't retreat quickly enough. PG1 flips lots of terrain and rails all remaining divisions down to Romania.

Air war. STAVKA had done a little bombing and has over 7k airframes deployed. Rest week for the Luftwaffe, lots of shuffling around ready for action next turn.

Admin. All available APs go on downgrading airplanes and reorganising corps.


[image]local://upfiles/52296/89762E48E6C44F188B2CB36CE45C044F.jpg[/image]



tyronec -> RE: T2 (11/13/2017 5:58:10 PM)

End of turn:

[image]local://upfiles/52296/CE5CE03C4AF14639BD0BA2DC619E61FA.jpg[/image]



DesertedFox -> RE: T2 (11/14/2017 6:40:37 AM)

What I like about Steltek's incorrect advice, was his error was highlighted in a polite manner (twice) and he responded to it wondefully. It's great to see people NOT discouraged in making comments.



Grognard1812 -> RE: T2 (11/14/2017 7:29:29 PM)

Soviet Game Turn 2

Tactical retreats everywhere.

1) Solid defenses were setup around Pskov to block the Axis route to Leningrad
2) A 3 unit deep checkerboard defense at the land bridge between Vitebsk and Smolensk was setup blocking
the quickest Axis route to Moscow
3) Only light defenses were setup around Kiev and West of the Dnepr River, due to a general lack of units
in the area. The large Lvov pocket was very painful.

The 6th Cavalry Division made a mad dash for the Pripyat marshes, reopening the pocket North of the Pripyat marshes
and removing from an isolated status 9 Divisions and 2 Brigades. This will hopefully slow down the
German advance in the area a bit.


[image]local://upfiles/56401/29E7B8231CEC44E8B11ECD090908C72E.jpg[/image]



bigbaba -> RE: T2 (11/14/2017 7:39:56 PM)

grognard do you fly recon missions and when yes did you identify the location of his panzerdivisions? are they more in the north, center or south?



Grognard1812 -> RE: T2 (11/14/2017 8:34:34 PM)

During the first 2 turns I did many recon missions in the areas where I was trying to open pockets, and less
in other areas. My sense after I sent back GT 2 was that he had evenly divided his PzCorps amongst AGN, AGC and
AGS.



tyronec -> RE: T3 (11/15/2017 1:57:49 PM)

T3.
AGN. Stavka continues the retreat around Pskov. My panzers are down to 25MPs and I don't see much opportunity to do serious damage so will work to flip as much easy terrain as possible and wait for the infantry to arrive.

AGC. More hassles, he has broken out of my AGC pocket which while it doesn't effect my advance it does require sealing the pocket again and screening with infantry.
PG2 (1 corps) will move up towards the land bridge and PG3 continue the advance north of the river.

AGS. South of the marshes that armoured division has got well away however the main defence line is 40 miles West of the river, so perhaps it caused him to hold back and keep it covered.
It looks like there are strong forces facing AGS, PG3 and 6th army will continue the advance towards Kiev and the river and will maybe push his front line back a little.

Romania. It doesn't look like Odessa is garrisoned, will try and take the city and also advance across the Bug. So all out attack down south. 17th army and the Romanians should get most of the L'Vov pocket cleaned out.

Air war. Will bomb some airbases around Pskov and see what damage I can do.


[image]local://upfiles/52296/1B18F21595C84BC3AAA0686162F422A9.jpg[/image]



tyronec -> RE: T3 (11/15/2017 1:59:02 PM)

AGN. PG4 cross the river and wait. Still two units to mop up West of Riga.

AGC. PG2 with one corps advances to the land bridge. PG3 pushes through the defences north of the river and advances 40 miles. There is nothing in front so we send 20th Mot. forward another 30 miles, I expect they will get surrounded but I don't think STAVKA can muster enough to rout them without throwing their defensive line into chaos and having them there should facilitate my advance next turn. The second Pz. corps of PG3 rests and should have 40-50 MPs next turn to either support AGC or AGN.
I have about 6 infantry divisions sealing off the broken pocket but otherwise it is not effecting me much.


[image]local://upfiles/52296/6D992C06B4DD46C588242B48FCD63D25.jpg[/image]



tyronec -> RE: T3 (11/15/2017 1:59:56 PM)

AGS. As PG2 advances towards the Dnepr and breaks through the first line of defence (first map) there doesn't seem to be much in reserve, so they attack all out with both corps and are able to advance to the river with 10th Mot and release the cavalry to trip the airbases on the other side (second map). All my transports are following up here so am able to refuel both advanced divisions.
Am not sure what he will do with all the divisions around Kiev but they are at risk of being cut off if next turn I can cut the railways at Chernigov & Gomel. Unfortunately am not set up to do much of a left hook from AGC though that should improve in a couple of turns.

Romanian front. PG1 take Odessa and cross the Bug. Half of these divisions have full fuel having just come off the railway so there is a threat if STAVKA do not retreat. The fight continues in the L'Vov pocket, have a few large stacks on cities which take some shifting. Not sure which holds the Axis up for longer, a few strong points or a defensive line but there are less combats this way.

Have tried to cover my flanks as well as possible, will see if Grognard manages to mess me up somewhere for a third turn in a row.

Air war. Fighter sweeps and airbase bombing scores 391 for 38; all around Pskov and Kiev. My fighter sweeps are doing less damage than in the game against HardLuck, I presume because Grognard's air force is less fatigued without all the kamikaze bombing. I get another 50 during Soviet ground support and the cavalry overrun 100. Final score: 553 for 46.

Admin. Security divisions transferred to OKH. A few more leader upgrades, all my best leaders are now active. SUs pushed up the line. Most of my reorganisation is done until the winter, so have started saving for HQBs.

STAVKA is down to 2.97m troops, if this goes on they should all evaporate before the winter and we can walk into Moscow.


[image]local://upfiles/52296/D5D51CB6F6CD4559A595628F2CEE70FC.jpg[/image]



HardLuckYetAgain -> RE: T3 (11/15/2017 8:35:16 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec

Air war. Fighter sweeps and airbase bombing scores 391 for 38; all around Pskov and Kiev. My fighter sweeps are doing less damage than in the game against HardLuck, I presume because Grognard's air force is less fatigued without all the kamikaze bombing. I get another 50 during Soviet ground support and the cavalry overrun 100. Final score: 553 for 46.



38 fighters or 38 combination of all aircraft?

your final total is 46 fighters or 46 combination of all aircraft?

Same for Soviets? Could you break it out please :). Thank you much.

My goal in my experiment in our match was to go after your fighters since that is the key imo to the German airforce. I will kamikaze the whole of the Soviet Air to dwindle that number. By turn 7 there were 385 German Fighter loses and 58 German Fighter bombers loses. I don't believe that is the goal of Grognard1812 which I'm assuming is going a more traditional route. Of course Grognard is a very good player too :}



tyronec -> RE: T3 (11/15/2017 9:51:46 PM)

quote:

38 fighters or 38 combination of all aircraft?

your final total is 46 fighters or 46 combination of all aircraft?


Can't remember but think it was mostly fighters and a few bombers. Will have a look and publish the losses next time it is my turn.



HardLuckYetAgain -> RE: T3 (11/15/2017 11:01:02 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec

quote:

38 fighters or 38 combination of all aircraft?

your final total is 46 fighters or 46 combination of all aircraft?


Can't remember but think it was mostly fighters and a few bombers. Will have a look and publish the losses next time it is my turn.



Thank you Sir in advance :)



Grognard1812 -> RE: T3 (11/16/2017 12:32:41 AM)

Hi HardLuckYetAgain. I actually did save a screenshot of the air loses at the end of GT 3, as I was planning
on using it as part of the Soviet input for the AAR. The Soviet air force took heavy casualties on GT 3 losing
a total of 764 planes of all types vs 62 for the Axis.



[image]local://upfiles/56401/77BF326D25234D35828DA1BE05AD91F8.jpg[/image]



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