Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Crackaces

I am very interested to understand the Soviet thinking at this point. This is one of the better AAR's in my book and one that has both sides posting with a 1:1 turn interleave.

The mud is coming next turn. I might propose that ready manpower / the maximum TO&E is a very key metric at this point. It tells the Soviet how many units they have in the field and the average TO&E strength. Then decisions during the mud period might be a conundrum as follows:

1) Fill the best units of stuff leaving weaker units on their own? That has a problem in that morale + TO&E < 90 means the unit goes unready. These units might eventually shatter. The Soviet's do get free unit shells if their AP's = 0.

2) Fill the lower morale units first to a point where they can operate and then fill better units. This has the disadvantage of diluting the better Guards units. Some of these units when they are 100% can move German units at will (As shown above). It might seem like spreading around mediocrity.

The Soviet's have a very important decision this turn ... Inquiring minds want to know

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you have 10 ap and 15000 rail. your front is now to move south of ivanovo this week , and south of vladimir next week. your southern line ends at x119,y68. [just north of Voronezh] Your short term objective is to make local attacks for guards creation and form a defense in depth backed by mobile reserves for counterattacks. Ultimately to defend Saratov and block the way to our final line.

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you have 10 ap and 15000 rail. your front is now x119,y69 [just north of Voronezh]. you can reassign units from the 29 army for reinforcements. your short term objectives are for local attacks for guards creation, but also to conserve and to build up strength. transcaucus front will be transferred to you soon and it will be covering sevastopol, kerch straits and caucasus passes, and baku. Ultimately you defend stalingrad.

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A21, Soviet South Commander [on the Centre-South boundary]
not sure that we can afford a retreat there
Axis advance there will threaten both armies near Tambov and Stalingrad
I propose to reinforce that area

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A21, Soviet South Commander
@Beria they got a 40 CV bridgehead, it is unlikely that an attack of any size will success
... though it is only ONE hex bridgehead, i think i can manage it
In general, in order to advance down South they need to cross Don in multiple points.

Soviet Supreme Commander
i think you can contain bridgehead but won't sucessfully dislodge it. i think they will try to widen it to 3 hexes and try to hook behind rostov. we could move Zhukov and Konev, the ap is there to do it...fronts holds for now, but in 2 weeks gets bulk of ap to reorganize. Then we move on to leaders

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Bitburger, Soviet Supreme Commander
all air units under 40 morale are rotated to reserve each week. i will assign fresh units to your air armies at end of turn, and then you can use them freely and rebase them until they are worn down and withdrawn again. Try to use 50% of airmiles each turn to maximize experience gain. If you have recon, use it. I will try to get more up front to you as soon as possible. long range i am trying to conserve for summer. We shot down 36 junker transports this week, 15% of total losses !

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Der_Panzer, Soviet North Commander
Bombed a german Airfield. They lost 2 fighters and we one bomber. Could be worth it to bomb them later one, couldn´t it?

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A21, Soviet South Commander
On my turn they had already lost 51 bf 109s, it is definitely worth it, at least for now
as if know it right destroyed plane = killed pilot, so loosing aircraft on the ground also leads to experience decrease
which is not realistic, but it works in WiTE

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Der_Panzer, Soviet North Commander
They lost 40 Fighters in our turn until now. High casulties for them... Yes, 40 Fighter losses every turn is not sustainable for them. They use old E-7´s and F-2´s atm. The Luftwaffe is not in a good state, it seems.

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Bitburger, Soviet Supreme Commander
i am putting Sil01, Soviet Centre Commander in command of long range recon and only using stavka long range command to supply partisans and pockets.