Is There something Wrong With Odessa?

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Is There something Wrong With Odessa?

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East 2 >> Is There something Wrong With Odessa?

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Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/14/2022 4:05:14 AM

PeteJC

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Joined: 4/4/2021
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I am on my 5th game playing the AI as German in grand campaign. Up until now you simply surround Odessa on land and isolate using your air for a couple of turns and attack it with 6 divisions of 11 Army and 3 divisions of Romanians along with a bunch of engineers, siege mortars, flamm panzer etc. and it is yours. Long story short, it refuses to fall. I am playing patch version .13. I have save scummed to fast forwrad to future turns and continue to attack and it does not fall. Am I just super super unlucky or is there a glitch in the .13 patch and should I download a more current patch.

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/14/2022 5:55:47 AM

ShaggyHiK

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Joined: 10/10/2021
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The assault on Odessa is always an expensive pleasure, in which there is no pleasure.
Moreover, in Odessa, supplies are on average 10 moves.
So on turn 6, troops inside the city with a port and warehouses do not suffer from a lack of supply.
It�s definitely not worth counting on an easy assault on Odessa before move 10, for this you need comprehensive preparation. Strong German divisions, excellent commander, for example Voltaire Model. Full CPP of your units for the assault, as well as their significant support by artillery, sappers and other support units.
And still expect that you may not succeed on the first try.

And no, there is nothing strange about it. In reality, Odessa was abandoned only because of the threat to Sevastopol. In the month of October.

Which actually gives odds to the German player. In the game, the fall of Odessa almost always occurs earlier than the real time.

< Message edited by ShaggyHiK -- 2/14/2022 5:58:29 AM >

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/14/2022 10:20:43 AM

RedJohn

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Can you show the battle? Unless it's the cream of the crop for the Soviets defence your assessment is correct and odessa should fall based on that.

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/14/2022 12:45:25 PM

carlkay58

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It depends on the sequence that you isolated Odessa. Odessa is a major depot that supplies almost all of the Southern Front at the start of the war. This will usually drain the depot over the first few turns. If you isolate Odessa by sea first and then isolate it by land you will help drain the supplies out of Odessa into the rest of the front while preventing it from gaining any real resupply from the rails or by sea. The danger is for Odessa to be restocked by sea after it is cut off on the ground and not supplying the rest of the Southern Front. Odessa can gain as much as 20K freight from a sea supply instead of the 2-3K from rail. This gives Odessa a good stockpile that will take many turns to reduce. If you look at the Freight section of the Event Log you will notice that most Armies (including PGs) require only about 2-3K freight per turn at most - many times an Infantry Army that is neither moving nor fighting will only require 500 or so. In this case, 20K will last Odessa and its defenders 40 turns!

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/14/2022 2:40:59 PM

PeteJC

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I have no problem with Odessa being difficult to take and time consuming. In fact I have found it too easy in my past games. My issue/question was if something changed about Odessa because in the past it was relatively straightforward (not easy) to take it by around turn 12. Surround by land turn 6-7. Interdict and isolate by sea for 4 turns. Get 6 german and 6 romanian divisions up to 100 CPP add flammpanzers and siege mortars and attack.
Then enjoy a nice grappa on the bombed out decks of the Odessa docks with teh early September Black Sea sun in your face. Not this time. Best odds I could get were about 1:2 (9 infantry divisions were in the Odessa fort).

I went back a few turns and did some tests. If I use the entire 11th Army and only 3 Romanian divisions and add a few extra werfers and stugs in (I already had pioneers and other artillery on top of flammpanzers and siege mortars) and do everything else the same it falls. Did one with Model commanding and without and both attacks Odessa falls (actually Model's odds were 3:1 and the mediocre commander was 4:1). So, it seems that using the entire 11th army is needed.

One thing I did not do is what carlkay58 mentions and start to interdict the naval supplies early. That is certainly something that can be started before the land envelopment on turn 6. I think next time out I will do that for a little insurance. Model can stay with his motorized corps in the Moscow suburbs where he belongs...

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/14/2022 11:46:48 PM

homer82

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From: Alaska, USA
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Yes, isolating Odessa by sea BEFORE land makes the city much easier/quicker to take.

I'm on turn 6 of my latest GC game (also my 5th game I believe) and just isolated Odessa last night. I started naval patrols on turn 4 and surrounded the city by land except for a one hex path on turn 5. Last night when turn 6 started and I saw controlled the sea approaches, I cut that last one hex path to the city. Odessa is isolated.

Taking a cue from Loki, come turn 7 I'll start targeting the rail yard by air in an attempt to get the defenders to use up precious ammo (ultimately freight from the remaining depot stores) shooting at the planes.

That all seemed to work well reducing Odessa in my last game. Good luck!

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/15/2022 1:03:54 AM

PeteJC

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Should you hit the railyards or the units. You will have the city surrounded on land therefore making the railyard pointless. I do not know but won't hitting the units also reduce fort level. That seems to be the most important thing to soften after isolating the city. With that said, GA is not all that great in general. Results seem to be not much, but TBH I may just run the missions wrong.

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/15/2022 2:11:30 AM

homer82

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Quite honestly, I didn't recall definitively Loki's logic of hitting the rail yard but I seemed to recall something along the lines of doing so gets a much more "robust" AA response and something about depots being effected.

Your comment/question about attacking units instead, prompted me to do some deeper digging in the manual where I found 18.1.4 (Ground Attack). In the Railyard section it mentions reducing depot effectiveness/capacity and "...damage and losses to ground element equipment such as guns..." I think this is the logic behind hitting the rail yard.

I'm curious if any more experienced players have thoughts on this.

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/15/2022 8:02:23 AM

Stamb

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I think that Loki was talking about flying GA vs isolated cities to trigger AA, as players have no control over it, and AA will consume additional supplies to restore ammo.

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/15/2022 9:53:51 AM

carlkay58

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If you bomb railyards then supple depots will lose material to the bombing attacks. If you bomb units this will not happen. So if you are trying to reduce the supply in the hex you bomb the railyards.

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/15/2022 4:16:39 PM

thedoctorking

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Cutting off Odessa by sea is easier said than done. Soviets can base fighters in the city itself, or else build a base at Skadovsk on the peninsula south of Kherson as long as they hold the Dnepr line and then fly strong escorted naval patrol missions and air superiority missions over the Gulf of Odessa. I think the Axis would have to send German fighters in significant numbers to gain air superiority and cut the city off. If you don't, then Odessa will have plenty of supplies and the Soviets can slip new divisions in and withdraw battered ones fairly easily.

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RE: Is There something Wrong With Odessa? - 2/15/2022 4:34:04 PM

thedoctorking

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I did this in my game against the AI and only abandoned Odessa voluntarily when I needed forces to hold Crimea. Romanian air force got shredded trying to fight me for control of the Gulf. Basically the historical outcome.

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Post #: 12