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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/23/2012 3:05:22 AM   
CowboyRonin


Posts: 360
Joined: 8/14/2009
Status: offline 		This game certainly has characteristics of the "Sir Robin" defense from WiTP. The ahistorical view has been raised there, as well. However, Sir Robin (as a pure form) has been seen less and less often in the AAR world, becuase Allied players realized that a) there were viable options for forward defense and b) failing to put up any forward defense at all allowed the Japanese steamroller to blow right over the second-level objectives with no delay or damage at all. At this point, it certainly appears that Pelton is allowing Michael to set up the Red Army steamroller just as he wants it, but I do want to see what 1942 offensive Pelton is able to pull off. I would like to see the game played through, even if it is just as a warning to German players - "The blizzard may hurt, but running away will end up hurting worse".

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Post #: 241
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/23/2012 3:43:12 AM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		I don't know if this will be significant or not as I have never had a 1942 Soviet Air Force. But the general lack of combat since T14 has allowed me to spend many AP on the VVS (every turn I have to find some way to spend 50 AP) and subsequently all fighters are MIG's, LaGG's, Yak's, P40's or Hurricanes. All attack bombers are IL2's. All level bombers are IL4's or Pe2's. There is not one obsolete airframe in the entire VVS.

I am also building some brigades now so as to stay ahead of the curve if a AP crunch developes later. I can merge these in to divisions as required.




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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/23/2012 4:02:04 AM   
Flaviusx


Posts: 7750
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Status: offline 		It matters because your air force can do stuff in 42. Ground support missions will actually fly. Having 100 shturmoviks show up in battle is no joke. Spend some of those APs on air leaders, too, get everybody up to at least a 5 rating, you should have enough of those to cover all Fronts now.

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Post #: 243
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/23/2012 4:45:34 AM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
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Status: offline 		Yeah, air leaders, good idea.

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Post #: 244
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/23/2012 8:09:23 AM   
randallw

 

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Status: offline 		The Red Air Force has the same 'quality' challenge as the army does, trying to close the gap in the personnel ( experience ) difference; even with modern fighters your death ratio will be bad for awhile.

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Post #: 245
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/23/2012 8:36:48 AM   
cpt flam


Posts: 2352
Joined: 1/16/2011
From: caen - France
Status: offline 		personnaly I don't change so much to IL4, you get so few (21 a turn)
i prefer A20 and B25 they have shorter range but good enough

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Post #: 246
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/23/2012 1:15:33 PM   
mevstedt

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: randallw

The Red Air Force has the same 'quality' challenge as the army does, trying to close the gap in the personnel ( experience ) difference; even with modern fighters your death ratio will be bad for awhile.


This is a fairly accurate point. I would suggest you put all the Hurricane/P40s on autoupgrade to conserve APs (as they will then switch to the better versions later on automatically). MIG-3s and LaGG-3s don't seem to upgrade very well while the Yaks usually do but sometimes too much (the exp cost for changing multiple versions get expensive then). I prefer to throw them back into the national reserve when they have reached a certain exp level (such as 60 for example) then convert to a better plane once available, usually Yak-7Bs or some of the Yak-9 types.

I prefer to put as many of those on the line as possible to drain the pool while gaining exp (as randall says they will still get shot down "en masse").

Same goes for IL-2s, they are useful but their morale dips (same as Stukas) so you need to keep an eye on them. Try not to convert too many of them to the IL-2M either as the productionnumbers won't be high enough and you will get the IL-2M3 before you have changed them all.

On a sidenote, I've had the AI randomly disbanding SB2s and LaGG-3s (not until late 43 though) but keep that in mind so you have them upgraded before then or you lose the squadron. It seem to occur sometime after the planetype has gone out of production but I've never figured out the reason behind it, anyone knows?



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Post #: 247
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/24/2012 12:15:04 AM   
Farfarer61

 

Posts: 713
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Status: offline 		Oh Really? M60' s top 3, Not even a mention? For those who have not seen our AAR with Kirov and Kazan under the Maltkreuze, that's what I do when I'm having irresponsible fun, and losing in 1944 as result. Now if you want a game where I am serious, strap in...


< Message edited by Farfarer -- 10/24/2012 12:21:17 AM >

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Post #: 248
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/24/2012 4:32:06 AM   
Flaviusx


Posts: 7750
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From: Southern California
Status: offline 		The upgrade paths for the Migs and Laggs is very sketchy, yeah, everything else past 41 can be set to autoupgrade with decent results. Basically the trick is transitioning those Migs and Laggs to La-5 and the planes on those upgrade paths, and then you can leave those to autoupgrade. Yaks come in many flavors so the Yak 1 is taken care of. Production is so high that you may even want to manually upgrade some of the Migs and Lagg3 over to the Yak family of fighter bombers, although mostly they should transition to the La-5/7 line.

The shturmovik is good to go (although the IL2m can be a choke point) and level bombers more or less stay put after 41 in the Il4 and Pe2 types, supplemented by lend lease bombers as those come in.

All lend lease planes of whatever type can be set to autupgrade.

The Soviet upgrade routines need to be tightened up. There's a lot of holes in them and this forces substantial AP expenditures for manual upgrades. But by the end of 42 you should be past the worst of it and in a position to set it and forget so far as upgrades go and fully automate it.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/24/2012 6:50:15 AM   
randallw

 

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Status: offline 		Without having put in real study the later Soviet fighter planes are only a modest upgrade over the modern ones in 1941; there's some improvement in top speed but of course nothing like a German jet.

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Post #: 250
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/27/2012 5:22:57 AM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
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From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		A quick update. Lines pretty much the same. The odd skirmish between Soviet Cav and Axis Mtn/Sec/Cav units. Pelton is inching forward again in the south with his Mtn units and some sidekicks.

Soviet OOB is 7.6 Million. Next turn is 5 Feb 42 (T34). Proper update after first snow turn.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/27/2012 12:34:51 PM   
mmarquo


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Status: offline 		Michael -

You are approaching the most dangerous moment of all; this is the period when I tore out TD's beating heart by surrounding 40+ Soviet divisions in Southern Russia and ended up in Stalingrad in the Fall....


Mark

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Post #: 252
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/27/2012 12:55:17 PM   
TulliusDetritus


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Marquo

Michael -

You are approaching the most dangerous moment of all; this is the period when I tore out TD's beating heart by surrounding 40+ Soviet divisions in Southern Russia and ended up in Stalingrad in the Fall....


Mark


Yes, summer 1942 can be wild

Michael can see that from the various AARs. The many land he can easily afford to lose is possibly his best joker Because yes, as you had said the Red Army is a paper tiger. Morale around 40 sucks!

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Post #: 253
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/27/2012 1:17:20 PM   
Michael T


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quote:

Yes, summer 1942 can be wild


You guys are assuming he has the balls to actually attack me.... I reckon he will turn turtle after a few incursions. He doesn't have the stomach for a stand up fight. Pelton is all about stats and numbers. I study the art of war. I will kick his Germophile arse all the way to Berlin

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/27/2012 1:28:19 PM   
TulliusDetritus


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Michael T
I reckon he will turn turtle after a few incursions.


So that's your prediction? If he does that your natural, obvious choice would upgrading to Red Army v2.0 pretty soon... Because you will have tons of APs to do that.

Your offensive towards Berlin should be starting (and NOT stopping) by december 1942 at most!

By spring 1943 you would have tons of *ready* (aka good morale => good experience => make testament, Herr Pelton! ) rifle corps backed by a lot of artillery, rocket divisions... I can't see how he is going to stop that. He can't, that's all.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/27/2012 1:32:53 PM   
Michael T


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Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		Unless he does something astonishing I think he will call his great offensive off as soon as he realizes the balance sheet is going my way. Then he will turn to defence. I can't wait to see what he comes up with.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/27/2012 3:34:29 PM   
76mm


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Status: offline 		Well, he seems to have posted his strategy in the other thread you've posted in--causing an AP crunch by a encircling lots of Sov units. I don't see it happening.

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Post #: 257
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/28/2012 1:06:18 PM   
gingerbread


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Status: offline 		Michael, did you get any partisan attack at all during the '41 summer/fall? Pelton does usually not garrison that well so I guess you got plenty of partisan squad recruitment, did you manage to drop supplies to the units and did they attack?

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Post #: 258
RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/28/2012 8:05:20 PM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
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Status: offline 		Yes I was active in the partisan fight. There were some effective attacks. But when I saw he was falling back to Poland there was no longer any point in it.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/29/2012 1:16:34 AM   
BletchleyGeek


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quote:

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Well, he seems to have posted his strategy in the other thread you've posted in--causing an AP crunch by a encircling lots of Sov units. I don't see it happening.


I don't either. The AP crunch works when the Soviet player is forced to make a stand to defend major targets as Moscow. All Michael needs is to deploy along natural barriers and establish a well fortified successive lines, with reserves beyond the reach of possible panzer spearheads breaking through such lines.

Soviet Morale might be lower than in summer of 1941, yes, but ground element experience will be much higher on average. Which means less losses being taken from retreats and more losses inflicted on the enemy. The lower morale level matters a lot when the Red Army suffers huge losses. If it doesn't, average ground element experience won't be lower due to replacements not being trained up to the level they could be under a higher morale level.

Given than Michael hasn't been given the opportunity of a proper blizzard offensive - which entails substantial material and manpower losses for the Red Army - the Red Army available to Michael will be qualitatively better than the one in 1941.

Pelton's Wehrmacht will also be stronger, but the attrition from combat will be much higher. It's likely that Michael's prediction of Pelton just 'probing' and then deciding to turtle up when assessing the massive losses in those carefully groomed Panzerdivisionen will be right on the money.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/29/2012 4:56:02 AM   
AFV


Posts: 435
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From: Dallas, Texas
Status: offline 		I don't see morale being an issue for MT at all. He will have plenty of units to rotate. Everything on the line should be morale of 50 or greater. Once a unit gets below 50, say 48, move it back 10 hexes for a turn, and it will be back at 50, and then back on the line.

There will be no pockets in 42. Hell, there weren't many pockets in 41, what the hell makes anyone think there will be any in '42 when MT will have several lines of defense, a better army, a MUCH larger army! Pelton's tactic of retreating is not bad, I can see the merits in game terms- but its what happened BEFORE the winter that is bad. Germany has to put an ass whipping on the SU in '41. He did not. The retreat might be making the best of a bad situation, we will see. It might be a boring game to play, but its very interesting to watch.

MT, your biggest problem will be getting all those damn units on the front line. You will need to spend a ton of AP making Rifle Corps just so you can get a decent percentage of your army into the fight, instead of 3 rows of hexes stacked 3 high with divisions.

Its church. I don't see anything but a major victory for MT at this point. Pelton is a great player, but he has met his match, he has been majorly outplayed in '41, which is a nail in the coffin for a German player.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/29/2012 9:53:31 AM   
janh

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: AFV
Pelton's tactic of retreating is not bad, I can see the merits in game terms- but its what happened BEFORE the winter that is bad. Germany has to put an ass whipping on the SU in '41. He did not. The retreat might be making the best of a bad situation, we will see. It might be a boring game to play, but its very interesting to watch.

Its church. I don't see anything but a major victory for MT at this point. Pelton is a great player, but he has met his match, he has been majorly outplayed in '41, which is a nail in the coffin for a German player.


I think that sums it up in some way. 1941 is the key, but for both sides, me thinks: It sets the stage for a subsequent beating of the Red in 42, or even its death, as much as it does set Axis up for pain during blizzard, or WW1 warfare after, if it is not effective with the casualty threshold. Games staying in the middle-ground, giving averagely successful Axis offensives, Soviet blizzard offensives, and an average 42 Axis summer, appear to be rare, though.

I find something ought to balance both sides of the coin, i.e. some extra reinforcements for the Reds if the beating gets to harsh (or even just historical reinforcements...), while blizzard rules in turn could be softer, so that Axis wouldn't so quickly find its demise like in many AARs if the Axis summer was just below mediocre. The pendulum likes to swing wide and quickly in WitE, not favoring reaching 45.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/29/2012 10:48:36 AM   
randallw

 

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Status: offline 		There should be some point where Pelton forms his elite divisions into a heavy fist in the coming spring, attempting to create an encirclement of decent size. He knows he's trouble if the Soviet side is allowed to grow and improve it's quality with no interference.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/29/2012 11:24:46 AM   
76mm


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quote:

ORIGINAL: randallw
There should be some point where Pelton forms his elite divisions into a heavy fist in the coming spring, attempting to create an encirclement of decent size. He knows he's trouble if the Soviet side is allowed to grow and improve it's quality with no interference.


Yes, there could be some interesting moments in the spring, and I'm sure he'll have some success in creating pockets, but just not enough to deliver a knockout blow (or anything like it) to the Sovs. He'll realize that soon enough and turn turtle; I just can't see Michael making the kind of mistakes that would let Pelton back into this game.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/29/2012 12:35:31 PM   
janh

 

Posts: 1216
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Status: offline 		Sure he will create one armored fist if not two. Rather the latter since he has to reoccupy all that he conquered already once in the north all over. My bet his focus will be on the tank country in the south, and destroying Micheal's ants.

I see merits in his withdrawal, some at least, but much more benefits it gave to SHC. Hard to judge which of them weigh heavier. We'll see. I think a slow tactical withdrawal, as Pelton usually does, would have served better.
Michael may just have to play it safe with stacked fort belts and tactical withdrawals when necessary, and be patient for his upgrade 2.0 to complete. Yet even Pelton turtles, I am not sure how this ends. The bonus of being closer to Poland than in pretty much any other AAR is one thing, but Wehrmacht can be very powerful on the defense. Pelton will also have time to establish defenses since Michael can't do much outside the blizzard rules in terms of counteroffensive in 42 or early 43. Maybe the match will be a draw after all.

I think Pelton did some weird things against Michael, and cut himself badly with this. First his focus on the Ilmen hook, and this full withdrawal. If Pelton had just stuck to his usual habits and tactics, the lines would probably still twist close to Moscow and past the Volkov now. Really a weired game, but interesting to watch.

< Message edited by janh -- 10/29/2012 12:37:01 PM >

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/29/2012 9:26:08 PM   
randallw

 

Posts: 2057
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Status: offline 		Well, Michael's army will be able to grow into pretty serious size, and by late 1943 he should be able to wield some heavy sledgehammers. Pelton may have to play the game of his life to get a draw.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/30/2012 10:05:18 PM   
Michael T


Posts: 4443
Joined: 10/22/2006
From: Queensland, Australia.
Status: offline 		Quick update. T36 (19 Feb 1942) Blizzard.

Pelton has emerged from his winter hideout with some Mech units and surrounded several of my Cav pickets. No big deal. But it appears some action may soon be afoot. Hooray!

Also I have more manpower than units to put them in so I will have to increase my Brigade production until Divisions get cheaper. OOB is at 7.88 million but all units are just about maxed out.

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/30/2012 10:39:02 PM   
glvaca

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: AFV

I don't see morale being an issue for MT at all. He will have plenty of units to rotate. Everything on the line should be morale of 50 or greater. Once a unit gets below 50, say 48, move it back 10 hexes for a turn, and it will be back at 50, and then back on the line.

There will be no pockets in 42. Hell, there weren't many pockets in 41, what the hell makes anyone think there will be any in '42 when MT will have several lines of defense, a better army, a MUCH larger army! Pelton's tactic of retreating is not bad, I can see the merits in game terms- but its what happened BEFORE the winter that is bad. Germany has to put an ass whipping on the SU in '41. He did not. The retreat might be making the best of a bad situation, we will see. It might be a boring game to play, but its very interesting to watch.

MT, your biggest problem will be getting all those damn units on the front line. You will need to spend a ton of AP making Rifle Corps just so you can get a decent percentage of your army into the fight, instead of 3 rows of hexes stacked 3 high with divisions.

Its church. I don't see anything but a major victory for MT at this point. Pelton is a great player, but he has met his match, he has been majorly outplayed in '41, which is a nail in the coffin for a German player.


+1

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 10/31/2012 7:01:17 AM   
Fishbed

 

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Status: offline 		Actually, what Terje is accomplishing against Oloren does raise a couple questions about what can be done by a top notch German army that never saw winter. If played well, you could actually suffer from being oversized, somehow...

< Message edited by Fishbed -- 10/31/2012 7:07:28 AM >

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RE: Razing the Reich (No Pelton) - 11/1/2012 1:46:24 AM   
BletchleyGeek


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

Actually, what Terje is accomplishing against Oloren does raise a couple questions about what can be done by a top notch German army that never saw winter. If played well, you could actually suffer from being oversized, somehow...


I doubt very much that Michael is going to put forward a 'carpet defense' like that of Oloren. 'Defending in depth' in WitE doesn't really mean to lay 90% of your army within 5 hexes of the enemy line.

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