Chapter 8: Wrap up and analysis of failures.
Let’s look at what went right, first.
Trust me, the Soviets didn’t have that small of an army in 43. Also, notice how many GAR the Soviets have remaining in their army.
The AI, given units with plenty of speed, adequately performed encirclements. I suspect that Soviets lost a bunch of divisions in Poland and in Bessarabia as we advanced. I can’t really ask more of the AI in this regard.
And I can’t complain about my allies not helping. The French Army isn’t too bad, all things considered. Capturing most of it intact and telling them to go help Romania was probably the smart move.
So Germany won the war. Woo hoo? Not really. The war almost ended in a total disaster from which no one could have recovered. What did I do wrong?
1) No suppression along supply arteries.
Yes, I built my awesome MECH/TD/SPARTY divisions to conserve threat and manpower since I had the time and manpower to do so. But once the war started, I should have dropped some GAR/MP into the queue for partisan suppression. After the UK DOWs, threat isn’t really an issue. Even a few of them might have made a big difference in throughput. Yes, I still would have burned all my fuel, but it would be used more efficiently to overrun the Soviets. Since I played defense for a few months, I had the time to get suppression units ready for the big push into the Ukraine.
Note that in late-war games where I let Poland live, the situation is much worse and we never make it to Moscow or Leningrad.
2) I should have built another CTF of 6 CVs.
Here’s the thing. You don’t really need a navy to take out the Soviets. But if you puppet the UK, you have tons of juicy naval bases to use. And a CTF based out of a level 10 port in the Med can bypass all that supply nastiness. With only one CTF, it spent most of the war supporting amphibious operations. I could have posted a second CTF permanently in the Black Sea and moved some of the wings in that area back to Berlin to bypass supply problems. CAGs aren’t TACs, but a CAG operating with full fuel and supply hits harder than a TAC with no fuel or only 25% of its supply quota.
I’ve done this before and it works fairly well until we are out of CAG range.
3) I researched armor techs.
I discussed this already, but my divisions lost a ton of speed because of light and medium armor upgrades. There’s no telling just how much better things would have gone if my divisions were running at 11 kph instead of 8 kph.
4) I researched jet engines.
This was a really bad decision. Normally, I don’t bother with jet engines because, in a standard game, the war is usually over before they can make a difference. Besides, the bonuses from jet engines aren’t really that great. But I couldn’t resist the picture of ME-262s fighting over France during Fall Rot, so I went ahead and got them done. The loss of range was a bit of a pain once we got close to Moscow, but the increased fuel consumption was a contributing factor to my fuel use. Take the fuel consumption increase for jets and multiply it by 140 wings (my end-game total). We’re talking about 14 or more extra fuel per day, nevermind the added draw on the network.
EDIT: Ignore this entry. I keep forgetting that fuel consumption isn't increased by either engine tech these days.
5) I built STR.
The original plan was to cut Soviet supply lines in Poland in a repeat of what we did in France. This never happened because when I unleashed the AI in all its fury after Poland went GiE, it advanced so quickly and efficiently that it was better to just capture Soviet fuel and supplies than to bomb it. So, the STR sat out most of the war. If I had turned those 8 wings of STR into TRA, I could have airbriged in more places.
6) I should have used PARA on Moscow.
My assumption was that Rommel would hit Moscow without too much difficulty, but that Stalingrad would be past the line where logistics would collapse. After multiple failed attempts to just literally drive into Moscow, I now know that Stalingrad could have waited. Even one division of PARA could have seized Moscow and made it easier for MECH to get there. We were literally sitting at the city limits and failing to gain entry because of lack of fuel, so turning the province friendly would have been very helpful. We could always have rebased TRA to Moscow and then dropped on Stalingrad.
7) I should have transferred a MECH corps to Vladivostok once we took it.
This would have eased the supply situation in the west a bit while letting us grab some of the tiny VPs out there. It may have been easier to ship fuel and supplies by convoy than forcing more through the network in Russia.
8) I didn’t research refinery techs.
I didn’t research further techs for turning crude into fuel. Given the exhausted fuel supply and the pile of crude I still had, this seems to be an obvious issue to correct for next time.
So I won WWII after waiting to 1943. Big deal. What other strategies could I have employed by delaying the war? I just showed the MECH approach, but there are other possibilities.
1) Prep for war with the USA.
If you want a war with the USA, waiting until 43 means you have more time to generate CV practicals. Another run of 6 CVs and CLs means you are now set up to get some serious naval production. Yes, ships generate threat, but if you budget accordingly, you could get an awesome navy in play. Combined with UK naval bases after you puppet them, you could put several powerful CTFs off the coast of the USA. Remember that the USA will spam CVs too, but they have plenty of crappy old ships that are easy to sink. You’d have to build fewer aircraft in Europe (IC limitations), but we already saw that there is only a finite amount of assets you can put into Barbarossa anyway.
2) Nukes.
Look, if the war starts in 43, that’s enough time for a dedicated Germany to make real progress on the bomb. And if you do my Kinder, Gentler approach, you end up with uranium and heavy water. The moment the war starts, those strategic resources take effect even if Belgium and Norway won’t outright join the Axis right away. That’s a big boost to research. Furthermore, nuclear reactors generate no threat. Hypothetically, I could have responded to Neville “Munich is for scrubs” Chamberlain’s DOW with a nuclear strike on London. That would be worth having a couple of STR around just for the range.
3) All subs, all the time.
I’ve done this one before and it was a hoot. Instead of building a regular navy, build over 100 subs. Put them in multiple stacks of 20 and set them loose in the Atlantic. Sink the RN and French Navy. Then call them to the Channel for Sealion. Yeah, you lose a bunch to land based air when you do this, but who cares? With 50% or better impact from practicals, you can spam subs faster than the enemy can sink them. And since they are really high tech, they have better range than most SAGs or CTFs. About the only thing they can’t handle is the USN and CTF Death Stars.
You could also use different house rules than I did. If you have a real navy, allying with Japan is less useful than invading and annexing Japan.
I’m sure I haven’t covered everything, but are there any questions?