RE: Turn 24: Attack, attack, attack!

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East Series >> After Action Reports >> RE: Turn 24: Attack, attack, attack!

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RE: Turn 24: Attack, attack, attack! - 12/8/2020 8:24:10 PM

Seminole

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50 destroyed divisions auto-returning definitely changes the considerations.

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Post #: 121

RE: Turn 24: Attack, attack, attack! - 12/8/2020 9:37:25 PM

chaos45

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Tanks also take up manpower as each tank requires men to man when it is moved from the pool to an actual combat units....

In the pool they are just sitting in storage unmanned.

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Post #: 122

RE: Turn 24: Attack, attack, attack! - 12/8/2020 10:26:28 PM

redrum68

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I actually find leaving tank brigades at 20% TOE while there exp/morale rises and then increasing TOE to 100% later on works pretty well.

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Post #: 123

Turn 25: where'd they all go? - 12/13/2020 11:09:29 PM

CapAndGown

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Dec. 4, 1941; first turn of blizzard

In my German side AAR I stated that I felt there were two options for the Germans to defend for the blizzard-local corps reserves, or theater wide fire brigades. I had not considered a third option: RUN AWAY! (Can that even be considered a defense?) My opponent decided on option 3-retreat two hexes across most of the front. (The screen shot below gives a taste of this in the Moscow sector.)

The two hexes retreat is carefully gauged to prevent me from launching deliberate attacks due to the cost of movement, including blizzard penalties and penalties for entering enemy controlled hexes. This saves the Germans casualties and prevents me from creating more guards divisions. (We are up to 20 guards rifle divisions now.) Whether this option is wise, however, remains to be seen.

I changed two leaders this turn, created 11 cavalry corps, and spent another 31 AP changing an Army from one front to another. That cost is absurdly high, but rather than deal with the hassle of switching out a new HQ and relocating the old HQ back to its Front's area of operations, I decided to pay the price.

The juggling act of keep my forts manned while sending forces forward to fight only intensifies as the Germans retreat and we try to chase them down.

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Post #: 124

Turn 26: more retreating - 12/15/2020 10:24:50 PM

CapAndGown

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The Germans continued their 2 hex retreat, going so far as to abandon Stalino. Only a few hasty attacks were made this turn. Otherwise, our armies just continued their advance in the wake of the German retreat.

Two more cavalry corps to go before all our cavalry divisions are converted into Corps. Each corps is being assigned a sapper battalion and a motorcycle regiment when available.

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< Message edited by CapAndGown -- 12/15/2020 10:28:07 PM >

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Post #: 125

Turn 27 - 12/24/2020 1:51:00 AM

CapAndGown

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Nothing much to report. The Germans continue their two hex retreat while we continue our pursuit. As new rifle brigades arrive they take over fortified positions on our MLR, freeing more divisions to join the pursuit. Newly arrived reformed divisions are coming in at 9% TOE. It will be quite a while before our armaments situation becomes satisfactory.

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Post #: 126

RE: Turn 27 - 12/24/2020 9:04:05 PM

Seminole

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What's the date?
Show us the front.

Curious how much this strategy costs in terms of terrain and staging for the spring/summer.

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Post #: 127

Turn 29 - 12/27/2020 1:46:12 AM

CapAndGown

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A New Year. Turn 28 saw the Germans continue their 2 hex retreat. Turn 29, however, saw the Germans slow their retreat to just 1 hex. This allowed us to launch are larger number of attacks. My opponent says that he is trying generate infantry reserves by pulling back and straightening the line. Meanwhile, the panzers seem to have all left the theater to avoid the ravages of the Soviet winter. Our own goals are to cause German casualties, create guards units, and tear up German rail lines.

The armaments situation greatly improved this turn with the bump in the production multiple. There will also be fewer reinforcements coming in now, gobbling up fewer replacements. Depending on how the armament situation looks next turn I will consider bumping all those 20% TOE tank brigades to 100%.

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< Message edited by CapAndGown -- 12/27/2020 8:11:52 AM >

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Post #: 128

Turn 32: the panzer lair - 1/1/2021 9:40:12 PM

CapAndGown

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Jan. 22, 1942

We have been going through turns fast and furious. I have focused on turning around turns and not so much on reporting the game's progress. But it is time for an update.

The Russians reached the gates of Smolensk and are 10 miles short of Dnepropetrovsk. We found at least one lair where the panzers have been hiding out, a panzer lair, so to speak. (see what I did there?

)

At this point I think the Russian offensive has reached its highwater mark. It is time to start preparing for Spring. (All through October the Germans kept telling each other: "Winter is coming". Now the Soviets are whispering: "Spring is coming". Time for the red walkers to retreat to a spring defensive line!)

The offensive did not achieve all I wished to achieve. I did not create any guards armies. I did get to 6 guards cavalry corps and may get a few more before winter is over. I was hoping that all my cavalry corps would achieve guards status. We are also up to 39 guards rifle divisions. Tank brigades, however, are a long way from achieving guard status. I am afraid we are going to have to wait until we have tank corps for that. I did tear up a lot of German rail lines and caused a goodly number of casualties: the Germans have lost 790,000 men.

On Jan. 8 I took almost all my 20% TOE tank brigades and changed them to 100%. The manpower draw that turn was enormous; it takes a lot of men to fill up all those tanks. They are now on refit trying to get their experience up.

On Jan. 15 I changed 27 of my 20% TOE rifle divisions to 50%. They will have a turn or two to train their new recruits before I bump them to 80% TOE. This turn I change 15 more 20% TOE rifle divisions to 50%. They will also get a couple of turns to train before being bumped up to 80%.

Armaments are at 110,000 a turn, all of which are being used, while manpower is at 124,000 per turn. We have a surplus of 430,000 manpower, much of which will no doubt get used up bring my <100% TOE units to full strength.

In looking over my command structure, I felt there was a lack of armies, so I built two new ones last turn at a cost of 50 AP. I would like to have 4 armies per front, plus 2 armies per military district. I would also like my Shock armies to be subordinated directly to Stavka and act as reserve armies to be thrown into opportunistic offensives, or as back stops to threatened sectors.

For a defensive set up, I am envisioning each army having 9 divisions with a front of 30 miles and a depth of 30 miles. Each Front command, therefore, would cover 100-120 miles of the front line. Rifle brigades would man secondary defense lines and be subordinate directly to Stavka or to Airborne HQs.

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Post #: 129

Turn 36: important milestone - 1/13/2021 2:37:49 AM

CapAndGown

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Feb. 19, 1942

We achieved an important milestone this turn: we have 25k armaments in the pool. This is the first surplus we have had in a long time. I still have 45 divisions that are locked at 20% TOE that need to be brought up to strength, but everyone else is at 100% (except the cavalry corps which suffer due to the cap of 200 cavalry squads built per turn). Next turn I expect to have 50k armaments in the pool which I will promptly drawn down by taking the 20% divisions and bumping them all to 50%. Overall, we are producing ~112k armaments per turn.

With the armaments situation now almost solved, the next big shortage looming over the horizon is manpower. Our pool is down to 300k while our production is about 125k per turn. Last turn we used up something like 200k manpower filling out 21 divisions that went from 75% to 100% TOE plus the rest of the front line forces. Next turn the draw will probably be even larger.

I did run into a bug this turn. I have started a gradual evacuation of factories again in preparation for the German summer offensive. This turn, after using up all my reserved rail capacity to move troops around, I decided to evac the hi and armaments factories at Voronezh. A shot time later (maybe directly after?) I noticed that all my factories--including manpower and railyard--at Tambov were gone. Poof! I simply cannot afford to lose 16 manpower factories into thin air. So I restarted the turn from the beginning. Yuck! Too much work down the drain. At any rate, I did the factory evacuation first this time and then used my troop transport capacity later.

Our forces have almost completed their withdrawal into their spring defensive positions. I will provide a screen shot next turn when they have all made it to the March defense line. Generally, this line is the same as it was when the winter offensive began with a few exceptions. In front of Kharkov we withdrew from the Poltava salient to straighten our line in front of Kharkov. In front of Moscow we are setting up a Rzhev-Vyazma line. Down south we will be defending the Stalino-Gorlovka line down to the sea of Azov, so about 50 miles advanced from the Mius river line which is where we were back in November.

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Post #: 130

RE: Turn 36: important milestone - 1/14/2021 2:14:11 PM

Dweomer

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Can you show the army sizes as well next turn?

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Post #: 131

Turn 38-39: a nasty bug - 1/22/2021 2:17:50 AM

CapAndGown

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March 5-12, 1942

On turn 38 I ran into a brutal bug than reduced my armaments, HI, manpower, and railyards substantially. On turn 37 I started a phased withdrawal of armaments and HI from cities I feel may be threatened during the upcoming German offensive. By turn 38, however, what I found is that all my factories in both Novorossiysk and Tbilisi had disappeared. I lost 6 HI factories, 5 armament factories, 24 manpower and 9 railyard factories altogether. This is highly discouraging and has me spooked about any more evacuations. Nevertheless, I am pressing on.

Our troops have reached their spring defensive positions, although they still need to do considerable shuffling about to get army and front boundaries in order.

On turn 37 we bumped 44 divisions set at 20% TOE to 50%. After letting them sit for one turn to digest their gains, I have again bumped them from 50% to 75% TOE. As of turn 39 we are producing 123k manpower per turn, with 238k manpower in the pool. Even though this turn did not see any divisions increase their maximum TOE, there was still a large draw on manpower due to many divisions upgrading the the 42 TOE which almost doubles the number of AT rifles. Fortified regions are also upgrading adding to the draw on manpower. According to the event log we are still 354k manpower short of being 100% in all our units.

At the end of the blizzard we had 42 guards rifle divisions and 17 guards cavalry corps. Our cavalry corps each have a motorcycle regiment and a sapper battalion assigned to them. I have decided to change that. I built 19 MG-Art battalions and will build 19 tank battalions to assign to them while the motorcycle regiments will go to Tank corps once they are formed.

We are currently producing 112k armaments per turn and have 78k in the pool.

The screen shot below shows our positions as of turn 38. (March 5)

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Post #: 132

Turn 43: Building an army - 2/4/2021 12:12:30 AM

CapAndGown

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April 4, 1942

The Soviets continue to build their army. Great attention is being paid to the manpower situation. While still positive, we see challenges ahead. Almost all formations are now at 100% max TOE, with their actual TOE not far behind. (Attritional losses being what they are, any units right on the front line will never have 100% actual TOE.) Only our fortified regions are at 50% TOE and I just bumped them all to 100%. There are 68 fortified regions, so that will be a big draw next turn. After that I expect and hope that our manpower pool will steadily increase through the rest of April and May. I wish to have a large buffer in order to refit units that will be severely damaged or even destroyed during the summer.

The soviet OOB is at:
men 7,238,540 (7,222,346)
afv 4,651 (4,535)
aircraft 7,614 (7,530)

Thus, we are about 100k men short of a full OOB.

Meanwhile, we are currently producing 123k manpower per turn with 83k, in the pool.

Our armament situation is very good, with 129k in the pool and 112k more being produced each turn.

One area where we are really hurting is in rail capacity. I have had to reduced reserved rail down to 7% in order to meet our resupply needs. While we are producing 117k tons of supply per turn, we could have produced 2k tons more if not for resource shortages brought about by shortages of rail capacity. This limits our ability to move troops around quite severely: our reserved rail amounts to only 22k per turn--less than 10 rifle divisions.

I have started forming Tank Corps. On the first turn they became available I formed 9, and now I will be forming 2 per turn. Currently we have 11. At this rate I will be able to form 14 more before June, at which point I will switch to forming guards rifle corps. Interestingly, one of our Tank corps has already achieve guards status. I wasn't expecting that!

These corps are being withdrawn to our third defensive line where they will refit and help build trenches. I plan on assigning a motorcycle regiment, an AA battalion, and a sapper battalion to each corp. Currently, I am short on sapper battalions and will need to start building some. Each army currently has 2 sapper battalions, as do our Cavalry corps. Meanwhile, the motorcycle regiments assigned to Cavalry corps are being stripped from them for reassignment. I am currently planning on building tank battalions to assign to the Cavalry corps, but that won't be for a while.

For several turns now I have been building airbases (1 per turn, which appears to be the limit) to replace all the SAD bases being disbanded. I can understand not wanting to have SAD airbases, but couldn't you just rename them? And what about the BAD airbases? Isn't it worse to be BAD than SAD?

I have also been forming 5 fighter and 2 IL-2 regiments per turn, with a scattering of recon regiments thrown in.

Soon I will need to start forming Rifle brigades. Why? you ask. Because I want the brigades I have now to continue to man the fortifications where they are (and to continue to build them up even more) while still having brigades available to merge with guards divisions to form rifle corps. I currently have 42 guards rifle divisions. Converting them to rifle corps will require 21 rifle brigades to be joined to them.

So much for logistical considerations. Now on to operational/strategic considerations.

I am in the process of forming all-guard reserve armies. (you can see one of those armies 60 miles west of Kursk that has already been formed.) I plan on having 3 all-guard reserve armies with 8 guard divisions each. All four of my shock armies are also in reserve, with each of them having 5 cavalry corps (one currently only has 4 cavalry corps, but will soon be up to five after the arrival of a new cavalry division at the end of April.) I also have a reserve army forming up behind the Bryansk front around Orel. Finally, my tank corps will be organized into armies and held in reserve. Currently, I have two armies designated to command four tank corps each. When July rolls around I will be able to start building actual Tank Army HQs.

It is here that I am caught in something of a dilemma. I see two ways of dealing with the upcoming German offensive. The first way is the straight forward method of trying to throw in reserves to try to contain any breakthroughs, or at least stop them from getting out of hand. Another method, and one I would prefer, would be to launch my own offensive to draw off German reserves from their main thrust. (The Soviets employed both these methods during operation Citadel, using reserves to shore up their army near Prokhorovka, while also launching an offensive further south to draw off German panzer units.) My problem is, I don't know exactly what either army is capable of. How well can my boys do in containing the Germans without the support of reserves? Without the presence of reserve formations, will the Germans be able to achieve deep penetrations that could otherwise have been avoided? Also, how well would any offensive on our part work in drawing out German attention?

Ideally, I would like to move all my shock armies with their cavalry corps north of the Oka into the wooded terrain between Moscow and Leningrad where they would have a mobility advantage, while the tanks operated on the steppe south of the Oka. Right now, however, my all my reserves are gathering south of the Oka where the main German offensive will fall. If I had more rail capacity this would not be such a problem, but right now, my limited ability to shift around my forces is making it so I have to choose one or the other option: reserves in the south, or an offensive in the north.

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Turn 44: He's alive! - 2/8/2021 1:50:02 AM

CapAndGown

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April 16, 1942

In truly monumental news, Dimitry Pavlov's political rating was raised to 2. It seems comrade Stalin is not as angry with him after a successful winter counter offensive. Will he survive the war? Stay tuned!

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Post #: 134

Turn 46: before the storm - 2/15/2021 3:38:33 AM

CapAndGown

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April 30, 1942

This is it. The last turn before the weather clears. Our troops are in their final dispositions to meet the coming whirlwind.

I have plenty of reserves. Unfortunately, they are placed to counter the coming German offensive rather than in preparation for our own offensive. I would like to take all of my Shock Armies along with a couple of my all-guard armies and move them north for an offensive around Velikiye Luki and Pskov. There is no Luftwaffe presence in that area at all. Unfortunately, our rail capacity for moving troops around is severely constrained. This turn I had 31k reserved rail available. Our reserved rail percentage is down to 7% in order to allow for the adequate movement of resources and supply.

I continue to build tank corps: we are now up to 16, with another 22 brigades available. All my tank corps are sitting far back from the front, some around Moscow, but most are helping dig a 3rd defensive line along the Don. (I shall name that line the "Beria Line." If it is breached I can use that as an excuse to get rid of this dangerous person.) They are refitting in order to train up their tank crews and rifle squads. Also, I don't really have much in the way of spare Army HQs to assign them to. Ideally, I would like to mass them south of Stalino for a thrust through the Romanian lines. Time will tell.

I mentioned earlier that I was probably going to be creating more rifle brigades to merge with my guards divisions to form guards rifle corps. I found a work around for that. I actually don't think my army should grow any larger; it is currently at 7.4 million men. Instead of creating new rifle brigades I can place fortified regions over top areas where I have 3.10 forts being held by a rifle brigade (This is mostly in the Moscow/Kalinin region.) That will cause the fort to grow slightly to greater than 3.1 making in so it won't decay. I can then disband the fortified region and reclaim the manpower but still have the forts.

As I just indicated, our army is now 7.4 million strong. We are producing 124k manpower per turn, but only have 165k in the pool. Last turn we gobbled down 100k manpower providing replacements. That is with an army that is mostly filled out as far as TOE. So our manpower situation is not good. That is why I am not interested in seeing the army grow much larger. I would love to build the pool, not shrink it. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that is going to happen.

The armament situation looks quite good: we have 276k in the pool and are producing 113k per turn. Last turn only 47k were consumed. So it looks like our pool will continue to expand.

The vehicle situation looks fine with 237k in the pool while only 51k are needed. I am sure this situation will change for the worse in the future. I am looking forward to building mechanized brigades; I hear that mechanized corps are quite good and I want to see for myself. I also understand they cost a lot of trucks.

The airforce continues to grow with one airbase being built per turn and several new airgroups being formed with an emphasis on fighters. I wish to wear down the Luftwaffe and that is going to take a lot of fighter. I also have some emphasis on IL-2s for ground support. And then there is an occasional auxiliary created. For instance, this turn I ordered two Li-2 regiments to be formed. I wish to have my partisan supply missions run by transports rather than bombers; the bombers are suffering large operational losses doing supply drops. I may need some more recon as well.

Lets see how my defenses hold up. They are geared for preventing breakthroughs in one turn, generally with a one-up/two-back set up. The front line units are shock absorbers meant to prevent the infantry from attacking, moving and then attacking again. It will be up to the panzers using deliberate attacks to get through the second line. The third line then will further cause the panzers to have to use up even more movement points using deliberate attacks. Units not in the front line are all set to reserve mode unless there is a good chance they can get a level two fort up to level 3 quickly. Once the initial two lines are breached it is hoped that we can quickly build a fourth line with level 1 forts. He will breach the MLR, of that I have no doubt. But I hope it will be a multi-turn process.

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< Message edited by CapAndGown -- 2/15/2021 11:53:00 AM >

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Turn 47: the storm breaks - 2/17/2021 12:39:27 AM

CapAndGown

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May 7, 1942

The Germans begin their summer offensive by encircling 4 divisions. A rather discouraging start.

Going from North to South.

Around Rzhev the Germans don't have any armor. My defenses, however, were designed to slow down an armor penetration. So I had single divisions defending the front line with more entrenched in second and third lines. The Germans took advantage of this to launch opportunistic attacks on a couple of my positions. I need to readjust here to put more divisions on the front line to discourage these kind of opportunistic attacks. I tried to retake one of the hexes but only succeeded in launching two failed attacks. Or at least they failed on the ground. The skies above the battlefield were a different story: the Germans lost 110 level bombers total in the 3 battles over this one hex.

Luftwaffe losses this turn were especially heavy, notably in dive bombers and level bombers. German fighters also suffered. A couple of German interdiction attacks were almost complete massacres.

Meanwhile, this minor incursion persuaded me to bring in forces I had in reserve in the south back north. One all guard combined arms army and one all cavalry shock army that were still subordinated to Volkhov Front (this front is defending the line south of Lake Ilmen)were/are being brought back north to act as a reserve and hopefully to launch our own offensive. An all tank combined arms army with 4 tank corp that is forming up near Moscow will be added to this force making for a total of 3 armies in reserve north of Rzhev.

Around Bryansk the Germans took three attacks to cross the Desna south of Bryansk, capturing just one hex.

West of Kursk the Germans drove through 5 hexes and surrounded 4 of my front line divisions.

Further south, northwest of Kharkov German infantry captured 2 hexes. Again, some opportunistic attacks against single, front line divisions.

Around Stalino the front line is manned by single Romanian divisions, so I made my own opportunistic attacks.

Finally, the Germans broke into the Crimea. We are retreating to Sevastapol and Kerch.

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Turn 48: supply woes - 2/18/2021 9:02:22 PM

CapAndGown

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May 14, 1942

Our factories once again ran into problem producing supply due to resource shortages. Rail capacity dropped to just 81% of requirements. (Someone please explain to me the "on hand/need/free" numbers for the various items listed in the events log.") So I dropped reserved rail capacity again. It is now down to 6%. It may need to go lower. I may also reduce armament production some, though that only took up 51k of my supply. Still my surplus in armaments continues to grow: it is now 390k in the pool. The big draw on supply is fort building, but I am not going to turn down the volume on that!

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Turn 49: furballs - 2/27/2021 4:14:30 AM

CapAndGown

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May 21, 1942

The German push towards Kursk gains steam this turn with the commitment of all the German mobile units. The Germans look as though they are aiming to encircle and destroy the Trans-Caucus Front. They pushed their spearheads deep into our lines, but did not break them.

In the air, the Luftwaffe again takes a beating, one that it may find difficult to recover from. (Turn losses are displayed below.)

Meanwhile, vers 12.06 shows that Soviet rail capacity needs to be greatly increased. I was down to 6% reserved rail and was still at only 83% of rail capacity needed. I have lowered reserved rail again, this time to 5%. At this rate I am soon going to have to abandon rail transport for any units at all. Its going to be a long walk from Siberia for newly arriving units.

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Turn 49: Rzhev and Stalino - 2/27/2021 4:18:46 AM

CapAndGown

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In other parts of the front: the German continue an attempt to encircle Rzhev with infantry forces, while the Russians launch numerous counter attacks around Stalino. Plus the port of Sevastapol was bombed resulting in 9% damage.

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Turn 51: Rifle Corps! - 3/2/2021 1:15:36 AM

CapAndGown

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June 4, 1942

With the arrival of Vornezh Front I had 185 AP to play with. I used 140 of them to make 7 guards rifle corps. I had worried that these corps would be a further drain on my manpower pool, since I am making them with two guards rifle divisions and one rifle brigade. Turns out the number of men in the freshly made corps is 5000 greater than TOE strength. So a number of surplus elements will be returning to the pool. Looking at the TOE upgrades, however, reveals that these corps will become a big manpower suck come August. On the bright side their combat power will increase quite a bit.

Last turn was all about digging trenches, at least, as well as can be done in mud conditions. This turn was all about getting set up for the next big German push.

In front of the panzers I am going for a one-up/two back approach. The one-up is meant to force either infantry or panzers to make a deliberate attack to clear the front line. They will then be forced to launch and even larger deliberate attack to get through the second line. The idea is to have just enough strength in each hex to the greatest depth possible to force deliberate attacks for even the most powerful force. Meanwhile, almost every unit not directly on the front line is in reserve mode unless they look like they can bring the fort they are in up to the next level.

In front of the infantry I am deploying my main strength up front with less depth behind. Here the idea in to force massive deliberate attacks involving at least 6 enemy divisions to dislodge the front line troops. In the best case, this show of force will act as a deterrent to any attack at all.

Meanwhile, down in the Crimea I lost three divisions adjacent to Sevastapol when they had nowhere to retreat to. Sevastapol itself is now on the German menu. I was earlier considering trying to put 3 rifle corps into Sevastapol, but the Germans moved too fast for me to implement that plan.

I am back to leaving returning shell division at 20% max TOE. This is not because I lack either the manpower or armaments to equip them, but because I need to keep them small enough that they can be railed from Sverdlovsk up to the Don where they will undergo refitting and retraining. I have reduced reserved rail capacity yet again. I am now down to a meager 3%. Right now, moving supplies around the map to support combat units and fort construction is more important than moving units around. The Red Army is condemned to walking everywhere.

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Turn 52: the battle of Kursk - 3/10/2021 11:44:29 PM

CapAndGown

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June 11, 1942

It looks like the battle of Kursk is taking place one year early.

The Germans took the cities of Rzhev, Bryansk and Sumy this turn. After taking Rzhev the German forces there began heading south. Perhaps they are aiming at Vyazma. I doubt they will go for it, though. Our defenses there are quite strong. In fact, from Rzhev down to the head waters of the Desna we have now adopted a two up-one/two back defense giving a us a very strong front line. This is meant to deter infantry attacks.

The strong front line concept worked around Kharkov where the Germans backed off of their attacks and sent those forces north towards Sumy to reinforce their man thrust.

The Panzers that had penetrated 30 miles into our lines did not move this turn. Instead, the Germans concentrated on widening the very narrow corridor through which they were supplied. Unfortunately, we ended up with 7 divisions encircled, though I would say that such a result is fairly inevitable. There is just no way to prevent relatively small pockets at this stage. Fortunately, replacement divisions have already been moved in. As divisions are destroyed, new divisions coming in from the east are sent to man our 3rd defense line while they train up, at which point they are sent to the front to replace the divisions currently being destroyed.

The Russians launched a number of counter attacks up and down the front, including one attack the badly damaged the GrossDeutschland regiment and a motorized division. Meanwhile, the air war is very intense: The Russians lost almost 500 fighters and 80 IL-2s, while the Germans lost 68 fighters, 37 dive bombers and 176 level bombers. Although the loss ratio obviously favors the Germans, in the long run their losses are far outstripping their replacement rate. I will keep throwing more fighters into the fray despite the horrendous losses in order to wear down the Luftwaffe.

Rail capacity in version 12.x especially, but in WitE1 generally, is broken. I am down to 3% reserved rail and still don't have enough capacity to meet demand for supply/resource/fuel transport. Tying rolling stock to rail yard is a very bad idea. The Russian evacuated most of their rolling stock, leaving very little for the Germans. Yet in WitE1 you lose a city with a rail yard you lose rail capacity. You can evacuate ever other type of factory, such as tank, plane, and armament factories, but evacuating your rolling stock is impossible. At any rate, to deal with this situation I have started shutting down factories. I evaced 1 Yak-1, 1 LaGG-3, 1 IL-2, and 1 T-60 factory or order to stop some production and save on supplies. I would like to lower armament prodcution, the AP cost is too high and I am afraid to evac any of those factories considering how I lost a whole bunch of manpower and railyard factories the last time I did that.

One more rifle corps was made this turn. I plan on making two more next turn. In total I have 44 guards rifle division making it possible to create 22 guards rifle corps. That, obviously, will take a while. I am currently up to 8 rifle corps.

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by CapAndGown -- 3/11/2021 12:12:27 AM >

(in reply to CapAndGown)

Post #: 141

RE: Turn 52: the battle of Kursk - 5/12/2021 7:06:11 PM

CapAndGown

Posts: 3206
Joined: 3/6/2001
From: Virginia, USA
Status: offline

Due to health issues, my opponent has had to quit this game. Nevertheless, I would like to carry on. If someone would like to take over the German side in this game (and the Soviet side in my other game, perhaps) let me know.

(in reply to CapAndGown)

Post #: 142

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