For the Infallible Koba GAME #1 (Soviet team game GC)

[tm1]

Greetings all
Comrade Stalin here, if your wondering how my glorious Red Army under the COUGH COUGH inspiring leadership COUGH COUGH of my Generals is progressing on the Battle Front in The Great Patriotic War Against The Fascists is going then your in the dark as much as I am.
So like any good Dictator would do I sent my spies out to see how COUGH COUGH My best Generals COUGH COUGH were conducting the war effort to defend The Motherland were doing.

Sadly I have to say that the Motherland is in dire straits if I am to believe my NKVD spies.
Here is what they reported to me including incriminating photos yesterday.

06 hundred hours my 3 top Theatre Commanders have a high level meeting, from left to right Comrade Generals @Bread ( centre ) @Fracas ( South ) and @ IGB ( North )

What Shall We Eat.jpg (87.93 KiB) Viewed 2027 times

No this is not to discuss the current military situation on the battle field and what strategies are needed to defeat the enemy, in fact they were discussing where they wanted to go for breakfast and what they felt like eating !!!
This so called high level meeting was interrupted by the enemy launching a all out Offensive against our lines and breaking through.

Apparently they decided to skip breakfast as The Fascists air force bombed the main Field Kitchen Unit, some new enemy Air Force General Count Von @HLYA has decided to starve my Generals to death.


010 hundred hours another high level meeting, this time The STAVKA Chief is present, Comrade General @Beethoven1.

Reading The Menu.jpg (102.43 KiB) Viewed 2027 times

Again one would think that with the current crisis of the German breakthrough would be a high priority, my Generals first train of thought would be how to stop the enemy advancing deeper into the Motherland.
But no its not, note the two folders full of reports, one would think that under the grave circumstances this vital intel would be the first thing looked at alas no on top of the folders is a menu of a diner in occupied Minsk that serves " Draniki " ( potato and onion pancakes ). My spies say that my Generals were going to drive there for LUNCH !!!!

Incredible to believe this !!

011 Hundred hours the insanity continues

Cant Find The Resturant.jpg (269.12 KiB) Viewed 2027 times

In the midst of a life and death struggle for the survival of our Nation against a relentless enemy The STAVKA Chief briefs his staff on where they need to take him and his 3 cohorts for lunch, note 2 things in this photo taken by one of my spies.

Firstly Comrade General @Beethoven1 the man I put in charge to lead my Armies to victory is pointing on the map note the confusing looks on his staffs faces, and wait for this ! you wont believe it, a MAP of a small bed and breakfast diner in the middle of The AMERICAN STATE OF IDAHO !!!!!
The man must be blind how do you not realise your looking at a map of a State in the USA and not The Soviet Union
How did this General get missed in the Great Purge.

Second thing of interest notice the civilian witnessing this absurdity, another of my spies acting as a civil liaison for the government, cant believe what he is witnessing and is trying to hide a " FACE PALM " movement.


013 hundred Hours after finally realising that the restaurant at Minsk is behind enemy lines.


Comrade General @Beethoven1 decides to take decisive action at this time of crisis for our Nation,

When All Else Falls Order Take Away.jpg (190.37 KiB) Viewed 2027 times

And tries to ring the Diner for takeaway after a number of attempts of trying to get through to the diner in question, his call is diverted and the phone operator speaking in German accent offers to send several servings of " sauerkraut and Bratwurst ".

" SIGH " As a dictator one should have them replaced and well a number of other things done to them comes to mind but sadly however these are the best I have got, the list does not get any better.

The Motherland is DOOMED

[Stamb]

LOL!

[Beethoven1]

I must admit, I got a bit confused and thought I was general Joffre and it was 1914. So we did have quite a long lunch. However, I can inform you that the duck was exceptional.


Anyway, eventually we got on to turn 7.

START OF SOVIET TURN 7

OOB is over 3.4 million on the map, with nearly 4.9 million in total:




Losses slightly under 100k. On the one hand, being under 100k is good. On the other hand, large numbers of Axis units rested, and even despite that they go nearly 100k losses.





In the north, the Axis player XRAM quit and was replaced by ButcherBiird. ButcherBiird advanced a bit, but mostly with infantry. Tanks and motorized units mostly rested again. But sooner or later they would have high CPP after ~2 turns of mostly resting...




The center was even more quiet. Only a handful of German units did any attacks...:






In the south, Axis infantry crossed the Dnieper and closed in on Kyiv:



They also neared the Dnieper in the south:

[Beethoven1]

Stavka issued the following orders for turn 7:

Northern Direction -

Reinforcements: NONE (REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED ).

I would suggest counterattacking the 6th Panzer division. It is supposedly 10=10, but since it is on light forest that means the intel is wrong (likely the intel is based on when it was spotted in clear terrain), so it presumably has higher defensive CV. In general if you look at he CPP soft factor it looks like hey have lowish CPP and doesn't seem like much reason for you to particularly retreat. HODL!



Central Direction -

He has pretty much rested 2 turns in a row... I think you know what that means... Just try to avoid any big disastrous encirclement please.



Southern Direction -

Pull the tanks/AT brigade out of Kiev and put an infantry division there instead. Try and prevent a too-easy Dnieper crossing near Nikopol/Zaporozhie. Do any counterattacks that seem feasible/sensible - it does look like there are some weak targets. However, although there are some high CV tank/mech, don't necessarily use those unless they are up to 50 experience (unless you need them), because they will get stronger if you just wait for the experience to go up. REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED.

[Beethoven1]

This was the last of the updates I already had pre-written previously.

Now, a bit of a spoiler (don't read the small text below if you want to see what happens naturally over the next several turns without knowing).

If you do want to read it, quote the post to see it or copy/paste the small text.

We ended up getting to turn 15 or so, shortly before mud, and unfortunately it was pretty clear that Axis was headed for a sudden death loss in 1941. We discussed what to do and ended up deciding to start a new 4v4 game with No Early End, which is currently on turn 3.

So what I will do now is quickly run through the first game through turn 15 (updates will be a bit more concise since it is less interesting given how things turned out), and then will start on the new game.

So now I will quickly run through the next 5-10 turns or so a bit more concisely.

[Beethoven1]

I am going more concisely mainly in that I will only bother with doing a "start of turn" update for each turn.

Start of Soviet Turn 8

Slow grind in the north:




No big attack in the center still:





Is that not like 3 turns of rest in a row of mostly rest?
2 entire attacks


In the south, the Axis made it barely across the Dnieper (and right in to some wonderfully pleasant swamp, surely great for the Axis trucks) between Kherson and Z-town, but not much other progress than that:






Our losses were 78k, with 35k isolated:




3.5 million in the field:

[Beethoven1]

Start of Soviet Turn 9

Soviet losses were less than 100k, despite the 35k that had been isolated:



There was not a single Axis attack in the north:



The center was also surprisingly quiet, given how much they had rested in previous turns:





In the south, there were somewhat more attacks, but not much progress:





And Axis was approaching Crimea, where we had built some forts:



As a result, our on-map OOB was now nearly 3.6 million:



Most importantly, 2 Red Banner Armies arrived from the Far east. Would IGB, Bread, or fracas be the first to get a Red Banner Army?

[Beethoven1]

Start of Soviet Turn 10

The North continued to be quiet, with 2 naval brigades in Tallinn somehow managing to hold for one more turn also:



In the Center, the Panzers that had been resting finally swung into action and formed a pocket of around 7 divisions.





However, Bread would break the pocket during the Soviet action phase.

In the south, Zaporozhye was endangered, but the Axis panzers were vulnerable to counterattack, something fracas would take full advantage of.





OOB now above 3.6 million on the map:



And what is more, the Transcaucasus was at 132%, so there would be more on the way to the map soon:



Lots of Separate Tank Regiments and AT regiments etc in the Transcaucasus...

[Beethoven1]

Start of Soviet Turn 11

At some turn around now, HLYA joined the Axis as Luftwaffe commander and promptly began decimating the VVS.

In the north, our poor 2 naval brigades were knocked out of Tallinn. The front also slowly inched forward, but by this point it was obvious they would not be getting anywhere close to Leningrad before mud.



With the Panzers having headed further south, the Smolensk area was turning pretty static:



Bread would break this pocket yet again:



One unit was ZOCed (but it would be freed):



In the south, Axis kept on attacking near Zaporozhye, but as a result of always attacking and never resting, many of their units were becoming weak, continuing to give fracas counterattack opportunities that he continued to take advantage of:



Now up to 3.7 million on the map (albeit with 100k isolated):





Here's a screenshot of the Soviet action phase, showing fracas' counterattacks also:

[Beethoven1]

Turn 12

Ouch, oh no, whatever shall we do, -1 VP:



Meanwhile on the map, the extra troops seemed to be helping to earn actual victory by holding far in front of Leningrad, even if it costs some victory "points":



Velikie Luki was encircled with 2 rifle divisions, but this would not be enough to whittle down our large Red Army:



In the center, the pocket was finally closed, seemingly well enough hat this time, finally, Bread would not be able to re-open it... Or... would he?



We got our first Guards Rifle division, veteran of numerous successful counterattacks:



And in he center, we also got our First Guards Mountain division:



As such, both Bread and fracas were awarded Their Own Personal Red Banner Armies, which both of them promptly put into their assault fronts (we also spent some AP to give them reasonably good generals).

Ztown encircled:



Crimea fairly quiet:



Up all the way to 3.8 million on the map (although 94k were still isolated):




In the Soviet phase, fracas broke out Ztown:



And here is Bread opening the pocket in the center YET AGAIN. Sadly for the Axis, a small gap had been left which was just possible for a cavalry to sneak through:

[Beethoven1]

Turn 13

4 million men on the map...........................................................



The north remained a stalemate, well in front of Novgorod:



IGB's thoughts on this:



Limited gains near Velikie Luki:



Panzer_Freak re-closed he center pocket YET AGAIN, although this time with fewer units inside the pocket:



Another new Guards division appeared in the south, which we would promptly use to make the first Guards Rifle Corps:



fracas still brawling around Ztown:





Here's the Soviet action phase, fracas liberated Kherson:



And finally, I don't think I showed this yet, but this entire time we had been steadily building up a massive fort line (with at least some depth also) stretching all the way from the Mariupol to Kharkiv:



So if Axis ever were to get beyond Ztown, they would run into that.

[Beethoven1]

Turn 14

It rained, it rained, it rained all over the map. Only light mud, not heavy, but I doubt that helped the Axis to advance.

World War 1 continues in the north:



Also quiet:



Fairly quiet as well, other than clearing the pockets:



All quiet in this part of the south also:



HOWEVER, in this part of the south, Germany went on a rampage:



A lot of cavalry and airborne were isolated.

Evidently the cavalry had irritated the Axis in previous turns and so they decided to finally deal with them properly.



However, from the screenshot you can see how weak many of the Axis units were by this point. Especially the Romanians, who were useless (actively harmful, even) to the Axis, but also if you squint you can see one of those Panzers for example was down to 2 CV, and the Slovakian mobile brigade for example was also down to 1 CV.

Now I will let you guess whether you think the 1 CV Slovakian mobile brigade would be enough to hold off fracas from creating another fracas...


Meanwhile, we were up to 4.1 million on the map now:



After we had spent AP putting a decent commander on the 2nd Red Banner Army, in the turn IMMEDIATELY AFTER that, Stalin decided to fire him

[Beethoven1]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention for those of you who do not know... the 1 CV Slovakian Mobile Brigade was, as a matter of fact, not enough to restrain fracas:



In the words of The Notorious B.I.G, and if you don't know, now you know



There were also some cute little horsies that managed to get loose here. They just wanted to be free, in the wild, and wander the Steppe as nature intended:

[Beethoven1]

Some words of wisdom from Stalin concerning the various failures of our ground commanders:



The good news was that there would be no such failures in the future, for Stalin had ways of dealing with such things.






The ground commanders, upon hearing this, laughed nervously...:

[FortTell]

Congratulations on your victory! An example of superior force concentration stopping the Germans in their tracks.

[jasonbroomer]

A guard corps by turn 14. Is that a record?

Thanks for the entertaining AAR

[Intelligent]

And what fronts did you designate as assault fronts in this game and on what moves?

[Beethoven1]

A guard corps by turn 14. Is that a record?

Thanks for the entertaining AAR

It may or may not be a record, but it is pretty much as fast as is technically possible, because IIRC you only start getting guards in October.

[Beethoven1]

And what fronts did you designate as assault fronts in this game and on what moves?

Western front and Southwestern front were our assault fronts.

Western front became an assault front on, I believe, turn 2 (might have been turn 3)

Southwestern front I think was turn 3 (possibly turn 4)

We prioritized doing making assault fronts quickly, which I think helped us to do lots of counterattacks successfully.

[Beethoven1]

Turn 15

This is the last turn of the first game. We ended after the Axis action phase and prior to doing the Soviet action phase.

The weather forecast called for heavy rain across the north-central part of the front on turn 16. And on this turn, it was also light rain and light mud everywhere.



Axis only had enough strength to do a single attack in the north, which even failed due to a reserve activation:



Not much more near Velikie Luki:



Eerily quiet:



Some limited progress near Bryansk:





Not too much happening in the south either:



The entrance to Crimea still holding:




So at this point, we decided to end and start a new game. The next turn would be heavy mud, and the front would then grind to a halt until November or so. Then Axis would have only a handful of turns at most (due to randomness, it could even be like 1 turn) of snow to attack before blizzard.

Axis had 498 VPs a bit less than it should have been due to the temporary reconquest of Pskov:



They needed 525 VP by turn 29 to avoid an auto loss, a total of 27 additional VP. Even if we did something like giving a free city to make up for the 6 VPs Soviets gained from "recapturing" Pskov "early," they would still need 21 VP.

That is at least 2 normal VP cities, or else Sevastopol (or 3 VP cities if they did not get any time VPs, which would be fairly likely in this case).

1) Given that they had not even broken into Crimea, Sevastopol didn't look realistically possible.
2) Kharkiv and Stalino didn't seem plausible, because they were 10 hexes from the front, and in addition to that were already defended by massive fort lines, which already were being manned by substantial Soviet reserves.
3) Kursk and Orel were probably the best shot for the Axis, but they were also 7 or 8 hexes from both of them, and still would have needed to take Bryansk to get depots closer to either Kursk or Orel.
4) Everything in the north and north-center was out of range.

We briefly considered if Soviets should maybe artificially give up some cities solely to change the VPs so that the game could continue, but there was not really appetite for that on either side. So we decided to start a new game.