8MP Team Game - The Axis team

[Crackaces]

The picture below shows the OOB situation as of turn 23. The Soviets are starting the first snow with 4.5M in TO&E and about 40K tubes. I assess from reading AAR's that this is not enough to seriously threaten the Germans. There is just not enough units to fill gaps if they create holes. Make a line and counterattack exposed positions will be my strategy.

[Crackaces]

I am a noob to this game. I am beginning to think that mastering this game has the same time sink hole as learning the guitar. It takes 6 months to really play songs with the guitar and I am thinking 6 months to really learn to play all the different aspects of this game to include the air war.

I have spent some time trying to understand the combat engine. If you try to apply "real life" assumptions to the combat engine you will be sorely disappointed. But if you think that the sum total of probabilities represents a realistic outcome -- you might be more satisfied.

This link in my 2x3 AAR (The Road to Leningrad within a larger campaign) explains some high level concepts for the combat engine: fb.asp?m=4387958 Within these concepts some bizarre stuff can happen. Fundamentally the attacker keeps closing range and different devices from both sides exchange pleasantries that one device fires at any random device/squad until the range equals zero. Thus a 50mm mortar might randomly match up with a 122mm field gun and either damage or destroy that device. That individual match up might come from the twilight zone but the sum total of probabilities works itself out. It only becomes frustrating and apparent at the highest of messaging levels.

That said, you will see over the next turns the strategic use of SU's at an operational and tactical level. Optimization I propose is the best compromise of effect, range, ammo and rate of fire. The 305mm siege gun has tremendous effect for one round but not very efficient for lots of reasons including armament points. The MG bn are the opposite. Each shot has no splash value and a low chance to effect -- but the sum total of multiple shots with low ammo usage when matched up vs squads makes these SU's very effective especially on the defensive. Sometimes you need CV and the Stugs add CV but in the winter they have a die roll like any AFV to be damaged every new hex they enter. Lots of trade offs.

As I post future screens I will comment on the combination and effectiveness of the SU's committed to the operation. Simply hold Moscow at all costs.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: CrackacesIt takes 6 months to really play songs with the guitar and I am thinking 6 months to really learn to play all the different aspects of this game to include the air war.

Master, or just get the mechanics? Ultimately it is a game that has fairly simple mathematical mechanics which exponentially explode into endless emergent patterns of behaviour that are in no ways obvious from the simple rules to run it. Rather like chess or go. So mastery can only ever be a relative term, as there will always be something new to master.

ORIGINAL: Crackaces
Fundamentally the attacker keeps closing range and different devices from both sides exchange pleasantries that one device fires at any random device/squad until the range equals zero. Thus a 50mm mortar might randomly match up with a 122mm field gun and either damage or destroy that device. That individual match up might come from the twilight zone but the sum total of probabilities works itself out. It only becomes frustrating and apparent at the highest of messaging levels.

Luckily we have Crackaces to look at them on message level 7 for us. There is a man with a nerve of iron. And a bladder made of steel ....

Up till now my best guesses with SUs have been intuition and real life analogies. Some rules of thumb are theoretical - overall your army is best served by complementary rather than similar SUs even if not in a particular local case. I do think the way the battle engine goes from matching up elements with the longest range before the shortest range is underexplored. It will mean new tactics come out that are not just about maximising CV. So, even with sneak peak previews, I will still be learning a lot from what Crackaces has to tell us.

[thedude357]

Turn 23 Army Group South

Its getting colder, and winter is fast approaching. Panzers go back to the rear for the winter and the infantry continues to dig a defensive line. 2 losing skirmishes north of Voronezh but against a hastily thrown together 103rd RHG for defensive purposes, nothing too worrying. Its going to be a long, boring winter. [>:]

[Telemecus]

Turn 23 26-November-1941 Air

Our bombing of the T-34 factory continues, as does the free extra damage the program gives to the T-60 factory. Recon either side of Gorky attracts an exceptionally large amount of flak. But, according to the battle reports at least, no flak for the bombing raids on the Gorky factories. However there is a noticeable uptick in the number of bombers lost in the bombing raids. At the request and with permission from our Soviet opponents we reload and rerun these air missions to find broadly the same results. My own view is that the uptick of bomber losses is down to the extra flak even though the flak is not mentioned in the battle report. Our Soviet opponents tell us they have placed on map AA brigades in Gorky - whether these incremental losses make the investment in such units worthwhile is open to debate.



Even though there are no airgroups in detected bases in recon range we are starting to get small scale very long range presumably night raids on our forces although the effects are minimal.



And at the end of the turn we hear the sound of partisan supply flights again.

[Telemecus]

Turn 23 Allocations
For information only - team allocations for turn 23.

[Telemecus]

Turn 24 27-November-1941 Team

Stelteck is stepping back from a ground role for the blizzard, he says for other urgent commands for the Fuhrer. We suspect to buff their sun tan. timmyab who has made our plan for the blizzard defence will take up the North command.

So our team from this turn will be

timmyab - North
Crackaces - Centre
thedude357 - South
lowsugar - Curator of the Führer's collection of SparkleyTits scalps
Stelteck - Chief inspector of strategic French agricultural products
Telemecus - Supreme

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

Turn 24 27-November-1941 Team

Stelteck is stepping back from a ground role for the blizzard, he says for other urgent commands for the Fuhrer. We suspect to buff their sun tan. timmyab who has made our plan for the blizzard defence will take up the North command.

So our team from this turn will be

timmyab - North
Crackaces - Centre
thedude357 - South
lowsugar - Curator of the Führer's collection of SparkleyTits scalps
Stelteck - Chief inspector of strategic French agricultural products
Telemecus - Supreme

Frosty the Snowman has volunteered to assist you for the duration of the winter.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Zorch

[:D]

Best one yet Zorch!

[Crackaces]

So not much crayons in the picture below. I point out my "Alamo" line which is far more forward than what Telemecus as ordered. What is pointed out -- armor winter homes within reserve activation (grey circles). I am hoping for hasty attacks a low CV deliberate attacks with armor joining for a surprise hold.
One part of the severe winter is the morale loss for units caught out. The other problem is the loss of morale from defeats. There is no question these units on the front lines are going to smacked. The question will be -- can morale hold so they don't rout?

You might also noticed I broke some divisions down into brigades to slide the line southwards rom the Oka toward Tula and even south of that. The goal is 2 units deep and make the Soviets fight their way through the winter. As this AAR progresses ..you might see a counterattack or two [;)]

[timmyab]

Turn 24 Army group North

Well apparently Field marshal Stelteck has an urgent appointment in Paris with someone called Madame Fifi, so I don't know what that's all about, but anyway I get to stand in for him until Christmas by which time the war will be all over obviously. Just as well because it's absolutely freezing outside. I am confident however that it can't possibly get any worse so once this cold snap is over I intend to resume offensive operations to the Urals and beyond!

I have six armies under command, four German (9th, 16th, 18th and 4th pz) and two Finnish. The AGN/AGC boundary is firmly anchored at Moscow. I half expect to lose 4th pz army for the winter, but no, OKH has left it under the command of AGN.

The main tasks this week are to reduce the Vishny pocket, send 4th pz army divs to winter quarters and dig into the frozen ground as fast as possible. As you can see there has been very little preperation for winter in the way of fort building, but as the war will be over by Christmas luckily that wont matter.

The critical attack on Vishny succeeds but with Vatutin commanding is a closer call than I was expecting. It wouldn't do to blot my copybook on my first day in the job.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: timmyab
Well apparently Field marshal Stelteck has an urgent appointment in Paris with someone called Madame Fifi,

OMG! [X(]

And what does Olga have to say about this I would like to know! [:-]

Does every city in Europe have a "friend" of Her Oberst Stelteck? [:D]

[thedude357]

Turn 24 Army Group South

Snow and mud and more fortification building for the winter. The last turn before the long blizzard. I don't feel as prepared as I should be for the blizzard but we shall see what kind of Soviet offensive they bring to the table. I thought the war was supposed to be over by Christmas? The French volunteers unfortunately got attacked and were forced to retreat near Voronezh. I guess with their previous performance in 1940 the Soviets maybe singled them out, but this will be remembered come summer. All quiet in the Crimea until the supply lines catch up.

[Telemecus]

Turn 24 03-December-1941 Air

This turn we had the somewhat startling battle report of Soviet aircraft bombing one of our airbases. And while we have started to see some small numbers of aircraft operating at extremely long ranges, this time it is with short range bombers too. This is not the first time they have targetted our recon airgroups such as Fi156c Storks so we wonder are these priority targets for the Soviet side?



We had thought there was an understanding that Soviet airbases had an exclusion zone from the front and were not to operate near the front. Clearly those guys did not get the memo and need to be taught a lesson.

Eventually we find them on airbases to the East of the Volga on rail hexes. This is too far for the short range bombers that used them so their airbase must have been closer to the front and moved back after their missions. Given the number of hexes they may have moved and the weather it is likely they were railed back. As last turn we could see they were empty and close to the front the most likely explanation is that the bombers were air transfered to the air bases, performed their missions (which may be limited by lack of fuel/ammo and need for movement points) and then railed back to safety ....

Sadly not moved back far enough. One of the two bases is in range of Luftwaffe bombers and the other again proves the value of the Polish made Rumanian bombers which at this stage are the longest range ones the Axis have.

"We tracked them and we whacked them!"



For a first blizzard turn we are finding the air war relatively hot - certainly compared to previous turns when it was not blizzard! We see the usual uptick in Il-4 losses (during their logistics phase) after partisan supply flights, but most of their losses are in among their good tac/dive bombers; most of ours are in recon with the remainder in level bombers. Not one single seat fighter was lost as has been common for several turns,and the one fighter bomber lost would have been lost soon in a withdrawing group anyway. If that is the pattern of exchange for future turns the Axis are likely to remain dominant in the air for a little while longer.

[Telemecus]

Turn 24 03-December-1941 Economic

Our strategic bombing campaign is now just restricted to the bombing of the T-34 factories at Gorky and Stalingrad

[Telemecus]

Turn 24 Allocations
For information only - team allocations for turn 24.

[timmyab]

Turn 25 Army group North

Hard to believe but it's even colder this week, so much so that our troops have lost the will to fight while conversly the enemy are running around like Siberian supermen oblivious to the bone numbing chill. Lucky for us our OKH chief of staff is a genius and has drawn up a plan allowing for retreats in certain areas where necessary. I don't need asking twice when it comes to retreating and spotting an opportunity to move my headquarters twenty miles closer to Paris I give the order for our forces to start legging it.....erm.....I mean strategically withdrawing.

The Winter plan calls for a hard shoulder North of Moscow as far as Kalininn so there we will concentrate and try to hold. At the moment the Soviets don't look very threatening in that area. Manstein's 56th pz corps is in reserve, Totenkopf at Klin and 8th pz div at Kalininn.
The main danger is North of Vishny where the enemy is concentrated in strength and has some mobility. Also evacuated is the small bulge East of Vishny.

My carefully hoarded army group reserve inf division (30th at Torzhok) has been commandeered by OKH - aarrrrrgh...nooooooo This is appropriate because it's what happened historically. AGN didn't dare put anything in reserve because it always got nabbed and sent somewhere else. Fortunately 30th division will remain at Torzhok so even if not under my direct control is still effectively AGN reserve.

On the whole AGN is strong with a surplus of good units in good to great defensive terrain. Add to that the option of retreating where threatened, the Valdai hills behind me, a solid anchor at Moscow to the South and the mighty Finns to the North and I'm feeling confident even though my opponent is reported to be a rising star of the Soviet high command.

One good thing - It can't possibly get any colder.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: timmyab
withdrawing.

Axis do not do "withdrawing" - it is "redeploying" [:D]

[SparkleyTits]

Such a nice thin line!
should be no problem for even the most incompetent of Soviet commanders from the looks of things [:D]

In all seriousness though nice efficient use of force
I saw along points of the line you were setting up retreats efficiently to have a psuedo 2 lines with a thin line of bodies which scared me enough to think it prudent you did it across the whole line which was not the case now I can see the entire thing of course

Last note also was something I have come to notice in multiplayer games which once Timmy joined was incredibly apparent
Different players and their playstyles. in a instant the line shifted, warped & stiffened which isn't something you get to experience much in single player and I find it lots of fun it multiplayer and really hits home just how different and varied each player is

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: SparkleyTits
Last note also was something I have come to notice in multiplayer games which once Timmy joined was incredibly apparent
Different players and their playstyles. in a instant the line shifted, warped & stiffened which isn't something you get to experience much in single player and I find it lots of fun it multiplayer and really hits home just how different and varied each player is

The first time I watched American football I was always amazed at the way they would swap every on field team player for when they were on the offence or defence. And change the whole team again when they had to kick the ball. Perhaps a full squad side in WitE, rather than just a team side, should have lots of substitutes, with players coming on for their specialisms - blizzard defence, blitzkrieg or whatever.