Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv

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Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv

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Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 10/31/2012 3:53:35 PM

vandev

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Joined: 9/14/2011
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Would some of the more experienced soviet players comment on the effect on the soviet army of prolonged pressure during 1941. I have noticed that toward the end of the 41 summer campaign it can be rare to see str 3 soviet inf divisions. If the majority of div's are str 1 and only some being str 2, it becomes very hard for the soviet to create a line that the german cannot attack successfully.

Is this fall in cv a result of too many reinforcements being sent to units damaged in combat? What is the mechanic that causes soviet cv to be 3 and what is the mechanic that prevents that? Seems to me that there is a curve that can work against you or for you. If losses can prevent soviet combat cv's from reaching 3 then more attacks can be made in the future and it just gets worse and worse. If the soviet can get on the other side of the curve, then with more 3 str units more of the line can be secured and the german can make less and less attacks.

Is their some soviet reinforcement mechanic that is at work here?

Vandev

Post #: 1

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 10/31/2012 4:50:09 PM

turtlefang

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Joined: 7/18/2012
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It centers on two things:

1) How many losses have you taken as the Soviets? German players concentrated on creating pockets for a long time, now a number of them are focused on "pressure" - keeping the losses on the Soviet player high during the year rather than just creating pockets as these are harder to created in the most recent patch. And making sure that the Soviets don't rotate units in and out of the line to let them refit and rebuild morale.

2) What are the morale of your units? If you can put units out and get the morale up to 50 or so, then the CV value goes up. If the morale stays in the 40 range, then even at full strength, a CV over 2 is very hard to get.

So if you want to see 3 CV infantry divisions, you need to make sure that they stay at the 10,000+ manning level and have a morale of close to or over 50. Which means that you have to rest them at least 10 hexes from an enemy controlled hex/unit. And in 41, its not that easy to do. If I have a lot of 2 CV infantry, I'm happy.

Even in 42, a Soviet infantry corps has a TOE of five infantry brigands - which isn't that strong. And its hard getting it to a three or higher until the Oct 42 TOE revision takes place. The infantry are ants - and you just have to work with them. Shoot for 2 CV and if you get better than that in the early years, your lucky. In winter/blizzard, your CV will double. But it falls back to "normal" when clear weather hits. Its not until 43 that your army really gets going.

(in reply to vandev)

Post #: 2

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 10/31/2012 5:08:31 PM

76mm

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quote:

ORIGINAL: turtlefang
German players concentrated on creating pockets for a long time, now a number of them are focused on "pressure" - keeping the losses on the Soviet player high during the year rather than just creating pockets as these are harder to created in the most recent patch.

I can't say that I've ever done any tests but I would expect that creating pockets also results in 1 CV Sov units, because the killed off units come back as shells which need to be refilled, diverting replacements from the frontline.

(in reply to turtlefang)

Post #: 3

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 10/31/2012 10:35:49 PM

carlkay58

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The advantage of the pressured grind on the Soviets (at least for the Axis) is that you keep a constant pressure, blowing through successive lines, without losing the time it takes to form and collapse the pockets. Since the Soviets get the units themselves back for free, you are not grinding down their AP but you are grinding down their manpower and armament points. Having been on both sides of the 41 grind, it puts much more pressure on the Soviets. It also makes the Soviets need to be VERY careful on the Refit status. With a larger number of units on the map, it is possible that it will take several turns longer to flesh out the reinforcements/replacement units as well as to rebuild all of the routed units.

Other advantages to the Axis include easier attacks against the weaker Soviet divisions (and the routed ones) which tends to increase Axis morale - if you do it right you can get one or two Rumanian Corps up to a morale of 60+ by the winter counteroffensive just from helping punk out the weak Soviet divisions and the few pockets you create.

(in reply to 76mm)

Post #: 4

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 10/31/2012 11:50:46 PM

Pelton

Posts: 4377
Joined: 4/9/2006
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The grind drops morale also which is the most important stat on the field.

Best tactic as SHC is turn refit off to all units south of Orel for the summer.
Send 75% of new units to Orel north
Rail a bunch of units from the south to north the first turn.

The Grind is not always going to work vs a skilled SHC player.

Jamian vs Flaviusx

But it can set up up for 1942 summer AP crunch.

_____________________________

GHC
15 - 3 - 7

10 games ended in 41 (10-0-0)
4 games ended in 42 (4-0-2)
3 games ended in 43 (1-2-3)
1 game ended in 44 (0-1-2)

On leave until 9/13

(in reply to carlkay58)

Post #: 5

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 11/1/2012 1:52:52 AM

Wally Wilson

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From: The Republic of Texas
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I can provide an example. I'm on turn 5 as the Soviets. I refitted two infantry armies. Each division has 90%+ on total TO&E, 100% rifle squad TO&E, at least 14k troops and 200 guns. Their CV varies from 1-3. The 1 strength units have morale under 40, the 2 CV units are between 40 and 49 on morale, the the 3 CV are 50+ morale.

edit - turn 7 to turn 5

< Message edited by Wally Wilson -- 11/2/2012 7:41:51 PM >

(in reply to Pelton)

Post #: 6

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 11/1/2012 2:35:11 AM

turtlefang

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I agree with you. And should have explain that more than just the losses statement. I'm just running into the grind right now rather than pockets more.

The bottom line is the number of losses regardless of how these are caused. If the German is pocketing units and killing them, then when they come back, they start as depleted units and have to rebuild.

If the German is grinding, it wears the Soviet down, and he doesn't get the opportunity to rebuild units.

Either way, to get the 3 CV unit, you have build up the morale and TOE. And if the German doing his job well, he will make this difficult to pull units out and allow them to rebuild/refit.

(in reply to 76mm)

Post #: 7

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 11/1/2012 1:41:39 PM

vandev

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So this is a combination of morale and TOE. So the answer is the hard detail work of setting toe's down in someplaces and up in others as well as pulling units off the line to rest and recuperate. And doing this as the axis is coming at you with a baseball bat.

For me, I kinda fail at doing the detail work that is needed after you move your units. But it seems that if you want to improve, this is a part of the game you must master as well.

Some great insights here, thanks for providing them.

Vandev

(in reply to turtlefang)

Post #: 8

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 11/2/2012 12:12:18 AM

Wally Wilson

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From: The Republic of Texas
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I'm only on my third game, but I try to rotate an entire army off the front and refit it. This can be difficult without having an HQ overloaded on CU's or spending a lot of AP on transfering the army to STAVKA and back. An alternative, especially later in the game, is to rotate individual rifle corps (or whatever) off the line to the rear to refit

(in reply to vandev)

Post #: 9

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 11/2/2012 12:28:09 AM

Schmart

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From: Canada
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Wally Wilson

I'm only on my third game, but I try to rotate an entire army off the front and refit it. This can be difficult without having an HQ overloaded on CU's or spending a lot of AP on transfering the army to STAVKA and back. An alternative, especially later in the game, is to rotate individual rifle corps (or whatever) off the line to the rear to refit

Yeah, re-assigning armies can be very expensive. Alternatively, the replacement army is left under STAVKA and just travels around giving other armies a rest. Also, I often will rotate single units through armies, as it only costs 1 AP to re-assign a Brigade or Division, although Corps sized units can also get very expensive swapping around. I don't always rest an army (or individual unit) to bring it's TOE back up. I'll set the TOE lower and just let the units train up and get some morale back, although anything lower than 40% TOE will get bumped up to at least 66% to get some troops into the unit.

(in reply to Wally Wilson)

Post #: 10

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 11/2/2012 1:33:01 AM

Wally Wilson

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From: The Republic of Texas
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I like that idea. Keeping a "white" STAVKA army in strategic reserve as opposed to being attached to the front. seems like it would work best during strategic pauses or when an offensive stalls out. Probably have several of them, one or two for each Soviet "direction."

I have to consider how this would impact experience.

(I'm a noob - I have to integrate a lot of these concepts)

(in reply to Schmart)

Post #: 11

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 11/2/2012 6:12:35 PM

Walloc

Posts: 2543
Joined: 10/30/2006
From: Denmark
Status: online

To OP:

Apart from the moral/exp issues mentioned that is another thing that influence the CV drop u see. The russian inf divs change from a 14k man OOB to a 10k man OOB very early on. It then changes forth and back during the war. So even if u had/have a div early on with same moral exp, all things giving lose some 30% of the men will lead to a lower CV come mid to end of the 41 campaign. As CV is calucated from number of men(squads),moral and exp basicly said.
Take that together with the moral/exp thing described above its no wonder that the general russian inf div wont have the same CV as u can see some early russian divs with even at 100% ToE.
So while CV lowering can be an effect of grinding/losses to russian side, there are "hardcoded" things that generally speaking make lower CV invitably in the periode u ask about.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

< Message edited by Walloc -- 11/2/2012 6:27:11 PM >

(in reply to Wally Wilson)

Post #: 12

RE: Grinding tactis: effect on Soviet cv - 11/12/2012 3:42:04 PM

vandev

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Joined: 9/14/2011
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Thank you Rasmsu for that fact. In the game I played and the many I have watched, this fall in cv is a critical fact that both sides need to deal with. On the axis side in 41, I have seen many aar's where the drive to moscow is thwarted not by the soviet but rather by the failure to concentrate enough axis divisions to really take Moscow. In these "light" drives to moscow the axis is really hoping that the soviet cannot deal with a fast paced axis advance. However, if the axis concentrates, the soviet will need multiple divisions with cv's between 2 and 3. That seems to be difficult. Seems that the soviet has to take active steps many turns in advance to make sure it happens. Good information.

Vandev

(in reply to Walloc)

Post #: 13