1.05. Blizzard Domination Guide

[Schattensand]

Lately I have been studying some AARs and watching how poorly even the cracks perform the blizzard defenses makes me write this guide.
I never played Hu foe and so may be all or something is wrong or stupid and I will make myself ridicule, but this is what I have to say.

1) Forget that you can not hold a line in blizzard. You can and you will.
2) Imprint in your mind that all sort of linear, arbitrary or accidental defense in winter 41 is a no, no, no.
3) Build a border railroad all the way from east of Leningrad to the Donbas. Since most games, where you have taken Leningrad, Moscow, Kharkov, Donbas, Krim are given up already by your opponent it will exclude Moscow in most cases. So it will be Kalinin, Rzhev, Vyasma, Kaluga, Tula, Orel, Kursk, Kharkov, Donbas. Or Vyasma, Bryansk, Orel, if the war went not so well. If it is less than that, I basically have nothing to say.
4) Let that railroad be your holy gral, your lifeline. Plan your advance accordingly and defend it like a wolverine.
5) Forget all this hunting for industrial sides, chaining HQ build ups for that cause and moving your panzers hundreds of werst east of your infantry. Destroying the red army is the task and for that you have to work closely together with your non mobile forces.
6) Don’t deplete your tank divisions unnecessarily. The infantry fights, the mot-divs. exploits and the tanks seal the door. At least that is my game style.
7) Visualize early, what line you want hold during blizzard and start your preparations asop.
8) Stick to your once chosen defense line and hold on to it during winter.
9) Scan the map for good defense spots (towns, woods and swamps) and start building the pillars of your line the moment it is free of neighboring enemy zoc. What is stronghold, defended by two infantry divisions and what line, defended by a single infantry regiment should be depending on the terrain and not fulfill any of your desires for geometrical beauty.
10) Build your line in a halve circle west of your strongholds, at least one hex east of the railroad line. All three hexes minimum there has to be a stronghold. So your strongholds are 2 or 3 hexes east of your railroad and the line 1 or 2. So your whole winter positions look like medieval barbicans defending medieval town walls.
11) Screen your building activities.
12) The moment you advance beyond your winter line select a worn out inf.div, place it on a to be barbican, pay four bugs for a fortified position and study happily how this place turns within 5 weeks into a level 3 fort. Neighboring walls, line positions with a single regiment as well turn after a while into level 3 statuses.
13) Do this all along the future front, even if the railroad is still far away. The railroad line will be ready by December if not multiple delayed by partisan activities in the mud weeks.

A) The whole defense basis on the assumption, that almost all Soviet units are unable to penetrate a very strong German zoc and commit a deliberate attack in the same turn.
B) I state, that Soviet forces need at least a 3 better 4 angle attack to even have the chance to dislodge 2 German Infantry divisions out of a level 3 fortification. I assume that in 9 of 10 cases the attack will be even then repulsed.
C) I will say that in 9 of 10 cases a soviet attack from a single angle; even with best and chosen forces is going to fail, if a single German infantry regiment is defending a level 3 fortification.
D) You will prevent the situation that B or C is even a possibility in 95 of 100 cases.


When you choose to defend you give away a good deal of your initiative. The foe is then deciding where his attacks will take place and you have to react to his decision. But that should be the only initiative you have given away.
You can operate the inner line. You can be stronger where he is strong, where he is really threatening your line you can reinforce.
You will throw him out of every position, where he is threatening your intestines, that is your wall, the places that have only a single regiment as guard with a 3 angle deliberate attack.
You will do that on the whole front and you will do that the whole winter.
From the view of your barbican-strongholds you attack what is to the right and what is to the left and you will ignore what is in front of you.
To use a more poetic language - don’t ever step back, but say
Oseh shalom bim romav - and say
Hu ja oseh shalom aleinu - and say amen to that.

What can the foe really field, under the best circumstances in defense value on open ground? 12 or 15? No match for you and if it looks scary bring your tactical reserve into play.
You have no second or third line, but you have tactical reserves, that are
1) Motorized Infantry
2) Your hopefully numerous Elite Infantry
3) Two German mountain divisions and 4 minor mountain brigades
Altogether it is a 15 or 20 unit’s minimum. They don’t have to spend the whole winter in Madamme Rostova’s place in their cozy city quarters. Use them before the child has fallen into the well.

Tanks
You have even strategically reserves, that are your tank divisions, who are either passively defending city hexes, within your defense line or better are placed somehow west in nice towns, that have at least 3 better 4 population. 3 is good, 4 is like Berlin. Not that they can not fight in blizzard, but they would loose unnecessarily lots of tanks.

Air force
The same you will do with your air force. Place them close to the front in whatever town is there. Don’t fight actively with them, since winter favors the defender strongly over the attacker, but set intercept, intercept escort and intercept fighters all on 200 and see how they feast on red air forces, whom your foe may sent to soften and tire yours strongholds or kill your leaders. Fighters and bombers alike no need to send somebody for winter holyday to Germany. The ground crews are suffering frost bites and loose some moral, depending on population level, but the airplanes will not diminish by winter.

Finns
I strongly recommend you to give up all eastern positions and center them southeast of Leningrad. There are two positions that totally dominate the battlefield in that area.
Two divisions each to swamp points 86/18 and 88/21, one division to 88/22 and one to 86/20.
The brigades you can place best in half circles west around that positions. The only field you have to ignore and to cede to the enemy is 87/18, since that is a swamp hex too. Wherever else red units show up you may give them some nice multi angle deliberate attack.
Finns tend to loose their corps HQs pretty often. Readjust that balagan to the IV and the VI Corps, who will be leftover in the end. Their armies have nice support, but the corps have more and are therefore better. Place German sec to Leningrad and the subs and use the Finns for fighting.

Attack
Attack only or mostly into open plain, avoid attacking into light wood, if you can and don’t fight into any dense wood, swamp and hills. Channel the enemy advance to your lines by choosing every terrain advantage for your own defense, just leave him open space.
Use multi angle deliberate attacks only – no exception. Choose the angles you cede to him in front of your barbicans. By the end of your turn he should only have that one contact to your line.

Attack fails
Every tenth to fifteenth attack fails, whatever you do, how ewer careful you prepare. Accept it. Don’t repeat a failed attack. Reinforce with your tactical reserves and throw them out next week. Basically nothing has changed meanwhile.

Moral
You need to win battles to keep your moral up during the winter. The bunch of your forces is in cozy fortified hexes, but your regiments are not, they loose moral if they don’t fight and win fights. The enemy will give you lots of situations where you can do, what German infantry is made for and can do best.

Fatigue level and supply
In enemy zoc it will be a 20- 25 at the start of the turn. After two deliberate attacks it will rise to a 70-75. Next week it will be 20-25 again, if the enemy does not attack your barbicans. But how can he do that from just one or sometimes two angles. Your strongholds have all a defense value of a 50 up to way over x. Anyway if your troops are too tired at begin of the week exchange them. If your forces would not be so close to railroad supply you could forget the whole concept. That too is a reason why you get so trashed in your concepts or as I may say so the lack of any. You simply ignore the plain logistic fact to be never more than 20 mp away from supply line.

Initiative
What is the benefit, if your leaders have such high initiative ratings and you the - GRÖFAZ -have a winter initiative of below one?
It is a huge difference, if you loose a fight, cause you could not dislodge the foe from your walls or if you cede initiative to the soviets, who will dislodge your positions, be it fortified too whatever extend or not at all. If you have to be strategically the defender be at least tactical the attacker.

Railroad repair
There is no time to loose and you have to choose the best tracks.
HG Nord. Skip Riga, go Pskow, Divenskaya 79/21, east to Chudovo 84/21 from there all the way to Kalinin. Let the rest in the north do the ants. Build your frontrr asap.
HG Mitte. One the northern - baltic route to Smolensk to where ever your eastern frontline rr will be to either north to link up there or south to do same.
The other one may take the southern route to Kursk.
HG Süd. Better start from Rumanian soil, but anyway the goal is Kharkow.
11 Army Kishinev, Odessa, Nicolaev, Dzhankoy on the Krim, Stalino, North to link up there.

11. Army
It was designed to take the Krim, use it for that purpose. When the winter comes the railroad to Stalino is ready too and you can rail 11.Army to Stalino. Don’t walk them in the mud season if you are finished early with the Krim.

Mud
Two coins about that. You don’t have to stop fighting during mud season. All what is dug in is taboo. But the rest is not. There is a huge difference between a 1 of a German infantry division and the 1 of a soviet brigade. Use multi angle deliberate attacks and use them often.
Second - place OHL and at least one fighting unit on a rrhex close to German border. Mud season 41 is the best and only time for partisans to really cause havoc. If the HU is only halve as good as the AI he will disrupt your not jet linked rail lines very efficiently. I was so careful in my game to not leave a city any week unguarded to the full 100% and jet there were 5 units I never got rid of. They will find your week spot and in mud you can suffer broken lines for consecutive turns, if you don’t have somebody in the west to deal with that. That balagan is a reason, why I never play online.

Rostow
As a city to conquer Rostow is in 41 the most undesirable place in whole rodina. To defend it you need 15 divisions you simply don’t have. But there are these tiny 3 little towns south of the Don you need so badly for your logistic. So you have to bring all your skill together to get hold to these 3 towns for one turn, whilst not taking Rostow.
Why not take Rostow? Cause then you have to hold it, what you will not and can not. Means you have guard it by an unlucky Rumanian division, whom the Russians will play ping-pong with. To leave it unguarded you cant cause if I played the Russians I’d never take back an unguarded city, I watch the whole population turn into partisan zombies that spread all over the place. There are so many AARs where I have to see unguarded cities. I get the crisis all the time I see something like that.

HG B
Attach PG2 and one army of HG Mitte, most likely the second, and one army of HG Süd, the sixth, to it and your forces are in balance. If you place HG B directly on these armies you should get them for 48 bucks otherwise its 96. I rarely missed the 50% discount for good game play.

North
In the north there are many places where you can not attack into. There you simply hold against not attacking at all, but he can’t either.

Generals
During mud season and snow I reexamine my officer corps. Manstein, Model, Rendulic all get infantry armies and all foul apples are sorted out. You have only the choice between good, better and tiptop and there are a lot of promising GLs to serve the unholy cause.

Southern defense line
Don’t take Taganrog as the southern pillar of your line. Better take Mariupol. If your foe is somehow careless or too self assure he may go for the southern line, what you will not defend strongly. If enough units are in the trap the panzers of the southern branch of PG1 may remind him that pocketing is the dearest sport for you, since Taganrog is only a cat’s jump away. Catching 15-20 Grossverbände will be worth to loose some 50 tanks.

Snow
Turn 1) Attack, surround and pocket, better less but save, than the other way round.
Turn 2) Mob up from both sides and screen eventually tanks, who lack mobility with infantry.
Turn 3) Retreat to your winter positions.

Blizzard
Get yourself some fun imagining, that your friend of the other Feldpostnummer will think, that you are a runner only to see a little later the long, long line of level 3 defenses looking like an ancient city or like a herd of bison’s fending of the storm and the wolves.
He will think that this blizzard will be tougher than last time. Nevertheless he will fill all the gaps between his and your army with his red and orange morale triple something’s.
Next turn he will see that he has been thrown out of all positions where he was threatening your inner defense. All but one, as I said before. But that only adds some spice to the fun.
Soon he will find out that he is not able to commit a single attack on the whole front that promises the slightest chance of success.
His something’s will never see any green color in moral. So sorry.
Btw. Your front rail line will be linked by that time and you can send the partisans a nice pukana, but never underestimate those guys.

Losses
The loss ratio of your fights will be the same as always 10 to 1 if you win and 1 to 1 if you loose. The real setback is that you loose as much moral in one lost fight that you gain in ten fights you win. But that is how it is. Simply don’t loose too much

Catastrophe
By some not understandable help of some communist goddesses he was able to launch a successful attack on your inner line and has displaced a regiment out of its position.
Is that a problem? No. You throw him out again and have to place a division, where before was only a regiment. Nothing changed.

Grande Catastrophe
Your guys were tired, he flew a lot bombing parties, loosing tons of airplanes, he managed to do two or three attacks. Whatever it is but he has taken out against all odds a barbican, a stronghold, a pillar of your precious line. Two of your divisions are on the flight, one fortified place destroyed.
Is that a problem? No. Out of the two neighboring line positions you make two pillars just by moving 2 divisions in each. That should not happen regularly; otherwise you have to use too many units. And it will not happen often.
The only unpleasant consequence may be that he is having a constant zoc now on your rail line. If that is so bypass the rail line.

Feign catastrophe
It is midst of January and this scheme is going to be boring. Why not offer him a whole crumbling front. One Jäger division, where were two full infantry divisions before. You forget to take out some inner positions foe by carelessness. Something like that will do. Let him have let say the Rzhev Frontabschnitt. Let him have his winter offensive.
First we take Smolensk and then we take Berlin.
Let your lines crumble. The more divisions move finally into the west the better. Reinforce what you want to hold and let him march to disaster.

February
Start your offensive on the Kuban Brückenkopf east of Krim with reinforcements from Germany under the command of Antonescu. That you defended Kerch with German units and have Rumanian or Italian units in all ports at Black and Asow Sea was mandatory.
That all your fighting troops have settings on reinforce is compulsory from begin of the war.
Take some fun in the fact that the number of your rifle squads rise from 33000 to 40000 during the blizzard.

Mid February
You rail the last two turns your PA 3 (It is Panzerarmee now) surreptitiously to the southern corner pillar of your northern front. You sneak PA 1 to the northern Sturmausgangsstellung of your southern front. Get the motors run.

March
Za boga and your combined 4 PAs will take Moscow. You will cut through this demoralized, more red than orange something’s, when the first sun ray shines.
Don’t forget to play the Preobrazhensky march at the Siegesparade in Moscow, if the foe was at least courageous, only falling as victim to your superior art of war.

If you made it up to here I like to congratulate me and you.
Have a nice Christmas and a happy new year.

End

[gw15]

Excellent! Fun reading and full of important tips.

[governato]

Love the style! Do you have a screen grab of the front with before/after blizzard lines? Have you tested this strategy against
a strong human opponent?

[Schattensand]

[quote]ORIGINAL: governato

Love the style! Do you have a screen grab of the front with before/after blizzard lines? Have you tested this strategy against
a strong human opponent?

If I had the skill to do screen shots and even manipulate or work them I'd never offer you plain boring goose feetprints only. If you hold a line, nothing but the moral of your foe changes. He can not take out the line, may be just challenge it locally and you should hold on to it.

Your second question was answered in my second line. Others will do.

[Texasgrunt]

This is what I did in my first GC as the German against the AI. But I had also killed over 5 mill Russians before the end of mud, so their army was pretty weak until lthe last blizzard month.

I do not subscribe to the idea that the German must retreat a hex per turn....unless you are waaay ahead of your railheads. Being isolated in blizzard is very hard on the troops, even if they are in cities. I had some turns where I lost 100k+ per turn at first, until the railheads caught up. (I was only 150 miles west of Gorki at the time).

Defend the good terrain and make the Russian really work to take it back.

The allies are absolutely worthless in blizzard. They rout at the sight of a snowflake, except the Finns of course.

[Schattensand]

It does not matter how many you have killed and how strong they are or how many troops they have more than you.
The question is - can they present you locally or even on more spots than one consecutivly a force that you are not able to take out, even using your tactical reserves with a multiangle assault?