"Rise of Babylon"

[lion_of_judah]

Armenian front:

At 6am local time 9-10-67, forces of the Armenian armed forces launched a surprise attack against Northern Turkey, an operation according to the Armenian high command was an effort to retake some of her lost lands. The Armenian plan was to advance 60 miles into northern Turkey thereby providing a buffer for their capital" Yerevan" and their border city of " Leninakan". Capturing the high ground and holding onto it during the anticipated Turkish counter-offensive. The Second part of their offensive would strike south, capturing the major city of "Van" and the surrounding economic resources.

The only Turkish unit which was in the border area at this time was one 2nd Commando Brigade which occupied the airfield along the border. The Headquarters of the Turkish Second Army which is located in Erzurum, 180 miles from the Armenian border. The only units in Northern Turkey belonged to the 3rd Corps, 2nd Army. This Corps consisted of the following units. The 16th Mechanized Brigade, 8th Infantry Brigade,13th Mechanized Brigade, 7th Infantry Brigade, the 15th Mechanized Brigade and the 6th Infantry Brigade. The 7th Infantry and the 13th Mechanized were in the city of Trabzon protecting the Black Sea coast.

Armenia had the following units deployed along the border for their surprise offensive: The 1st, 2nd, 5th,7th, 13th Reserve, 9th, 10th and 8th Infantry Brigades, each with one tank Battalion attached.

[lion_of_judah]

Turkish setup below:

[lion_of_judah]

The Armenian offensive caught the Turks unprepared. Turkey during this time had her attention focused towards Israel and the ongoing dispute with oil and gas rights in the Mediterranean Sea. Thus the attention was focused on it rather than on the buildup along the border with Armenia. Armenian forces over-ran the Turkish Commando Brigade advancing thus unopposed into northern Turkey. Ankara then ordered the 3rd Corps to send her units northward to face the Armenian forces. Armenian fighter bombers launched wave after wave of attacks on the Infantry Brigade in preparation for the expected attack.

[lion_of_judah]

after the airstrikes on the Turkish position, Armenian forces launched a 3 Brigade attack into this position with 120 T-34 MBT. This attack was though beaten back with heavy losses on both sides. The Armenians launched a second attack with the same results, leaving the Turkish Brigade in place. By this time a Turkish Mechanized Brigade had arrived and assisted in the defense.

[lion_of_judah]

The Turkish high command is having problems getting reinforcements to the front line Headquarters due to lack of trucks and trains. Even with this she still has managed to put two Mechanized Brigades on the road to the Armenian capital and is preparing to launch a counter-attack with the forces she has at hand. In the south near Van Armenian forces are about to over-run this important city.

[lion_of_judah]

Turkey has launched their counterattack and have broken through Armenian front lines, now the road to Yerevan is open with only the remnants of 1 Armenian Infantry Brigade and engineering unit defending the capital. Armenia begins frantically trying to shift forces in order to protect the capital and prevent another breakthrough.

[lion_of_judah]

The Turks realizing that they do not have enough forces in order to exploit the breakthrough, instead digs in holding until they can bring up new forces. The 1st Army which is at Istanbul has been ordered to move to the front as fast as possible. Two of the 1st Armies Infantry Brigades have been loaded onto transports and shipped via the Black Sea towards Northern Turkey.

As we can see though the Armenians have been able to bring enough forces to defend the capital and even launch a counter-attack. The attack begins with several Brigades attack from all sides against the Turkish Mechanized Brigade,cause major casualties upon the Turks, throwing them back from the capital.

[lion_of_judah]

as we can see from this casualty report, the turks took heavy losses in men and material. Remember that each Infantry is 200 men, each tank is 10 tanks, 1 machine gun is a platoon and 1 mortar is a platoon as well.

[lion_of_judah]

as of now, this is where the casualties stand for both Armenia and Turkey. Armenian casualties : 25,600 men, 15 fighters, 3 fighterbombers, 20 T-34 tanks, 17 Machine gun platoons and 17 Motar platoons. Turkish casualties are as follows: 17,600 men, 13 fightersm 60 armoured cars, 40 halftracks, 80 T-34 tanks, 11 machine gun platoons and 6 mortar platoons.

[lion_of_judah]

Will post new screen shots sometime today for the Armenian front. Update as of now: Armenian forces have been able to hold onto previous captured territory 90 miles from the border. Turkey has been unable to bring large amount of forces to the front, which has allowed Armenia to be where they are now in terms of control a large part of Northern Turkey. Elements of the Turkish 1st Army are now appearing on the front, and has helped stablize the situation. She even was able to lauch a counter attack with 3 Mechanized Brigades and 1 tank Brigade which did gain ground, if only for a brief time before they were thrown back by Armenian counter-attacks.

The Turkish city of " Van" is now in Armenian hands as well as the surrounding economic resources, which at first hurt the Turks, but since they have been upgrading their remaining mines and are now in a much better position. The Armenians on the otherhand are being worn down and have to stop production of machine gun, motar platoons and tank companies until they have built up sufficent supplies of raw material. This of course is beginning to have serious consequences in being able to fight a war. The 3 Armenian units in the Van area are unable to make further progress being there is 1 Turkish Mech Brigade blocking their way. This Turkish unit has taken heavy casulaties and if cut off via the road network but is till getting reduced supplies but unable to recieve any replacements.

The air war is now slowing turning in Turkey's favor since she is able to replace her air losses and Armenia is not. Armenia has lost around 21 fighters while Turkish losses are slightly more. This though will leave the Armenians without fighter cover and that will spell trouble in the near furture. A new threat is beginning to develop against Armenia, Turkey and the Islamic States have now formalized an alliance and the Islamic States are slowing mobilizing forces on her border with Armenia. While all this has been happening, the situation between Israel and Palestine has been growing worse and has led to armed conflict, screenshots of this area will be posted in another day or two......

[Josh]

Enjoying your AAR. I've noticed a lot of rough terrain/ mountains on your map and in my experience battling it out in rough terrain takes *forever*. Artillery, aerial bombardment is not as effective as on plains, and it can be quite costly too in terms of losses.

[lion_of_judah]

Josh
Glad too hear your enjoying reading this. That is correct, the northern portions of the map do have mainly rough and mountain terrain and so it makes for some nasty battles. Airstrikes in the rough ( low mountains) have been rather effective but the mechanized forces have so far stuck mainly to the roads for the most part.

[lion_of_judah]

Armenian forces have so far been able to hold ground and mainly advance in the southern portion of the front. Armenian forces near van have been pushed back into the city itself, but still control the economic resources in the area. Turkish forces have begun to bring in artillery brigades, as well as elements of the 1st Army. It appears that a stalemate for the time being is in the offing...

[lion_of_judah]

Update to the above picture: Turks launched attack with 3 Mechanized Brigades, 1 Tank Brigade with airstrikes and artillery fire used first to soften targets. These strikes did not cause any real damage but the attack proceeded anyway. The Turks took heavy losses, but the Armenians did as well, but held their ground thanks to the Armenian Tank Brigade which refused to retreat.

The 4 Armenian Infantry Brigades at the southern tip of the northern front lauched an attack against this lone Turkish mechanized Brigade, pushing them back yet again and are now inching their way even closer to establish a communication line with the units inside Van, thereby having a direct link between the Armenian capital and van. Allowing replacements to finally begin flowing to these units. In the meantime, the Armenians tried to conduct a supply drop via air, but lost several airtransports in the process due to Turkish fighters.

Armenia seeing the buildup of forces along her long border with the Islamic States has now created the 1st Army Corps headquartered in Baku and is beginning to mobilize some Infantry Brigades to deal with this possible new front, the problem is they do not have the resources to conduct a two front war. The objective of this new Army Corps is the defense of the Baku oil_fields. The optional strategy would be to open a second front and advance into the mountains and use this a buffer, but then the Turkish front would suffer and possibly be lost if this is done. So for the time being Yerevan is hoping this front stays quiet and reinforce as best as possible.

[lion_of_judah]

I guess this should have been put at the very beginning of this AAR.

Each Hex = 30 miles or 50=km

Israeli victory conditions:

Israeli major victory: creation of " Greater Israel"
Israeli moderate victory: Israel retains Sinai, Israel proper west of the Jordan river, captures all of Palestine (Jordan) east of the jordan river.
Israeli minor victory: Israel retains Sinai and Israel proper west of the Jordan river.

Armenian Victory:

Armenian majory victory: Armenia retains Armenia proper, plus the Turkish ciites of " Van & Erzurum and the Persian cities of " Tabriz and Orumiyeh"
Armenian moderate victory: retains Armenia proper, plus either one of the two Turkish cities or just Tabriz.
Armenian minor victory: retains a hold of Armenia proper.

Arab victory:

Arab/Turkish major victory: Israel is destroyed
Arab/Turkish moderate victory: Israel and Armenia are destroyed
Arab/Turkish minor victory: Israel losses the Sinai and Armenia losses the Baku oil fields.

I will take suggestions on alternate victory conditions though.....

[lion_of_judah]

haven't posted any AAR's for this in a bit, sorry. I have been playtesting this though and have decided that Scuds are needed, so will be using the V-1 rockets in the game as Scuds, with the approprate picture attached. I have been playing this for a year in game time and while Armenia is suffering from Raw Material shortages, lost the important city of van and the surronding mines she has been able to hold her own so far. Things did get dicy though when the Islamic States declared war and so opened a second front in support of Turkey.

Now it is September 28th 1968 one year into the war between Turkey and Armenia. Armenia has finally been able to break through the lines due to a cease-fire with the Islamic States there by freeing up some needed reinforcments, and is now advancing on her second major objective " Erzurum" but taking heavy casualties from the Turkish defenders in the city. Mountain warfare is rather nasty in this game and has caused some major casualties on both sides. One major setback for the Turks is that the northern area prevents the Turks from using her armour to any real effectivness and so is mainly artillery duels and infantry assaults. Another setback is that there is so few places to build airbases and so Turkish airpower cannot be brought to any real effect.

The Israeli front is now quiet with the defeat and conquest of Palestine (Jordan) but she is still at war against the Turks and Islamic States. The Islamic States not being able to do anything about this, hence the need for Scuds being added into the scenario. The only major battles have come from the Israeli's invading Cyprus in order to help the Armenians out. Which this has done, major naval battle took place between the Israeli's and the Turks ending in a major Israeli naval victory. Thereby causing the Turks to put more resources into building more ships thereby causing her to ( Turks) to use more Raw material than she brings in everyturn.

Israeli forces have been able to capture all of Cyprus with the exception of the southern most tip, due to Turkish naval infantry reinforcements arriving. Israel was not able to sink their transports in time, but was finally able to sink them after they dropped off Turkish reinforcements. The Israeli navy did take a beating though due to Turkish torpedo bombers devistating her naval forces. Israel also has not been able to knock out the Turkish airbases in the south, thereby not being able to stop the air-resupply of Turkish forces still fighting in Cyprus. Naval supply has been cut though. Other than this fighting the Israeli front has been quiet. Both Iraq and Egypt signed cease-fire agreements with Israel.

Egypt signed the cease-fire agreement due to two reasons, 1. she was allied with both Saudi Arabia and Syria. Saudia Arabia was becoming concerned with the buildup of forces along her border with the Islamic States and Syria was concerend with the buildup of Iraqi forces along her border. Egypt being allied with both nations could not fight a three front war and so came the cease-fire with Israel. 2, her armed forces were taking a heavy beating at the hands of the Israeli's and they had virtually lost all territory they had gained in the Sinai. Once the cease-fire was in place Egypt began rearming, creating the " Army of Arabia" for use in Saudi Arabia. The Field army command would be used to defend Egypt proper and send forces to Syria for her defense.

Iraq: after the cease-fire with Israel, Iraq began rearming as well for their war with Syria. Baghdad dreams of a greater Arab nation consisting of Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and so for now has set her sites onto Syria. this will bring them into conflict with the Islamic States and possibly Israel in the near future. As it stands now Iraq has invaded Syria triggering a war involving Syria, Egypt on the one side and Iraq on the other. Saudi Arabia had declared war on Iraq as well but she cannot fight a two front war, and since Iraq was not prepared either for a two front war, both nations accepted the others request for a peace accord. Iraq has taken the northern sections of Syria ( which holds all of Syria's oil reserves) but Syria is proving to be a harder nut to crack, even though the Syrian armed forces are mainly just infantry. Egypt now has 8 infantry Brigades and 2 armoured Brigades inside Syria helping with the defense.

Saudi Arabia: The Saudi's seeing a major buildup of armoured/Infantry forces on her border with the Islamic States has now began a re-arming of her own and has been able to mobilize some infantry into a 3rd corps specifically designed to protect her border with the Islamic States. Egypt has now landed a total of 11 Infantry Brigades and 2 Armoured Brigades into Saudi Arabia along with a major air contengent of 4 fighter groups, and 2 fighterbomber groups.