VOTG - Russian Defence

[John McDiarmid]

After reading most of the posts on the AAR VOTG campaigns, what strikes me the most is how many of the players are getting way too many units killed on the first day or two of the campaign.

I really have zero clue why the Germans are so willing to sacrifice so many of their Stug III's, and conversely how/why the Russians are losing 85-100 CVP on the 1st scenario. I suppose if things go really badly you can lose that many men, but really guys, this is supposed to be a 15-20 scenario fight. Killing off most of your men early means the Germans will almost always win the campaign on Days 2-4 as there is nobody to put in the way to stop them from taking the majority of the map.

OVERALL TACTICS:
Don't get too many men killed for ground you will eventually lose

Always make sure to lose the first 2 or 3 Night Scenario's to get the HUGE advantage of the -2 campaign balance DRM. It really makes a difference when buying infantry and losing 5 or 6 straight scenario's does not matter if your forces are still intact on Days 4-6.

Kill Germans vs. just breaking them. Many times this means avoid shooting at a juicy stack you might break and instead pick on broken units so they are dead and can never shoot back.

Try not to put too many men in Upper levels. German MG firestacks in this game will always be 36FP with -2 leaders. Avoid them by moving to blind hexes and wait for the Germans to advance and take the first hard shots (assuming the day does not end first).

Don't worry about losing a lot of the Map. Russians will always lose 1/2 the map in the first 2-3 days, just don't get too many men trapped in pockets trying to hold ground you will lose.

Try and kill good German leaders, ignore the "cheap" -1 leaders if possible. There will be a lot of 9-2 and 10-2 leaders in the German force pool. Try and pick on them one at a time and shoot them until they are wounded and/or dead. Eventually they will break with the FP that the Russians have in this game. Shooting the more agressive -1 leaders will let the #'s of really good German leaders grow to be too much to hold against.

Don't purchase "throw away" FPP. Buy a lot of ? counters to keep the Germans guessing early (when he has lots of big stacks shooting until you can hide from them). Don't buy mines and wire much as it will be bypassed and is extremely expensive. Also try and limit the # of fortified locations until you have an area you really want to hold (generally east of Row X).

Counterattack every night for at least the first 3 days. Unless the German plans to play a 0 ELR game the first 3 days will result in +14 DRM for ELR. If the Russians buy 2 companies of Guards and at least 1 platoon of infantry at night they will have enough DRM to likely survive ELR of 3 until the end of Day 3. After that, if the Germans attack don't bother to counterattack until later in the campaign.

Infantry purchases only in reserve no matter what. Save CPP. The extra -2 DRM from campaign balance and only buying in reserve will give you a couple of extra unit groups by Day 4 that will be required to buy more bodies to feed the lines.

Avoid expensive artillery early. While 120mm and 150mm artillery is fun, if you plan on running, don't buy it. Only consider the purchase after the 1st idle day when the casualties will be really big on both sides and you have a solid line to hold for a few turns.

Set DC only in cellars. Don't, like I did, buy them on ground level when there is a big stack of Germans to blow up and have the extra + effect of enemy troops make the DC dud. It stinks to waste 15 FPP, so stick em in the cellars and blow up buildings more easily.

Don't buy Molotovs. 2 CPP is really expensive when there is very little burnable terrain. The extra FP is not that great for the cost when you have be point blank and might break trying to get them. Save the CPP for the dozens of other things you need.

[John McDiarmid]

As a basis of where my game is, here is a quick summary of where we are currently:

In the 4th day of scenario's (the 18th, as the 17th was idle after 3 day attacks by the Germans and 3 night counter-attacks).
Start of days forces ~ 120 Russian squads, ~ 130 German squads.
2 Russian tanks, 8-10 Stug III's and 6 Flak Wagons
Leadership on both sides is really strong (~28 Russian leaders 2 10-2, 6 9-2, 8 or so -1 leaders, a bunch of 7-0 and commisars) (German 1:10-3 German 3:10-2, 6:9-2, lots of -1 and 0 leaders).
Russian Front line is pretty much pushed back to W1-W5 then east of the road V6-X12 then west to the majority of hexes East of the "R" road to V31 then the entire Univermag block and east of the "X" road on the South Edge.

We are barely started the 18th scenario, but the Germans shot a lot of blanks on prep-fire and nailed mostly dummies when he rolled well. The Russians got hot HMG stacks and the dead after being mostly done on the Russian Turn 1 Defensive Fire phase is 10.5 German squads dead, 1 9-2 dead, another wounded and broken on map vs 1 dead Russian 6-2-8 Engineer and maybe 6 broken squads.

The Germans mostly died when manning 2 stacks of 36 FP (3 HMG, 3 MMG + 9-2 leader) in Zolotnov's House.

Russian Tactics and Observations (and Strategy to Date):
Day 1 - Initial Purchases: Bought the NKVD companies, 37L AA and 76L Art + dug-in T34's. No artillery (no points, not enough leaders to man it as the leaders were going to run with my other troops).

Day 1 General Plan: Run like Hell (to quote Pink Floyd). Everyone was generally set up to run away (81mm Mortars were set up with a leader to break down in DFF turn 1 and move away quickly) except for ~ 6 squads in the Southern Rail Yards.

Planned to lose lots of ground, and to lose at least the first 2 night counterattacks intentionally (I will not move forward to retake hexes and am very unlikely to win by CVP with the German firepower).

Eventually the Russian defence would try and reform on top of the reserves which were all set up as far East as was allowed by the set-up restrictions.

All Guns were set up East of the Northern Red Square to try and slow down the German attack (as most infantry were expected to be scattered and/or broken).

Result: Germans stomped the Russians in the Rail Factory, I would NEVER put units there in future games, they will die too fast. Just put them in places they can run away faster.

Day 1 losses were ~ 65 Russian CVP vs. 30 or so German. Mostly this was because the Stuka's rolled lousy on shooting my many dug-in tanks, but eventually 4 or 5 of them were dead by days end. Total leader losses was a 10-0 Commisar who died in the Rail Factory when it collapsed under a bombardment on Turn 1. The only good thing was my many shots at an agressive German 10-3 leader had him roll "12" then gacked the wound check. Otherwise, this day is not much fun on the Russians at all.

Day 1 Night - Counterattack planned to LOSE. Bought 2 Guard Rifles and 1 platoon each of SMG and Engineers - all of them in reserve to save CPP.

Effect of the night assault - Russians did not lose much ground, found out the hard way of a bunch of night rules I rarely play and total losses on both sides are in the range of 20-25 CVP each. Thankfully the Russians don't lose leaders as I put Zero near the front lines and the German sniper mostly misses them.

Day 2 German Assault: Russians buy 1 battery of 80mm artillery, lots of FPP and not much else with the 1/2 CPP due to the night counter-attack. Plan to defend is pretty much fall back to the next block and try not to lose too much ground.

Results were 30ish German CVP and 50 or so Russians dead. Russians pretty much held intact, but every time I showed a tank to the Germans he hit it with a low roll and always burned the tanks with a really low kill effect.

Day 2 Russian Counterattack - Purchased 2 rifle companies in reserve and nothing else. I am trying hard to save CPP for when I can finally buy Guard Rifle companies with the Historical DRM of -1 and the BONUS -2 DRM due to losing enough scenario's for campaign balance.

It turns out the Germans wanted to be really mean this night. Russians exposed too many men, Germans got freedom of movement where he had a large portion of his good troops/leaders and eventually captured ~ 8 or 9 net locations during the Russian attack.

The only good thing this night was the relatively low CVP count, again both in the mid 20's on both sides. Thankfully the Germans have sucked hard in CC and the Russian are winning the Hand to Hand fights ~ 12 kills to 5.

Day 3 German assault - Russians finally buy 2 Guard Rifle Companies in reserve, lots more FPP and one battery of 120 mm artillery with a pre-reg hex.

First artillery draw for German 150mm and Russian 120mm artillery is red and the day has zero artillery fired. This is a good trade-off for the Russians, but the defense overally is not so great as the Germans take Zolotnov and Pavlov's houses on me.

Overall losses not too bad in the 30-40 CVP range and German losses slightly lower than Russian (which as usual included any tank I might have had alive still).

Day 3 Night Counterattack

General plan is to avoid the huge German counterattack to net negative hexes and try and keep as few Germans active as possible. Russians set up to attack heavily in the North and to retake Pavlov/Zolotnov's house if things go well plus a few hexes in the middle of the map to give more defensive depth.

Result: Germans set up virtually every good leader and huge MG stacks where the Russians wanted to go. After some early trading of bullets, the Russians ducked back behind cover and tried to take hexes in the middle instead.

End of the scenario results in the first Russian win due to CVP. Net gains of 8 hexes, but CVP win of 54 German vs. 25 Russian.

[MLaPanzer]

Repped ya man. Good stuff. But you could have waited to do it. You'll give my opponant some ideas.

[CraigBenn]

I really have zero clue why the Germans are so willing to sacrifice so many of their Stug III's, and conversely how/why the Russians are losing 85-100 CVP on the 1st scenario.

Because the Germans are killing them? Because Conscripts break and double break easily?

I suppose if things go really badly you can lose that many men, but really guys, this is supposed to be a 15-20 scenario fight. Killing off most of your men early means the Germans will almost always win the campaign on Days 2-4 as there is nobody to put in the way to stop them from taking the majority of the map.

I lost over 100 CVP on the first day, and am now on turn five of day4. At this point the Germans haven't reached the volga shore on the northern flank, and I don't think they will today. Probably will get there in the next day or so though...still not catastrophic. Because of the 8 turn first day you can't avoid fighting without losing catastrophic amounts of territory - what kind of a communist are you anyway?

As the Russians you can win by holding 70+ Stone locations by CG end, or you can bleed the germans to death. If they run out of infantry they lose - but you need to kill 12-15 squads a CG date to do it. Start the blood tap early and keep it flowing.

Don't buy Molotovs I haven't yet but I intend to when I counterattack tonight...I keep killing Stugs and they keep getting repaired - burn them!!!! - the 2CPP will pay for itself.

At start of my day4 squad count was 72 German to 60 Russian (now 51 vs 44), but he can only buy 6 platoons of Sturm/Pioneers for tonight and next two days. I can still get 4 companies and 6 platoons so he should start to waste away. I think it might be worth throwing in an attack chit in case he idles...not decided yet.

I agree with most of the other stuff - but darn it every meter of the motherland is sacred.

Out of curiosity with 100+ squads a side how long do you take to finish a turn?

[sdennis]

My brother as the Russian actually probably outnumbers me already 80 something to 70 something squads after 3 scenarios. I am down to 4 active tanks and 3 back in the repair yard. I haven't bought any more than what I was given. But his strategy has been one of fall back fall back. As the German I don't feel I am killing enough, I am approaching the North shore quickly. I expect to reach it in force after scenario 4 (only one night scenario so far) next time we play.

I'm the Russian vs. Taylor in another one. We are almost done with Scenario 1 and I chose to fight a bit and I'm paying for it. He is probably killing 3 or 4 squads a turn now (Turn 5 and 6) while I had to get some CC luck to kill what I'm killing. I will probably give up the same amount of ground my brother did (maybe a bit more) but I will lose more infantry than he did.

In RB our rule of thumb is the German must maintain a 2:1 ratio to succeed... it looks to me like VotG is about the same. Maybe a little less.

But in both my games we are having probably 1/2 the CVP for both sides as some of these other games we see. Does that mean we are just more cautious? Are we grokking the CG better than others? Are others grokking it better than us?

If the German or Russian lost 100 CVP in any scenario I would be shocked if they could recover.

The other interesting data I'm seeing is how on earth are so many Germans dying to Booby Traps!!!

Jim as the German has lost NONE. If I had gone to Level B he would have lost 2 HS. Against Neil I've lost NONE.

BTW: My sniper was 0 for 6 last night!!!

Steve

[John McDiarmid]

With 120ish squads our first 1/2 turn took nearly 3 hours to complete.

Typically we are fast players and finish maybe 2-3 turns (after the much slower first turn) in a 7-8 hour time frame.

Slow and painful.

And yes, Conscripts do die in Day 1, but 100 CVP is a lot of men that should have set up as far from Germans as possible. Stack em with leaders, and once the stuka's are done shooting run them as far as you can.

I did that and lost "only" 15-20 total squads on Day 1 as I pretty much ran if I so much as saw a German in LOS.

And I lost "only" half the Map on Day 1 in 8 turns. I was only able to hold around hex row S when the Germans were on Turn 7/8 and I was able to try and stop em dead...

Russians will always lose lots of ground, just don't die trying to save a hex or three when you will lose it the next day no matter what you try on Day 1.

[CraigBenn]

In RB our rule of thumb is the German must maintain a 2:1 ratio to succeed... it looks to me like VotG is about the same. Maybe a little less.

I'd say much lower - about 1.3 to 1 is evens.

But in both my games we are having probably 1/2 the CVP for both sides as some of these other games we see. Does that mean we are just more cautious? Are we grokking the CG better than others? Are others grokking it better than us?

Time will tell...I've got to admit I occasionally get a rush of blood to the head and lose units stupidly - luckily my opponent does too.

If the German or Russian lost 100 CVP in any scenario I would be shocked if they could recover.

Yeah but if you both lose 100 CVP its not a problem - although I'm not sure if low troop density on both sides is better for the Germans or not. I suspect it is.

The other interesting data I'm seeing is how on earth are so many Germans dying to Booby Traps!!!

I agree - I've managed to kill 3 German squads in 5 CG dates - I don't think the German player should ever search or take TC's.

[CraigBenn]

I did that and lost "only" 15-20 total squads on Day 1 as I pretty much ran if I so much as saw a German in LOS.

Russians will always lose lots of ground, just don't die trying to save a hex or three when you will lose it the next day no matter what you try on Day 1.

Shhhhh.....if the commissar hears...

Its funny if you put up a good defense for a particular terrain feature you get very attached to it - and when you lose it plot to retake it immediately...

You may well be right but I'm enjoying fighting for every hex at the moment.

[Bob Holmstrom]

Interesting comments from John.

I don't know that i agree though. As the Ruskies, we lost around 115 CVP on day 1, but we also killed around 80CVP of germans in the process. I'll take that as most of our losses were conscripts. We also held the J road line and the Childrens's Home.

The night counterattack saw us kill about 35 CVP of germans while we lost 18 CVP. No territory of much consequence was lost or gained.

So we go into day 2 with about 65 squads--mostly elite-- and a dozen crews plus tanks the 76L's and 3 82mm MTR and a 120mm OBA module, plus whatever we purchase with our 10 CPP. Hardly a meager force to defend with.

I think making the Germans fight for every gain is a good way to go. Giving up ground freely would seem to me a bad way to go. I don't want to see my lines compressed especially if i have 100+ squads stacked up in a small area. Easy casualties via Aerial Bombardments, rocket OBA, 150mm OBA, and large German killstacks.

[John McDiarmid]

How does the German lose 80CVP on Day 1??

All they need to do is shoot at 5-6 hexes and/or move around the Russians. With Artillery (100mm), Stuka's and Stug III's at 6 hexes there should be limited deaths on the German side before the Russians cease to exist as a force within 3 turns.

Admitedly the Russians can kill a few tanks, but they should never close with the Russians and will eat them alive in firefights due to range, superior FP, more and better MR and what should be far better leadership.

If the Russian can achieve a 115CVP lost vs 80 CVP lost ratio, sure fight. I just don't see how a good attacker German can lose that many troops to what amounts to 4 companies of trash and maybe 12 6-2-8 NKVD units.

In any case, despite my belief, or disbelief, we need MORE ADVICE for what the Russians can do to make the German life more painful in this campaign.

What works for the other Russian players???