=FC=Gorgon
Minister of Propaganda
Hi folks,
First, Happy Memorial Day to our American readers and service people. (this was supposed to be posted last night)
VotG CG IV AAR
--------------
Russian Team:
o Northern CO: MikeS (=FC=Gorgon)
o Southern CO: Jim (Eagle02)
German Team:
o Northern CO: MikeP (PZchala)
o Southern CO: Brian (Dr Death)
Hey folks,
This is the start of our AAR of VotG CG IV which we started on Apr 16th, 2009. We'll probably post an AAR for each CG day. That way we can try to describe the whole scenario and hopefully reveal purchases. But that will depend on the situation as we don't want to ruin our FOW during the CG.
Jim has the records and most of the notes so I hope he'll be able to post them in the future. I plan on giving a synopsis and some of my thoughts on the tactics and strategies we used. I apologize in advance for the lack of completeness.
So, Day 1; Sept 14th.
Several weeks ago we diced for sides and teams and it ended with me and Jim vs MikeP and Dr. D. Jim and I got together to stare at the map and come up with our CG strategy and our tactical plan for the first day. I won't detail our strategic plan yet but I can go over our tactical plan a bit.
We looked at the map and divided it into 3 sectors: North - Center - South. We figured we could reasonably defend (ie slow down the assualt) 2 out of the 3 sectors. After some discussion, which included carefully examining the map in regards to the CG victory conditions, we decided to basically defend the South as best as possible, followed by the North; thus leaving the Center lightly defended. However we divided the map in half along row 22 with Jim the Southern CO and myself the Northern CO.
My personal thoughts were that we should try to hold onto the North and South board edge to make it easiest for reinforcements to enter the board. So my base plan as the Northern CO was to at least hold on to Pavlov's house. I figured even if I got pretty much wiped out, holding that spot would be good for the next scenario.
But we didn't want to give up the Center without a fight. So I setup K23 as a strongpoint (FYI, strongpoint is being used as a generic term). To round things out, I picked L14 as a strongpoint and also the Milchhaus. The Milchhaus would be nice to hang on to as well, but if the Germans attacked strong in the North, I didn't think it would hold out. Thus Pavlov's house would be the Northern Alamo if it came to it.
I'll let Jim give his account for the defense of the Southern sector.
We're doing this FtF so we won't have cool VASL maps to show you, except for the 'hidden' Russian setup which the German team got to see to plan their attack. But I will attempt to describe my setup and let the others describe theirs in more detail if they like.
Starting from the North, I setup roadblocks in L1 and L3. The idea being to channel any AFVs approaching from the North into the 9th Jan Square. I put some NVKD guys in the Milchhaus buildings with an MMG, an ATR and a 10-0 Commissar. Some 4-2-6 'scripts were in stone bldgs in the H and I column in front of the Milchhaus complex.
I put a 50mm mtr and an NVKD squad plus a 4-2-6 and an 9-0 Commissar in the L14 and some more 'scripts inthe I15 and I17 blgs.
I put roadblocks in L19 and L21. Th K23 blding has the 82mm MTR in K23 lvl1 with a NVKD 6-2-8 and an LMG on the ground floor. In the basement is our HIP 9-0 Commissar and field phone for the 80mm OBA. I'll explain that later.
For the rest of the on board OB, I put one 4-2-6 in the Railway station with some dummies.
For my reserves, I put the 76L in Pavlov's house with some Guards and the 76* in the Q10 bldg with some infantry support. I put some more units in P1 to help slow down an assualt along the board edge and the rest in the S column with some real cloaks and some dummy cloaks.
I setup my reserves up pretty far back for a couple of reasons. First, I assumed the Germans would make great gains on the first day and wanted to keep my troopers alive as long as possible. So if they're far back, it'll take a while to activate them and thus the Germans would have less time to shoot at them. Second, I wanted the Center to look open to maybe entice the Germans to attack in the middle. Sure, we defend the middle light on purpose but I also assumed they would make good gains. Why not let them make gains but we receive minimal casaulties in the process? This would put us in a stronger position for a night counterattack.
As we start the game, it becomes apparent the Germans are focusing on the South. They have their bombardment there and as they start to expose their setup, it becomes even more apparent. Dr Death is the CO of their Southern force and MikeP is the CO fo the Northern/Central force. A lot of SMOKE is fired and the Germans start their advance.
As mentioned, the main strength seems to be focused on the South. But a company or so moves into the center, heading towards the railway station. As the Russians, we absorb the blows thrown at us and try to break their concealment to have a better idea of what we're dealing with.
For turn 1, the significant action is that we manage to kill a StuG and so far, no Stukas.
In turn 2, Dr D and MikeP confirm that they didn't purchase Stukas. Interesting. In all of the AARs I've read, the German player almost always buys the rotating Stukas and says it really helps keep the Russian player pinned down. Well, I'm sure our crafty opponents have a method to their madness which will become apparent as the CG moves on.
Turn 2 brings up the first instance of Staligrad fun with some CC action which breaks about even. I make my first mistake and leave a unit at Level 1 a little too long. He ends up getting smoked. Meanwhile, I pull my real unit back from the Central rail station and leave some dummies to cover him. One of the dummies gets jumped by a German squad but I win ambush so I withdraw away to be even more distracting. I'm trying to lure MikeP into moving into our OBA surprise.
The biggest thing of turn 2 is that the Geramns make their reinforcement dr and a company moves in to the North. I guess I'm gonna have to fight up there after all.
The Germans continue their push in Turn 3. MikeP reaches our OBA surprise in the Center and our barrage goes off perfectly breaking 2.5 squads. For the next 3.5 turns, the barrage really slows things down in the middle. It's not until I pull a 2nd red card in turn 7 that it's gone and the Germans in the middle can effectively cross the street. Great call by Jim on the barrage.
The Russians roll double ones on our reinforcement DR and we are quite happy. These guys come up from the South and can be used to help slow down Dr Death's push. A platoon also books it up towards the Center as MikeP is starting to make some progress just South of our Commander's dividing line. With no Stukas we can do this.
I'm afraid I had to go deal with a work problem on Turn 4 so I don't have any notes for that night. But as you would expect the German push continued. I'm sure the others will have more to say on about this turn.
By Turn 5 the Germans have made pretty steady progress to about the J row in the North and Center and a little further in the South. Our causalties are moderate being mostly conscripts for me, though I did have have 6-2-8 NKVD unit get vaporized by one of MikeP's deathstars in the Milchhaus complex. Snipers and booby traps (level B) have been pretty quiet so far.
Turns 6-8 see the Germans pushing hard to get as much territory as possible. I end up losing the Milchhaus complex. My NKVD units in K23 end up getting surrounded (and eventually escape) but they did a great job of holding the Germans off. I still hold Pavlov's house as no one got anywhere near it.The perimiter is drawn and it's pretty much a straight line done L-P hex rows. Most of the AARs I've read here have the German's making a big breakthough in one sector to form a big bubble in the perimiter and here is ours being an almost straight line North to South. Very interesting.
Jim and I opted for a Night Counterattack which we have started planning. We will pick up 14N on the 28th. It's great playing in a CG again and VotG is looking pretty cool so far.
Thanks,
MikeS
First, Happy Memorial Day to our American readers and service people. (this was supposed to be posted last night)
VotG CG IV AAR
--------------
Russian Team:
o Northern CO: MikeS (=FC=Gorgon)
o Southern CO: Jim (Eagle02)
German Team:
o Northern CO: MikeP (PZchala)
o Southern CO: Brian (Dr Death)
Hey folks,
This is the start of our AAR of VotG CG IV which we started on Apr 16th, 2009. We'll probably post an AAR for each CG day. That way we can try to describe the whole scenario and hopefully reveal purchases. But that will depend on the situation as we don't want to ruin our FOW during the CG.
Jim has the records and most of the notes so I hope he'll be able to post them in the future. I plan on giving a synopsis and some of my thoughts on the tactics and strategies we used. I apologize in advance for the lack of completeness.
So, Day 1; Sept 14th.
Several weeks ago we diced for sides and teams and it ended with me and Jim vs MikeP and Dr. D. Jim and I got together to stare at the map and come up with our CG strategy and our tactical plan for the first day. I won't detail our strategic plan yet but I can go over our tactical plan a bit.
We looked at the map and divided it into 3 sectors: North - Center - South. We figured we could reasonably defend (ie slow down the assualt) 2 out of the 3 sectors. After some discussion, which included carefully examining the map in regards to the CG victory conditions, we decided to basically defend the South as best as possible, followed by the North; thus leaving the Center lightly defended. However we divided the map in half along row 22 with Jim the Southern CO and myself the Northern CO.
My personal thoughts were that we should try to hold onto the North and South board edge to make it easiest for reinforcements to enter the board. So my base plan as the Northern CO was to at least hold on to Pavlov's house. I figured even if I got pretty much wiped out, holding that spot would be good for the next scenario.
But we didn't want to give up the Center without a fight. So I setup K23 as a strongpoint (FYI, strongpoint is being used as a generic term). To round things out, I picked L14 as a strongpoint and also the Milchhaus. The Milchhaus would be nice to hang on to as well, but if the Germans attacked strong in the North, I didn't think it would hold out. Thus Pavlov's house would be the Northern Alamo if it came to it.
I'll let Jim give his account for the defense of the Southern sector.
We're doing this FtF so we won't have cool VASL maps to show you, except for the 'hidden' Russian setup which the German team got to see to plan their attack. But I will attempt to describe my setup and let the others describe theirs in more detail if they like.
Starting from the North, I setup roadblocks in L1 and L3. The idea being to channel any AFVs approaching from the North into the 9th Jan Square. I put some NVKD guys in the Milchhaus buildings with an MMG, an ATR and a 10-0 Commissar. Some 4-2-6 'scripts were in stone bldgs in the H and I column in front of the Milchhaus complex.
I put a 50mm mtr and an NVKD squad plus a 4-2-6 and an 9-0 Commissar in the L14 and some more 'scripts inthe I15 and I17 blgs.
I put roadblocks in L19 and L21. Th K23 blding has the 82mm MTR in K23 lvl1 with a NVKD 6-2-8 and an LMG on the ground floor. In the basement is our HIP 9-0 Commissar and field phone for the 80mm OBA. I'll explain that later.
For the rest of the on board OB, I put one 4-2-6 in the Railway station with some dummies.
For my reserves, I put the 76L in Pavlov's house with some Guards and the 76* in the Q10 bldg with some infantry support. I put some more units in P1 to help slow down an assualt along the board edge and the rest in the S column with some real cloaks and some dummy cloaks.
I setup my reserves up pretty far back for a couple of reasons. First, I assumed the Germans would make great gains on the first day and wanted to keep my troopers alive as long as possible. So if they're far back, it'll take a while to activate them and thus the Germans would have less time to shoot at them. Second, I wanted the Center to look open to maybe entice the Germans to attack in the middle. Sure, we defend the middle light on purpose but I also assumed they would make good gains. Why not let them make gains but we receive minimal casaulties in the process? This would put us in a stronger position for a night counterattack.
As we start the game, it becomes apparent the Germans are focusing on the South. They have their bombardment there and as they start to expose their setup, it becomes even more apparent. Dr Death is the CO of their Southern force and MikeP is the CO fo the Northern/Central force. A lot of SMOKE is fired and the Germans start their advance.
As mentioned, the main strength seems to be focused on the South. But a company or so moves into the center, heading towards the railway station. As the Russians, we absorb the blows thrown at us and try to break their concealment to have a better idea of what we're dealing with.
For turn 1, the significant action is that we manage to kill a StuG and so far, no Stukas.
In turn 2, Dr D and MikeP confirm that they didn't purchase Stukas. Interesting. In all of the AARs I've read, the German player almost always buys the rotating Stukas and says it really helps keep the Russian player pinned down. Well, I'm sure our crafty opponents have a method to their madness which will become apparent as the CG moves on.
Turn 2 brings up the first instance of Staligrad fun with some CC action which breaks about even. I make my first mistake and leave a unit at Level 1 a little too long. He ends up getting smoked. Meanwhile, I pull my real unit back from the Central rail station and leave some dummies to cover him. One of the dummies gets jumped by a German squad but I win ambush so I withdraw away to be even more distracting.
I'm trying to lure MikeP into moving into our OBA surprise.The biggest thing of turn 2 is that the Geramns make their reinforcement dr and a company moves in to the North. I guess I'm gonna have to fight up there after all.
The Germans continue their push in Turn 3. MikeP reaches our OBA surprise in the Center and our barrage goes off perfectly breaking 2.5 squads. For the next 3.5 turns, the barrage really slows things down in the middle. It's not until I pull a 2nd red card in turn 7 that it's gone and the Germans in the middle can effectively cross the street. Great call by Jim on the barrage.
The Russians roll double ones on our reinforcement DR and we are quite happy. These guys come up from the South and can be used to help slow down Dr Death's push. A platoon also books it up towards the Center as MikeP is starting to make some progress just South of our Commander's dividing line. With no Stukas we can do this.
I'm afraid I had to go deal with a work problem on Turn 4 so I don't have any notes for that night. But as you would expect the German push continued. I'm sure the others will have more to say on about this turn.
By Turn 5 the Germans have made pretty steady progress to about the J row in the North and Center and a little further in the South. Our causalties are moderate being mostly conscripts for me, though I did have have 6-2-8 NKVD unit get vaporized by one of MikeP's deathstars in the Milchhaus complex. Snipers and booby traps (level B) have been pretty quiet so far.
Turns 6-8 see the Germans pushing hard to get as much territory as possible. I end up losing the Milchhaus complex. My NKVD units in K23 end up getting surrounded (and eventually escape) but they did a great job of holding the Germans off. I still hold Pavlov's house as no one got anywhere near it.The perimiter is drawn and it's pretty much a straight line done L-P hex rows. Most of the AARs I've read here have the German's making a big breakthough in one sector to form a big bubble in the perimiter and here is ours being an almost straight line North to South. Very interesting.
Jim and I opted for a Night Counterattack which we have started planning. We will pick up 14N on the 28th. It's great playing in a CG again and VotG is looking pretty cool so far.
Thanks,
MikeS
