Xandamere
27 Jun 03, 05:07
I've taken the Axis side in Daniel Mcbride's Gotterdamerung scenario (which is a ton of fun, by the way) against Colin Williams (GunnerC). The game has slowed down for a bit, so I'm taking this time to write an AAR of things up to this point. We're currently on turn 36, so here's a review of the game to this point along with my strategy. Unfortunately I don't know how to take and post screenshots, but if somebody can email me at matt@mccomb.com with how to do this, I'll get some of the current front.
Initial Axis thoughts and strategy: The Finns are going to be out of the game at some point, so I may as well use them for as long as possible to tie up as many Russian units as I can. On the main front, the key is force preservation...if I can keep my army intact, as I retreat westward the front will shorten, there are many super rivers to defend behind, and lots of fortified areas in East Prussia. I looked at the scenario beforehand and noticed that the quality advantage that the Germans have depended on for the war up to this point has all but vanished. German infantry units mostly begin in untried status at 75% quality, while Russian infantry is veteran at 75 or 80% for the most part. There are two notable exceptions to this quality rule: the panzer and panzergrenadier divisions, and the Luftwaffe (which is drastically outnumbered). As the scenario progresses, I've decided to keep an eye on my infantry units and make a strong effort to preserve, rest, and rebuild those units that have high proficiency (85%+) for the later-game critical fights when I really need to hold certain areas. I'm hoping that being able to employ higher quality troops than the Russians can field in key areas will enable me to hang on.
In order to have any chance at winning this game, I need to be careful to only engage the Russians where the terrain is in my favor, such as in mountains or behind river lines. I simply don't have the troops to hold him off in the open. I also think that simple defense won't be enough, I'll need to mount some sort of limited spoiler attacks to throw Colin's attack off-balance and make him watch his flanks...this will hopefully prevent him from focussing fully on the attack and thus mauling my forces.
Panzer/panzergrenadier strategy: This is my ace in the hole, as I see it, although it's not much of one. My tanks are drastically outnumbered...I think I began the scenario with maybe 1,200-1,500 main battle tanks or so (PzIVH, panthers, and the two types of tigers). These formations are my highest proficiency units, often up at 95%, so I need to use these in critical areas and not piddle them away just to slow an inexorable advance. I also want to keep my eye open for limited counterattack possibilities to bleed the Russian forces, which I believe I can achieve in a limited fashion if I can focus my mobile units. Furthermore, these units are extremely valuable for entrenching. One full division can build an 80% or more entrenchment in a turn, so I use these as my construction crews while they're not fighting in order to solidify my river defense lines.
Luftwaffe strategy: What's left of the Luftwaffe is a really elite force, with most units at 95 or 100% proficiency. The problem is, at this point in the war there isn't much left. At full strength, I can field about 1,000 or so fighters...even if I have more in my replacement pool I don't have the assignment slots for them. So my strategy is to preserve the Luftwaffe for critical fights, where in tandem with the mobile divisions they can really make a difference. I don't want to waste away my fighter formations trying to hold the entire Red Air Force off, so I plan to concede air supremacy to Colin in most areas for most of the game. On my turns, if Colin has strong interdiction going I'll have fighters available to move up and counter it and in the process inflict heavy casualties on his planes, while preserving most of my fighters. I can also use my fighters to gain air superiority over for a limited time over a small section of the front if I focus them all in one spot. So at the beginning of the game, I pulled back the entire Luftwaffe to far western airbases where they'll be safe for the time being.
That's my strategy in a nutshell, let's see how it's panned out so far.
Finnish front: I initially withdrew all Finnish forces to form a defensive perimiter to the southeast of Vilpuuri in the fortified area, and along the super river to the northeast of the city. I sent 2 German divisions up there to reinforce this front, with the idea that I could hold there for quite a long time and prevent all the Soviet forces in this area from coming down to assist on the main front. As of turn 36, the Finns are still in the game, although Vilpuuri has come under direct attack from the southeast and I don't expect them to last too much longer. I withdrew the German divisions when things got tough to avoid losing them, although the Finns by themselves have put up a truly wonderful defense and have occupied many Soviet units for quite some time.
As for the main front, I'm going to divide the AAR to this point into two phases, opening game and current game.
In the opening game, Operation Bagration proceeded as expected with Colin smashing into my stationary units and causing a lot of destruction. I immediately began to pull back whatever I could as soon as it became available, and I was able to put together a line running from Riga in the north along the Dvina river down to the Berezina river, with a strong contingent holding the gap between the two rivers. This was able to hold Colin for a little while, as there wasn't much threat from the Pripet marshes area. I think he got a little greedy here and sent the 8th army (which begins in the west area of the marshes, close to Brest-Litovsk) to attack aggressively. I had pulled all of my panzer and panzergrenadier divisions into reserve near this area with the idea of keeping them intact for later battles, and they managed to smash the 8th army, relieving much of the pressure from the south. This allowed me to hold the Dvina/Berezina line for some time, and then to make an orderly retreat westward when the southern front opened up on turn 11. I began to make a fighting withdrawal all along the front to where it lies now.
Current game: I'm defending a line running from East Prussia (along the river east of Elbing, to Allenstein, then west along another river to link up with the Westchel/Vistula super river). The line moves down the Vistula over to Warsaw (which is still in my hands), then all the way down the Vistula till its end. I've held this river line for a few turns under heavy attack, but I have adequate reserves to hold out until the raspusita cease-fire which is mentioned in the briefing (and I really hope happens fairly soon). From the bottom of the Vistula, my line begins to trace a path along the Eastern Carpathians, which gives me excellent terrain and heavy fortifications. My forces are holding prettymuch along the northeastern border of Hungary, and controlling all of the major mountain passes. The Hungarians have fought very well for me up to this point, although it is in this area that I'm most worried about my front. It's hard to get reinforcements down here due to sparce rail lines and the extreme distance from my reconstitution points. The line is holding for now, but I'm going to need to shore it up soon. If the Carpathians are penetrated, I'm going to be in trouble in Hungary, where there is a corridor of fairly clear terrain down to Budapest. If Colin manages to penetrate my lines here, he'll outflank the Vistula position and put me in a really bad spot, so I need to hold him as long as possible in the mountains.
Fortunately I have one bright spot in the far southern front, along the southern edge of the Carpathians in Romania (south of Sibiu and Brasov). I have a panzer division operating here along with a hodgepodge of smaller units and infantry which is actually managing to advance east towards Ploesti and Bucharest. Colin is going to have to divert some of his forces that are attacking my Carpathian line to contain this threat, which should buy me some respite. In addition, the surprise attack out of the far south of Hungary managed to surround and destroy quite a few Russian units that were attacking my Carpathain lines from south to north (towards the aforementioned cities).
Down in Yugoslavia, the partisans have run amok and Tito's armies have come into play. It's basically mayhem down here, but I'm not that worried altogether as there isn't really much Colin can do on this front other than cause me a headache. Tito's armies have to stay in Yugoslavia, and the Bulgarian Army has been battered. It's a hectic fight, but I think I can hold him in the area where Tito's armies enter play (around Pozarevac, which is now in my hands) and limit the damage they can cause.
My overview of the situation: As of the beginning of my turn 36, Russian losses are at 1092 and Axis losses are at 614. The only Axis ally to surrender has been Romania, although Finland is close to falling as previously mentioned. I think I'm doing fairly well overall, and if the raspusita comes while the Vistula line is still intact then my hopes for holding Colin off will rise quite a bit. The Russian army appears tired out and in need of a rest, many units facing my lines are in orange or red supply status. As far as my strategies regarding the mobile divisions and the Luftwaffe, they have been going very well. All of my mobile divisions are intact, and holding them back from the battle has allowed them to build up their strength (they begin the scenario very understrength, with very low complements of tanks and equipment). The German army now fields slightly over 4,000 main battle tanks of the types previously mentioned, and I've only lost about 500 main battle tanks. This reserve gives me some serious power to shore up fragile areas or to counterattack any penetrations in my line. The Luftwaffe is still fielding near its maximum complement of 1,000 fighters, and has a few hundred in reserve to replace losses, which will enable me to use my fighters a bit more aggressively as long as I'm careful to rest my fighter formations to avoid losing any entirely. Oh, and on a slightly fun note I managed to infiltrate a recon unit and a pioneer unit from a panzer division through the Pripet marshes and east behind Colin's lines, where they've proceeded to head to the Slugh river (near the east edge of the map, about due east of Hungary or so) and blow a bunch of bridges. I don't know what kind of effect this is having on Colin's supply net, but I hope it's doing something...at the very least he has a few full Soviet divisions out chasing around these 2 tiny units.
Where now from here?
The Vistula line appears fairly secure for now, so I need to think about how to throw Colin off-balance and take some of the oomph out of his offensive. Over the last couple of turns I launched a minor counterattack with several panzer formations south of Radymo (near the south end of the Vistula), with my attack coming out of the mountains directly south of the city. I briefly made a small pocket of 7 or 8 hexes, where I managed to destroy probably 20 or so Soviet units of various types before retreating. This is the type of counterattack I need to conduct...I don't have the strength to launch a full-scale attack and I don't want to expose my precious mobile units to any shattering blows, so I need to hit fast and hard and then retreat before Colin can smash up my mobile divisions. My next idea is a bit more ambitious...a pincer attack originating from the Warsaw area and the area just south of Allenstein (along the river, where I have a solid line) to cut off his troops moving into that bottleneck created by the Vistula river and the East Prussia fortification line (you can envision the pocket, with its western tip at Thorn). Colin doesn't appear to have a huge force in the area, so I think this is a plan I could get away with that, if successful, would pocket probably 40 or so Soviet units (although probably half of these are small AT or mortar units, stuff like that) and, more importantly, give him something else to think about other than assaulting my main lines. In the next few turns, I plan to gather my mobile forces around Allenstein and to the west of Warsaw in preparation for this attack, should the opportunity look good...I don't want to launch my troops into a suicide attack just because I planned it a few turns ago :). I have plenty of armored support as well as the airpower necessary to mount a limited campaign of this sort, so I think it's a strong possibility that I can damage him here.
That's it for the AAR up to this point...come check back again soon to see how the game is progressing, once I get my next turn from Colin!
-Xandamere
Initial Axis thoughts and strategy: The Finns are going to be out of the game at some point, so I may as well use them for as long as possible to tie up as many Russian units as I can. On the main front, the key is force preservation...if I can keep my army intact, as I retreat westward the front will shorten, there are many super rivers to defend behind, and lots of fortified areas in East Prussia. I looked at the scenario beforehand and noticed that the quality advantage that the Germans have depended on for the war up to this point has all but vanished. German infantry units mostly begin in untried status at 75% quality, while Russian infantry is veteran at 75 or 80% for the most part. There are two notable exceptions to this quality rule: the panzer and panzergrenadier divisions, and the Luftwaffe (which is drastically outnumbered). As the scenario progresses, I've decided to keep an eye on my infantry units and make a strong effort to preserve, rest, and rebuild those units that have high proficiency (85%+) for the later-game critical fights when I really need to hold certain areas. I'm hoping that being able to employ higher quality troops than the Russians can field in key areas will enable me to hang on.
In order to have any chance at winning this game, I need to be careful to only engage the Russians where the terrain is in my favor, such as in mountains or behind river lines. I simply don't have the troops to hold him off in the open. I also think that simple defense won't be enough, I'll need to mount some sort of limited spoiler attacks to throw Colin's attack off-balance and make him watch his flanks...this will hopefully prevent him from focussing fully on the attack and thus mauling my forces.
Panzer/panzergrenadier strategy: This is my ace in the hole, as I see it, although it's not much of one. My tanks are drastically outnumbered...I think I began the scenario with maybe 1,200-1,500 main battle tanks or so (PzIVH, panthers, and the two types of tigers). These formations are my highest proficiency units, often up at 95%, so I need to use these in critical areas and not piddle them away just to slow an inexorable advance. I also want to keep my eye open for limited counterattack possibilities to bleed the Russian forces, which I believe I can achieve in a limited fashion if I can focus my mobile units. Furthermore, these units are extremely valuable for entrenching. One full division can build an 80% or more entrenchment in a turn, so I use these as my construction crews while they're not fighting in order to solidify my river defense lines.
Luftwaffe strategy: What's left of the Luftwaffe is a really elite force, with most units at 95 or 100% proficiency. The problem is, at this point in the war there isn't much left. At full strength, I can field about 1,000 or so fighters...even if I have more in my replacement pool I don't have the assignment slots for them. So my strategy is to preserve the Luftwaffe for critical fights, where in tandem with the mobile divisions they can really make a difference. I don't want to waste away my fighter formations trying to hold the entire Red Air Force off, so I plan to concede air supremacy to Colin in most areas for most of the game. On my turns, if Colin has strong interdiction going I'll have fighters available to move up and counter it and in the process inflict heavy casualties on his planes, while preserving most of my fighters. I can also use my fighters to gain air superiority over for a limited time over a small section of the front if I focus them all in one spot. So at the beginning of the game, I pulled back the entire Luftwaffe to far western airbases where they'll be safe for the time being.
That's my strategy in a nutshell, let's see how it's panned out so far.
Finnish front: I initially withdrew all Finnish forces to form a defensive perimiter to the southeast of Vilpuuri in the fortified area, and along the super river to the northeast of the city. I sent 2 German divisions up there to reinforce this front, with the idea that I could hold there for quite a long time and prevent all the Soviet forces in this area from coming down to assist on the main front. As of turn 36, the Finns are still in the game, although Vilpuuri has come under direct attack from the southeast and I don't expect them to last too much longer. I withdrew the German divisions when things got tough to avoid losing them, although the Finns by themselves have put up a truly wonderful defense and have occupied many Soviet units for quite some time.
As for the main front, I'm going to divide the AAR to this point into two phases, opening game and current game.
In the opening game, Operation Bagration proceeded as expected with Colin smashing into my stationary units and causing a lot of destruction. I immediately began to pull back whatever I could as soon as it became available, and I was able to put together a line running from Riga in the north along the Dvina river down to the Berezina river, with a strong contingent holding the gap between the two rivers. This was able to hold Colin for a little while, as there wasn't much threat from the Pripet marshes area. I think he got a little greedy here and sent the 8th army (which begins in the west area of the marshes, close to Brest-Litovsk) to attack aggressively. I had pulled all of my panzer and panzergrenadier divisions into reserve near this area with the idea of keeping them intact for later battles, and they managed to smash the 8th army, relieving much of the pressure from the south. This allowed me to hold the Dvina/Berezina line for some time, and then to make an orderly retreat westward when the southern front opened up on turn 11. I began to make a fighting withdrawal all along the front to where it lies now.
Current game: I'm defending a line running from East Prussia (along the river east of Elbing, to Allenstein, then west along another river to link up with the Westchel/Vistula super river). The line moves down the Vistula over to Warsaw (which is still in my hands), then all the way down the Vistula till its end. I've held this river line for a few turns under heavy attack, but I have adequate reserves to hold out until the raspusita cease-fire which is mentioned in the briefing (and I really hope happens fairly soon). From the bottom of the Vistula, my line begins to trace a path along the Eastern Carpathians, which gives me excellent terrain and heavy fortifications. My forces are holding prettymuch along the northeastern border of Hungary, and controlling all of the major mountain passes. The Hungarians have fought very well for me up to this point, although it is in this area that I'm most worried about my front. It's hard to get reinforcements down here due to sparce rail lines and the extreme distance from my reconstitution points. The line is holding for now, but I'm going to need to shore it up soon. If the Carpathians are penetrated, I'm going to be in trouble in Hungary, where there is a corridor of fairly clear terrain down to Budapest. If Colin manages to penetrate my lines here, he'll outflank the Vistula position and put me in a really bad spot, so I need to hold him as long as possible in the mountains.
Fortunately I have one bright spot in the far southern front, along the southern edge of the Carpathians in Romania (south of Sibiu and Brasov). I have a panzer division operating here along with a hodgepodge of smaller units and infantry which is actually managing to advance east towards Ploesti and Bucharest. Colin is going to have to divert some of his forces that are attacking my Carpathian line to contain this threat, which should buy me some respite. In addition, the surprise attack out of the far south of Hungary managed to surround and destroy quite a few Russian units that were attacking my Carpathain lines from south to north (towards the aforementioned cities).
Down in Yugoslavia, the partisans have run amok and Tito's armies have come into play. It's basically mayhem down here, but I'm not that worried altogether as there isn't really much Colin can do on this front other than cause me a headache. Tito's armies have to stay in Yugoslavia, and the Bulgarian Army has been battered. It's a hectic fight, but I think I can hold him in the area where Tito's armies enter play (around Pozarevac, which is now in my hands) and limit the damage they can cause.
My overview of the situation: As of the beginning of my turn 36, Russian losses are at 1092 and Axis losses are at 614. The only Axis ally to surrender has been Romania, although Finland is close to falling as previously mentioned. I think I'm doing fairly well overall, and if the raspusita comes while the Vistula line is still intact then my hopes for holding Colin off will rise quite a bit. The Russian army appears tired out and in need of a rest, many units facing my lines are in orange or red supply status. As far as my strategies regarding the mobile divisions and the Luftwaffe, they have been going very well. All of my mobile divisions are intact, and holding them back from the battle has allowed them to build up their strength (they begin the scenario very understrength, with very low complements of tanks and equipment). The German army now fields slightly over 4,000 main battle tanks of the types previously mentioned, and I've only lost about 500 main battle tanks. This reserve gives me some serious power to shore up fragile areas or to counterattack any penetrations in my line. The Luftwaffe is still fielding near its maximum complement of 1,000 fighters, and has a few hundred in reserve to replace losses, which will enable me to use my fighters a bit more aggressively as long as I'm careful to rest my fighter formations to avoid losing any entirely. Oh, and on a slightly fun note I managed to infiltrate a recon unit and a pioneer unit from a panzer division through the Pripet marshes and east behind Colin's lines, where they've proceeded to head to the Slugh river (near the east edge of the map, about due east of Hungary or so) and blow a bunch of bridges. I don't know what kind of effect this is having on Colin's supply net, but I hope it's doing something...at the very least he has a few full Soviet divisions out chasing around these 2 tiny units.
Where now from here?
The Vistula line appears fairly secure for now, so I need to think about how to throw Colin off-balance and take some of the oomph out of his offensive. Over the last couple of turns I launched a minor counterattack with several panzer formations south of Radymo (near the south end of the Vistula), with my attack coming out of the mountains directly south of the city. I briefly made a small pocket of 7 or 8 hexes, where I managed to destroy probably 20 or so Soviet units of various types before retreating. This is the type of counterattack I need to conduct...I don't have the strength to launch a full-scale attack and I don't want to expose my precious mobile units to any shattering blows, so I need to hit fast and hard and then retreat before Colin can smash up my mobile divisions. My next idea is a bit more ambitious...a pincer attack originating from the Warsaw area and the area just south of Allenstein (along the river, where I have a solid line) to cut off his troops moving into that bottleneck created by the Vistula river and the East Prussia fortification line (you can envision the pocket, with its western tip at Thorn). Colin doesn't appear to have a huge force in the area, so I think this is a plan I could get away with that, if successful, would pocket probably 40 or so Soviet units (although probably half of these are small AT or mortar units, stuff like that) and, more importantly, give him something else to think about other than assaulting my main lines. In the next few turns, I plan to gather my mobile forces around Allenstein and to the west of Warsaw in preparation for this attack, should the opportunity look good...I don't want to launch my troops into a suicide attack just because I planned it a few turns ago :). I have plenty of armored support as well as the airpower necessary to mount a limited campaign of this sort, so I think it's a strong possibility that I can damage him here.
That's it for the AAR up to this point...come check back again soon to see how the game is progressing, once I get my next turn from Colin!
-Xandamere