A Russian Infantry Strategy

[Kanitatlan]

what is Malinovskij’s skill level? and, what effect did that have on the loss ratio? ...

He's a 4 skill Lt Gen promoted to FM so now skill level 2 (still not bad for the Soviets) and with offensive doctrine skill. I recon that adds up to +20% which perfectly compensates for my -20% for difficulty level. Hence the calculations are approximately correct.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Now back to the main front. You’ve seen my initial deployment and the Germans are making very slow progress in occupying the undefended territories but you must bear in mind travel times are now quite high in 1.06c and its not just their hesitancy that is delaying things.

Situation on Aug 6th

Throughout the period from 24th July until 18th August there were constant dive bomber attacks on my forward troops and the consequences can be seen in this battle from 18th August

As you can see, this army has lost 7.3 manpower (3.65 to the pool, 3.65 gone) in this period of 24 days of heavy bombing by a series of axis air groups (not just this group of three dive bombers). Their org has been only slightly reduced and I have no idea of overall German aircraft losses although they must have been significant. This reduction in strength and org has absolutely no effect on the fighting value of these divisions and I can quite comfortably ignore these independent air attacks.

There is a very important point to be made here; the current strength of a division has NO impact on its fighting ability. It still has the same attack and defence scores as a full strength division and therefore there is NEVER any point in reinforcing a division unless you are concerned about it being completely destroyed. I am quite happy to have all my divisions at around 75% strength and actually consider this to be a better situation than wasting man power on being at full strength. As the Germans I have actually exploited casualties from a campaign by using the man power returned to the pool to form new divisions rather than reinforce weakened existing ones. Playing with zero available man power as the Germans can be a little disturbing at first but I believe it is a perfectly reasonable approach.

The Soviet army finally rises to full org and on Aug 18th I schedule a series of attacks all along the front. These attacks will occur over the period 24-26th August and will be the key battles in my final victory. As you can see there are several battles scheduled involving 15 armies of 12 divisions or 180 divisions all together. It is essential at this stage to engage as many Soviet divisions as possible as localised battles will allow the German mobile forces to exploit their strategic mobility (not that they have much in the way of mobile forces).

I monitored several of these battles in detail to illustrate their consequences for the Axis player. All four battles where overwhelming Soviet victories resulting in substantial losses to the Axis forces. The situation for 24th August shows the battle of Beltsy already over (very short) and the battle of Rowne in progress

The attack at Rowne pitted 48 soviet divisions against 12 german. The two battle pictures below show the situation at 15:00 and then at 22:00. At the end of the battle the Germans had lost 66.1 man power to Soviet losses of 10.7. The represents an actual loss to the germans of 33 man power in one battle and in hindsight actually a 6% loss of man power reserves in one battle. A secondary concequence is the 12 german divisions involved are now at less than 50% strength and minimal org and therefore not available for serious combat for some time whereas my divisions have been barely affected. After a few of these battles the Axis forces will be in a difficult position for maintaining an effective defence. This type of battle is the key to Soviet victory by steamroller although they do not need to be quite this effective.

There is a similar story for the Germans in the other battles with some at very high odds and over in a couple of hours as only minor forces had been defending. These quick battles are actually less valuable because fewer casualties have been inflicted but the general state of the defending divisions (i.e. completely wrecked and useless for a couple of weeks) is just the same.

These battles illustrate the style behind a Soviet meat grinder victory. The objective is to fight battles of attrition, not to surround and destroy divisions. These battles are easily achieved if you converge on a target from several provinces as it is easy to use 48+ divisions whilst the defender cannot use more than 24. The attacker is always able to exploit this advantage of commiting far more troops and if this "exploit" is still available HOI2 then it could be a serious problem for the game. My understanding is that HOI2 combat initiates as soon as you start moving to a province. This means that I can create combats like those above by ambushing the German troops as soon as they arrive in a province and their only counter is to engage my troops in advantageous attacks of there own. This will result in extremely dynamic combat as their will almost always be an advantage in attacking rather than defending. I look forward with some concern to see exactly how this is going to work.

 

[Kanitatlan]

General Offensive continues August 28th

The battle of Chisinau which is shortly to commence was monitored and gave, germany 51.2 man power loss to soviet union 8.7. I wasn’t expecting or depending on such high loss ratios but this is the sort of thing you can expect if attacks are made at reasonably good odds (i.e. several to one).

A very important factor to consider in these battles is that the high German org makes their units stay in battle longer and take much heavier casualties. If I was in the AI’s position I would be retreating troops from these battles as holding up the Soviet armies for a few days is pointless if your forces are destroyed. You should only fight where the casualty ratio is favourable or immanent encirclement (by you or against you) makes it imperative.

As you can see from the map, the offensive is developing in the northern sector towards squeezing the germans against the coast with the likelihood of encirclement unless they do something about it. It is important in this situation to avoid focusing too much on this possibility as the soviet steam roller cannot force encirclement and should concentrate on the attrition battles accepting encirclements as a bonus when they happen. This is very difficult to do and I find that I can’t resist trying to encircle even though I know that it is a weaker strategy than concentrating on the meat grinder.

You can see from the map and the movements in progress that one of the consequences of launching multiple convergent attacks is that I now have holes in my line. The fact is I don’t care. If the Germans go for those holes then they are going to suffer some unpleasant concequences and as long as they only break through in small numbers the constant supply of new divisions will allow me to mask them of and later destroy them. The meat grinder is going to make sure that the main front line moves steadily westwards.

General Situation September 6th
The attacks on Lwow, Chisinau, Iasi, Suwalki and Kaunas seen developing in the previous situation map have completed in Soviet victory with the usual mauling of Axis troops. The battle of Suwalki 5-6th Sept resulted in losses of Germans 90, SU 2. I’m not sure I believe this but it is what I noted down at the time and after victory occurred you can’t go back and check what happened. You can see fresh attacks developing in the South. I am exploiting the very low troop levels from Prezemysl down to the black sea. There are major Axis forces ready to reinforce Ploesti but since I don’t know how these are likely to perform I am launching a probing attack to see what happens. I have promoted a couple of engineer field marshals who are deployed to armies carrying out river crossings. They move around a lot in the south, joining their armies just before combat commences.

There is a tiny german force that took advantage of the hole in my line but their days are severely numbered despite leading my forces a merry dance for a week or two actually getting as far as Kiev. Infantry armies are not very good at chasing down mobile forces and they aren’t finally eliminated until I surround them with new divisions.

In the north there are major battles taking place in siauliai and memel. The battle in siauliai is not going well due to only having a small numbers advantage and a variety of small but unfortunate combat modifiers. They add up. This battle was continued for longer than it should have been because I wanted to pin down these German troops whilst I tried to surround them. A fairly pointless idea as my armies are so slow moving and the meat grinder principal (see, I have to keep reminding myself). The troops retreat from this battle on Sept 7th and the main result was two 12 division armies completely useless for a couple of weeks as they had taken 75% casualties and minimal org left. The Germans suffered badly as well but probably only took 30-50% of these casualties overall. The Germans in siauliai will have to pull back or be surrounded.

I also had to pull back from Liepajas when that battle started as I was taking casualties 50% faster than germans. In this case I checked in the first couple of hours of the battle and pulled back before any serious harm had been done. Examination of combat conditions shows we had surprise bonus but their +20% for leadership, poor weather and equal numbers undermined the attack. However, their troops are cut off now.

The 2nd battle of siauliai on 10th September results in an overwhelming soviet victory, Germans losses 40 mp, SU losses 25mp. Also the retreating German army is heading for Konigsberg and I am going to get their first. All the German troops in the Baltic area are soon cut off as my attack on Konigsberg is instantly successful and the army retreating from siauliai has nowhere to go and is destroyed on the 15th September.

Situation on Sept 13th
As can be seen the German Baltic forces are doomed but are having a bit of fun having captured Riga and are now aiming for Talinn. It would be perfectly possible for the AI to evacuate these troops but I don’t think it really knows how.

 

[elbasto]

nice update, those Germans are truly doomed as nothing seems capable of stopping you.

So, are you planning to advance during this war of attrition or just attack and retrat until they run out of manpower?

 

[unmerged(9240)]

This is awesome. I always struggle as the SU when playing HOI even on easy. I might just give you way of doing this a try and see how I go.

 

[Kanitatlan]

This next update should answer all your questions. The campaign is rapidly reaching its climax.

Situation on Sept 18th

On 17th September the attack on Ploesti by 24 divs with engineer FMs had to be broken off as we were taking slightly higher losses than the Romanian defenders. The purpose of this attack was really to try to see how poor their divisions were. On Sept 18th "advanced division signals" was developed, this will improve ground defence so that each point has a 95% rather than 90% chance of blocking an attack. This should have a major impact on casualties; a pity the attack on ploesti has already been abandoned as it might have made a major difference to the progress of that battle.

As an aside it is worth discussing the significance of "divisional signals". If you are fighting battles where your divisions are very rarely attacked by more attack strength than their defence (and this is what I am doing) then the divisional signals technologies translate directly into substantial casualty reductions. There are three of these techs with each giving a 25% reduction on the base casualty rate. This last one should halve my casualties in this sort of battle. It is also worth considering the impact of the enemy's level of divisional signals. If you are forced to attack at a low combat efficiency but with overwhelming strength then each enemy divisions is going to inflict near 100% casualty rate against your divisions whilst you nibble away at the enemy's much smaller force at 5-20% casualty rate. In this situation the enemy's divisional signals level can make a huge difference. In this main campaign the German's have improved divisional signals (90%) but I know from experience that most other nations are behind this and may have very poor levels in this area. The consequences of this may come to prominence when the main German campaign is complete.

Meanwhile back at the war.

Elsewhere you can see major battles at Torun and Sadomierz. The Torun battle developed into a series of engagements that actually constituted the final death of the German army, a real meat grinder series (see further on).

On 19th I finished advance corps signalling giving a further surprise bonus and now (at last) I can see the german division counts instead of just army corps counts. My army detection is still not good enough to identify division type but I still don’t really care as my decision making process would not be affected. On Oct 3rd I developed near infra-red scope which gives a significant improvement in night action combat modifiers that should prove very useful in reducing night effects. This small group of technologies represents a significant improvement to my forces especially the divisional signals tech as this will halve my casualties in battle where I am attacking a goods odds (i.e. each ground defence point has a 95% chance of blocking a hit instead of a 90% chance). Given the declining state of the German army it is quite difficult to tell the difference especially when they demonstrate their continued capability in the Torun battles.

It is worth making a note about the effect of night on battles. In all my calculations I have assumed 100% daytime combat which is, of course, quite inaccurate. Night time combat is a disadvantage to the attacker and so far I am benifiting from the good day / night ratio. The effect of night is to give a penalty to both attacker and defender. The penalty to the attacker is higher and this gives one aspect to why night is bad for the attacker but the other, actually more significant, issue is that attackers are usually already at lower combat efficiency than the defender. This is means that even an identical penalty is a larger percentage of the remaining combat efficiency. Just for the sake of an illustartive example (note that the figures used are NOT correct), say I was attacking at 80% efficiency and the defender was at 120%. I could sustain this attack quite nicely if attacking with superior numbers as my defence strength is still enough to block most attacks. But if both sides have a 40% night penalty then the enemy is 100% stronger (division for division) instead of 50% stronger (ratio 40:80 instead of 80:120) and things are not looking so good and I will start suffering a discernable change in casualty ratio during the night. Even worse, attacking with 20-30% strength with overwhelming odds may be effective to take a strong but poorly garrisoned position during the day but I will take massive casualties from the 1% night time efficiency.

The general conclusion from this is that you have to look carefully at the day / night time ratio if you are attacking into difficult positions and don't even consider offensive action in the arctic winter as the long nights can actually be even worse for you than the bad weather.

1st battle of Torun, September 18th.
As can be seen we are in a good position to win this (soviets attacking, at least 2 defending division totally ineffective, rundstedt offensive doctrine invalid, my commander is Zhukov – the best general in the game).

Please note this is not the great battle of Torun, just another meat grinder in the long series. I have a small efficiency advantage in this battle, half the german casualty rate because of divisional signals tech and better units in the first place. The infra-red scopes make sure there is no disadvantage at night (since they haven't got them). I can make attacks at these even odds and still come out way ahead of the Germans.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Here we see events progressing further to the North

Talinn doomed, September 23rd

Meanwhile further north the German escapade along the Baltic coast is coming to a sticky end as Soviet troops move north to destroy them. There are still two armies here with pitiful org, the casualties of the first battle of siauliai. There is still some time before they can re-enter the fray. In fact their weakness is the main cause of this unfortunate detour northwards. If I hadn’t mistakenly pursued that attack then all these troops would be down south joining in with the main offensive. Note that those troops around Leningrad are actually the Finnish invasion armies moving southwards but they aren’t here in time to deal with the Germans themselves.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Balkans, September 27th
As can be seen, the battle of Sadomierz has completed successfully and we have penetrated the Carpathian Mountains. This would normally be an extremely strong defensive position but the constant Soviet attacks further north have prevented the germans from sending reinforcements to their minimal defences (mind you, that’s just speculation, who knows the real reason). Anyway, I’ve captured them against minimal defence and am now proceeding into southern Hungary. It is worth reminding everyone that Yugoslavia is still neutral and therefore capturing Debrecen will isolate Romania and Bulgaria. The attack at Constanta is too limited and has to be pulled back since the defenders are German rather than Romanian but the second line axis allied forces in Southern Hungary are no match for the Soviet infantry armies.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Situtation on October 3rd
As you can see the battle of Torun is over (temporarily) and the rear area armies are coming forward. The soviet armies north of Lvov are going through a redeployment process to bring forward the armies in the rear areas, bring up the forces from Finland and redeploy some troops southwards. The continual pushing of troops into the Balkans has left a weak spot in my lines and the army in Rowne is only six divisions (the battle of Rowne is shown in the battle display. The massive movement of German troops appears to be an attempt to exploit this with an attempted breakthrough but I was already sending reinforcements south which haven’t arrived yet but will be there soon. You can see that major German forces are moving up to support this attack but it isn't possible to determine their numbers or exactly where they are going.

Meanwhile in the Balkans I have succeeded in isolating Romania and Bulgaria and I am now beginning to focus on the idea of putting Hungary (need Budapest and Pecs) and Romania (Ploesti and Bucharesti) out of the war altogether. The Axis troops in this area are so much weaker than German and Russian divisions that it is fairly easy to sweep them aside. Once I have the key locations I can annex Hungary and Romania which will create a massive hole in the German southern defences.

It is disappointing that Yugoslavia is not in the war as they provide a strong flank defence for the Germans further north (and I'm greedy for territory). I also know that Italy is far harder to access from the north than from the east. This is inconvenient but the province of Bologna is still the choke point in Italy anyway. I am thinking ahead a bit at this stage but only as an incidental aside.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Central Front Oct 4th

One day later and the German intentions suddenly resolve. The massive cross river attack into the Pripyat marshes has blocked my first reinforcements to Eremenko in Torun. Both battles look like they will be soviet victories but not by a sufficient margin to stop worrying about them. I have to race in reinforcements to make sure of victory in the face of the Germans also rushing in reinforcements. These battles are absorbing the last strength of the German army. I am expecting them to be a broken force after the losses from this phase of the war.

They have had time and sufficient justification to deploy any forces they plan to send eastwards. I should currently be fighting the main strength of the German army and if I can beat them then the battle should continue as a general offensive. As yet there has been no reason to pull back and engage in a second round of encounter battles. The plains of western poland are in fact ideal combat territory for destroying the German army and probably a better location then the plains of western Russia to the east. The only issue is to successfully block the German offensive and then move across the river line to open territory.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Political Map Oct 5th

This map gives a clearer indication of the Axis position 72 days after declaring war (but only 47 after my attacks were first initiated). It doesn’t add much else so on to the next situation report...

 

[elbasto]

*droll*

 

[Jopi]

The shorter front should make the battles even more grueling. Soviet hordes lead by a calculating leadership are a thing to be feared.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Battle of Torun Oct 7th
He we see the beginning of the great battle of Torun. This is the Kursk of this campaign with a full 24 German divisions, including plenty of mechanised and armoured, attacking 24 badly depleted Soviet divisions. This time the Germans have the offensive doctrine advantage and the defenders are definitely in trouble. Monitoring the battle for a few hours shows I am taking the worst of it and whilst they are taking heavy losses I am ultimately likely to lose. I am at the stacking limit so sending in reinforcements for the defence may be counter productive or at least result in disproportionate losses. Instead I come up with another plan which again demonstrates a major flaw in HOI. 5 armies with 60 divisions, all in good condition, are ordered to attack Torun simultaneously. The current defenders will pull out just before they arrive so that I am attacking and therefore I hold the offensive doctrine advantage and I am not over stacked. The only downside is some of the German divisions are currently suffering a river crossing penalty which will no longer apply. The fact is that the numerical advantage is of overwhelming importance and the other conditions are of peripheral importance.

Battle of Torun Oct 9th
My defenders have just started retreating and the counter attack is almost there. The Rowne and Bugiem battles are still in progress but as can be seen reinforcements have started arriving and the German attacks are basically doomed, achieving nothing for what will be substantial losses.

Battle of Torun Oct 10th
60 divisions pile in on the already somewhat depleted German forces (a panzer division with a strength of 3 !!!). It doesn’t take long and shortly afterwards the German remnants are streaming back across the river in total disarray.

I haven’t been able to tell for sure before this point but I am now convinced that the Germans have absolutely no manpower left. Their divisions are not receiving replacements and there is an increasing total loss of divisions in their battles. I am also encountering defending divisions that have not recovered from previous battles. Earlier these were often low org rebuilt divisions but they are now depleted low org divisions that indicate the exhaustion of the German forces. Unfortunately I haven’t kept any save games so I can’t report on their real status and I didn’t even record the army comparison screens to give division totals. Whilst the readers of this may be interested in the statistics, when you are in the thick of it, it doesn’t really matter and you just get on with the battle. You do notice when the enemy army finally runs out and breaks. Despite the continued presence of large numbers of German divisions we are now really in the 1944 destruction of army group centre type of situation. I can pretty much go were I like and the enemy has limited ability to stop me. They are still a fighting force but the war is clearly won. The end of these key battles after a mere 60 days of real fighting gives a very definite change of feel to the game. It has now changed from battle to pursuit and later on it will turn into a mopping up operation.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Situation Oct 20th
Immediately after the end of the battle of Torun the victors set of in pursuit, splitting up to attack in all directions. The intention is to maintain pressure across the entire front to give the Germans no opportunity to do anything but desperately commit forces to local defence. They may be successful in some places but only at the expense of greater destruction elsewhere. In the south my armies are moving in on the key locations but rather slowly. The northern front is much more dynamic at this time due to the much lower travel times between the provinces in eastern Germany and western Poland.

Battle of Lublin Oct 20th
As can be seen from this battle display, the apparently significant German forces in western Poland include a lot of severely depleted infantry divisions within minimal remaining org. The ‘hard’ divisions (mechanised and armoured)that you can’t see on this display are keeping the Germans in the battle and these wrecked infantry divisions are absorbing a lot of the casualties. They will soon be totally destroyed to no practical benefit. This is another flaw in the AI's battle technique. It allows battles to continue when many of the defenders have become ineffective. What is needed is an AI rule that makes it break of battles based on casualty ratios. I realise this could soon develope into a complex issue but it is a severe AI weakness in the current circumstances. If I was taking over from the German AI I would start with a massive withdrawal away from the Soviet forces so that my troops could recover their effectiveness.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Balkans Oct 21st
Russina troops arrive at Ploesti, mostly not having crossed a river and set about the final destruction of Romania. The romanians stand little chance against a Russian force of this side as I have the advantage of technology and numbers.

As can be seen the actual battle is going to be a little one sided and doesn’t last long. Not only are the Romanians out numbered 5 to 1 but their divisions are also significantly inferior.

Romania is doomed, and soon.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Situation Oct 23rd

Here you can see the Russian armies beginning to pour westwards in northern poland/germany and in the south. The german troops around Warsaw are being ignored as they must either retreat or be cut off an destroyed. Either way I am happier to fight them in the more open areas of western Poland than to attack them across the river line.

 

[unmerged(24320)]

Unfortunately I haven’t kept any save games so I can’t report on their real status and I didn't even record the army comparison screens to give division totals...

i was thinking that it would have been an interesting experiment to have reloaded as Germany (somewhere between the DOW and when your infantry hit full org) and give Germany 5000 manpower to see what effect it would have on the game...

awesome AAR. i really appreciate the statistical analysis.

 

[Heretic]

yeah,
this continues to be a great demonstration of an interesting strategy - it looks like you have them on the ropes. I have problems with a few of your picture, you might like to check your host.

Are there any moves from the allies to steal bits of France or Italy before you get there? And what is happening in east Asia - do you need to think about a long term plan for invading Japan yet?

Heretic

 

[unmerged(32306)]

Keeping an eye on this.