Barbarossa to the Volga or Berlin? ComradeP vs notenome

[ComradeP]

After some trouble with getting the multiplayer working, the game with notenome has started.

[notenome]

May your pockets be small and porous.
 
PS: Nice trick you did there with Guderian.

[ComradeP]

After notenome's post, the thread is now "no notenome" for the remainder of the game. I'd like to repeat what I said in notenome's thread: keep what you read about dispositions and strategy inside either his or my thread.

To avoid "Feind hört mit" I won't detail every move prior to making it, but will do so after a turn if necessary. It's not a matter of trust, it's mostly a matter of perhaps accidentally making a slip of the tongue somewhere.

Having said all that: thanks for reading the AAR, feel free to ask questions at any time. I'm hoping that the defeats I suffer will help you prevent them and that my victories might perhaps give you some ideas for your own games.

[Walloc]

GL to both of u and happy gaming.

Rasmus

[ComradeP]

I'll detail my strategy later, as I prefer to wait with extensive planning until a few turns into the game.

My first turn objectives were:

General:

-To destroy as many level bombers as possible, leaving some fighter air bases alone as they're not priority targets. The Soviets won't miss 1000 I-16's, but 1000 level bombers are a more annoying loss. Soviet production allows them to soak up heavy losses, but for certain categories production isn't too high. Long range level bomber production, for example, is rather low. They do have substantial pools, so you have to hit hard to really make the Soviets feel the loss.

AGN area:

-To isolate the forces south of Riga in the AGN area and move two Panzer Groups across the Daugava.
-To create a large corridor for the infantry to move through on turn 2.

AGC area:

-To isolate the forces west of Minsk.

AGS area:

-To use what comes down to almost two Panzer Groups to isolate the forces west of a line from Rovno to the Romanian border. It was irrelevant whether this pocket would hold, as I can mop it up at my convenience later as the pocket isn't in the path of my advance. The main goal was to prevent the withdrawal of Kiev Military District forces from the area, greatly limiting Soviet reserves in the area.

-To, as a result of the above, trigger Romanian activation on turn 2.

[ComradeP]

All of my objectives were achieved.

I've destroyed enough SB-2's to clear the pool, and a large number of other level bombers too. The most substantial pool remaining should be the DB-3B pool.

No Axis leaders died.

The only known Soviet leader casualty is General-Mayor Oborin, commander of 14th Mechanized Corps, who died when his HQ was overrun.

AGN area end of turn, the units in the pocket are toast:

[ComradeP]

AGC area: solid pocket west of Minsk using a minimum amount of force. The Axis need to find the war with limited means, so they should always try to achieve the most with limited means. I'm not convinced that there's a real benefit for having 5 Panzer corps in AGC, so AGC is now left with 1 strong Panzer corps and 1 "Panzer corps" consisting of 1st Cavalry, GD and a motorized division.

[ComradeP]

AGS area: using roughly 2 Panzer corps from AGC and the active mobile units of AGS, a large pocket is created.

I could easily have made it impossible to break by moving more divisions to the central part of the area and none to the Rovno area, but in the end I decided that capturing Rovno and some terrain in the swamps was a better use of my forces. As predicted, the pocket didn't hold, but that's not too much of a problem as my forces have a corridor they can move through.

I also got unlucky in a way, as there are normally no units between Stanislav and Tarnopol, but 3 units routed there this time.

The smaller pocket that isn't visible in this screenshot, but is visible on the lower edge of the AGC screenshot, did hold.

[ComradeP]

I spend AP's on reorganizations, no support units were moved. Halder wasn't having a good day as many admin checks failed for units assigned to OKH.

I lost 6 battles/got 6 "held" results: the Rifle division in the swamps south of Brest Litovsk made a heroic and unlikely stand twice against 3 infantry divisions, a Rifle division near Kaunas got lucky and held an attack from one of my divisions twice and two divisions in the AGS area held an attack. The only attack I considered to be chancy was the one near Kaunas, the others were rather unpredictable.

For example: my infantry divisions attacking the Rifle division in the swamp had a combined on-counter CV of 25, the Rifle division had 5, but swamps give an awesome modifier for the defender. I wasn't predicting it because usually infantry doesn't have too much of a problem with attacking in swamps, but this time they clearly had.

Losses were acceptable. I lost about 100 German planes, the rest are Romanian.

[CarnageINC]

Looking forward to this AAR sir [8D]

[ComradeP]

My objectives were fairly limited for turn 2:

General:

-Reduce the pockets that were not opened by the Soviets.

AGN:

-Get a mobile division across the minor river near Pskov and create conditions for the infantry to take Riga on turn 3 or 4.

AGC:

-Push east a bit. I'm in no hurry here, which might seem surprising to some of you.

AGS:

-Make the pocket in the western part of Soviet held Poland/the Ukraine stick this time and break through the minor river line that my opponent had set up.

[ComradeP]

The objectives may or may not all have been achieved depending on whether my opponent can strike back at some of my encircling forces.

In all sectors, my mobile units will probably need some rest next turn or on turn 4 as their fuel situation isn't ideal in many cases.

I've advised my opponent to withdraw from the minor river line and set up a new line centered on Pskov and the neighbouring swamps. The drive towards Estonia is a feint, my mobile units are not actually going there.

[ComradeP]

Limited gains in the AGC area, which is perfectly fine with me. My 1941 objectives here are to get slightly beyond Smolensk, and I'll take my time to do so. The Soviets can reinforce this area too easily to commit major forces here, not to mention that the terrain heavily favours the defender. I've send Wiking to this area. My recon doesn't indicate any remaining Soviet forces in the enemy held terrain, but even if there are, that's no problem.

[ComradeP]

The situation in the AGS area provides a fine example of why you don't try and hold straight lines as the Soviets.

I think ZOC penalties should make sure nothing escapes, but it's possible that the northern pocket is opened.

The Soviets have/had some scary units in the area, including a Tank division with an offensive strength of 10 (attacked, first worked over by the Luftwaffe and then forced to retreat by the Panzers) and a Rifle division with an amazing offensive value of 9. I don't even know how that's possible, as that implies a unit with about 80-90 experience and morale, so it must be FOW.

Proskurov was held by a cavalry division, a deliberate attack by two Panzer divisions dislodged it. Hasty attacking into urban hexes is a big no-no.

I've trapped 2 additional mechanized corps, which I view as a waste of those units.

The stacks with a HQ on top have an infantry division in them.

[ComradeP]

The Romanians slowly get their show on the road, German forces in the area advance a bit further.

[ComradeP]

The Soviets achieved 3 held results, 2 in the swamps (I thought a hasty attack with two infantry divisions would be enough against a Tank division due to the limited engagement ranges, it wasn't) and 1 when a security division failed to force a cavalry division to surrender at its first try. 9 losses thus far, none for AGN yet.

Losses are again acceptable, I'll need to keep a close eye on AFV losses.

I might let the SW Front pocket starve for a bit, although the second hit to their morale might be enough. I don't want them to keep retreating instead of surrendering and kill 11.000 of my men like in my last Challenging test.

One key thing to keep in mind as the Axis is that when it comes to Soviet losses, you should think of them like a Soviet player would. If you kill 80 divisions and inflict 850.000 losses (roughly where I'll be when the current pockets are reduced), don't think "yay! awesome!" but think "they'll get the divisions back in about 4 turns worth of reinforcements and the manpower in about 4 to 6 turns". Wishful thinking is one of the worst enemies of the Axis. No matter what you do, the Red Army will be big during the winter and they get everything you kill now back, so that's why they'll feel losses a lot more in later years.

AP's were spend on reorganizations. I'll start moving support units around next turn, as well as optimize HQ's. That will take about 10 turns or so I'd say.

[randallw]

Some of the Soviet tank divisions actually have a decent numerical complement, around 200+ tanks; that's probably one of them you encountered.

The rifle may be the 152nd, of 32nd rifle corps.

[ComradeP]

I know some of them can be good, but the CV's you see vary widely, also because they're randomized for the Soviets. A division counter that looks like, say, 10=10 to me will probably appear differently to the Soviets. A Rifle division with a CV of 9 wasn't really what I expected. After starting a turn isolated, it has a CV of 2, so it was probably mostly FOW.

notenome made a move that would've come close to triggering the frozen minor Axis if the units in the Lvov pocket had been supplied and opened the pocket east of Rovno, although in doing so he created a new problem. I'll play the turn tomorrow and post the results then.

[Tophat1815]

This is good stuff! Thanks for doing an AAR! Will you be able to show what you actually attach to augment units or prefer not to for FOW reasons.

[ComradeP]

I'll detail support unit placement when I get to that point, for the next few turns I'll be optimizing HQ's mostly/getting them where I want them. I'm going to try some things that will be in some ways radically different from what people would normally try, and I'm wondering how successful those things will be in practice.

To some, I might seem to be way behind schedule in the center, but I have a very different schedule in mind than the Axis had historically (a schedule which probably can't be achieved in any case, I doubt anyone's going to walk into Smolensk at the end of turn 3 or in turn 4). I'm hoping I can capture Leningrad, but I don't know if that's possible against a competent defender.