Slitherine

I may not post often in here, but I do enjoy following your reports.

afk_nero wrote:Firstly congratulations on this excellent AAR. I am really enjoying this.

I do have a few questions and also comments on what I would do the naval research. From Max's last AAR he doesnt seem to be the player to put as much emphasis on research as you do this could become a benefit (hopefully).

I would leave the naval research as is - when the next level of Industry is reached I would use the focus point (and lab) to change from Industry to organization as this will provide more benefit to you - keeping your armies above the allies in terms of tech levels and I find that the next two industry levels dont provide as much benefit as the first 4.

In 43 I would sell the naval labs and move them to Infantry and Armour - your air should be almost at fighter tech level 6.

Naval in the second half of the war is less important in my opinion.

I do have a few questions about troop placement - you currently have the italian air in the west - I would have thought that they would actually be usefull in the east as the fighter would be almost on par with the russians and the TAC can be used as the second hit after a german tac.

Also the Italian Armour seems a little wasted (although with high AT russians) - you could use the Italian tank as a suicide option to break a line knowing it will die when its hit.

Again thank you for your dedication and effort with this AAR. Most enjoyable.

About labs - organisation past level 4 scales only +3, together with high difficulty of this tech it means, that it is not great either.
Industry increase my PP income aswell as provide me with transport and invasion caps, this caps maybe will be useful in '43 or '44 campaign, aswell as Kriegsmarine (thats why I consider going for surface ships tech an option)

I think that research is crucial to axis, because they need tech superiotiry to fight through numerous allies. PPs spent for labs early in the game will be well payed with good combat results (and victories) all through the game.

Italian air is in the west to be placed over valueable resources as soon as massive allied bombing will become (limits SAC attacks to 1 per hex).
Also use of this fighter even against russians will be waste off PPs - even my axis minor fighters despite having good tech advantage have more or less even results when fighting soviets. Problem is low organisation - russians have low aswell, but they can at least use good commanders, while axis minor and italians - can't.

Italian tank and infantry near Odessa were initially reserves to be sent to my caucassian beachhead, but looks like I don't need them. I don't have to use Italian tank as suicide unit yet - it is surely weak, but it have all 6 armour movement points and only 2 oil consumption, which means, that its useful unit to make encirclements.

Thanks for appretiation

Crazygunner1 wrote:Hi plaid

It was a nice winter for you. Your manpower looks really good but i just can´t get over your frontline in Russia. You have a single line all over the front except in south for your offensive.

I just fear, that if the russians counter-attack and destroy a few units you have almost no backup what so ever. An exploited gap in your front can be a disaster....

Also i am curious about your objective, do you really need to secure oilfields now in Caucasus? You have plenty of oil for this year and going into Caucasus stretches your already thin line. I think Max is just biding his time while you gain limited ground and to no value. I would suggest that you take Moscow and Stalingrad, that would really hurt him, it´s total 15 PPs and not to mention rail. Severe blow to the russians and probably the game.

Well good luck anyway....

As Max wrote to me, he launched spring offencive instead of winter one, to gain surprise effect. It partly ruined my plans, but brought high casualties to soviets in return.

About my front - russian one also don't looks tough, some units are garrisons (even in 1st line). Moscow area is quite crowded, but it looks like defence of the capital, not like offencive power. Also forest terrain provides me with higher entrenchment and natural defence cover. I have minor reserves in western fronts and 1-2 fresh deployed corps every turn aswell as axis minor corps units, garrisoning rear areas. Anyway you can see, that I purchase some corps every turn and I don't suffer severe casualties, so my front is thin only because it is so long, but same is for Russians, while I have much better units (well, exept tanks in AT aspect).

Initially southern campaign was started as half reconing operation to force Russian to guard Caucassus. But they were still quite weak there, and I decided to do my offencive there. In fact I am not going for this 2 point oilfield any more - I am going to destroy russian units with low casualties on this clear terrain out of 3 supply zone, aswell as to rescue my marine forces, which can be otherwise cleared out during winter.
This place was chosen over Moscow because at Moscow terrain is bad (forest and rivers) and soviet effectiveness is almost even to german (Zhukov's HQ is in Moscow). Also up to 7 corps (well, i doubht that Russians have PPs to build even 4 per turn) can be deployed in capital every turn. This campaign looked costly to me, and I can't be sure in succes.

Stalingrad just looked like a pure trap with soviet offencive-like forces near Voronezh and Rostov, and its 3 supply zone.

I want to gain PP delta now by killing good units, rather than by capturing cyties (and I did well in both Voronezh and Caucassian battles for now)

Thanks for reading my AAR and commenting.

Blathergut wrote:I may not post often in here, but I do enjoy following your reports.

Thanks for appretiation, I am doing my best.

No counterattack again, soviet troops retreat to Stalingrad.



In MED suspicious ship trails are spotted, I sent my sub to check and it seen allied Greece invasion prepared.



Southern offencive continues, destroying some more soviet units and capturing Krasnodar (was quite easy, though I had only 2 hexes to attack - 2 TAC bombers and high level mech did their job).
All this units in the swamps are trapped, they simple can't move because of my ZoC's. Only sad thing that I was not able to force this red 4 steps corps to retreat, creating real pocket (used two bombers again, in was already red before my corps attacked it...Looks like units don't like to retreat in swamps).



As soon as greece invasion was spotted, subs were alarmed and attacked american corps transport. (British transport in the gulf of Corinth is armour and another one is corps). I also railed wehrmacht reserves to Sofia, troops are ready to move to Salonika area, blocking allied way into Bulgaria. I don't think that allies will be able to capture Athens in 1 turn, but they are going to cut rail supply, so I will not be able to rail germans to Athens (and crush all the landing)
Also one fighter from Italy was redeployed to Albania to cover Athens (ideally I want to catch unescorted TAC bomber, because its to far for british fighters to escort it)



I decided to leave soviet convoy, protected by 3 british DDs, alone. I just did't want to lose my elite subs to allied escorts and bombers (I didn't see any USAAF bomber bombing Germany, so probably they are still on ASW duty on all this airfields). All my subs are heading now for final upgrades.
Two marked ones finished off two small british convoys.



German PPs were spent on two more infantry corps and repairs/upgrades , 75% manpower in near now.

The attack on Greece is potentially a good opportunity for you - if you can send the Italian tac to the area and all subs and fighters then look to target the supporting naval units hoping that they have to retreat leaving them @ zero supply to finish off.

Even sending in your strat to help with the naval would be beneficial.

Good luck in Greece - this could be painful for either of you depending who wins.

I don´t understand why Max is attacking Greece, what can he possibly gain from that? The only thing i see is to open up another front, but with a lot of hills and mountains it is hard to get anywhere. If Max wins all it takes is about 5 garrisons in the mountain to the north to stop him.

Am i missing something? Does he maybe want to bomb ploesti? That would hurt though....

I am sure that Polesti is the main target, then a stretched front

richardsd wrote:I am sure that Polesti is the main target, then a stretched front

Yep, Max's russians cant hit Ploesti but his US STRs can use the Greek islands as bases...... Unless Plaid bases some FTRs in the area to drive the STRs away, Ploesti will get bombed to 0.

schwerpunkt wrote:

richardsd wrote:I am sure that Polesti is the main target, then a stretched front

Yep, Max's russians cant hit Ploesti but his US STRs can use the Greek islands as bases...... Unless Plaid bases some FTRs in the area to drive the STRs away, Ploesti will get bombed to 0.

but would not any bombers be easy targets for a FTR or two strafing their bases?

Allies landed in Greece reducing Athens defenders to 1 step and cutting city of rail supply.
Bombers are already here, aiming for ploesti oil field likely.



Surprising they also invade Ireland, garrison was reduced to 2 steps.



My southern campaign succesfully finished - Maikop oil fields secured and now I am preparing defence of the region.
All this tanks and planes are not needed here any more and will be send to another sectors as soon, as I will have spare rail points.



In north - west Russia concentration of soviet troops becoming dangerous and I decided to retreat a bit (mostly to avoid soviet attack just after SW effectiveness loss, also I want to upgrade units before ingaging soviets). But SW didn't started this turn in fact.



Same retreat in AGC sector.



German forces secure Salonika region. Next turn I will rail here Guderian's panzer korps from Russia, it will serve as HQ of my Greece army group. Orders will be straight - destroy all allied forces and occupie (or liberate?) Greece. I don't need much ground forces for this, especially with poor allied tech, but I will need lots of air, and I can afford it easily, since I don't need air in Russia for winter season. One JG was railed from Russia, another - rebased from Italy, while french one - railed to Italy instead. Also Italian TAC and german SAC are on the way, some stukas will also be railed from southern russia next turn. I don't know what allies want to achiev in Greece, but I am not going to allow it.



Athens garrison corps was repaired (also I repaired Dublin Irish defenders, hoping for some british casualties), while spare greek infantry launched attacks against british corps, knocking some steps out of it. Sad that I will loose greece soon, this infantry could be usefull for garrisoning and anti-partisan duty.

Italian subs badly damaged RN CV



USAAF bombers attacked my sub quite far from american shore, reducing it to 5 steps. I used this damaged sub to check spotted ship trail and found out heavily escorted convoy. I covered 5 steps sub with 2 full strength ones to prevent DD running into it and killing it. Also my surface ships prepared to engage any RN DDs, stopped by uboats. (In fact convoy will go all straight north without engagement).



German PPs were spent on two more infantry corps, italian ones were saved for now.

Looks to be a tough battle in the atlantic soon.....

Both Ireland and Greece surrender to UK.

Red army pursue my retreating forces in central and northern Russia. Totally no attacks mean clearly that odds are very bad for red army.

In the south only few units showed



Germany bombing campaign now started to look like something reasonable (but bad weather already began in central region, meaning that effectiveness will be lower for a while). Also 2nd JG was deployed near Berlin. I shall rail Kleist's HQ garrison there from France to command this fighters. Was not able to do it this turn, because of lack of rail points. Also I need more fighters.




Because weather is still fair, I was able to overlook soviet formations in detail. All this mass of infantry near Moscow together with fact, that Supermax used valueable Timoshenko HQ unit for reconing in the south and with no attempts to rescue 3 (well, now only 1 left and 1 partisan spawned) infantry corps from pocket near Maikop means, that Red Army simple can't have any reasonable defences in the south. Soviet union have (hopefully) lower PP income, then Germany and red army suffered significant casualties during my summer offencive, while I produce some infantry every turn. They also had to replace expensive units like fighters. So it means clearly, that soviets can't have number superiority over wehrmacht now, and most of their forces concentrated near Moscow. It leads to one idea - southern offencive will continue even during winter, if needed.

My previous turn retreats were probably wrong decision - chance of SW start was only 10%, and at fair soviet infatry is far inferior to my. At least I fixed frontline a bit for defencive purposes.

AGN now ordered to hold their ground. All units are in forest terrain and some are covered with rivers. Soviets have only 2 tanks there, and their effectiveness is lower, then one of german troops after SW loss, so I don't have to fear them this much. Infantry still have no single upgrade but starting ones and will pay dearly for attacking entrenched wehrmacht in difficult terrain. Airforce also at low strength and effectiveness, hungarian fighter attacked bomber and inflicted some steps to it and fighter, attempted to intercept.



AGC ordered to defend front from Orel to Voronezh - soviets have not much forces and likely no commander there. Von Rundsted redeployed from Kerch to Kharkov - now my AGC forces are within commander's range again.



AGS offencive continues - all spotted infantry in the steppes destroyed, Stavropol captured, reached positions along Volga, soviet marshal will have 15 turns of rest. Stalingrad is endangered with lonely corps defending it - massive soviet force railed there can stop me from capturing city, while bad weather alone will not for sure. Weakened soviet airforce tryed to interfere again for further casualties.



In Greece Guderian's HQ arrived from Russia Infantry and mech advance through difficult terrain. One more fighter rebased from Crimea, now I have 4 there, this is fine. Attacks were launched against bombers on the greek isles - results were good in my favour. I have supply advantage (allies have 2 on isles and 3 in Greece) and numerous advantage (can use 2 fighters per turn, while repairing two another, but britts have only 2). Also seems like allies don't have commander there.



This turn Italy reached ultimate 6th level of SUBs tech. All 3 naval labs were immediately sold, I had good ammount of PPs, which were spent on 2 infantry corps and 1 new sub. Present subs are heading to bases for their final upgrade and repairs.

German manpower finally gone slightly below 75% after I repaired some units (while Italian one is near 100%). All german PPs left after repairs and upgrades were saved (Partly because I still hope to get back above 75 and partly because of lack of rail - I already have 3 infantry ready in germany, but can't rail them)

Crazygunner1 wrote:Looks to be a tough battle in the atlantic soon.....

Not now, I think. Convoy and its escorts passed by my subs and now are under airforce umbrella and in reach of most RN forces from english bases - I don't want to engage them there. All german ships and subs (but 2 already upgraded, heading to southern convoy origin point) are returning to bases for upgrades and repairs. I will engage this RN later, after finally upgraded.

Plans for winter in Russia are straight - no step back. I have good PP income and good upgraded troops with leaders. Even if I loose couple on units, I will always be able to throw fresh reserves into the fire. Soviets already have huge breach in their front and I am ready to take some casualties just to make sure, that soviet will do the same and will be busy replacing beaten units instead of building lots of new ones.

Still no SW at the end of my turn, meaning that soviets will not dare to attack my lines again (or they preffer entrenched infantry to unentrenched ? )

Wow....i think max has done some strategically bad choices that can really work to your benefit. I mean leaving south like that is kind of weird. Like you say, stalingrad is in your grasp, the way it LOOKS he he. He might be setting a trap. Going to be an interesting winter, that is for sure....

I really enjoy this AAr becuase your style is so different from mine and it seems to be working quite well against max.

Would you consider playing against me?

Crazyg

Wow, I really like the ballsy offence in the South, seems Stalingrad is served up for free! Ops in Greece though must be a bit costly in terms of oil, slowly moving tanks south?

You said your manpower was around 75, might be a good idea to build some fighters for some turns to make use of prima manpower, they cost a lot less manpower than inf corps and it seems there is no immediate need for more ground units.

I think you are responding well to supermax's moves, but I disagree with the assessment that he has made strategically bad choices. The early invasion of Sicily and Southern Italy was flat-out brilliant. Even though you stopped him, his invasion of Greece ensures that you can't mass enough forces to drive him out of Italy. This is what supermax likes to do; he will nibble around the map, forcing you to send forces to many different places. Then, if he sees an opening, he will pounce like he did in Italy.

Southern Russia is a waste land with few valuable resources. Be wary about moving too confidently into the low-supply area. Once you are there, it will be difficult to rail back. Keep in mind that supermax is an offensive player who likes to strike at your weakest point.

I definitely think driving the Allies out of Greece, or at least pushing them back to Athens, is a good idea. It's one of the few places your troops can fight without penalty during the winter. Just make sure you place your fighters so that they are in the Med weather zone (hex row 45 and below, I believe). That way your fighters can engage the British on favorable terms.

Crazygunner1 wrote:Wow....i think max has done some strategically bad choices that can really work to your benefit. I mean leaving south like that is kind of weird. Like you say, stalingrad is in your grasp, the way it LOOKS he he. He might be setting a trap. Going to be an interesting winter, that is for sure....

I really enjoy this AAr becuase your style is so different from mine and it seems to be working quite well against max.

Would you consider playing against me?

Crazyg

I don't mind to play against you a bit later, now I have 4 games on me, and I can't actually concentrate on most of them (well, I can on this one, since I have AAR to remind me, what actually happened few turns ago and what I was planning).

trulster wrote:Wow, I really like the ballsy offence in the South, seems Stalingrad is served up for free! Ops in Greece though must be a bit costly in terms of oil, slowly moving tanks south?

You said your manpower was around 75, might be a good idea to build some fighters for some turns to make use of prima manpower, they cost a lot less manpower than inf corps and it seems there is no immediate need for more ground units.

Good advice, fighter in queue.

joerock22 wrote:I think you are responding well to supermax's moves, but I disagree with the assessment that he has made strategically bad choices. The early invasion of Sicily and Southern Italy was flat-out brilliant. Even though you stopped him, his invasion of Greece ensures that you can't mass enough forces to drive him out of Italy. This is what supermax likes to do; he will nibble around the map, forcing you to send forces to many different places. Then, if he sees an opening, he will pounce like he did in Italy.

Southern Russia is a waste land with few valuable resources. Be wary about moving too confidently into the low-supply area. Once you are there, it will be difficult to rail back. Keep in mind that supermax is an offensive player who likes to strike at your weakest point.

I definitely think driving the Allies out of Greece, or at least pushing them back to Athens, is a good idea. It's one of the few places your troops can fight without penalty during the winter. Just make sure you place your fighters so that they are in the Med weather zone (hex row 45 and below, I believe). That way your fighters can engage the British on favorable terms.

Southern Russia is 1) flat clear terrain where I can crush soviet units with no penalty 2) oil fields 3) road to further oil of the East. Some Persian and Iraqi garrison are already in Russia, if I launch massive offencive across the Caucassus, western allies will need to deploy lots of units to spot me from getting oil, and still they can fail. And if Allies will be careless, it can result in some great results, even untraditional clockwise closing the Med.

About Greece - yes, all my airforce is in MED weather zone (by the way, its patch of MED weather hexes in southern Bulgaria, is you suffer Ploesti bombing and don't have Greece, you always can deploy interceptors there).

Weather was fair again in the east - good luck, its only 25% chance in November, I believe, and I got two fair turns in a tow.



Some soviet infantry were railed to Stalingrad in desperate attempt to stop my offencive.



With air and panzer support wehrmacht easily destroyed unentrenched troops with railing effectiveness penalty, surrounding city. I used best bombers (9 and 10 steps ones), panzer korps and 2 infantry to smoke out Stalingrad's defenders. City is in my hands, slightly battered. Also troops advance towards Grozny, there is simple nothing but damaged corps to stop me from getting more oil and PP income.



In central Russia I did my best to reinforce line at tank-dangerous places. Trenches are also ready, looks almost reliable.



In Greece air fighting continues. Also my panzergrenadiers captured mine, destroying british corps. Bombers are already driven away and didn't show.



I started turn slightly above 75% manpower and it was enough to buy fighter and repair couple of units, than I go into -1 quality again. PPs left after repairs were saved.

Italian PPs were spent on upgrades.