Need Advice - Turn 7; Issues with Supplies and Offensive for Kiev

[Geredis]

I was just wondering if I could get some feedback from some of you much more adept at this game than I.

I'm playing on Easy, as the Germans in the 41-45 campaign (normal, not CV-balanced or any of the other alternative modes).

Starting off, it went well enough; drove eastward, took Tarnopol, Minsk, the Baltic States up to just south of Talinn by mid-July with the main Baltic thrust; a secondary thrust by 31st Panzer Corp and the Totenkopf Division cutting off any Russian attempts to cross in north of Lake Peipus. I've got 56th Corps screening south of Peipus, while 26th Corps and the infantry division from 31st Panzer Corps mops up in Latvia and Estonia.

That's up in the north. I'd say I'm doing well enough there. In the south, my main advance has largely bogged down sadly due to terrain east of Tarnopol, with advance elements starting to slow near the Vinnista-Zhitomir south of the Pripet and not far west of Kiev. My goal was to basically rush the Dnepr, but I guess my understanding of the resupply rules are still too nascent to really put a hell-or-high-water effort into sweeping the Soviets out of western Ukraine. By Turn 7, I've gotten my Romanian and Hungarian forces, with a German contingent within 30-40 miles of Odessa, and the plan is to take it next turn while I try to swing the southern tail of the Russian armies east of the Yuzhny Bug; though I'm not sure how feasible that is given the scattered quality of the minor Axis allies.

The center, at least as I define it, is pretty messy. I screwed up my offensive it seems such that I drove most Soviet forces south and east, instead of north. Thus, no massive Pripet pocket to close...but doing so, as hinted at in the above paragraph, did allow for a chance to suck in Russian forces to Kiev. Though I hold the city, I have at least 20 command elements to the east, another 20-30 to the immediate south.

I see an opportunity, a slight gap between Bobary (1431) and Bobrovitsa (1571), that I coudl exploit to basically split the Soviets into 3 distinct forces (Left Bank the Dnepr, Right Bank of the Dnepr, and and north of the Oster). It seems to be the best approach to deal with this situation in the center. However, I'm not entirely certain that the majority of 1st and 2nd Panzer Groups, augmented by elements from 17th Army would be enough to break them given my horrible supply issues. The rail repair units are working, but teh going is extremely slow.

Do you think it's worth going for that gap near the Oster with 2 or 3 divisions, and maybe pocket the forces hording for Kiev, or should I try something else?

Is there some way to designate certain sectors or hexes as being high priority for rail repair, or is it basically semi-random?

At Turn 7, I'm between hex column 72 and 80. I'll wager that this is a 'poor' front line, but how bad exactly? Just how far east are most people at this point?

[jabgamer]

You might try posting on the Matrix WitE forum as well as there's generally people there with a lot of game experience: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=695 . Sounds like you are well into the game now. There is a manual rail repair system using the FBD units that is critical to understand to get the most of your rail system. The automatic sending of construction units to repair rails is intended to fill in the non-critical rails. You need to use your FBD units to repair several key rail lines. I'm sure there are many posts in the WitE forum (in the war room would be my guess) re which rail lines are the best to focus on.

[loki1006]

You may be better wandering over to the matrix forum and having a look at some AARs.

The real challenge for the Germans in 1941 is, I think, managing your movement pts. Go too far, too early, too fast and your Pzrs get stuck, go too slow and the Soviets recover their balance. Its a hard balancing act.

tricks to bear in mind are air resupply. Keep the 'army' airbase up with your Pzr spearheads. You can drop both supply and fuel on this quite efficiently (against a human player you'll need to guard vs Soviet fighters but against the AI this may be fairly safe). That'll help.

having said that, at some stage you have to cut loose, key to a good 1941 is the number of Soviet formations you pocket and destroy, key to having any chance after 1943 is to have overrun a lot of Soviet industry, to do that you need to take some chances.

[Geredis]

Originally posted by jabgamer:

You might try posting on the Matrix WitE forum as well as there's generally people there with a lot of game experience: .

Thanks; I think I'll do that.

Loki: Yeah I've had that issue myself. Hell, I have two panzer divisions of my own caught behind enemy lines, pretty much out of supply, and I'm trying to get them outta there. Worst comes ot it, I'll just start another campaign. Sure, it may mean 6 hours or so lost (I think), but...lots of lessons learned.

As fo rthe rail repair (FBD) units, they simply have to be on the hex I want fixed?

[Denniss]

for FBD/NKPS use see the updated manual, section 5.3.1.4

[Vuyek]

Here's my playthrough, where I go in depth on what I do and why I do it.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3778117


The most impoertant thing to understand is to "bag" Soviet units. Don't make them rout - encircle them, cut off their supply lines, isolate them, wait a turn or two, AND THEN attack them so they SURRENDER completely.

The fast movers can REALLY move all over the map and cut off HUGE swathes of map. Once a hex zone is under Axis control all supply/HQ is cut off from Soviet units trapped behind.

The trouble is balancing the fast movers with the plodding ground pounders.


The second most important thing is to NEVER FORGET to use your repair railway troops to convert Soviet rail gauge to the European one (Soviets used a wider spacing, just to be different).


Third most important thing as Axis is that at the beginning of the campaign, the Soviets are disorganized and have horrible morale, so that they can barely even ENTER an Axis controlled Zone Of Control, much less attack an Axis unit.


That's it; hope it helps.

I am hoping to write a guide for this game, step by step for a first few turns, as I did for the Distant Worlds game.