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Shalkai -> Turn 8 - GamerDad (Axis) vs. Shalkai (Sov) v1.12.0x (5/13/2020 7:05:17 PM)
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Yes, this game is still ongoing. We just finished Turn 14. I've been too busy to keep up with AAR the last few weeks, but I'll get some reporting done this week.
On to Turn 8!
First glance shows decent advances in line with what I’d anticipated. Northern Front is pushed back a bit further from Narva and the PzK near the Baltic is positioned for further gains. Not much Axis headway further south on the Novgorod axis. Unfortunately, the Lake Jan line retreated after a single full-strength Finn assault. Odds were close, but without high fort levels even three good Red Army RD isn’t enough. Not when Mannerheim can send six full strength veteran divisions at them. A small disappointment, but it was definitely worth a try. I’ll now have to choose between running a delay fight using the 7th Army, or just move them all down south and get them in place on the Svir.
This is turn 8, so nine more clear turns. If I do delaying fights, it’ll bleed the Finns a bit, but when would they get to the no-attack line? It’d take 12 hexes. Probably soon enough. Something to ponder.
Northwest Front was pushed back a bit, and will withdraw a bit more. I’d like to keep him from getting past Lake Ilmen for at least three more turns. Leningrad will be cut off within the next five turns. We’ll see if we can hold enough of Ladoga to make it like the historical siege. Velikie Luki will almost surely fall next turn as well, and I’ll be doing a slow fighting withdrawal toward Rzhev with Northwest Front’s left wing.
AGC only pushed 20 miles towards Moscow on the land bridge, so that’s a small pleasant surprise. 3rd PzG leads this effort. East of Mogilev, 2nd PzG made a bridgehead across the Dnepr and got seven units into a spearhead on the east bank. This has trapped two of my RD, and will force a full scale retreat from the Dnepr, but that’s fine - it’s time to go.
In Ukraine, Vinnitsa still defies the invaders but it won’t get another reprieve. Second turn of this pocket sees it squeezed down to two hexes (5 of my divisions total) and the panzers I’d have to retreat to break the pocket are very strong. Southern Ukraine saw some Axis advances, but less than I expected - Red Army even won a battle or two down here. Dnestr forts were held weeks longer than I anticipated - at one point the German/Rumanian forces have only made it 60 miles east of the border through the first eight turns. Again, it’s time to go.
Things have been going so well administratively that I actually have some unused manpower (~60k) even after normal refits. 700k armaments still saved up as well. Way more than I’m used to having in early August. Looking at the map doesn’t make me feel like things are going well, though. I see about four turns of steady withdrawals and 120 miles given up along most of the line for August ‘41. I’ll just have to make it as slow and costly as I can. Losses in both casualties and units were light, and the isolated list is again short. Glass is at least two-thirds full.
26Feb2020: Apparently I was not in a good mood last night when taking a look at the turn. This has been a very rough week as I try to recover from my procedure and get back to work; seems I’m pushing a bit too hard. I’ll adjust things a bit the rest of the week so I don’t completely hit the wall.
As far as WitE goes, there’s no reason for me to feel this game is going poorly. Soviets get hammered and forced to retreat in almost every single one of the first 20-odd turns. The hammering and retreating in this particular game is less (so far at least) than in most games - really, the glass is probably 95% full.
So, back to planning. Key decisions are going to be needed for both Karelia and near Odessa on how much fight to put into my fighting withdrawals. Down south, I can probably hold a section of the Dnestr River defenses for one more turn. The section of the line near Kishinev will pull back and gain some density, but the area down by the river mouth will be very hard to force via assault crossing, and can’t be outflanked from the north yet. This will keep a couple Rumanian Corps tied up and give Odessa another turn unbesieged.
Karelia got some serious pondering last night and this morning. A fighting withdrawal is my first instinct, but there is simply no strategic benefit in doing that. I’ve got eight decent to good Rifle Divisions in Karelia, but they are facing about twelve division-equivalents of Finnish veterans. Axis could bring in even more forces from the west side of Lake Ladoga if they wanted. Karelia has some manpower centers but nothing worth investing more troops in to save. Even if I fight and the advance is slow, Finns should reach at least part of the no-attack line before mud. All they need is one spot at or near the line that panzers can link up with from the south. Wearing down the Finns doesn’t help much either, as the majority of that army withdraws in early ‘42 anyway.
Accordingly, I’m going to just build a line of Fort Regions on the no-attack line and move the entire 7th Ind. Army south as fast as I can, using rail not needed for other purposes to speed things up. Two or three turns should see them all digging in near the Sviritsa/Volkhov region. Having this army defending the final Ladoga port is a clear strategic benefit. It still may not save Leningrad but this will have more chance of affecting the overall war than anything I can do to the Finns. My Inner Stalin may not like running away, but it is the right thing to do.
Turning the focus to Leningrad itself, saving the city is going to be very difficult, perhaps impossible if the Axis focuses enough resources on it. Best case scenario is the Germans taking another 5-6 turns to clear the south bank of the Neva and then getting stalled trying to get north to Osinovets. To have even a chance of achieving that I’m going to need to throw considerably more forces into the fray. My units digging in on the north bank of the Neva are only at fort levels 3.08, 3.76 and 2.80. All will need to be above 4.00 and able to absorb a couple of full-strength German attacks to achieve something like the historical standoff. Dunno if there are enough turns left to dig that deep. Plus I still have to keep AGN from rolling south then east of Lake Ladoga and linking up with the Finns.
Things I need to do to make that happen:
Replace any mediocre army commanders in Northern Front, and review the Front commander as well. Leader admin ratings are more important than usual as digging in will be key.
Adding more Const. SU to all NF armies and beefing up their SUs in general. I’ve got extra AP, manpower, and armaments available this turn.
Turning over defense of Novgorod to Northwest Front and using the units freed to build 3rd/4th lines south of Leningrad.
Rail in more units and an Army HQ attached to STAVKA. Northern Front is at CP capacity right now so another HQ is needed.
That’s going to be my top focus for this turn. There are plenty of other things I need to do - see to-do list at end of Turn 7, plus adjust Fronts to account for upgrade of Orel MD to Bryansk Front. Front activation gave me a huge chunk of AP so I can indulge in some reorg and leader upgrades. Moscow environs will see the fort region lines finished.
I also want to do a more careful review of any counterattack opportunities before I start moving units. Doing those, or at least ground attack air missions, should be done earlier in my turn to reduce Axis interdiction effects. This has been added to my turn sequence guidelines.
Air Armies need a little extra time this turn as well. Northern Front Air Army is going to be given top priority and reinforced. This is not a good area to contest air superiority, as both the Finns and AGN’s air units are some of the best in the game, but my opponent may not notice increased Soviet forces until they have started to weaken Axis fighters. At this point I’m pretty confident I’ll hold Moscow so Leningrad becomes the #1 priority. If I can, the fighter strength up here will be increased to at least 12 regiments. Also I’ll use some night bombing attacks from Long Range Command to fatigue AGN Luftflotte 1 airbases.
Evening (and WitE) time finally arrives. First, the boring but useful stuff - taking stock, then spreadsheet wars.
Vehicle Pool: 186k (44k needed). Keep on truckin! RailCap starts at 36328/149725. Reserved rail at 10% and will probably stay.
Manpower-3359, Port-138, Railyard-292, Vehicle-150, HInd-232, Oil-128, Fuel-149, Resource-196, Armament-366.
Arrived Unit list shows 12 divisions and 2 new Army HQs. One Corps HQ was disbanded along with three NKVD regiments. Orel MD/Air is now Bryansk Front (along with 175 AP instead of 50). Six air units upgraded to late model planes. Two air battalion (10 plane) units renamed and upgraded to air regiment (20 plane). Ground unit and element upgrades scroll on and on for pages; it seems that Matrix must keep the pico-management types amused. Turn 9 will have just about the same number of units arriving, lets see.. 9 RD, 2 Cav, 3 Naval Bde, and two more Army HQ.
Key stats from EvLog production totals: 82.6k Armaments produced, 1371 vehicles, 321 aircraft, 133 afv, 184k manpower. About 710k armament surplus and 55k manpower left after replacement phases. I’m not used to seeing manpower unused and so I dig a little, but the ‘wanted’ and ‘added’ columns basically match. Soviet quartermasters declare that victory is achieved - after looking over their shoulders to make sure Stalin didn’t just sneak in. Event Log, Resource Status shows Rail at 100%: 200k free, 187k needed. 20 partisan battalions now formed, and 13 supply drops done from VVS airbases. None activated yet.
CR Battles tab reports only 63 battles of all types. No recon - I feel slighted! 2 air bombing attacks on an empty airfield; none on ground units. GamerDad must have skimmed through this turn? 40 ground battles across the whole front - Red Army held in three of those. The fight up at Lake Jan was bloody again, with Finns taking almost 1k losses. Soviets can afford that. Nine interdictions by Soviets with minimal results.
Axis main-line rail repair progress: 75,28 NE of Pskov. 71,56 E of Minsk. 74,61 to Bobruisk/Berezina R. 67,88 E of Proskurov. 74,106 S of Kishinev, right up to the Dnestr River front line. Another wasted turn for Rumanian Rail. Would be nice if I could stonewall the advance another turn, but I’m pretty sure panzers will be lunging for Kirovograd or the Black Sea next turn.
Checking for counterattack possibilities, Southwest does have a couple. I might be able to break into the Vinnitsa pocket, or retreat 1st SS. I can’t see any other openings across the whole front.
Next, checking air units shows they are doing pretty well. 22 fighter and 10 bomber/tac need rest in NR, which is less than past turns. On the flip side, less is ready to return to action than I’d hoped. Still, enough so I can beef up the Leningrad area air strength. ToeM settings adjusted for all ground units. The number of RD at 90% Toe or higher is surprising - my forces will have some resiliency.
Northern Front commanders reviewed. Popov can stay at Front HQ. 6-6-5-6:5-6 is actually pretty good. For Army HQ I’d like 6 ratings in Admin and Inf - 28th Army is the only really good commander, 7th and 30th are marginal. 23rd Army is the worst and gets upgraded to Bagramyan (8-7-6-7:5-7). That was 13 AP. I may come back later and do some more swaps. Eleven Fortified Regions are build on the No Attack Line which takes me down to 118 AP available. 48th Army (STAVKA) just got organized near Volkhov and will take some excess units from Northern Front to get it under 72 CP.
Railing forward new units from Urals and east of Moscow leaves 25k unit rail still available. All but one 7th Army division can reach rail and board trains this turn. They get moved down to around Volkhov. Interestingly, the trains are interdiction-bombed twice. I didn’t know rail movement was subject to interdiction - can’t remember seeing that ever before. Good that it can happen, whether it is a new feature or has been in game forever. Still 8k unit rail left. I knock Unit Rail from 9% reserved to 7%. That will give supplies etc. more of a cushion.
Screenshot of overall front lines, excluding Karelia since that area will become inactive.
[image]local://upfiles/60274/6CDD73BB85C44592910B470B9D9FDBE6.jpg[/image]
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