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The Road to Barbarossa

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August 23rd
Disaster in Ukraine! Thousands Encircled!
On the 23rd, Stalin breaks my lines at Priluki. Horrifyingly, Guderian and Model both retreat towards Vyshgarod. Three panzer and three motorized divisions are captured and forced to surrender. The remaining troops in the pocket will have to fight their way out through along the Black Sea coast. There is no hope of linking back up in northern Ukraine.

With the fate of the Reich on the line, I am forced to assume military control of the Romanians. They have remained almost completely passive during this entire operation. They are ordered to launch attacks along their entire front. At the same time, German infantry will attack Vinnista and Stanislow to draw the enemy away from the coast. Hopefully speed and suprise will allow the encircled column to break out and reach Romanian lines.

 
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Kleist leeds the column back towards out lines. He captures Odessa and blitzes into an empty Chisnev. However, his oil has run out. Everyone's has really. I can't prevent the pocket from collapsing behind the column and units that ran out of fuel earlier are trapped and surrender.



The soviets just can't hold back the Romanians though, and the forces in Beltsy break and run. The remains of two armies stumble into Romania.
 
DarkSoul1984 said:
How many ARM, MEC, MOT, and INF do you have respectively?
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I lost an HQ in Finland with 3rd Armee, and yet another when Guderian's korps was surrounded at Vyshgorod. The Bulgarians and Hungarian armies are managing a small offensive to retake East Prussia, but can't spare an HQ to send there. The whole effort is a real debacle. Heads will have to roll.

My armoured and mechanized forces have been devastated. Here's an updated groop photo of the troops that set off to liberate the Ukraine.


The SS. Totally wiped out. V.Few tears shed.


Geyr von Schweppenburg's Grenadiers were given Victory or Valhalla orders after they ran out of oil in Kherzon.


What's left of 1st Armee and Panzerarmee Guderian are merged, and redesignated Panzerarmee Rundsted (hotkey #1, with a bullet).


Italy is struggling to recover from their disastrous [ Invasion of Yugoslavia / Encirclement in Greece / Calamity in Palestine / Current Effort in Libya]. The one thing they are doing is controlling the Med. All six of Mussolini's Battleships are still operational. Nationalist Spain, however, has been wiped out as a Maritime power. The Atlantic is currently closed to the Axis.




Meanwhile the Soviets churn out infantry. They're still at the '39 standard, but Stalin has almost finished the 1941 version. That will be a major jump in fighting ability for him. Only 3 bomber squadrons are still flying.

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The UK has suffered nearly as many defeats as Italy. The worst was at the hands of Guderian, in Spain. Their army is near breaking point but, at least in North Africa, the US is starting to arrive to reinforce the front. I expect the Japanese are seeing the same thing in Burma.



The US is just starting to hit stride. The Japanese have given them a real punch in the nose by annexing the Phillipines. They are almost done Improved Air Carrier. That's too bad. They have only 7 operational Carriers. That means the first batch of carriers hasn't finished yet, and so will probably all be built as Improved, instead of Basic. Tough break for Japan.

 
Intel from the East Front



I cut and pasted this map together from several bomber missions. It looks to me like Stalin's Center is weak. Also, an encirclement in Ukraine would be crippling. But I just got off that bus.
 
Well forget about the Ukraine, too much bad memories. :(
There is definitely something to try in the center though.
 
Karaiskandar said:
Well forget about the Ukraine, too much bad memories. :(
There is definitely something to try in the center though.
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In center there are only marshes and rivers and forests. Too difficult terrain.
 
Yeah I know, but it seems that there are far more Soviet divisions in the South.
And there are still some plain provinces to use for armored thrusts I think.
 
If you attack Kiev, and then move into Korosten through Rowne (there are no troops there), you might be able to encircle some Soviet divisions. Or you could even encircle the entire center of the front (the Soviets don't seem to guard their rears at all. All the provinces behind them are empty).
 
To pull off the Ukraine encirclement you have to encircle them somewhere else as well. That will force them to split their forces quite nicely. I never ever try for just one initial encirclement. I always use three or four.
 
DarkSoul1984 said:
To pull off the Ukraine encirclement you have to encircle them somewhere else as well. That will force them to split their forces quite nicely. I never ever try for just one initial encirclement. I always use three or four.
Click to expand...

So you build an army twice as big as mine, and also 20 rare and synthetic plants, and also trade supplies to build up a rare stockpile of 50K. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you play on normal difficulty.
 
I am playing on normal difficult y as Poland, and Barbarrossa seems to be very hard. But I have Bielo Russia and Ukraine. Good luck to you!
 
Amoral said:
So you build an army twice as big as mine, and also 20 rare and synthetic plants, and also trade supplies to build up a rare stockpile of 50K. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you play on normal difficulty.
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In my last game I did not build the rare and synthetic plants and instead waited until 1942 to do those. Also, I use full central planning and trade for my rares to build up a decent stockpile to keep my economy going for at least two years, something you neglected to do.

At last count I have 18 ARM, 30 MOT, and 114 INF to use in my Barbarossa. I am always horribly outnumbered as I start the encirclements, but that is the whole point to the encirclements. I generally use blue emu's encirclement plan from his Are Submarines Worthless thread. Then again, I generally don't have the USSR declaring war on me in 1940 anymore which makes it a whole lot easier.

The point is, your German units "should" pack enough punch to equal ~3 Soviet units of the same type. With you only attempting one encirclement, you are inviting the Soviets to dogpile your troops that are spread so very thin...
 
I'm not having any trouble buying rares to keep my economy running, and my oil supply is now covered by coal to oil conversion. As an aside, even at this point where rares are short for everyone it is still much cheaper to trade for them rather than use synthetic plants. My synthetic materials plants sit idle, they were a bad investment.

The "Oh Noes! Rares are low" storyline is interesting from an AAR point of view. But not investing in a stockpile was a strategic decision on my part. A stockpile represents unused IC. You can spend IC making a pile of rares, or you can spend it making tanks. And in 1938, I think tanks are more crucial.

On the other hand, a stockpile of oil and supplies is useful, because you need enough to be able to trigger offensive supply when needed.
 
September 1941 - Stalemate in Russia



I attempted to break through at Suwalki in order to encircle Konigsberg, but was not able to fight through the Soviet meat wave. Now winter is coming and the mud has returned. Any hopes of a major offensive for 1941 are dashed. Still, I hope I can encircle Konigsburg and do some serious damage to Stalin that way. But first, my tanks need rest and replacements badly.

But, where one door closes perhaps another opens. A routine recon flight over London shows that there is no garrison at all. A commando raid to capture the stockpiles in London might be in order. I could probably capture the whole island... but then what? I can't really defend or garrison it. I suppose I could release a puppet. What do you think?


 
October 8th - East Prussia


With snowflakes beginning to fall, Panzerarmee von Rundstedt breaks through at Suwalki. I scrounged enough Oil to go on Offensive supply, and that tipped the scales for me. They quickly complete an encirclement of Konigsburg. Now I need to reduce the pocket before the Soviets can link up. Sixty three soviet divisions, including three HQs are trapped.
 
Amoral said:
I'm not having any trouble buying rares to keep my economy running, and my oil supply is now covered by coal to oil conversion. As an aside, even at this point where rares are short for everyone it is still much cheaper to trade for them rather than use synthetic plants. My synthetic materials plants sit idle, they were a bad investment.
Click to expand...

They won't be a bad investment depending upon the situation you might or might not find yourself in further down the line. I generally always build them first just because I have spare IC, know I will need them in the future, and do not want to build units that will be obsolete and need upgrading inside of 2 years.

Amoral said:
The "Oh Noes! Rares are low" storyline is interesting from an AAR point of view. But not investing in a stockpile was a strategic decision on my part. A stockpile represents unused IC. You can spend IC making a pile of rares, or you can spend it making tanks. And in 1938, I think tanks are more crucial.
Click to expand...

That all depends. On very hard I can get 12 ARM out by late 1939/early 1940 (the starting 3 and 9 produced in a serial) but if Sweden and Finland are being temperamental, as they sometimes are for some reason, my IC takes a huge hit in the middle of Barbarossa because of declining rares. On hard, with lending Italy some help, I found that I can break even at around 450 IC by the time Barbarossa starts, and keep it supplied with rares at the cost of 2-3 rounds of my infantry builds being delayed.

Amoral said:
On the other hand, a stockpile of oil and supplies is useful, because you need enough to be able to trigger offensive supply when needed.
Click to expand...

Offensive supply is great to start the encirclement, but after that I have found that my airpower can compensate for any degradation in combat ability when I stop using offensive supply. ARM and MOT are fast enough without it anyways.
 
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