A Russian Infantry Strategy

[Kanitatlan]

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

I've heavily compressed a lot of the images to keep the overall download size of the thread so that its still acceptable for dial up. This means that some of them look really fuzzy. I'm finding it difficult to find the time to experiment with different level of compression so I'm afraid there are going to be a few where you can't read the text. If that isn't what your problem is then you better post more details. I have accessed this thread from several locations without any problems.

On the strategy front my playing session ends at Jan 11th (I think) which is the first time I started thinking about what next. You'll get another big strategy discussion when the AAR reaches that point. I'm finding it takes more time to write up and post than it takes to play the game

 

[Kanitatlan]

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.

I don't fancy that. I would have to modify the strategy to be based around that level of German manpower reserves. I would certainly set about building a lot more divisions and I would need to be a lot less agressive and spar with them around the border for longer. Apart from that I don't think it would be a problem unless thay immediately build hundreds of new divisions. Two hundred infantry started at that point would be a serious counter attack when they appeared. the real advantage is human over computer.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Balkans Oct 23rd

Tolbukhin is closing in on Bucaresti with sufficient force that its fall is guaranteed and given a garrison in Ploesti I will soon be able to annex Romania. Therefore all other forces in northern Romania are heading into Hungary and Slovakia. The German forces in Constanta will be all that is left after annexation and it is well within the capabilities of these local forces to finish them off. They are already trying for a breakout, presumably aimed at Iasi, but they are too far away from the main front for this to matter.

I am closing in on the Hungarian VP provinces and I should soon be able annex Hungary as well. This achieves two things for me. Firstly all the annoying but fairly ineffective Hungarian and Romanian forces will be removed from the game but I also get a supply source much further to the West which will give me an reduction in supply distance penalty. This isn't really of any significance as the penalty is fairly small but every bit helps. It always pays to be concious of these effects before they bite you in the ass.

Soon there will no longer be a Blakan front and the offensive will be one coherent whole (OK, all except the teeny side show in Bulgaria)

 

[unmerged(8915)]

what do you thing would be the effect if the german AI was building more panzers?

 

[Jopi]

what do you thing would be the effect if the german AI was building more panzers?

Given that AI always uses mixed Infantry/Panzer armies, the armies would stay longer in the battle, so the German infantry would take even more casualties.

 

[Kanitatlan]

what do you thing would be the effect if the german AI was building more panzers?

The main effect would be that they would still be in production rather than deployed. Given my previous experience of this strategy with the war starting in 1941 I expect there are a substantial number of mechanised divisions in the build queue.

And anyway howe come you are discussing the next section of the AAR when I haven't posted it yet? This is definitely a bit wierd.

 

[elbasto]

have you tried this in multiplayer games?

 

[Kanitatlan]

have you tried this in multiplayer games?

I don't have the set up or life style to fit in multi-player but I don't see why it shouldn't work. The strategy is exploiting some of the key characteristics of the game rather than the AI and therefore it should be equally effective in multiplayer. The strategy is limited in some respects in that it focuses in on the war against the Axis nations. I believe it is effective in allowing domination of the entire eurasian-african land mass. It provides no direct lead into conquering any overseas areas as there is no naval power and no air cover but conquest of that land mass gives an adequate resource / industrial base to catch up on everything else before the end of the game period.

 

[unmerged(2377)]

great job!

 

[Zuckergußgebäck]

*notes Warsaw bulge*

Will there be a цитадель деятельности?

 

[unmerged(24320)]

I don't fancy that. I would have to modify the strategy to be based around that level of German manpower reserves. I would certainly set about building a lot more divisions and I would need to be a lot less agressive and spar with them around the border for longer. Apart from that I don't think it would be a problem unless thay immediately build hundreds of new divisions. Two hundred infantry started at that point would be a serious counter attack when they appeared. the real advantage is human over computer.

thanks for the analysis. that is as good as seeing the replay!

awesome AAR! ​

ahhhh, kin i say, "MORE?"

 

[unmerged(36144)]

I had heard most of this : A friend of mine played a MP game where SU had 1400 land divs :wacko: . But this is the first time I have seen all the advantages spelled out, with how to wring the biggest advantage possible from IC production. Anyway, I was inspired to try it out with the sort of focus described here.

I have to say the results were most impressive. I follow most of the paln of action Kanitatlan laid out but I made the following changes :

- Did region upgrades 1936 <=3
- Did region upgrades 1937 <=2
- Disbanded mtn troops, all armor, all ships + all aircraft
- Stacked all remaining units under a Logistics general.
- Didn't make the radar mistake

By May 1940 I had built up to a total of 393 land divs. So I decided after picking up Baltic states to DoW Germany.

As of May 17 1940 (DoW Date) I had my 393 divs (5 far east, 1 Leningrad figuring if I was amphibed I would have enough divs in the build queue to take care of any problems)

Germany had 184 land divs (4 armor, 1 Mech, 39 mot).

The conclusion was pretty much decided within the first 3 weeks of combat. Germany's oob had dropped to 77 land divs. Keep in mind at this point I had not pocketed any German troops. Essentially the ai ate ~100 divs in attrition.

In the end, I annexed Germany Nov 19 1940 with 381 div remaining + 34 divs that had built and I hadn't needed to deploy.

So that was my experience with Kanitatlan's technique, pretty much exactly the 6 months he predicted.

Lots of fun, but I am not exactly sure what a german player can do against that sort of build. Losses meant nothing to me, but I am sure a human player would have backed off more to preserve units, but I still don't think that would have done much more than slow me down. I didn't even play terribly well. A lot of the time I just threw a stack of 24 divisions at the nearest territory. I didn't time multiple attacks to all arrive at the same time, wasting my numbers advantage, it really made no difference.

Still I think it was worth eating the 10% discontent penalty to time the fight so it was more favorable to me. I think it might have been worth doing 4 or 5 months earlier when Germany was heavily engaged in France. Racing through all that open territory and swallowing the minors virtually unopposed would probably have a devistating effect on a human player.

It was an interesting experiment. Learned a lot by doing it.

 

[Kanitatlan]

*notes Warsaw bulge*

Will there be a цитадель деятельности?

Unless I'm very much mistaken that translates as operation citadel which would be the German attack at Kursk, so no there wont be. There will be something a bit like the Russian response, i.e. a sudden everybody charge forward. I don't have to mess about to make pockets, they happen as side effects.

 

[Kanitatlan]

... all aircraft ...

... - Didn't make the radar mistake ...

... I didn't even play terribly well. ...

You don't need to disband the aircraft, they don't take any supplies if they don't move.

Pity about the radar thing, makes me look a bit dumb but then I guess thats only fair since it was a bit dumb.

On the not playing terribly well, it sounds to me that you did it right. After the initial battles it is important to just keep moving. The germans have loads of shattered divisions about the place and continuous attacking leaves them with no chance to get them back into combat worthy condition. You can depend on the AI to keep its damaged units up at the front when what it really needs to do is pull way back.

 

[unmerged(36144)]

You don't need to disband the aircraft, they don't take any supplies if they don't move.

Right, that's good to know.

On the not playing terribly well, it sounds to me that you did it right. After the initial battles it is important to just keep moving.

Oh! I meant initially. I didn't really try to coordinate my fights when it would have counted most (It was getting late and I wanted to try it out). After the initial fights it was easy and it was exactly as you said : "keep moving and keep the pressure on"

 

[elbasto]

Unless I'm very much mistaken that translates as operation citadel which would be the German attack at Kursk, so no there wont be. There will be something a bit like the Russian response, i.e. a sudden everybody charge forward. I don't have to mess about to make pockets, they happen as side effects.

mmmbuahahaha... nothing can stop you now, do you hear me? NOTHING!

*starts choking with a cherry until he dies*

 

[Timpino]

do we get to see how things are going? maybe a war against the USA will prove more difficult?

 

[Kanitatlan]

Lublin End Oct 25th
In an earlier post I showed the beginning of the battle of Lublin and this display shows it nearing its end 5 days later. I have taken a total loss of 71 against German losses 674 including 4 divisions completely wiped out and they are still fighting. These infantry divisions are going to vaporise and reveal the badly damage German mechanised / armoured units. Just to illustrate the situation, here we go with the maths again.

A German infantry division is 10SA and 18GD whereas a German mechanised division is 10SA and 12GD. This means that either type of division will do exactly the same damage to my units, which is convenient for the maths, but my divisions do quite different things to theirs. First of all my SA of 13 is 72% of the infantry GD whereas my HA of only 6 is only 50% of the mechanised GD. This means that my divisions have far more trouble exceeding the GD of mechanised divisions than they do with plain infantry. In combat against infantry, every time two of my divisions target one of his there is a surplus of 8 SA undefended against but when fighting mechanised this effect doesn’t occur until at least 3 divisions attack a single target. Coupled with this is the fact that the attack strength of 6 represents half the casualty rate whether the defenders GD is exceeded or not. As a result, when there is a mixed German force in combat, the infantry divisions are taking casualties at least twice as fast as the mechanised divisions and in most cases much higher ratios. This is why the battle of Lublin has so many wrecked infantry divisions whilst the ‘hidden’ mechanised / armoured units are probably still in fairly battle worthy condition keeping the battle going. Their problem will be fighting at even higher odds where they will be subject to significant excess attack strength when the accompanying infantry is gone. From my point of view one of the more important effects of a mixed force is they stay fighting until the infantry divisions have been totally destroyed.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Bucharest Oct 27th

Despite the apparent strength of the Romanian forces their org is practically none existent and this battle lasts no more than a couple hours and then … no more Romania … very shortly followed by an exact same situation in Hungary

 

[Kanitatlan]

Hungary End Oct 27th
As soon as the battle of Budapest is over … so is Hungary.

As you can see on this map and the following ones poor weather is starting to break out. Fortunately rain has no impact on combat for me (+10% for weather gear and -10% for rain). Later, when there are more storms, it becomes a bit of an issue as storms can be enough to make a combat dangerous for my troops by taking their effectiveness below the critical rating where their GD is no longer adequate defence against even one enemy division. The enemy is on the run so fortunately this just results in local setbacks and delays rather than a real problem.