Isolating Leningrad

[ladner]

Just finished the Road to Leningrad, as Axis, was only able to win a minor victory against the AI. Clearly have a long ways to go before I'll be in a position to PBEM. Anyhow, I captured Tihkvin, and had cut the rail line from Murmansk, yet somehow the lake Lagoda ports and Leningrad remained in supply. How is this possible?

[heliodorus04]

If you did not take the three ports along Southeast Lake Ladoga, then Leningrad isn't isolated. It may take a lot of trucks to haul supply but it prevents isolation. Supply is probably going from railhead to Sviritsa.

Against a human opponent, the 'right hook' around Southeast Lake Ilmen will almost never be open, so you'll need to learn to take Leningrad "the hard way" by grinding out a tough series of set-piece battles aimed at taking out the port at Osinovets.

When you're new, you may not know the ideal steps to take to optimize 18th, 16th Armies and 4th Panzer Group to accomplish this difficult task (You will note that I also allocate 2nd Army to the task), rail lines, aircraft integration into your battle plan, etc.

But against the AI Soviet, play it on Hard and try to take both Leningrad and the Crimean Peninsula because the AI is every bit as tenacious defending those as a human can be.

[swkuh]

As Heliodorus says, but also Bomb Osinovets port until reduced.

[ladner]

If Tihkvin and the rail that runs north of Lodeynoe Pole is cut, I am having harsd time believing it would be possible to supply via trucks, but that is how the game is. I certainly made mistakes, and I did not do a good job of managing my SUs I also, had a poor allocation of force, the AI had almost the whole of the Red Army clustered around Leningrad, from Novogorod, south, there were hardly, any, units. There was also, a large concentration, almost six rifle divisions, on the island, NW of Riga. I dispatched a korps, to reduce, but this was a mistake, since, I did not have enough troops when making the final push.

[cmunson]

Against a human opponent, the 'right hook' around Southeast Lake Ilmen will almost never be open, so you'll need to learn to take Leningrad "the hard way" by grinding out a tough series of set-piece battles aimed at taking out the port at Osinovets. -Heliodorus

And sometimes against the AI you fail. On normal settings this is the first time as Germans since WitE launched I haven't taken Leningrad in 1941. Is this because of the accumulation of changes in 1.08 or am I just rusty as I haven't played in six months? Russians seem much more tenacious on defense in 1.08 and counterattack much more often. It also seems half the Russian army in the north and the south is sparsely defended. Not complaining about anything, just curious.