Need some strategic advice badly...(eastern front)

[unmerged(87768)]

I'm playing as Germany. The year is August 1942, after initial success in operation Barbarossa I have reached the outskirts of Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. (I'm playing the Compendium Mod btw). Now the situation is critical. Fuel is running low and every battle I fight my armies are losing. There are just too many Russian divisions.

Heres a screenshot of the current situation,

I have 115 infantry divisions and 27 panzer divs fighting on the eastern front. Initially I had 36 panzers, but because of low fuel I had disband a couple or deploy them to france. Also 70% of my infantry had SP-A brigades attached, but I disbanded them all because of low fuel.

The russians have 200 infantry divisions.

Now my armies are nearly surrounded and my only option is to withdraw. I was thinking of deploying the entire army back in poland, let them reorganize and refit. I will have to to lose ground but when the russians come to poland they will be spread out and I can do a massive counterattack? How about it?

 

[sbr]

You might want to edit the top left corner of your screenie, there might be something there that is not allowed.

 

[theokrat]

I see two good pockets if you strike West of Orel from North and South.
Tho other is at Sumy.

Forget about SpART for ordinary troops. Think about grouping your tanks together with MOT

 

[Pannonius]

You have some pocketing chances here. Don't give up yet.

 

[Yushal]

Get Romania into the Axis. She will supply you with about 30 oil a day. She also can take over defense of the Atlantic or help you in the southeast.

If you can spare the men, surround Moscow. This will cut off the Soviets from supply? Does that still work?

 

[unmerged(87768)]

Get Romania into the Axis. She will supply you with about 30 oil a day. She also can take over defense of the Atlantic or help you in the southeast.

If you can spare the men, surround Moscow. This will cut off the Soviets from supply? Does that still work?

But theres some 60 divisions surrounding moscow, I need to draw them out of their defensive position.

 

[unmerged(88345)]

When this happens, I often try to drawback one of my army groups (usually the southern one) and position my troops in a position where they can counterattack and encircle huge numbers of troops. I also might think about using the troops around Moscow to make a strike to the south and cut off a lot of the Soviet divisions in the Smolensk area. As for fuel, shouldn't you be able to trade some of your supplies away for it? 133k is quite a bit.

Also, a quick question, how strong is your airforce right now?

 

[theokrat]

If you can spare the men, surround Moscow. This will cut off the Soviets from supply? Does that still work?

Since the capital is already at Gorkij obviously not.

 

[unmerged(17791)]

Let me get this straight - you're struggling deep in Russia (not unlike the historical scenario), and your trying to help yourself out by disbanding panzer divisions & self-propelled artillery...

C'mon, man.

Hey, maybe if you disband the whole Luftwaffe you can save EVEN MORE oil!

 

[Van Diemen]

Give up the moscow sector and retreat to Toropets, you are about to GET encirceled! Furthermore hold your grounds behind riverbanks (because of the attack penalty) and let the Russian close in. Do not move all your divisions at the same time, it uses up fuel rapidly. Do not disband your airforce! They can be the key to get rid of a lot of Soviet divisions by bombing them once they retreat! Furthermore the airforce normally doesn't use up as much fuel as the army does!

 

[elpeladopocione]

I would say that you are really messed up men.....what have you been doing in the pre war years if not trading supplies for oil? For the moment Barbossa starts I usually have a 150K+ OIL stock I got from trading supplies for oil with the soviets for the past 5 years (1936-1941).

If you havent been able to reach the leningrad-moscow-stalingrad line by late 1941 I would say that your chances of defeating the soviets are preety scarce. That is based on some factors: at the beginning of Barbossa (June 1941) soviet armies have almost none organization what gives you the chance of a quick drive inland by your arm-mot spearheads. This allows you to encircle at least the 50-70 divs that form the soviet line of defense against you. That advantage you take by destroyin that many divisions is what gives you the "edge" over them. Encircling and destroying big numbers of divisions is A MUST in any succesful Barbossa as the soviets will starts to sprung out thousands and thousands of new men into the field asap.

For your current situation I must say that the most pausible strategy would be to start encircling as many enemy divisions as possilbe in little pockets of 2 or 3 provinces. Anyway I really find it hard to believe that you will reach the Caucasus oil fields before you ran out of it, thus leaving yourself for the russians to takeover.

Good luck.

 

[unmerged(62241)]

Just curious-is that a parachute panzer division that I see-the Hermann Goering no less? That's awesome.

My only advice is to keep the action fluid-surround as much as you can, when you can-and keep your CAS and TACs on ground attack-they destroy moving russian units pretty easily. also, don't think you need to exclusively use your armored/motorized corps for offensive actions-inf. can envelop also.

 

[unmerged(89090)]

by now you should control some soviet provinces that have victory point values. It looks like its only a matter of time before you're completely annexed by them. I would say you should try an negotiate a favourable peace treaty with the soviet union so you can recouperate attack later on when you have a large oil stockpile (or better yet, prepare for america's entry into the war).

 

[unmerged(79130)]

Back and let them follow you. Open a hole in you line and let them strike there. Let them get throw and attack them in their back. Then you have got them in a pocket and they will have no supplie. Use your luftwaffe to make interdiction strike and you enemie will fight bad. You still got 6000 oil. You probably got more IC then Russia so just build up your army and when you ready you can continue Barbarossa. They will also build troops but because you have more IC you can build more. And I still dont think you need 116 k Supplies... Spend some money on production insteed.

How about that?

 

[unmerged(17791)]

IIRC (can't currently load the pic) he's playing the TRP mod. Don't underestimate Lothos' AI. I've learned that a couple of times the hard way... you think you're setting up a trap & suddenly you realize it's the AI that's playing YOU. So, you have to be careful - and really watch the potential over-extensions & encirclements. [Terminator voice] Der ist a high probability... you will be pwn'd. [/voice]

I'll never forget the time I was playing as France... I had done brilliantly, and was pressing into southern Germany in early 1940 - everything had gone perfectly, and I'd managed to even help keep Poland alive in Warsaw.

Then suddenly that Lothos AI kicked in, and a little gamble I took blew up in my face, as all my heavy tanks got encircled & trapped in Bavaria... and there was NOTHIN' I could do about it.

MAN!!! Berlin was RIGHT there!! If ONLY...!! -I had been a bit more patient, total victory would have been guaranteed within a few months. Granted, I was still in the fight, but that was a HUGE setback... losing all my precious French heavy tanks. I got so pi$$ed off, I quit the game. That was my first time playing with Lothos AI. Right off the bat, I learned not to underestimate the cunningness. It ain't no lame, vanilla AI, man.