Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: 821Bobo
Looking at the defense I would say Smolensk is doable. Why is there no unit?

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ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

My guess is the towns you (Dinglir) mentioned+Usyvat.
Thanks to you I now know some random villages in the middle of nowhere I never wanted to know. Although I was able to use wargaming geography knowledge in some "City, Country, River" games.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

The Germans can pretty much “hasty attack you to death”. The additional loses prior to Sept 1st, the bombers, artillery, Commander roll for Germany and the failed roll by the Soviets combined to make a bad day for that Soviet Division. What can you do about it? Not much. Even note the 2 engineer factor reducing the fort to zero. You would think the Soviets are a bunch or “Morons” looking at this combat result.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir
Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants according to WitE.

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Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants

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ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

quote:

Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants

Never trust Soviet numbers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937)

Don't shoot the messanger-and the statician.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

quote:

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

quote:

Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants

Never trust Soviet numbers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937)

Don't shoot the messanger-and the statician.

It actually helped when Stalin executed the statisticians that showed that the purges and the collectivization had made the Soviet population decline.

The next survey showed that the Soviet population had risen rather significantly....

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

quote:

ORIGINAL: 821Bobo
Looking at the defense I would say Smolensk is doable. Why is there no unit?

At the end of the turn, I was pretty certain that Smolensk wasn't doable for the Germans, and I decided to move the division there to another position where I felt it would be of more value.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

quote:

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

The Germans can pretty much “hasty attack you to death”. The additional loses prior to Sept 1st, the bombers, artillery, Commander roll for Germany and the failed roll by the Soviets combined to make a bad day for that Soviet Division. What can you do about it? Not much. Even note the 2 engineer factor reducing the fort to zero. You would think the Soviets are a bunch or “Morons” looking at this combat result.

Are you in any doubt? Of course the Soviets are morons led by an even bigger moron. That dude sitting behind the keyboard controlling their every move is more Pavlov than Zhukov if you ask me.

The main purpose of leaving the division there was to slow down the Motorized Division in crossing the Dvina river (the two divisions were adjacent but on either side of the river). As the Germans spent MP to actually do the attack, from that objective the fight was a success.

The secondary purpose was to see if the German mobile divisions attacking swamp hexes would take casualties higher than normal. As it turns out, virtually the only battle cost for the Germans was to their stores of ammunition, as they had to shoot all those Ivans.

The question is if I paid to high a price in casualties. I probably would not do the battle today, if I had the same choice knowing what I know now, but that's a process I refer to as "learning" :-)

quote:

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

quote:

Incidentally, those "villages" all have more than 50.000 inhabitants

Never trust Soviet numbers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937)

Don't shoot the messanger-and the statician.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MattFL
Has Ivan stopped coming?

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Dinglir
I have also conducted my first air attack with U-2VS this turn

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ORIGINAL: Telemecus

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Dinglir
I have also conducted my first air attack with U-2VS this turn

You made us wait - but I expect they will be coming thick and fast soon!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

quote:

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

quote:

Dinglir
I have also conducted my first air attack with U-2VS this turn

You made us wait - but I expect they will be coming thick and fast soon!

It is a spoiler alert, but I think the AA changes has made the U-2VS a lot less effective.

In the old days it was a question of forcing the Luftwaffe to stop flying during the Soviet turn and then using the U-2VS as daylight bombers. Axis ground losses would soon become appalling. Today, with the new AA rules, I guess that flying U-2VS during dayligt is the equivalent of suicide.

This is as it should be. An aircraft this slow during daylight would be easy prey for even a German MG34 or MG42.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

quote:

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

quote:

Dinglir
I have also conducted my first air attack with U-2VS this turn

You made us wait - but I expect they will be coming thick and fast soon!

It is a spoiler alert, but I think the AA changes has made the U-2VS a lot less effective.

In the old days it was a question of forcing the Luftwaffe to stop flying during the Soviet turn and then using the U-2VS as daylight bombers. Axis ground losses would soon become appalling. Today, with the new AA rules, I guess that flying U-2VS during dayligt is the equivalent of suicide.

This is as it should be. An aircraft this slow during daylight would be easy prey for even a German MG34 or MG42.

Ah that is interesting - and correct!

The only thing is the night bombing was also nerfed - so any prospect whatsoever of using it in the historical night harassment role is also gone. Perhaps the nerf to night bombing should be revisited. Given it should never be too powerful - but at the moment it makes the night side of what was the historical war pointless here?

quote:

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
Granted I get a range of results especially if the Germans are in level 2 entrenchments or higher. But in level 1 or lower entrenchments the U-2's eat Germans up. So boils down to how you use them.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir
This touches on another item which I am struggling quite a lot with these days: Which calibers (on guns) or which payloads (on aircraft) to choose for different fortification levels.

For now, I am pretty much going with

Fort 1: 100kg GP bombs or 75mm guns
Fort 2: 250kg GP bombs or 100mm guns
Fort 3: 1000kg bombs or 150mm guns

However, I have no real data or math to support these choices, and I am considering if I can find some proper way of calculating some values to use for an informed choice.

Ie: If you buy Soviet Gun brigades for the first winter, should you choose the one with 72 75mm guns or the one with 36 150mm tubes? One is probably better for fighting in the open, while the other is better for punching through heavily defended positions.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
Crackaces spent ages testing this on message level 7 and pretty much came up with that conclusion. Lower calibre guns are better attacking in the open OR defending (which seems to always have the attacker in the open) as they have a much greater rate of fire. Nebs/Rockets seem to be like low calibre guns no matter what their size. In the case of the Axis the neb regiments might be preferred only because they are one of the few regimental size indirect fire units so the number of "tubes" makes up for the lack of blast. But yes once you are onto forts etc you need the blast from larger calibre guns. You can see a pdf about this in post 729 here http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4250683&mpage=25

Also they found that anti aircraft guns of all calibres, not just the 88mm, are effective in ground combat. I was sceptical that this was true historically as I assumed you would want to use an expensive quad cannon on expensive aircraft - not cavalry say. But timmyab found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48zE-hRAYEA that actually describes the use of German anti aircraft guns in a ground role - and the manufacture of munitions for them to do this. So the game engine is right to say that anti aircraft guns are also effective in ground combat.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

quote:

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
Crackaces spent ages testing this on message level 7 and pretty much came up with that conclusion. Lower calibre guns are better attacking in the open OR defending (which seems to always have the attacker in the open) as they have a much greater rate of fire. Nebs/Rockets seem to be like low calibre guns no matter what their size. In the case of the Axis the neb regiments might be preferred only because they are one of the few regimental size indirect fire units so the number of "tubes" makes up for the lack of blast. But yes once you are onto forts etc you need the blast from larger calibre guns. You can see a pdf about this in post 729 here http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4250683&mpage=25

Also they found that anti aircraft guns of all calibres, not just the 88mm, are effective in ground combat. I was sceptical that this was true historically as I assumed you would want to use an expensive quad cannon on expensive aircraft - not cavalry say. But timmyab found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48zE-hRAYEA that actually describes the use of German anti aircraft guns in a ground role - and the manufacture of munitions for them to do this. So the game engine is right to say that anti aircraft guns are also effective in ground combat.

Great link!

I am not sure the RoF works as described though (that having 12 RoF will mean 12 shots taken). I think it is more of a modifier, which will affect the chance of the gun taking another shot. Something like: Gun will take another shot if random(x)*Previous shots < 10 + RoF.

So the German LeFH 18 105mm gun with a RoF of seven would get a second shot if random(x) < 17 and a third shot if random(x) < 8.5.

Meanwhile the 20mm Quad (FlakVierling, I think it's nicknamed) with a Rof of 400 would automaticaly get 40 shots off before even a roll of 10 would stop it from firing again. Quite deadly against infantry in the open.

This also fits the guns with a negative RoF. The German 600mm Geraet 040 mortar has a RoF of -10, making it impossible for that gun to get off more than one shot pr combat if using theabove formula. If simply assuming the RoF is the number of shots taken in combat, this gun would never fire.

All this is obviously just guesswork on my part, since I have no idea what the actual formulas behind the game code is.

As for using AA in ground roles, the Germans especially excelled in this capacity designing most of their AA guns with optics and low enough traverse to be used in ground roles. The obvious example is the 88mm gun, but most other AA guns were used this way as well.

quote:

To do is to be -- Jean-Paul Sartre

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

quote:

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
Granted I get a range of results especially if the Germans are in level 2 entrenchments or higher. But in level 1 or lower entrenchments the U-2's eat Germans up. So boils down to how you use them.

This touches on another item which I am struggling quite a lot with these days: Which calibers (on guns) or which payloads (on aircraft) to choose for different fortification levels.

For now, I am pretty much going with

Fort 1: 100kg GP bombs or 75mm guns
Fort 2: 250kg GP bombs or 100mm guns
Fort 3: 1000kg bombs or 150mm guns

However, I have no real data or math to support these choices, and I am considering if I can find some proper way of calculating some values to use for an informed choice.

Ie: If you buy Soviet Gun brigades for the first winter, should you choose the one with 72 75mm guns or the one with 36 150mm tubes? One is probably better for fighting in the open, while the other is better for punching through heavily defended positions.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MattFL

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dinglir

quote:

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
Granted I get a range of results especially if the Germans are in level 2 entrenchments or higher. But in level 1 or lower entrenchments the U-2's eat Germans up. So boils down to how you use them.

This touches on another item which I am struggling quite a lot with these days: Which calibers (on guns) or which payloads (on aircraft) to choose for different fortification levels.

For now, I am pretty much going with

Fort 1: 100kg GP bombs or 75mm guns
Fort 2: 250kg GP bombs or 100mm guns
Fort 3: 1000kg bombs or 150mm guns

However, I have no real data or math to support these choices, and I am considering if I can find some proper way of calculating some values to use for an informed choice.

Ie: If you buy Soviet Gun brigades for the first winter, should you choose the one with 72 75mm guns or the one with 36 150mm tubes? One is probably better for fighting in the open, while the other is better for punching through heavily defended positions.

My goodness, no wonder it takes you a week to play a turn!

I honestly can say I've never once looked at individual load outs on planes and decided that X hex is better for these planes than Y hex. Seems it would be 10 x more brain damage for a marginal improvement in the result. For arty, heavier batteries against higher forts is basically what I've always done and probably won't ever change that or even revisit it at all.

I really enjoy your AAR's, they're very well done for sure. Very interested to see what HJ does on Turn 6..... Each turn you update I expect you to be punished on HJ's following turn. So either I'm misreading the situation around the Land bridge or HJ isn't capitalizing on opportunities. I also think he made a mistake with his Turn 4 breakthrough by not just committing to the direct assault on Lenningrad and sending that MOT division east south of Lake Ilmen. He probably could have taken Novgorod on Turn 4 had he gone that way and would be in a better position than he is now. He should totally commit to either the right hook or the direct assault and stop messing about with both, just divides his strength up.

M

quote:

I believe this game is designed to give the player who masters the details a very distinct advantage over a player who does not. Furthermore each side has unique details. Not understanding this can end up with misunderstandings such as how night bombing got nerfed out of existence.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MattFL
I guess what I'm saying is that playing the game well is a totally unrelated skill to understanding the game.