Alpha AAR - A year at the front with Field Marshal Noob

[karonagames]

This AAR is produced from a year's worth of saves I have from my latest test of the 1941 Campaign.

It uses Custom AI Bonus settings of 100%/110% which means that the axis are not penalised, and that the AI will get 10% added to all dice throws and allocations for , Morale, Fort building, Logistics, Transport and Admin. The 110% setting also gives the AI bonus units to help it rebuild it's front line.

I am playing with Fog of War On, with historical weather (Non-random)and Locked HQ support which means I will have to manually allocate support units rather than use the automated system.

For this test I wanted to "role play" the game, rather than use some of the "gamey" techniques that you can use against the AI. In most cases where I had a choice between a move that I wouldn't do vs. a human compared to one I knew I could because I knew how the AI would react I went for the "human" option. I also did not put better generals in OKH and the Army Groups, but instead made changes when they were made historically.

In previous tests I have tried to achieve the historical front line by December - i.e. Rostov, but for this test I went all out for Leningrad and Moscow and would treat the Donbas cities as a bonus. My main objective for the year was to start summer 1942 with the strategic opportunity to get Moscow in Summer 1942 if I could not get it in summer 1941.

There are the usual Disclaimers; this is alpha - there are bugs exposed as we go through the year, none of them are game breakers apart from one that helped me to survive the blizzard in slightly better condition than I should have done. I hope you will allow me to get through the year and that the thread does not get side-tracked down dead ends. There is no point in raising issues that cannot be changed. Hopefully I can illustrate issues that were changed as a result of this test as we go through the year.

There are issues relating to the AI and Combat results calculations that I cannot discuss because these are areas where changes are made every day, and are now totally out of sync with when I played this game back in June.

I apologise in advance for the lack additional information like arrows and text on the screen shots. I haven't got the time to learn how Paint works. I will do the best I can to illustrate my story with basic screen grabs.

Are you sitting comfortably? Now I'll begin.....

[karonagames]

Army Group North achieves one objective - Riga, but fails to make a bridgehead at Daugavpils ( I wonder if I should make a suggestion about Brandenburgers, but fear I may open a new can of worms [:)]). I have to accept that at this scale modelling the impact of special forces is difficult.

[karonagames]

The AI decided to evacuate Minsk. Sometimes it decides to make a stand, sometimes it doesn't. City defence continues to be a major topic of debate.

[karonagames]

A good sized pocket is produced at Bialystok. I have tried to use the minimum amount of infantry to the west of the Pocket, as I need my infantry moving East as quickly as possible. I could have captured Brest-Litovsk and started converting the rail one turn sooner. This may turn out to be a mistake later in the game.

[karonagames]

Another couple of pockets in AGS' area of operations. Some testers push as far as Tarnopol on the first turn, but I went for the "Human" option, as there are significant armored and motorised forces available to break into the pocket. The AI doesn't always do this - most time it does a "Robinovich".

[karonagames]

The Luftwaffe did a pretty good job destroying the Soviet air force in the forward areas.

[jaw]

You referenced the wrong city here. Demyansk is to the North, a five hexes southeast of Lake Ilmen.

[karonagames]

Ooops. I meant Bialystok - edited. Thanks for pointing that out. Hopefully I know where Moscow is!! Andy (Sabre21) could probably get a pocket at Demyansk on turn 1.

[karonagames]

It is the start of turn 3, and I can perhaps take this opportunity to show how support units help in attacks and how direct allocation of units can have an impact:

Here is the situation: 20th motorised division has been ordered to at Velikie Luki (VL) and has encountered 11th NKVD border regiment and 47th rifle division dug in in light woods. Usual doctrine would dictate that the unit would outflank the enemy to the north or south and then head to VL, however the swampy terrain to north and South means 20th Mot. must remove the enemy to its front before continuing its advance.

[karonagames]

By analysing the raw combat values: 10 for 20th Mot. vs 3 for the enemy you have odds of more than 3 to 1 which I was told at Sandhurst is the minimum an attacking force should have. Korps HQ has promised support and the luftwaffe has several squadrons in the area "on Call".

The Attack goes in:

[karonagames]

Despite receiving artillery support and a detachment from the Korps jpz reserves as well as stukas, the attack failed to dislodge the determined defenders:

[karonagames]

My net attack value (555) was just short of the 2 to 1 odds (578/289) needed to get the enemy to retreat, so let's use "God Mode" to rewind to to run the attack with a jpz and most importantly a pioneer battalion directly attached to 20th Motorised.

[karonagames]

The attack goes in again:

[karonagames]

As stated at the beginning of the AAR I can't get into the detail of why the CV's are different, but as you can see there are many differences between the 2 attacks - different squadrons were involved in the attack and defence, and these would have caused differing levels of disruption to the attackers and defenders.

Bottom line is the advance on VL continues.

[karonagames]

It is only turn 3 and I am making decisions that could have an impact on future operations. One Of the decisions I have made is to combine the 4 SS motorised divisions into my "breakthrough" corps, but I have taken them out of the advance, and used a lot of APs to form them into XIV Panzer Korps.

[karonagames]

The front lines at the end of June North.

[karonagames]

And the South:

[karonagames]

End of June Losses

[karonagames]

End of June OOB

[karonagames]

Any questions or information you would like illustrating before I move onto July?