Disaster in the making. Oloren (axis) vs Terje (USSR)

[terje439]

This will probably be a "how not to run the USSR" pbem game.
Long Campaign 41-45.

Settings
FOW (but not movent fog of war)
Non-Random weather
non locked HQ support

These settings seemed fine to us as we are both rather new to this game both having played through the shorter campaigns as well as one 41-45 game as the Axis.

Oloren has kindly agreed not to visit this AAR.

So. What are my goals? Well long time goal is to visit Berlin, but that will require alot to come together. Some luck, some skill and maximized use of the winter.
Short time goals is to get as much of my armed forces to safety as possible, however this must not be something I get a target fixation on, as I will need to sacrifce troops to buy time. I do not expect to be able to hold back the Finnish, so I will try to make a Sir Robin up north to save the troops from anihilation.

However since this will be my first game as the USSR, things are bound to get FUBAR sooner rather than later I'm afraid.

Edit As the game is over, Oloren is ofc allowed inside.

Terje

[terje439]

So, war has commenced.
My opponent encircled alot of troops, but the ring does not look too closed. Maybe a break out can succeed?

[terje439]

But as our few remaining scout airplanes soon find out, the ring to the north is better contained than initially believed.
In the south we tried to break the ring but was unable to do so.

[terje439]

Talking about our remaining aircrafts. Our airfields have been bombed, but not to the extent that we feared. We sent our remaining bombers up in the air today, bombing various ground units, as well as going for the oilfields in Rumania.

[Ketza]

It could have been much worse in the south several nice divisions of yours have been spared from the noose.

[terje439]

We finally give some orders to our ground forces.
The isoltaed forces are ordered to take the strongest possible location and remain there, but also to spread out to force the enemy to make more attacks and hence slow him down. Only one attack is ordered. If we manage to scatter the enemy SEC troop, we force him to use frontline troops to garrison captured cities. The result was a mere retreat.

The decision is made to retreat from the Rumanian border and into better positions behind our many rivers to the east.
This is basically the story all around, with some units being left behind to slow down the enemy panzers. We can sort of see the fronts starting to form, but I fear we are in for a though fight before winter gives us some breathing space.

[terje439]

So to sum up turn 1;
-our airforce was hit but not to the expected degree.
-we tried to open the southern pocket but failed miserably
-we will fall back to better positions and try to slow down the enemy
-every free unit has been railed towards the front
-we bombed the Rumanian oilfields, to what effect we do not know
-our enemy stopped just east of Riga in the north, not taking the city

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Ketza

It could have been much worse in the south several nice divisions of yours have been spared from the noose.

Indeed, now all I have to do is find some sound use for them
Thanks for commenting. Might be fun to watch all my mistakes as the game keeps going [;)]

Terje

[Encircled]

 Airbase attacks on Turn 1 seem to do a lot less damage under this patch, though I have seen people hit 4,000

[Ketza]

When pocketed as Soviet with no hope for rescue your best move is to spread out and flip as many hexes as possible. Nuisance attacks wont help you. Flipping hexes to suck his MPs will however. Concentrating pocketed hopeless troops should never concentrate it makes them easier to kill utilizing less mps.

[terje439]

On the one 41 campaign game I played against the AI easy mode to learn a thing or two), I took out 4000 something, so I was expecting something like 3500-4000 for sure.
Not complaining though [;)]

Terje

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Ketza

When pocketed as Soviet with no hope for rescue your best move is to spread out and flip as many hexes as possible. Nuisance attacks wont help you. Flipping hexes to suck his MPs will however.

Yes, that was sort of what I expected. I made a few attacks only;
-to try to break the southern pocket
-to try to disband the SEC unit (this seems like a no brainer to me, it has low combat value and I could attack it with 4 units)

After that, I spread out leaving only one unit per hex to the best of my ability [:)]

Terje

[terje439]

Turn 2

The German onslaught continues (no surprises here).
A new pocket is created, and the Germans wisely decided to not waste time to kill all my allready trapped units at once.
For some strange reason Riga is not attacked now either, so we are able to withdraw some more units northwards. Nor did the AGN head for Leningrad, instead they turned east. At the moment there are no German units near the southernmost "no Finnish move"-line.

[terje439]

Turn 2 losses

Our losses are growing, however they are not as big as expected after turn 1. Still, we need to replace alot of units. 4 of my lost fortresses were disbanded by me instead of letting them be killed by the enemy.

[terje439]

Turn 2 overall

We continue to try to make a front that we can defend. But the front is long, and our forces are dvindling fast, and due to the constant lack of points, we can only produce one inf or cav division per turn.

We moved a total of 6 factories east, this is nowhere near enough, and we will indeed lose a few factories the upcoming turn. More trains are desperately needed. This turn we moved 4 armament and 2 HI factories from Kiev.

I will keep some units in the Pripjet-Marshes to force the enemy to move into that dreaded area which will slow down some of his units. My main concern at the moment is the central part of my front, but unless he has moved all his construction units into one line, he should soon see some supply issues at that part.
Still, I really need alot more units if we are to survive. However these are needed at the front, as I also need my trains to move my factories. Decisions, decisions, decisions...

[terje439]

Turn 3

Overall
Not sure what to make of the game so far. The German assault keeps up its high pace, and that is really worrying.
We have however finally made it to the major rivers, and hope to be able to bog him down there.
For now we are defending with an avaerage dept of 1.5 units per "horisontal line", this is not enough.
Any unit available was attempted broken down into brigades, unfortunately non was able to do so. For the moment I want to create as many units as possible to allow me to pull back some of our more potent units to form a few assault stacks, but for now that is a far fetched dream.

Industry
No real worries for the moment, we withdrew factories from Odessa, Kiev and Nikolaev this turn. Fortunately our rail capacity is increasing allowing us more flexibility. 5 new Inf Divs arrived from the east, and they were promptly placed on trains and sent towards the front.

Units
As allready mentioned, 5 new divisions arrived in the east, some more arrived arround Moscow, and several units were unfrozen this turn. Apart from that, we used our CP to order the creation of 2 AT regiments as well as one AA regiment.

Worries
More units are desperately needed. With most of our units having a CV of 1, we need numbers instead. If I can place 3 units in depth along the front, I would be much happier, but alas that seems a far fetched dream right now.

[terje439]

Turn 4

Overall
Finally the initial German surge came to an end. They did however manage to cross my river line far just north of the Pripjet Marshes. The defensive strength was reported at 44, and only 3 hexes close to it from which I could launch an attack. Several bombers flew, but to no avail, we failed to dislodge the Mech Inf Div.
Alot of new divisions were freed up/arrived from the east. They are badly needed.
Furthermore we sent out alot of aerial units from the national reserve to boost our airforce which is badly underperfoming at the moment. Not that I expect this to help much, as alot of those airframes are old and obsolete planes flown by pilots with low morale, but at this point any boost is needed.

Industry
Factories were moved from Nikolaev and Kirovgrad which both have seen all their factories railed out. We also started to move factories away from Krivoi Rog, but another turn is needed to finish the evacuation from this city as we have one factory remaining. That would have cost us 5000 railcapacity and we were left with 4903...Bummer.

Units
Alot of units arrived this turn, and we order them into the grinder. On several positions we now have a 3 unit deep defence so things are looking up for the moment, but I doubt it will last. We have also managed to pull a total of seven 4+ CV armor and Mech Inf divisions somewhat back. Hopefully I can bolster this number by a few more divisions. This will form my "firebrigade" which I fear will be badly needed. Actually the hope/dream is to have atleast 4 such groupings, but we are nowhere near that yet. We started our withdrawal on the Finnish Front. Hopefully we can pull most if not all those units back behind the no Finnish attack line.
We also created a barrier of fortified areas all along the southern side of the No Finnish Attack Line to the east of Leningrad to halt the Fins from advancing into our rear.
Some of the units of the initial German pocket are still alive, and have started an invasion of Rumania and Hungary. They are bound to be killed rather soon, but it forces the enemy to pursue them in the wrong direction.

Worries
Despite intensive recon flights, there are ALOT of German units unaccountet for. This is a major concern. What are they up to? The effect of my recon pilots is also a concern. No matter how many times I recon a unit I will never get a DL higher than 4. This is not enough really, as I need more information to be able to get a clearer picture of the German intentions.

Another worry is that I am constantly low on CP, and I really need to reorganize basically my entire army. This is not good. Should I not produce an Inf Div in order to change the HQ of 8-15 low quality units?

[Aurelian]

Don't build any Inf divisions. You have no need to,

18.1.1.1. REBUILDING DESTROYED SOVIET COMBAT UNITS
Soviet Rifle, Motorized and Tank divisions that are destroyed prior to November 1941 will be
added to the reinforcement schedule to re-enter as empty or nearly empty units after a certain
number of turns with placement on the eastern part of the map per section 18.1.1 regarding
previously destroyed units.
Soviet Rifle and Motorized divisions will return as Rifle divisions from 4 to 27 turns after being
destroyed. Soviet Tank divisions will return as Soviet Tank brigades eleven turns after being
destroyed. In addition, routed Soviet Tank Divisions that rally prior to September 1941 have a
twenty percent chance of being automatically disbanded and returned as reinforcement Tank
brigades eleven turns later.

Don't build any cav either. Save the ones you have for the winter offensive. (IIRC, you can combine them into Cav Corps. Add a sapper regiment to them.)

Bombing cities. CAP and flak will make this a really bad idea.

Make sure your cities have a division in each hex.

Before you move the factory, look at the end production date. Like the Mig factories in Moscow. They only produce for a short time, and don't upgrade. So leave them.

Look at any factory that has ** and check the start production date. If it's far enough in the future, just move one or two. IIRC, they'll regenerate over time. (Dont want to say that's definate as my memory fails me.)

Your arms factories are far more important than heavy industry. So if you have to make a choice, move them first.

As for support units, everyone disbands motorcycle regiments. Building SUs? The building fort rules have changed, but the RR Construction brigades are the #1 build. IMHO anyway.

"We also created a barrier of fortified areas all along the southern side of the No Finnish Attack Line to the east of Leningrad to halt the Fins from advancing into our rear." You don't need those as the Finns can't cross that line until Leningrad falls. (Disregard that sentence, I was wrong.) And if it does fall, they won't matter.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian
You don't need those as the Finns can't cross that line until Leningrad falls.

Eh? Of course they can cross the line, they just can't ATTACK across the line, so you need to occupy the line with something.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: Aurelian
You don't need those as the Finns can't cross that line until Leningrad falls.

Eh? Of course they can cross the line, they just can't ATTACK across the line, so you need to occupy the line with something.

Oops

OK, that's a good place for those NKVD regiments.