Share you experiences after the first year of Barbarossa

[Peter Stauffenberg]

We would like to hear your experiences with your ongoing and completed GS v2.00 games that have come to 1942.

I will share the experiences Ronnie and I have.

Me Axis: I attacked in June 2nd 1941 and got a bit past the historical line and got Leningrad and Voronezh. Pretty normal progress till November 1941 and then severe winter hit. After that the German are in quite serious problem since I didn't dig in early enough (October is the latest). I got fair weather in October and pushed further.

Since the Germans only have supply level 3 it means they can only move 1 hex in the winter. So disengaging is not easy when the severe winter hits. By the end of January I have lost 6 German units and only now does it seem the front line can be stabilized. Ronnie sent the shock troops and armor to the center and pushed my units back there. There is no way the Germans can withstand and I would even lose a panzer corps next turn.

Since the Russian offensive is only in the center I can contain the situation and hold, but the losses are 2-3 lost units per turn. I think this result is pretty historical. The real Germans pushed too hard and was severely hit near Moscow and lost a lot of ground plus units.

I think I can still launch a 1942 offensive, but only at one front section. Since Leningrad is captured I can either choose Moscow or the south.

I've never seen such a strong Russian counter offensive before and it's probably because of the earlier arrival of the Russian Siberian units. Before the severe winter begun before these units were released so they never got time to influence the battle.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Me Allies: Ronnie attacked June 22nd and had pretty normal progress. I stopped him near Leningrad, Tula, Orel, Kharkov and Stalino. He pushed the Russian line and killed some units, but then the severe winter hit. Since his units were already quite exhausted it meant most German units went down to orange efficiency. Axis minors down to red. The Russian counter offensive was very hard on the Germans. They broke through everywhere and by the end of January 1942 they Germans had lost 16 units. The Germans are so shattered that they can't make a serious 1942 offensive. Therefore I can build armor and air units for the Russians to challenge them in 1942.

Based upon our results Ronnie and I both agree that the strategy we learnt with GS v1.07 and GS v2.0 (earlier versions) doesn't work anymore for the Axis. You simply have to stop in time in 1941 and recover before the severe winter hits. You better get some of the cities or stay away from then (2 hexes at least). The reason is that the Russians can rail strong units there and initiate an offensive.

So you have to be more careful with the Germans or you will get severely hit in the winter. That's actually a good thing since I've always felt the Russian 1941 winter offensive was pitiful in GS before. Now it's actually something you should fear as the Germans.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

The reason Ronnie and I decided to make this thread is to get your feedback too so we can check if the balance is still good or we've maybe done too much regarding the Russian Siberian units. These units can't make miracles, but they will surely hurt the Germans where they decide to attack.

The German armor blob is probably not so much affected by this because they kill so many Russian units before winter that there aren't enough units left to counter attack with. But with the normal German advance you really have to be prepared for a Russian winter offensive or you will lose the game in 1941.

So please post your experiences with GS v2.0 and Barbarossa and answer these questions.

1. When did the Germans attack (June 22nd 1941 or another date)?
2. How many German armor / mech units did they attack with (approximate numbers)?
3. How far did the Germans get in 1941 in your game (historical line +/- cities)?
4. How strong was the Russian counter offensive (number of German units lost, territory lost etc.)?
5. How strong was the German 1942 offensive (over the entire front line, just a single front section, not able to go on the offensive etc.)?
6. What do you think the Axis or Allies player could have done differently to get a better situation?

[gerones]

The Russian counter offensive was very hard on the Germans. They broke through everywhere and by the end of January 1942 they Germans had lost 16 units.

16 corps units destroyed seems to be excessive. Germans suffered a lot in russian winter 1941 counteroffensive but it seems that they were able to stop russian offensive by early january 1942.

From wikipedia Battle of Moscow wikipedia article:

Therefore, total casualties between 30 September 1941, and 7 January 1942, are estimated to be between 248,000 and 400,000 for the Wehrmacht (GSE / Moscow encyclopedia estimate) and between 650,000 and 1,280,000 for the Red Army (Erickson / Moscow encyclopedia estimate)

It seems that historically the germans suffered high losses in soviet 1941 winter counteroffensive but in any case there was a collapse of the whole Eastern front. So if in your game you were able to inflict such losses in the germans may be something would have to do with severe winter effects. Keeping in mind that historically the germans were able to stop the soviets by early january 1942 we could accelerate german recover from severe winter effects removing the change recently done that slowed that recover. It is said that Luftwaffe helped a lot to stop russian counteroffensive of 1941-42. This way the germans would only be punished if they are too confident in their approaches to Moscow or other cities in autumn 1941.

And regarding to siberian units being promoted directly into guards units may be this is also excessive so we can change this and include only 2 russian mech guards units instead of 4. Germany do not receive such number of extra elite units in the game and this could be a disadvantage for the axis.

[gerones]

I have already finished a 2.00 hotfix 11 GS game with me playing as Axis and these were the numbers for this game:

- I was able to start Barbarossa in may 13, 1941
- A significant armoured and mobile german force of 6 armoured units and 6 mech units was deployed.
- Germans reached Novgorod-Smolensk-Kharkov-Rostov line before the winter arrives. Leningrad and Crimea couldn´t be taken in 1941.
- I properly dig in for russian severe winter and retreated axis forces if needed the russians were able to kill 5-6 corps units in winter offensive.
- In summer 1942 I was able to launch limited offensives taking Crimea and advancing a little to Caucasus oilfields. No way to take Leningrad.
- My allied opponent was rather passive with the russians

Since my opponent was a little bit passive with the russians I cannot make a lot of conclusions in terms of game balance for the Eastern front. My feeling is that now Eastern front scenario in GS 2.00 has gained a lot of in terms of challenge so I agree about you have pointed above that right now old strategies (like russian typical defensive line at the Dnepr) don´t seem to work fine because of the changes included. All can happens now in russian front and you have to do pretty well both with russians and germans.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I don't think the Shock troops being guards or not make a big difference. Even normal Russian corps units inflict 2-3 hits on the first attack and the second will inflict 4-5. Then the German unit will retreat and it can be finished off.

So I propose keeping things as is. The Germans should expect that the Russians will strike back somewhere. So it's important to use the terrain on defense as the Germans and create a straight line. If you fail to do that then you suffer.

I think the norm would be 6-8 lost German units as I suffered. I hope to reduce the number a bit.

I think my biggest mistake was to forget that the leaders have reduced command range. I had leaders to give higher efficiency to the front line troops, but not the Luftwaffe units behind the lines. So I think building leaders you can put on corps units and have them near the Luftwaffe will be important. The biggest problem I had when the Russians attacked was that the Luftwaffe units were down to orange efficiency. So tac bombers had expected losses of 0.5. That's too little to punish Russian units who try to move through the defense line.

So if I can keep the air units healthier then the Luftwaffe can turn the tide in January 1942. If they strike at the Russian armor, shock or mech units then the firepower will drop considerably. Only downside is that you spend a lot of oil doing so.

Remember that the efficiency you regenerate is a function of the max efficiency. So if you're depleted due to severe winter effect you will gain efficiency faster when within leader range.

This is the formula:
EFFICIENCY_REGAIN = 145 /*effeciency regain is dependant on quality+supply and this factor*/
LOWEST_MAX_EFFICIENCY = 40 /*Max EFFICIENCY for a unit with no commander, no supply, no tech, zero quality*/
maxMorale = LOWEST_MAC_EFFICIENCY + organization bonus + 2* unitQuality + 3 * unitSupply + 2 * leaderQuality
missingMorale = maxMorale - currentMorale

moraleIncrease = EFFICIENCY_REGAIN * (missingMorale * (3 * unitQuality + 3 * unitSupply)) / 10000

Let's say Germany has tech 3 in organization: Bonus from that is: 3 + 8 + 10 = 21
Let's say the unit has quality: 4 and supply level: 3
Unit1 not within range of a leader will have max morale: 40 + 21 + 2*4 + 3*3 = 78
Unit2 within range of Manstein (leaderQuality = 8 ): 40 + 21 + 2*4 + 3*3 + 2*8 = 94

Let's say 2 units had max morale 60 before severe winter (because being in combat for quite awhile).
They drop to 25 morale (orange). Another unit with Manstein on moves within range of unit 2.

missingMorale1 = 78-25 = 53
missingMorale2 = 94-25 = 69
moraleIncrease1 = 145 * (53 * (3*4+3*3)) / 10000 = 16.1385 = 16 increase this turn
moraleIncrease2 = 145 * (69 * (3*4+3*3)) / 10000 = 21.0105 = 21 increase this turn

So the unit within range of Manstein will gain 5 more morale per turn (slightly less in successive turns because the unit gets closer to max morale). That's a significant increase.

The problem for air units is that you rarely place them in range of a leader because the land units move so fast eastwards. So dedicating specific leaders to command the air units will make sure they recover more morale each turn and will be higher even before the severe winter hits.

This is just one example that we have to rethink how to deal with morale loss. Since the Russians can strike harder during the severe winter it means you have to have a plan as the Germans to regain morale asap.

[rkr1958]

The problem for air units is that you rarely place them in range of a leader because the land units move so fast eastwards. So dedicating specific leaders to command the air units will make sure they recover more morale each turn and will be higher even before the severe winter hits.

Well, I've certainly done a LOT of thing wrong but I think this is one thing that I've gotten right since we modified leadership range. I build a 5 level leader and deploy that leader to a garrison prior to Case Yellow for my airforce commander. The sole purpose of this leader is to keep command range to my air units. I use this leader also in Baraborssa.

Whether this is optimum or not I don't know; but prior to the start of the severe winter I will rail this leader out of Russia and move the German air units out too and within command range of this air leader. Then when severe winter hits the air units miss the effectiveness hit, are withing range of their leader and then, if necessary, can be moved back into Russia for counteroffensive operations or at the end of winter for the spring offensive if not.

If things are going well I will even build an air group commander for Norway to support air operations against the Murmansk convoy.

[DukeOfLight]

i was the axis player that loredano spoke about.
the problem of russians being lets say ,,passive" is to high casualties for every atack made by me.
i was unable to make a coehsion atack until 43, but it was too late due to Loredano skillfuled retreat
in late 44 i quit the game, it was impossible to win in 45, but i want to make some remarks:
1) we played gs 2.0 11 but after 41, tah tmeans that i never have in 41 the 3 supply for germans or the 4 mech, if i am mistaking loredano can correct me....but i am telling the truth.
this doesnt mean that i lost beacause of the version of the game.....i've made much more mistakes than Loerdano did

[gerones]

i was the axis player that loredano spoke about.
the problem of russians being lets say ,,passive" is to high casualties for every atack made by me.
i was unable to make a coehsion atack until 43, but it was too late due to Loredano skillfuled retreat
in late 44 i quit the game, it was impossible to win in 45, but i want to make some remarks:
1) we played gs 2.0 11 but after 41, tah tmeans that i never have in 41 the 3 supply for germans or the 4 mech, if i am mistaking loredano can correct me....but i am telling the truth.
this doesnt mean that i lost beacause of the version of the game.....i've made much more mistakes than Loerdano did

Supply 3 rule in Eastern front will result, as Borger has pointed, in the germans having a harder time than before when severe winter hits . They will only have 1 MP in supply 3 level zone so it will be more difficult to retreat to safety positions. In my game with @DukeOfLight I was able to properly organize axis retreating movements in severe winter because this game was still played with supply 4 level rule.

[Plaid]

Well, in our recent game with Duncan I play germans. Barbarossa launched 22 june 1941 with moderate german troops (5 armour, 4 mech, 4 TAC 3 fighter + many corps) My troops gone without much fighting to cities like Pskov-Vitebsk-Smolensk-Kharkov-Stalino line, or something like. Soviets retreat for good and formed their defencive lines somewhere out of my sight and I was not very dedicated to chase them. Only little part of soviet defencive line was confronted near Moscow and I destroyed couple of soviet corps there, and probably 1 more near Leningrad. Then SW hit at december 1941. I wanted to retreat my troops to avoid SW penalty few turns before SW started itself, and noticed that my troops near Stalino are all in 3 supply zone. So I tryed to retreat, but soviets had no problem to chase this units, and when SW started finally, it was bitter fight. During entire SW I lost 6 corps (including soutn army group HQ) and 1 panzer in action in southern Russia, my troops were driven from Stalino to Dnepropetrovsk being hit hard on the run. Soviets suffered some casualties in their offencive, but not any entire unit was destroyed. In other sectors german troops were finely organised and entrenched, so red army didn't attempt any major offencive elsewhere.

Now its spring 1942 and wehrmacht is able to start their own offencive on the south with reasonable force, destroying some depleted after winter campaign soviet mech/armour units near Stalino-Rostov.

I think that despite soviets hit me during winter, gaining some ground, repairing all this expensive guardsmen and tank was shock for their own economy just as good as for mine.