Germans, Turn 14. Despair sets in.

[Bastille]

Hi, first grand campaign, probably made a few mistakes and I am not save scumming. I would love to get some advice/feedback from you fine grognards.

SITUATION

Date: Mid September 1941 (Turn 14)

AGN: Leningrad and about 100 mile radius is covered in a carpet of Russian units, most of the time 2 to an hex and 3 in the core of their defensive system. I estimate about 100 units here alone. I am within 100 miles of the Leningrad peninsula and the Finns are up to their limit.

AGC: Smolensk is covered by a smaller line than Leningrad, but still 3-4 hex wide with sometimes multiple units per hex. There is about a 1 hex wide line between the Leningrad blob and the Smolensk bloc, but their formation's depth is so great I don't see a puncture working very well.

AGS: The South is sparsely populated and I've just captured Kiev. Odessa still holds on due to me throwing Romanian trash units at them to keep them busy, but I'm shifting a German infantry corps to help there. I've just pocketed about 20-25 divisions in the South and a strategic puncture seems possible, but would likely leave my northern flank exposed to the Smolensk and Leningrad Rusky party.

Soviet casualties: 1.5 million men, 12-15 000 tanks, 6000 aircraft.

My casualties: 150 000 men and negligible amounts of equipment.

I'm at a loss here, looking at the Barbarossa numbers, I should have inflicted 5 million Soviet casualties by December to reach the historical milestone. I am nowhere near that. The Soviets hold strong at around 5 million troops in the field. Am I doomed? Should I just restart and try to do better? I can provide screenshots once I am in the game again.

[loki1006]

To be honest I'd suggest file this under 'I have learnt a lot' and restart. A problem with WiTE is it tends to snowball if one side gets ahistorically ahead (or behind). Over the mud period, the Soviets rebound substantially and then you need to think about how to use November to either cull this expansion or pull back for winter. Your problem is you'll face multiple rows, even if at only brigade strength and all that will eat into your key resource - movement capacity.

The keys with the Axis (and I am not a particularly competent German player) is to go for encirclements while keeping the MP in your Pzr/Mot divisions as high as poss - so if you push them to the limit by T3, it'll be T5 by the time you recover (ie overall you have less capacity than a more moderate approach). Think about force allocation, many players detach 1 Pzr Corps from AGC to AGN and a second to AGS, the reason is its ok with AGC to end the summer more or less historically but you need Leningrad (or the front just gets too long) and a deep penetration in the Ukraine (resources).

[Sir_Cuckington]

Do not retreat at all. You could fall back like i did and dig in for winter then launch another offensive like i did.

[hetsvakeshet]

Just my two cents: I feel the game itself takes some dandy liberties 'balancing', sometimes even cheating (like allowing entire 'routed' division to fly over encirclements when they should be surrendered). The blob around Leningrad is something I have experienced every single game as the Axis player. I have tried three decidedly differnt tactics, some based on history (like the never-implemented 'Silberfuchs', where Leningrad is made the main target to enble the Germans to establish a strong winter supply base (land and sea) before the ultimate assault on Moscow. I believe Rommel had his hands in that plan BTW. In any case, no matter how I approach Leningrad, there is always a game-ruining and completely unrealistic BLOB making an advance impossible. The vast areas forfeited by the Red Army to enable the game to build this blob are completely insane - Stalin specifically forbade this. Defense in depth is one thing, spamming is another. This is more like trench warfare, especially if your supply lines are stretched. It is one of my biggest complaints. The game sometimes withdraws units into symmetrical lines without regard to terrain when there are serious breakthroughs - no general staff would do that. My first game I played as the Soviets and I won. The Axis didn't even get Kiev, much less Leningrad or Moscow. I took both Finland and Romania out of the war (I have always favored asymmetrical warfare) while the Germans chewed at my main defences. With Romania out and the Finnish front freed up, I advanced into Poland and across the Carpathians into Hungary. A very interesting but frustrating game.

[JWNoctis]

hetsvakeshet: You should see how the German AI turn tail and run in that Vistula to Oder scenario, which is as far as I know pretty ahistorical but the only reasonable thing to do. You may also wish to try the smaller Leningrad scenario a few times first, which is unfortunately probably easier than grand campaign.

[Bastille]

Yeah, frankly I've kinda given up on that game, but for my next one I'm considering racing my panzers really far ahead to force the line back. The problem with that is the godawful supply situation and the fact that the Russians basically ♥♥♥♥ tanks for breakfasts. I mean, plenty of other WITE players have managed to take Leningrad in 1941, so it has to be possible.

[Vapules]

You have to be a fluid commander. If the defense line for leningrad is too thick send some panzers south and hit them elsewhere. The front is too big for even the russians to maintain a thick defense everywhere.

[nameeb2001]

Yeah, racing the panzers to force the line back isn't the best strategy. The line should really mirror the extent your INFANTRY have advanced. Encirclement is the key to victory. Remember, ROUTED units will return, SURRENDERED units do not. As hetsvakeshet noted, routed units will escape encirclements. To avoid this do not attack units en masse until a turn or two AFTER the encirclement is completed.... Most, if not all, will surrender. Use your panzers, with air support, to perform surgical strikes to open the route. Try to occupy rail hubs behind enemy lines to prevent them evacuating by rail before the encirclement is complete. And don't forget to SPLIT your divisions into brigades once behind enemy lines to REALLY screw them. The Bull of Scapa Flow is 100% right. They may look thick everywhere, but somewhere, all those counters behind the lines are just air, HQ, and bs units.

[Vuyek]

Punch through, encircle, wait a turn or two so they lose supplies and don't "fly out" so you bag maximum prisoners.
Rinse, repeat.

[JWNoctis]

Or if you are feeling really gamey and had enough reserves, leave a weakness on your frontline for the enemy to punch through, then bag what fell for it. Never tried this myself but I read once this works.

EDIT:

Originally posted by Uncle Timo:

Punch through, encircle, wait a turn or two so they lose supplies and don't "fly out" so you bag maximum prisoners.
Rinse, repeat.

Not when they are 100km deep about all the way and all in at least level 2 forts, however few scarce CVs each individual formation had. Not without some significant buildup of force at least.

[mooreshawnm]

Mass your armor half way between Moscow and Leningrad and strike NE aiming to link with the Fins just east of the big lake. Start now and fininsh early summer 42. All your armor. You'll trap 20% of the Soviet army. You can then drive SE late summer and take the capitol.

[retiredredberet]

Great game! Can't believe how much time I've spent on it. Two big concept weaknesses in the design.

1. At the beginning of Barbarossa, German Heere had 279,000 trained reservists in the ready replacement pool. In the campaign (without editing) the German player has 0 trained replacements (ground elements - squads) in the pool.

2. Soviet organizational capability is impossibly proficient at reorganizing, mustering and deploying new forces by turn 3. The Reds never experience disorganization after the initial Axis attack. Throughout 1941, Stalin could never decide whether to counterattack, die in place or retreat to better defensive lines until after the disasters at Kiev in Sept 41, and Kharkov in June 4,2 when he finally started paying serious attention to his generals' advice and after-action lessons learned. Despite its well-earned rep for patriotism, heroic courage and endurance, the Red Army was less proficient and skilled in command and organization of forces in 1945 than the WITE Soviet player in July 41 - when a despondent Stalin was hiding from the politburo in his private dacha. Soviet administrative expertise needs to be gradually improved from worse than terrible in 1941 to fairly capable by 1943 when they prepared Kursk defenses after studying German defenses that kept the Red Army at bay in the Rzhev saliant until its evacuation in Spring 1943.

[beamergrad]

I went on defensive after November 41 as the Germans, but seem to be losing an insane amount of troops to what I believe is just winter. Is it normal to take 30k in losses each turn during winter? This is my first time trying the game so I'm sure I've missed some basic strategy stuff.

[mooreshawnm]

Those are casualties not deaths. The majority will just need a little time and then will be fed back into the line.

[Bastille]

Well, all your answers have inspired me to give this game another shot. I will try to pick up the situation and perhaps shift my entire armored strength north or south, depending on the opportunities present. I will update with the results. I think I only have a few turns left before the mud, so this'll be dicey and I don't think I can mass my armor before then, but we'll see.

[Bastille]

Also you guys can probably confirm, but the Soviets get free units in 1941 right? As in, destroyed/surrendered units return after a delay?