Beethoven1
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Joined: 3/25/2021
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Gunnulf
Despite HLYA's insistence that this AAR was open and he had nothing to hide I have avoided the temptation to see the other side of the hill until now, partly wanting to do things FoW properly and partly lack of time too as I could see the pages racking up fast from the folder view. However I have a bit of time and decided to catch, partly to find out why I am doing utterly terribly and partly to have a good old fashioned gripe. Firstly though before I start I want to be clear that HLYA has been nothing but a true gent, is clearly a master of the game and doing everything right. I thought when I picked up the game it was his first run through like me but clearly I bit off more than I bargained for. I have played WITE1/WITW a number of times so not a novice to the overall concept, and into 1942 as the Axis in WITE2 but first attempt at the soviets and I'm sure it shows.
That said I have to say I have been waiting like many for a couple of years for this new edition and I have to say its been a bit disappointing from a balance perspective so far. Clearly I am doing everything wrong and HLYA fully understands how to get the best out of his units. Its very impressive to watch. But I can't help thinking there is something at the core of this version that is not fully balanced so far. Just a look at the dates cities are falling raises some serious testing alarm bells. Fine I get it that he's thrown 3/4th of the Panzers into the northern push but cutting off Leningrad in 4 turns just doesn't add up for me. I was let to believe that logistics and terrain had been reworked massively to make the swamps and forests of the northern flank pretty tough and restrictive. But apparently not so much. Tallinn falls on turn 2 rather than turn 10. As said Leningrad completely cut off on turn 4 rather than 15th November, but also 2/3rd of the way to Moscow via the back door too.
But then elsewhere too does Odessa hold out in a massive siege until Oct? Nope just a single attack in turn 6. Kiev until 15th Sept? Nope turn 7 in a single week. This particularly got my morale as one turn the Axis are 2 hexes from the major river, but in a single turn they cover 20 miles, fight a contested crossing, build enough pontoons to push 3 or 4 panzer divisions across (who were even further back from the river) and advance another 50 miles. I gripe about this example as I think its maybe a key to whats wrong with this version, and its maybe particularly prevalent in the early game. I think it doesn't take proper account of concurrent activity and time/space congestion (which of course is always tough in games like this. But the reason panzers can push so far ahead of any historical schedule is they can all act with a full weeks movement, even if a preceding series of battles has taken a full turns actions for another unit. And multiple divisions can all squeeze through the same space at the same time to rush on into the distance.
Once things start to slow down in later turns maybe this is less noticeable but in the early game things are supercharged if the player knows how this CPP works. Even if he doesn't the axis is moving too fast I think. As mentioned above I have an axis game in progress too, I certainly didn't fully get the CPP thing to start with but even as a WITE2 novice just trying to do the right things tactically/strategically I was 2 hexes from Moscow in mid Aug, kiev start of Aug, captured Leningrad in early Sept, Odessa I had no idea how to do it and was nervous of the city fort thing so it lasted to Oct but I clearly should have just gone in hard early. So anyway, wrapping that little gripe up is it just me being an idiot or is something not right here? Because it feels like any other Barbarossa simulation where the above was breathlessly possible would be back testing. Am I missing something critical or just sounding like a bad sport? In which case I apologise. I get that its an avalanche for the Soviets, I'm not expecting an easy ride, I usually take suffering well as the Axis in WITW and Japs in WITP but this feels like either needs more work, or I am fundamentally messing up everything, except so far there really hasn't been anything I have been able to do to influence anything.
In my game Germany is doing a similar northern strategy (see AAR in the other thread), with extra Panzers sent north (also using temporary motorization to get extra infantry up quickly with the Panzers). Based on that, I don't think it is really that much your fault. Yeah, no doubt could have done things better in various places, but it seems to be very hard to stop Germany early in the game if they want to go somewhere. And to a significant extent, that is a good thing tbh and how it should be for this stage of the game.
In my case, in some ways I had an easier time than you also because Germany routed out more units and encircled less (and also I could break the Bialystok pocket with my own temporary motorization of the NKVD border guards). Although those extra units that were not encircled could not fight well, they nonetheless could force a battle, had zones of control, and reduced German movement points and therefore slowed them down more.
I also benefited from reading the early part of this AAR prior to my game, so I knew to react strongly in the north. I railed literally every single reserve unit that I possibly could to the north on turn 2 (including ones in the Caucasus, though those ended up for the most part only in the Smolensk area, but still well to the north of where they started). Everything went to the north of where it started. However, seemingly one result of this was it used a LOT of rail capacity. Soviets simply can't seem to get enough troops into position around Pskov to really slow down the German advance there quickly enough without overloading the rail capacity, which then seemed to contribute significantly to pretty bad supply issues. So then the units fight badly with poor supply even if you do get them in place; to some degree damned if you do, damned if you don't.
In the south, I likewise lost Odessa in a single turn on turn 5, in my case before it was even isolated!!! And I am expecting to lose Kiev, at the minimum, on turn 7 coming up. I didn't even face as good of a German attack in the south as you, but nevertheless decided it was prudent to withdraw and not really viable to try to fight significantly in front of the Dnieper.
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