'41-'45 Campaign vs AI: Southern Strategy

[Twigster]

This is my first completed-to-the-end ’41-’45 campaign, just completed last night; it has been going for about three months. I have had the game for not quite a year. I have only paid attention to the ’41-’45 campaign, meaning that I have not even seen any of the smaller scenarios. The first four attempts at the campaign died variously from turn 8 to turn 40 before I decided that it was a good idea to read the manual. After having done so, I started a campaign with version 1.07.00, got to maybe turn 180-ish when version 1.08.00 was released. At that point I scrapped that game and began a campaign with 1.08.00 until 1.09.00 was released; this time I d/l’d 1.09.00 and continued with that campaign (that happened around turn 90). The game parameters for this one are: 1941-1945 Campaign-Alt CV, Normal Difficulty, Lock HQ Support, Non-Random Weather. I did not really pick up on air rules until well into the game, so all air functions were handled by the AI (with the exception of some units supply drops). I made plenty of mistakes and did not pay as close attention to some details as I could have for this one, but wow was it exciting! I do say now that I am quite well acquainted with the game mechanics, and if I can’t find a real player to play against will do the campaign again to see how much better I can do. With all that out of the way-

Having had a life-long interest in military history (I am a US Army veteran) and history in general I began this game with a basic comprehension of how the war in the east went during WW II. However, during the past year I have read more extensively on Barbarossa, the Eastern Front and the Second World War, the result of which is that I am of the opinion that the Southern Strategy for the Eastern Front is the only one that makes any sense with regard to an invasion of the USSR by the Axis powers. Why? In a word: oil. The reality is that taking Moscow might or might not have caused a collapse of the Soviet political leadership whereas taking the Caucasus oil regions unambiguously would have greatly strengthened the ability of the Axis military to continue the war. With that reasoning in mind, I played this campaign with the Southern Strategy in mind from the beginning- taking Moscow came in a strong second in the list of priorities.

The first two maps of course show my endgame positions. Basically, the AGN area was from the Gulf of Finland to the Mezha River; AGC area was Mezha River to Gomel; AGS was from Gomel to the Azov Sea (until AG-A came into existence, at which time AGS stopped around the line Cherkassy-Poltava). As can be seen, I actually did not penetrate very far; the next two maps show the points of furthest advance. Operationally, AGN advanced pretty much to where you see it now shortly after the invasion kicked off; by the end of September ’41 AGN was almost entirely put in static mode- after the blizzard the entirety of AGN was static. I had taken Smolensk before the blizzard, was entirely across the Dnepr (though not very far) down to Kiev, and had Kirovograd, Krivoi Rog and Nikolayev by the time the blizzard hit. The Sovs pushed me back in some places a hundred miles during that winter, but all lost territory was regained and I advanced further in the center and south during 1942. It was not until early 1943 that I was able to cross the Samara and block off the Crimea; by this time fighting in the far south was extremely heavy- I had combined 2 Panzer Army with 1 Panzer Army and was still having trouble making forward progress. So, at this time, having joined 4 Panzer with 3 Panzer Army in AGC, I began my first push towards Moscow. This was going well until I was stopped cold in the area Istra-Zvenigorod-Manikhino just west of Moscow. I fell back 20-40 miles, refitted the panzers and a short while later attacked Moscow again, this time from the southwest. I did better this time, getting to the gates of Moscow but there was no way I could force into the city. Given the greatly-stiffening Soviet resistnce, I realized that this was my last attempt at Moscow so I decided to just let the Moscow salient compress on its own- meaning that I simply defended in that part of AGC for the rest of the campaign. AGC got no more reinforcements until the last year of the war. I could do that because the lion’s share of the fighting was taking place south of Kiev (meaning south of hex row 81).

From spring 1942 on there was heavy- at times very heavy- and continuous fighting in AGS and AG-A areas, moderately so in parts of AGC while AGN was almost somnambulant until the winter of 1944-45 when the AI began extremely powerful counterattacks all up and down the line. The section of the front from hex rows 58 to 78 had been static along with all of AGN until the winter of ’44-’45 when I had to reactivate everything except a small 9-hex stretch of AGN. I realized after my last attempt to drive on Rostov stalled in August 1944 that offensive dreams had to end and I went over completely to the defensive at that time. Most significantly, this meant that 1 Panzer Army’s 10 corps and 44 divisions began to be split up to bolster sections of the line that were disintegrating. April-June 1945 provided high drama when 18 Army on the extreme left of the line in AGN was overrun and I lost Pskov and my positions from Pskov to the Gulf of Finland- it was here that I really thought that I might have an extremely serious problem. However, rather than rushing those last reinforcements in piecemeal, I gathered 21 divisions together into 6 SS Panzer Army and threw them into the breach around Pskov. I bagged 14 Soviet divisions through that extremely timely counterattack and saved 18 Army’s positions, which were subsequently restored with the exception that I permanently lost the town of Pskov itself. Towards the very end, 6 SS Panzer Army also saved my positions around Velikie Luki and blunted a strong Soviet advance on Smolensk. Most of the Luftwaffe was kept on the ground (in the National Reserve) until I deployed the entirety of the Luftwaffe in the early spring of 1945. Lastly- I remember a prolonged inner debate on whether I should have withdrawn some sections of the front in the AG-A and AGS areas to better- defensible terrain in August 1944… I am convinced that if I had done that, I would have lost the game. Soviet attacks on long-held fortified positions led to positively dreadful casualties for the enemy.

[Twigster]

Zoomed-out endgame positions, northern half of map.

[Twigster]

Southern map, endgame positions.

[Twigster]

Moscow area.

[Twigster]

Rostov area.

[Twigster]

As I am still relatively a n00b at this game, I think that the German troop losses are a bit high.

[Twigster]

Air losses would be much higher for both sides if I had not kept much of the Luftwaffe in the National Reserve for much of the game.

[Twigster]

On the Axis side, all except one artillery unit destroyed were Romanian and one Italian.

[Twigster]

Logistics screen.

[Twigster]

As stated above, this is my first completed play-through against the AI, only half-knowing what I was doing when I began it.

[Telemecus]

I think I would be kicking myself coming seven points short of major victory on 225. My guess is if you started knowing what you know now you would easily have got one, especially as the first turns disproportionately impact the result. But still an achievement for your first games (after reading the manual! [:)] )

[Twigster]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

I think I would be kicking myself coming seven points short of major victory on 225. My guess is if you started knowing what you know now you would easily have got one, especially as the first turns disproportionately impact the result. But still an achievement for your first games (after reading the manual! [:)] )

Hello, and you are right, I was less than thrilled when I realized that I was not going to make it to 200 VPs; for a while I was at 196 but it was then that I realized that other VP locations were well beyond my reach.

On the other hand, however, I also agree with you that now, given my experience, I will have no problem achieving a major victory. I am analyzing the results of this game and then will work up a detailed battle plan (adding another level of fun to the game by finding the discipline needed to hold to the plan I come up with- or not, we'll see [:D]). I just want to add that, indeed I did learn a lot playing it through. [;)]