BletchleyGeek
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Joined: 11/26/2009
From: Living in the fair city of Melbourne, Australia
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Turn 22 – 13 November 1941
The snows start to fall in Russia, and the Axis armies maneuver for position. Q-Ball has launched major operations in four different sectors of the front: one of them anticipated, the other two have caught me a bit off guard. There have been 52 battles fought during the Axis turn, 90% of them going over to the attacker. Of the 47 victories won by Q-Ball's armies, 20 have been routs, big routs.
Operational Situation Report
The 18. Armee, supported by the LVI. PzKorps, has delivered a powerful strike right at the joint of Northern and Northwestern Front
In the gap there was Northwestern Front 27th Army, that has been completely routed by the German assault, all seven divisions in it. I am very thin in the north, since I opted to take away two strong armies from the line here to bolster Moscow defenses, and now I'm paying for that decision.
I was expecting 16. Armee to march against Torzhok and Kalinin, and it has complied
Those two PzDivs have really driven a wedge through the lines of Northwestern Front 8th Army. I was in the process of reinforcing this sector – the units you can see in the picture under the STAVKA – but I was a turn late. Note that he's occupying the terrain he wrested from me with Infantry regiments. I think his goal here was to eliminate the bridghead I had west of the Tveritsa river, but seeing the success he had further north, he might get greedy.
4 Armee, backed up by a PzKorps which didn't intervene, has launched a couple attacks northeast of Tula
this most certainly it's him maneuvering for position and removing my units from his HKL, which badly needs some build up. I'm going to strike this German infantry, it looks weak and it's on the open. Maybe it's time for the 3rd Army – which has been concentrating to the east around Ryazan – to get onto the line and shorten the frontage of the Bryansk Front, which it's excessive.
The German armies tries to flank my defenses around Voronezh, or so it seems
actually, I don't think he's trying anything that ambitious. The southern German grouping wasn't really aiming in the right direction. The victims here have been 50th Army in the north and 26th Army in the south. While the former was quite weak, the latter wasn't.
Looking at the combats, and discussing it with Q-Ball over e-mail, I think we're seeing a pattern that will repeat quite often in 1942: soviet units with “acceptable” morale and less than stellar TOEs being crushed by a German deliberate attack and routing. In all the cases I've checked this has been what has happened. Routing happens whenever the defender final modified CV is N times smaller than the attacker final modified CV, where N stands for the unit morale. It's not a big shot that the final CV's in these combats were outrageous stuff as 100 to 1 or so, moreso being deliberate attacks.
In the south, the 1. PzGruppe has inflicted a heavy blow on the Southern Front forces, pushing my forces back almost everywhere:
He really wants to increase those fort levels by not having my troops adjacent to them (there's a 80% reduction in Construction value when enemy units are adjacent). Should I remain passive here?
Losses on me have been really tough this turn, I count something like 100,000 casualties, including almost 40,000 prisoners. It's not been light either for Q-Ball, he suffered something like 20,000 casualties, a five to one ratio in his favor. In the air there's parity in losses, the Luftwaffe has lost 25 bombers and 23 recon planes, most of them in air combat, while the VVS has suffered similar losses, mostly obsolete fighters. That's the only bright spot this turn.
Logistics and Organization
A few things to note here.
After a lot of micromanaging, I'm being able to keep Red Army Rifle formations strength levels mostly above 50%. This has gone beyond capping the TOE's and, each turn, adjusting Refit status on the Commander's Report. The implication of this is that I've got most of my units with TOE's ranging between 60 and 70, and that, combined with the Morale, means that some armies might find their attached units to be very brittle. We've seen part of that this turn.
Another thing to note is that after having lost only 15% of the pre-war Armaments production, I'm able to field each turn just about 120,000 men. This is much less, actually half, of what I was used to. It has some subtle, far reaching strategic consequences. Turns like the current one wouldn't be half as bad in 1.04, in 1.05 this turn has meant that I've lost one entire turn of preparation and build up. If preparation was always important, now it's not only important, it's also difficult to achieve. One needs to plan well ahead and work hard to have well prepared strike formations, one can't take them for granted. Obviously, one needs to be cautious about trashing them just for the sake of it.
I see myself on a way towards a two-tiered Red Army. The Strike tier, with good experience, not bad morale and well equipped, and the Cannon Fodder tier, lacking to a varying degree in these three aspects.
How are my strike formations coming along? Well, let me introduce you to 1st Shock Army, commanded by I. Konev:
There quite a few powerful units there, and I have still to assign to it the artillery support. I really expect this Army to live up to its name and become a nasty shock for the Germans.
Operations
I've launched a total of 10 local attacks, focusing on those German infantry units that were exposing too many hexsides to my forces and in the open. The Red Army forces have met success in 8 occasions, which is not bad. In the casualties department, I've got a 1:2 exchange favoring the Axis, which is not too bad, though tank losses have been heavy: 91 permanent losses.
The Air war continues as I've been pursuing the last six or seven turns, bombing HQ's with high detection level and the odd sweep over German airfields. One of the sweeps this turn has turned out quite badly, losing 22 planes in air combat, damn.
I've tried to patch up as well as I could the holes that this turn German offensives have torn on my line. In the far north, the situation is totally pants
Some Northern Front reinforcements have rushed to the area, and the reinforcements I was taking to this sector just arrived, but lacked enough MP's to deploy properly. A few good units here.
I rush into the Lipetsk – Voronezh gap the newly formed 61st Army, under the Southern Ural Military District
Fortunately I had a few units east of Tambov, training and refitting. Phew. South of Voronezh I put a much less credible show
but it should held together long enough, as more reinforcements are on their way. In the Rostov – Voroshilovgrad area I dare the 1. PzGruppe to hit again Southern Front units. On the left flank, I just can't. 9th Army – just northeast of Rostov – got really roughed up by German attacks.
The white hell that the Russian winter is has just started to get hotter!
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RE: Clash of Steel: 1941-1945: Q-Ball vs Bletchley_Geek - 
You're certainly no alone in having a hard time to find a rationale for it. And yes, it's been with us since WitE 1.00. 
Red Army player. FWIW, I loved the old Atomic Games system,sleepy AI and all, especially Stalingrad and the colored supply traces which were an elegant solution that wargame Devs should have given more use. 
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