Odessa

A complete overhaul and re-development of Gary Grigsby's War in the East, with a focus on improvements to historical accuracy, realism, user interface and AI.

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Bamilus
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Odessa

Post by Bamilus »

I know the history (a gazillion Romanians dead, held out for months, lots of naval troops were still evacuated to Sevastopol, etc), but what's the best approach for Odessa? Can you really starve it out with naval interdiction? I've had full naval control over the hexes around it for a month now and it seems like it hasn't even dented it's supplies. It's a level 4 fort and even an attack with 9-10 Romanian divisions at 60+ CPP doesn't even reduce the fort one level. Do I need to use more units? Is there any hope to starve it out?

Appreciate the help.
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Mehring
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RE: Odessa

Post by Mehring »

Vs AI, I tried naval interdiction and bombed the port into extinction for two weeks but the game gave no visible clue as to the state of supplies in the city. With a couple of 11th Army corps and the other hexes filled with Romanians, plus all the siege artillery and engineers I could muster, the fort fell in one go. We lost about 5k each and the remaining defenders, about 20-30k, routed away, no surrender. That's just one experience and I guess a human opponent might invest more in the defence.
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HvonMoltke
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RE: Odessa

Post by HvonMoltke »

Having the same problem here. However, if you kill enough Red Army Forces elsewhere, I have seen them evacuating at least a part of the City's garrison. So maybe your naval interdiction was counterproductive?
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Bamilus
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RE: Odessa

Post by Bamilus »

ORIGINAL: HvonMoltke

Having the same problem here. However, if you kill enough Red Army Forces elsewhere, I have seen them evacuating at least a part of the City's garrison. So maybe your naval interdiction was counterproductive?


Interesting thought....perhaps. I didn't think about AI script trying to evacuate, I assumed they'd fight to the death.

Also, Mehring makes a good point about the mega siege guns. The only problem is I'd have to hold back my 11th army for a turn or two but maybe it's worth it.
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RE: Odessa

Post by Kronolog »

In my current game vs Soviet AI at 110 morale I left it to the Roumainians. It took the whole Roumainian 4th Army about a month and somewhere around 50 000 casualties to take it, but their manpower pool should be enough to sustain those losses. Also, I thought that there were no reason to advance them further east during the summer campaign, as they would require supply that would be better of going to the German troops.
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Joel Billings
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RE: Odessa

Post by Joel Billings »

The key is flying naval interdiction just off the port during both friendly and enemy player turns. Ideally use the Ostsee formation as these naval only units are good at adding naval interdiction. If you generate control of sea hexes next to Odessa you can isolate the units in the port. But you must do it in both friendly and enemy air phases. Once you've isolated the port, even if the enemy depot in Odessa has freight, there are some negatives to the isolated units that will make it easier to storm. The penalties are not as big as in WitE, so if it is a strong garrison, you will still need a good sized attacking force. Taking with Romanians only is almost impossible. As the Soviets pulled out of Odessa in October, it's arguable that it would not have fallen without more Germans troops involved. If you isolate the port, and then bomb the railyard in the hex (maybe also port, not sure), to destroy the freight there, you can deplete the depot and eventually run the defender out of supplies and ammo. So you can try for a long siege if you don't want to use 11th Army to storm the city.
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carlkay58
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RE: Odessa

Post by carlkay58 »

You can check out my AAR for how I took the city using Rumanians only. They suffered about 10 - 15K casualties overall if I recall correctly. I basically started Naval Patrols using the Ostsee and one KG group. As the ports fall I just keep moving the NAVAL PATROL along to the next port(s). I am currently doing Turn 13 and the NAVAL PATROL is isolating Sevastopol while waiting for the Rumanians to get into position.
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Bamilus
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RE: Odessa

Post by Bamilus »

This is maybe a trivial question but when you say run the interdiction on both turns, what exactly does that mean? Run a naval interdiction in your phase and then set air superiority to protect it during AI air phase?
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RE: Odessa

Post by carlkay58 »

When you look at a Naval Patrol directive there is an option for "Fly phase" right above the "Schedule" selection. In this phot is set to "Both" as you need it to be. You can also select "Friendly" or "Enemy". So it this case it will execute both in the friendly AND the enemy Air Phase. If it was set to "Friendly" or "Enemy" it would only fly during the specified Air Phase.


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Bamilus
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RE: Odessa

Post by Bamilus »

Thank you Carl! I'm know I wasn't doing this before so that explains why my interdiction went down a lot after every SU turn.
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Bamilus
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RE: Odessa

Post by Bamilus »

Ok I did naval interdiction a turn earlier than normal and used Ostee from north (before I was using just whatever was available in the south). Brought in more Romanians. Odessa was fort 3 by time I got there (vs fort 4). Turn 7 used romanian attacks to reduce to 2 then did another full attack with addition of two 11th army divisions (with K3 gun attached to corps). Only lost 9K troops total.



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RE: Odessa

Post by M60A3TTS »

It really does force a defender to decide where city forts are worth the investment and expense. It's a delaying action that will almost always end in a 99% loss of the defending troops. 72k losses here was a pretty price to pay.
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RE: Odessa

Post by Bamilus »

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

It really does force a defender to decide where city forts are worth the investment and expense. It's a delaying action that will almost always end in a 99% loss of the defending troops. 72k losses here was a pretty price to pay.

Yea, this was AI on 110 morale, but was happy to see that K/D ratio. I've also trapped a nice amount of troops in Smolensk right now so will how much that bags in a turn or two.
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