Playing as the Russians, now into early 1944. Things seem to be going much more like World War I than II.
Barbarossa started on schedule, in early summer 1941. By that time, I had taken Manchuria and most of north China away from the Japanese. The Nationalists had declared war on me and I surrendered and gave them most of south China back. I shifted my troops to the European theater and, emulating Joe Stalin, dug in along the 1939 border. I expected to get beat up but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The Germans would beat me in a province, but when their forces took the province, I would immediately counter-attack with the flanking provinces plus the former defenders, now retreated to the province behind. I also had left reserve forces in the rear areas who joined the counter-attack. Since the Germans were arriving a few divisions at a time, and I was often attacking with 40+, I could beat each group quickly as soon as it arrived. Looking at the combat screen, I realized that the Germans also were handicapped by a low ESE, and upon further inspection, I realized that this was caused by the low infrastructure rating of the province - as soon as they captured it, it was cut apparently about in half. As a result, the German attackers were turned back and my guys could return. Of course, they were also easy prey, and the battle settled into a stalemate with the Germans taking and losing a line of provinces running more or less along the pre-1939 border of the Soviet Union. I should add that I constricted the front by refusing to invade the Baltic states, hoping that Hitler would hand me a couple of dozen divisions by invading them himself, but instead he inexplicably respected their neutrality. The German ESE was further reduced by (as I discovered by loading the game up as the Germans) limited TC as they advanced farther into Soviet-controlled territory.
So events stood through the spring of 1943. Stalemate on the Eastern Front. As soon as good weather arrived in 1943, I invaded Romania with airborne troops, quickly reinforced by sea. I managed to capture the few Romanian VP provinces and annex Romania, and as soon as my boys entered Bulgaria, they folded too (by event). I managed to capture almost all of Yugoslavia and a corner of Hungary. As the Germans redeployed troops to stop me in the Balkans, I was able to advance my front in the center to Warsaw and in the north through East Prussia. Then, the same logic that had stopped the German advance stopped mine. I used the "synchronize arrival" button on the attack screen to have all my divisions get there at the same time (it works some of the time). I learned thanks to some helpful advice on this forum to put my air units together into groups of 4+ and they were dealing out some damage to the fascist invaders. But still I was unable to advance. I could easily arrange to have 70+ divisions attacking a German province with 15 or so. They would rush in reinforcements, but quite often I was able to overcome them and enter the province - at which point, the immediate German counterattack would shove me right out again. Through the winter of 1943-44, no movement occurred. Now that spring has come again, I tried launching another airborne/seaborne invasion of the Pomeranian coast, but the Germans turned me back - not enough transports in the Baltic, maybe. But my field armies are completely powerless to move the Germans.
Loading up as the Germans again, I see that they are in bad shape. They have no manpower reserves left. Many of their divisions are at half strength or below. For some reason they have less than a dozen air units left - maybe they haven't gotten the memo about grouping their aircraft in 4's? They have no resource stockpiles and they aren't getting enough resources to keep their IC fully functional. I think they ought to fold up for lack of manpower pretty soon. That is what historically happened to them - in November, 1918.
There is something I'm not understanding about offensive warfare in this game. I have all the land doctrines up through 1943. I have the techs for land units up through 1943 too, mostly. About half of my divisions have upgraded to 1943, with the rest still at 1939 levels (upgrading is _expensive_ as the Russians!). I make sure that each province has a field marshal or general with an HQ in it (except on the Balkan front, where I only have two HQ's for a dozen provinces, but the density of units is a lot lower down there). When looking at battle resolution screens, my guys don't seem to be penalized for being over command limits. I noticed that both my divisions and the Germans' have much higher defensiveness values than hard or soft attack. My tank divisions (depending on attached brigade) are generally over twice as high defense than attack. The Germans seem to be about the same though I didn't do a careful survey.
Can anybody help?
Barbarossa started on schedule, in early summer 1941. By that time, I had taken Manchuria and most of north China away from the Japanese. The Nationalists had declared war on me and I surrendered and gave them most of south China back. I shifted my troops to the European theater and, emulating Joe Stalin, dug in along the 1939 border. I expected to get beat up but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The Germans would beat me in a province, but when their forces took the province, I would immediately counter-attack with the flanking provinces plus the former defenders, now retreated to the province behind. I also had left reserve forces in the rear areas who joined the counter-attack. Since the Germans were arriving a few divisions at a time, and I was often attacking with 40+, I could beat each group quickly as soon as it arrived. Looking at the combat screen, I realized that the Germans also were handicapped by a low ESE, and upon further inspection, I realized that this was caused by the low infrastructure rating of the province - as soon as they captured it, it was cut apparently about in half. As a result, the German attackers were turned back and my guys could return. Of course, they were also easy prey, and the battle settled into a stalemate with the Germans taking and losing a line of provinces running more or less along the pre-1939 border of the Soviet Union. I should add that I constricted the front by refusing to invade the Baltic states, hoping that Hitler would hand me a couple of dozen divisions by invading them himself, but instead he inexplicably respected their neutrality. The German ESE was further reduced by (as I discovered by loading the game up as the Germans) limited TC as they advanced farther into Soviet-controlled territory.
So events stood through the spring of 1943. Stalemate on the Eastern Front. As soon as good weather arrived in 1943, I invaded Romania with airborne troops, quickly reinforced by sea. I managed to capture the few Romanian VP provinces and annex Romania, and as soon as my boys entered Bulgaria, they folded too (by event). I managed to capture almost all of Yugoslavia and a corner of Hungary. As the Germans redeployed troops to stop me in the Balkans, I was able to advance my front in the center to Warsaw and in the north through East Prussia. Then, the same logic that had stopped the German advance stopped mine. I used the "synchronize arrival" button on the attack screen to have all my divisions get there at the same time (it works some of the time). I learned thanks to some helpful advice on this forum to put my air units together into groups of 4+ and they were dealing out some damage to the fascist invaders. But still I was unable to advance. I could easily arrange to have 70+ divisions attacking a German province with 15 or so. They would rush in reinforcements, but quite often I was able to overcome them and enter the province - at which point, the immediate German counterattack would shove me right out again. Through the winter of 1943-44, no movement occurred. Now that spring has come again, I tried launching another airborne/seaborne invasion of the Pomeranian coast, but the Germans turned me back - not enough transports in the Baltic, maybe. But my field armies are completely powerless to move the Germans.
Loading up as the Germans again, I see that they are in bad shape. They have no manpower reserves left. Many of their divisions are at half strength or below. For some reason they have less than a dozen air units left - maybe they haven't gotten the memo about grouping their aircraft in 4's? They have no resource stockpiles and they aren't getting enough resources to keep their IC fully functional. I think they ought to fold up for lack of manpower pretty soon. That is what historically happened to them - in November, 1918.
There is something I'm not understanding about offensive warfare in this game. I have all the land doctrines up through 1943. I have the techs for land units up through 1943 too, mostly. About half of my divisions have upgraded to 1943, with the rest still at 1939 levels (upgrading is _expensive_ as the Russians!). I make sure that each province has a field marshal or general with an HQ in it (except on the Balkan front, where I only have two HQ's for a dozen provinces, but the density of units is a lot lower down there). When looking at battle resolution screens, my guys don't seem to be penalized for being over command limits. I noticed that both my divisions and the Germans' have much higher defensiveness values than hard or soft attack. My tank divisions (depending on attached brigade) are generally over twice as high defense than attack. The Germans seem to be about the same though I didn't do a careful survey.
Can anybody help?
