Firewire9452
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Does anyone have any advice on what my goals should be for the1941 winter as the Soviets? I just completed my first 1941 winter as my more or less first time ever playing as the Soviets, and here’s how I thought about it.
(1) I had three goals for the winter. First, I wanted to regain terrain in areas where the Germans would start too close to their objectives for the 1942 offensive. Second, I wanted to generate wins to promote infantry, cavalry, and armor to guards. Third, I wanted to inflict as much damage (both in terms of morale but also AFVs) on the panzers.
(2) These objectives led me to focus my offensive from Kursk to Sevastopol. In my game against the AI, I still had enough space in Leningrad and Moscow, but had been pressed near Kursk/Kharkov/Rostov. The terrain in the south is far less favorable to defense, and the main defensive obstacle (rivers) are a non issue in the winter. In my experience, the supply situation in the south is also worse for the Germans. Moreover, the extended front, reliance on romanians, and clear terrain permits easier breakthroughs, greater mobility (and therefore a greater likelihood of encirclements). While I didn’t expect to encircle significant German formations, I did expect that the risk of encirclement would force the Germans to retreat from entrenched positions, increasing their attrition during winter and possibly moving them to areas more than 3 spaces away from depots—increasing truck attrition and decreasing replacements and supplies. That inclined me to focus on the south/central area. I think this was probably the right decision, but what do others think?
(3) Operationally, I decided to rely primarily upon infantry divisions to create breakthroughs and cavalry corps exploration. I kept tank/mechanized divisions in reserve to counterattack panzers. My goal was concentrate forces in a single area and push towards a likely supply depot on a rail center (in my case, a north to South push towards dnepropetrovsk that would threaten supply to units further towards Rostov and potentially for e a retreat by threatening a cutoff) and to stop at a defensible river line to entrench for Summer 42. In retrospect, I overestimated the mobility of low morale Soviet formations. While I was able to achieve a breakthrough, I couldn’t flip as many hexes as I expected. And in terms of composition, I’d make a few tweaks. Instead of putting 2 tank brigades and 1 rifle brigade on each cavalry corps, I’d use 2 tank brigades and 1 motorized brigade to help with forming guards tank corps later. Also, I used rifle divisions for attacks. In retrospect, I think I’d try to maneuver my rifle corps to the offensive sector so I could stack more divisions for the attacks and attach more brigades. I am also reconsidering whether a broader push across the line might be more effective than a concentrated push, given mobility limits.
(4) My final goal was to prepare for 1942. Eventually, I chose to build lots of rifle divisions because I had a lot of manpower and to only use my corps allotment when I had 2 guards divisions available. I think this was the right strategy for 1942 because, while the Soviets are in a better position to fight in 1942 compared to 1941 (ie they can entrench, have more troops, better commanders in place, more TOE in HQs) I found that they still lose most individual combats (their NM falls to 45 during this time, and the Germans start 1942 with infantry on the line instead of chasing panzers and with a better supply situation). Certainly, they can’t be strong enough to prevent breakthroughs everywhere, so they’ll have to abandon their fully entrenched line and soon be in a running battle. So I found that for most of the line in clear terrain, it was unrealistic to expect to hold the entire line, but to instead build a defense in depth to slow the German advance and deplete their starting CPP. Lots of rifle divisions meet this goal, but there were several problems that I didn’t anticipate.
By promoting only guard corps, the corps were scattered throughout the line. I also failed to anticipate the command capacity change to 18 for most armies in early 1942, which also unlocks your armies and pull SUs up, and the lack of front command capacity until new fronts arrive (the Caucasus/Crimean, the SE, the Voronezh, and the Transcaucasus and unlocking of north Caucasus military district). I also failed to anticipate the artillery shortage that this would create, especially among the 88/120mm mortars, the 72mm usv and the 122mm howitzer. Even in late 1942 now, I’m still experiencing shortages of these items, even after production switch (and effectively doubled) from the USV to the ZIS. In contrast, I have a constant shortage of tank brigades and a surplus of tanks. I should have ordered a lot more brigades to account for the large increase in the large increase in armies needing brigades as attachments, the increase in corps needing them as attachments, the large increase in 1942 tank production (ie, with lend lease, the Soviets are receiving over 400 medium tanks a week by mid/late 1942) and the need to have a surplus sitting in the reserve gaining experience while others are in the field. And I also failed to anticipate the lead time for rifle division construction. Allocating the TOE and manpower can be done quite quickly, but the division is much better if it sits in the SR until it’s experience increases to 45 (ideally 50, but NM drops to 45 during this time).
In retrospect, I’d order a lot of rifle divisions shortly after their AP cost drops to 2, I’d try to build armies as 9 divisions each or as 3 corps/3 divisions or as a 5 corps set up for shock/guards armies for non-assault fronts. For every 20 rifle divisions that I built (which should create 2 guards divisions and 1 Guards corps at 10% guard rates and 1 full 9 division army), I’d order 5 tank brigades (2 for the army, 1 to attach to the guards corps, 2 to rebuild in the reserve as replacements when the combat brigades have a low TOE). This is on top of whatever would be needed for the cavalry corps for the winter offensive. I might even up this to 6 brigades, depending on whether I want attach 1 or 2 tank brigades to a corps. I would also have a few reserve armies attached to STAVKA sitting on the map, but behind the line building CPP, and I’d ensure that I had lots of rifle brigades deployed in May 1942 to merge into depleted divisions, because the losses in the first few turns of summer 1942 were so high that on map replacements and refit were just not enough to keep up.
So, what could I have improved in my thinking? This was more or less my first time playing Soviets ever, WITE1/2 combined.
< Message edited by Firewire9452 -- 6/20/2021 5:43:57 PM >
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