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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/12/2012 3:51:23 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: molchomor

Don't think you need to be so worried about Stalingrad or Moscow for that matter as long as they are garrisoned properly? Alot of Sapers actions seem to be focused on establishing a pre-blizzard buffer zone / tearing up rail, which is a nice thing for him as that will protect his weak underbelly (minor axis allies). You will probably not be able to reach those units at all during december if he places them on front sections where Soviet rail is nowhere near.


I agree, but after this last turn Moscow is looking scary.

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Post #: 151
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/12/2012 3:52:36 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		T16 Moscow Before Moves

Well I said it would take either a brilliant move on Saper’s part or a stupid one on mine for him to threaten Moscow before T17 and I was right. I would say it was 25% brilliance on his part and 75% stupidity on mine. The brilliance on his part was moving some of his mobile units near Tula to a position SW of Moscow without me noticing. The stupidity on my part was not noticing. I should have guessed he was going to do this as it was exactly what I would have done if I were him.

In any event, below is the screen shot of the Moscow area after recon and some moves. Another 8 units at least will be toast in a couple turns. A couple of them are some of my best units.





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< Message edited by Harrybanana -- 12/12/2012 3:53:01 AM >

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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/12/2012 3:55:05 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		Even if I couldn’t have guessed what Saper was doing I should have known if I had paid attention to a couple of Saper’s fuel drops on T15 as shown below. 93 and 92 bombers respectively dropped fuel to the hexes I have circled. Why didn’t I notice this when every turn I have made a point of searching for his air supply drops? I have no answer; but luckily this is not the real War or Stalin would be having me shot right about now. But the war goes on regardless.




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/12/2012 3:56:37 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		T16 Voronezh Area Before Moves.

Saper forced a river crossing. I’ll have to decide if I want to hold here or not?





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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/12/2012 3:57:31 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		T16 South Before Moves

Saper continues to expand his bridgehead. Do I stay or run?





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Post #: 155
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/12/2012 5:36:13 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Helpless

quote:

He has in just a few turns with very few bombers caused 34 damage to my T34 factories.


Very odd, looks like a bug. I was never able to duplicate this kind of damage with nigh missions. At the start of 1942 campaign all of LW is not able to make such damage to one factory doing night bombing, but taking huge losses.

Would be interesting to get a save prior similar night attack.



I will be emailing T16 to Helpless for him to look at. But I should qualify my statement that the damage to the Stalingrad T34 factories were caused over only a few turns. In fact Saper has been bombing Stalingrad since turn 7. I just never noticed, my bad. However I stand by my statement that it is only a few bombers. The total number of bombers bombing Stalingrad each turn has ranged from 11 to 57. On 6 of the 9 turns it has been bombed the numbers were between 31 and 35. Note this is the total number of bombers which sometimes were spread over 2 to 5 missions. T16 was especially bad as the damage to the factories increased from 45% to 71% on this one turn alone. Most of the damage was caused by 7 measly Rumanian Potez's which, despite being intercepted by 9 fighters, raised the damage level from 59% to 71%.

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Post #: 156
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/13/2012 4:58:35 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		I just realized that in addition to bombing the T34 factories in Stalingrad Saper is also bombing the factories in Gorky and in just two turns has caused damage of 38%. Now admittedly he is using a much greater number of bombers, this turn he made 6 bombing runs for a total of 245 bombers. I'll move some fighter squadrons back within interception range, but I doubt they will have any effect. As I only evacuated 3 T34 factories from Kharkov and soon all the factories in Stalingrad and Gorky will be levelled I anticipate having a real tank shortage this game. Something I have never experienced as the Russians before.

I suppose the answer is to move the Stalingrad and Gorky factories. But I first need to evacuate my Moscow factories. Also once I move them I assume Saper will then just switch to bombing other important factories. The end result is I will have to move everything back to the Urals. This is going to put a real crimp in Soviet production of all types.

Oh yeah, I said I was going to email my turn 16 to Helpless for him to look at but he has not responded to my PM as to where I should send my saved game too. Does anyone know his email address?

< Message edited by Harrybanana -- 12/13/2012 5:00:29 AM >

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Post #: 157
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/13/2012 8:19:10 AM   
gingerbread


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Post #: 158
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/13/2012 10:35:20 PM   
Harrybanana

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

2by3@2by3games.com


Thank you gingerbread. I'll post something if/when I hear back from Helpless.

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Post #: 159
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/13/2012 10:51:56 PM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		T16 continued

The good news is I remembered this turn to evacuate the Moscow industry. Everything is out now that I want out except the vehicle and HI.

The bad news is I was rushing to finish my turn and send it to Saper so I could get to work and as a result forgot to take my post turn screenshots. Not much to report anyway.

Around Moscow I retreated a few hexes out of the bulge to the SW of Moscow, but otherwise tried to solidify my lines as much as possible. I suspect Saper will use his fueled up motorized divisons to isolate a few more of my divisions. Hopefully he won't bag more than 2 or 3 in addition to the 8 that are already goners. There is really nothing I can do to prevent this aside from abandoning Moscow.

I decided to hold my ground around Voronezh as he does not appear to have any fueled up mobile forces in the area.

I also decided to continue to hold around Rostov. This is a bit riskier as I have lost contact with some of his mobile forces in the area.

Oh yeah, in the Crimea Saper's Rumanians have reached the outskirts of Kerch which I am lightly holding. Wouldn't have been a problem except I forgot to move the industry out of Kerch beforehand. I have reinforced Kerch, but doubt it will hold for long.

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Post #: 160
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/14/2012 12:49:41 AM   
gingerbread


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Status: offline 		Are you keeping up your efforts to interfere with the air supply missions? There is a comment that saper hit your air fields but that should cost him a lot to keep up if you put some AA in the Air HQ. The Soviets should have plenty of FB:s and some P-40's as well at this time...

< Message edited by gingerbread -- 12/14/2012 12:50:03 AM >

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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/14/2012 7:41:51 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

Are you keeping up your efforts to interfere with the air supply missions? There is a comment that saper hit your air fields but that should cost him a lot to keep up if you put some AA in the Air HQ. The Soviets should have plenty of FB:s and some P-40's as well at this time...


I have managed to intercept the odd air supply mission here and there, but probably 90% or more of the time not a single fighter takes to the sky. And when I do intercept the results have usually not been very satisfactory as the air supply flights I do intercept are generally escorted by German fighters.

Below is a fairly typical example of the air action on the South Front on Turn 14. My relevant Air Doctrine settings are % Required to Fly: 10%, Fighter Intercept: 300. My Southern Front Air Command Leader has a rating of 6 for Air. On T7 I built/assigned 1 PVO AA Rgt. And 2 AA Battalions to Southern Air Command. However they have taken forever to fill up (even though these are the only ones I have built in the entire game). By T14 their respective TOEs are only 45%, 40% and 65%.

As you can see Saper bombed one of my airfields a total of 3 times with a total of 329 fighter sorties and 78 bomber sorties. He lost 10 fighters and 2 bombers while I lost 31 fighters. Meanwhile he didn’t even touch 2 other airfields which combined had 314 fighters waiting to intercept his air supply missions taking place only 40 to 50 miles away. Just to be sure some of my fighters were set to night missions in case Saper decide to supply by night. And theses are some of my best squadrons too; all with pretty good morale and experience for Russians at this stage of the War.

Saper flew a total of 8 supply missions into the two hexes circled in blue. So how many of these did my glorious fighter squadrons intercept? The answer: not a single one. And it wasn’t like they were busy doing other things. Saper only made one ground attack in this area this turn for which 64 of my fighters did show up. But the vast majority of my fighters just sat on the tarmac for the whole week. And yes, they had lots of fuel and supply.

In any event, I was waiting until the AA units I assigned to Southern Front Air Command built up to full strength before I built/assigned any to any other commands. Then when I realized they never were going to build up and were doing very little good I decide to spend my APs elsewhere; if you think thus was a mistake let me know and I’ll build some more. Otherwise I really don’t know what I can do?





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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/14/2012 8:12:59 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		I have just updated to 1.06.22 which I see now requires aircraft flying air transport missions (including air supply) to be within 5 MPs of a rail head. I believe this makes sense; but I hope it does not nerf Saper's tactic too much. This is the most challenging tense game I have played and therefore, despite my poor situation, the most enjoyable.

For myself I would rather they nerfed strategic bombing which, imho, is way too effective. Though Helpless says it is not that effective and I am discovering otherwise.

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Post #: 163
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/14/2012 9:21:33 AM   
morvael


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

On T7 I built/assigned 1 PVO AA Rgt. And 2 AA Battalions to Southern Air Command. However they have taken forever to fill up (even though these are the only ones I have built in the entire game). By T14 their respective TOEs are only 45%, 40% and 65%.


I had the same problem in my game. With the latest patch they should fill up quickly.

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Post #: 164
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 12:19:44 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: morvael


quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

On T7 I built/assigned 1 PVO AA Rgt. And 2 AA Battalions to Southern Air Command. However they have taken forever to fill up (even though these are the only ones I have built in the entire game). By T14 their respective TOEs are only 45%, 40% and 65%.


I had the same problem in my game. With the latest patch they should fill up quickly.


I hope you are right, but I didn't read anything in the patch notes about this being "fixed".

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Post #: 165
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 7:14:24 AM   
gingerbread


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Status: offline 		Possibly this one:

12. Fixed a bug that prevented support units from getting ground element upgrades.

So the AA should be able to fill up with 85mm instead of waiting forever for 76mm guns.


As to the (non-) intercepting fighters, DL (detection level) could be a factor so you might consider running some recon in the vicinity of the air bases and also in the area around the converted rail to find air bases w/i 5 MP of rail. There is a clear YMMW aspect to this though and very unlikely a panacea.

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Post #: 166
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 7:45:50 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

Possibly this one:

12. Fixed a bug that prevented support units from getting ground element upgrades.

So the AA should be able to fill up with 85mm instead of waiting forever for 76mm guns.


As to the (non-) intercepting fighters, DL (detection level) could be a factor so you might consider running some recon in the vicinity of the air bases and also in the area around the converted rail to find air bases w/i 5 MP of rail. There is a clear YMMW aspect to this though and very unlikely a panacea.


Thanks gingerbread, I hope you are right too. Though I still don't understand why newly created PVO Air regiments would even start with 76mm AA guns as the default when they were obsolete before the War even started. But I suppose it makes sense somehow.

I'll try your idea of flying air recon to detect his airfields. Though with respect it seems rather odd to me that this would have an effect; not saying it won't just wondering how realistic it is as being an effective way of increasing fighter interceptions. I would have thought flying CAP over the suspected drop zones would have more of an effect than finding out where the bombers and transports are coming from. But can't say I know a lot about this intelligence aspect of the War.

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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 7:53:35 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		T17 Moscow Area after my Moves

Saper plowed forward a couple more hexes and as expected re-isolated those 8 units. At least no more were bagged. He mangaged to get a single motorized adjacent to NW and W Moscow; but I retreated it on my turn so I could evac my Vehicle Factories. As I said before a lot will now depend on the Weather over the next 7 turns. Saper has said that he will not play anymore games with random weather as the two turns of mud on the road to Moscow were too much for him. He may be right, without those two turns of mud I would probably have already lost Moscow and still might.




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 7:57:21 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		T17 Tula Area

Very little action here this turn.




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 8:01:12 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		T17 Voronezh Area

Saper expanded his bridgehead a bit, but I threw him back. I don't see any fueled up mobile forces in this area; I hope Saper doesn't have any surprises for me if the weather is snow. My South flank in particular is vunerable.




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 8:03:33 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		T17 Stalingrad

Saper continues to slowly advance on this front. Perhaps some mud will dissuade him




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 8:09:46 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Saper surprised me by advancing across the river near it's mouth. I took a gamble, attacked him and threw him back. If I wasn't expecting mud here next turn I probably would not have taken the chance of a "Held" result. Even as it is a snow turn or, god forbid, clear weather may cost me. I have lost track of 3 panzer divisions and 1 motorized division that Saper had in this area. Has he moved them elsewhere to surprise me or are they still lurking around in the vicinity? (of course for those of you reading Saper's AAR I don't actually want you to tell me).




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 8:12:21 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		Here is the combat report for that battle.




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/15/2012 8:14:58 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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My Armaments have nosedived the last couple turns.

Looks like Saper and I have proven Pelton's statement that the new norm is 2.5 million Russian losses by the end of summer. Mind you another 80,000+ are isolated and will soon be taking the train west to POW camps. Of course my loss of industry and manpower centres is a bit more than Pelton's Norm as well.




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/18/2012 8:51:37 PM   
Harrybanana

 

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There was snow in the North Soviet Zone and mud elsewhere. So Saper hammered me back a bit more in front of Moscow and pretty much held everywhere else. Not worth posting any sceen shots other than the one below showing some succecsful partisan attacks. It's not too often that partisans attack any rail that matters so it is a bit of a bonus when they do.

Also what do you suppose the purpose was of the big airsupply drop on the hex circled in blue. Could this be where Saper's missing mobile units have gone? If so, why? My guess is he plans to rail them to the Moscow area for a final push before blizzard; but who really knows.




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/18/2012 9:05:27 PM   
Harrybanana

 

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This turn snow in the Central Soviet Zone and mud elsewhere. So not much action at all this turn. Except that Saper took the opportunity of providing airsupply to several units while I railed out the HI from Moscow. So the only thing of importance the loss of Moscow will cause me now is manpower.

Oh yeah, since the bug affecting the upgrading of support units has been fixed several of my PVO AA regiments have upgraded to the 85mm AA gun. This should help me protect my industry.

You can see from the screenshot below that once again Saper is providing sir supply to several units in the Stalino area. What is he up to? Is this just to help his fort building in the area?




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/20/2012 5:30:33 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Status: offline 		T20 The weather this turn was identical to T19, Snow in Central Soviet and mud in North and South Soviet. So again very few attacks or movement. Saper's supply situation is generally improving in that his rail lines continue to move East and he is making some massive air supply drops (which by the way I still very seldom intercept).

Meanwhile he moved some mobile units into positions Northeast of Rostov as shown below. Is he planning on using these units to capture Stalingrad? That seems unlikely. More probable is that he plans on flanking my forces south of Rostov so he can take the 3 cities he needs to activate Army Groups A and B. Several turns ago I was not optimistic about holding these cities. But with each passing turn my odds are improving. There is only a 2/11 chance of clear/snow in the South and he only has 4 turns left. But every time I have been optimistic before in this game Saper has pulled some trick out of the bag. Certainly he has lots of gassed up units in the South if he can get a break in the weather.




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RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/20/2012 6:44:22 AM   
gingerbread


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

There is only a 2/11 chance of clear/snow in the South and he only has 4 turns left.


It changes to 9/11 in turns 22, 23 & 24. Pushing back the Soviet rail head is an effective defence and there is the AGS split as well. So that carefully hoarded batch of Infantry Divisions should go here.

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Post #: 178
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/20/2012 7:43:24 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: gingerbread


quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

There is only a 2/11 chance of clear/snow in the South and he only has 4 turns left.


It changes to 9/11 in turns 22, 23 & 24. Pushing back the Soviet rail head is an effective defence and there is the AGS split as well. So that carefully hoarded batch of Infantry Divisions should go here.



Good Lord! Thank you gingerbread. This is my first game playing random weather and I somehow managed to overlook the November weather table completely. That could have been very costly. Unfortunately I don't have a carefully hoarded batch of infantry divisions. At best I have some newly arrived divisions of dubious quality and most of therm are a 2 turn train ride away (primarily because he is about to cut the main line direct from Stalingrad) and I only have one turn left. I'll have to see what I can scrape together. But since he will have some 9+ mobile units with good fuel supplies I will have to carefully consider my options here.

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Post #: 179
RE: Defending Mother Russia - 12/21/2012 5:01:11 AM   
Harrybanana

 

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Mud everywhere so once again nothing to report. Just as well as I forgot to take screen shots at the end of my turn. Nothing to show you except a lot of fueled up panzer and motorized divisions on all fronts. You'll just have to take my word for it. I am fairly well fortifed with thick lines in most positions, but not sure if this will protect me from all those 45+ MP units. I am particularly vunerable I think in the South around Rostov. I considered retreating several hexes further South but decided to take a shot at defending forward for a change. I'll let you know how that worked out for me soon.

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