VotGs CG IV Holst - Miller

[Bob Miller]

Russian: Scott Holst (first time VotGs CG playing)
German: Bob Miller (previous CG playing as Russians)

Playing first date on Scott's 1 1/16" blow-up boards. NICE!!!!

German strategy
I seen first hand (and read on these forums) how poorly a spread out German attack runs. Thus I decided on a southern blitz. All in. Bought 2 more bombardments to help clear the way in the south. Also to reaffirm the strategy in my mind, all the Russian 1st line troops have to set up in the south. If I can kill them, there will be less stealthy troops trying to ambush me at night on the 14th. Should be able to cross "J" road and grab a good amount of building hexes in the south that I can realistically hold onto during the night counterattack. I could care less about the piers on Sept 14th. 10 bonus CVP is waaaay not worth spreading out my troops.

OB given At Start troops
Rifle Coy HD 6 467/3 447 ATR 9-2/8-1/7-0 (rolled a 3 w/ +2 DH mod)
Rifle Coy FS 12 467 all equip 10-2/9-1/8-0 (again great leader roll)
Stross pl FS 3 548 all equip 9-1
Stross pl FS 3 548 all equip 10-3 (WOW!!! snakes w/ a -1 mod)
Med Arty scarce
HW pltn Dep 2 HMG/MMG/80mmMTR
Pioneer pl Dep 2 838 lmg/FT 7-0
Pioneer pl Dep 3 838 all equip 9-1
Stug G pl Full 3 AFV no Ar leader
Stug B pl Full 3 AFV no Al leader
Flak Wag Full 3 AFV

Turn One reinforcements
Stug B pl Full 3 AFVs no Ar leader
Stug G pl Dep 2 AFVs no Ar leader
Stross pl Full 3 548 all equip 8-1 (blue RG group)

dr reinforcements
Rifle Coy FS 12 467 all equip 8-1/8-0
Stross pl Full 3 548 all equip 9-1

DR reinforcements
Rifle Coy LD 9 467/3 447 hmg/mmg 9-1/8-1/7-0
Stross pl full 3 548 all equip 8-1

Purchases: Eleven (11) saved for future dates
2 more bombardments (4 points)
Offboard Obs (1 point)
Plenty Ammo for 100 OBA (1 point)
Cycling Stuka (6 points) Support requirement
I2 Stross plt (3 points)

Turn one - three attack.
Defensive counter density showed Scotty solid in the north, massively concetrated in the middle and light in the south. Knowing that the SMG and Rifle Coy must be in hexs 42+, not many NKVDs are hanging out here.
Bombardments in F43, H39 and F31. All accurate, a total of 4 Russian stacks are in these 54 bombarded hexes. Rubble one building containing a conscript. Nothing else. But it does show me that there me no HIP Ruskies on my way to the Children's House. I can move aggressively.

10-3 kill stack (3 hmgs, 2 mmg and 1 lmg) wipes 2 ? stacks in row D turn 1 prep. Moved toward Children's House in turns 2 & 3.
NKVDs in Railstation put up a fight for three turns but now after German 3, only one NKVD in G37. 10-2 (battle hardened to 10-3) lead assault toward Childrens House and have gained a foothold into H42. Have it surrounded with firepower and a FT.
Southern orchard area. Tank battles and German infantry creaping on southern board edge. 3 Stug B's blown up (one by a Mol adjacent to Children's Home). One burning in H50 which blazed the orchard aready. My Stuka bombed 2 T34's turn one, one with Scotty's 9-2 AL. Bounced bomb off another one in turn 2. So far 2/1/2 first three turns w/ Stuka.
The turn one Stross pltn entered at A34 and is acting on my rear guard against any Russian troops filtering down from the Switching station. dr reinforcements haven't shown up yet.

Russians that I can tell purchased:
One FP (1)
SAN increase (1)
T34 platoon (5)
Assume both NKVDs (8)
Two OBA (at least 2) Killed 8+1 filed phone operator already
Mol capability (2)
Still some points left.

Scott should post some pictures to this as well as the Russian viewpoint.

 

[Gunner Scott]

Hi-

As can be seen by the pic, my defense was somewhat hunkered down. Right now I'm trying to hang on to the Childrens home but with some real bad luck as far as OBA going south on me, losing two T-34's and another one to MA Melf and Immobilization DR, it might be a real tough task.

Personnally i was thinking the Germans would go up the middle since it afforded the most cover and of course that did'nt happen and a good portion of my units are out of place at the moment, trying to shift left but with Stuka's wondering around, its been a real tough endeavor.

My original plane was to fall bacl slowly in the middle but with the Germand attacking in force to the south, I might have to start running soon.

below is a pic of the turn one set up at start forces.

 

[pward]

Plenty Ammo for 100 OBA (1 point)

Where do you see that on the RG charts? Or do you mean pre-reg?

 

[janusz.maxe]

Why are the fortified loc. and roadblocks on map? German air recon can only see entrenchments, I seem to remember.

What does the blue center dots mean?

My experience is that Soviet tanks are only viable in rubble or building with roof if the Stukas come in force. Otherwise they'll fire for one turn and then die. A tank battle is a daunting task with that amount of flexible firepower available, plus the superior StuG Gs.
Janusz

 

[Bob Miller]

Yes, pre-Reg. Got a little careless there.

Southern Blitz plan is working perfectly. Russians got caught with their pants down and only sprinkled a few NKVDs and Conscripts near the Railstation and did not set up any kind of reserve guard. I'm looking at near 100% destruction of the Russian Rifle Coy and SMG Coy and achieving a complete breakthrough for building grabs in the south. Turn 5 just ended. My advance infantry is in building P50. One Russian 447 in the Theatre P46. About 5-6 Russian squads are hiding in the interior of the city block that's centered around M43. I have my 10-2 and 9-2 with many 548s and 838s along with 2 FTs ready to shoot/burn them out. I'm in final mop-up phase of the city block north of that which contains the Nail Factory M39 and I should be able to swing over to the UniMag building by the end of turn eight. I just may be able to get enough troops into the V row buildings before the Russian DR reinforcements enter.

Neither side got off a FFE yet.

One drawback to my plan which I did forsee was the "Green" dr reinforcement group that enters from 1-20 are sweating it out in their retreat via hexrow A south to friendly lines. Scott finally caught wind of my overall plan and started moving up the railyard troops that were in the middle hexes (15-25) to meet those Green dr reinforcements as they came on.

Four T34s destroyed (2 burning) and 3 baby Stugs destoyed (one burning).
Squad losses so far are about 20 Russian squads dead and 5 German squads dead.

 

[Bob Miller]

Played one more turn, up to the start of turn seven rally phase (3 stuka would be appearing on the horizon) when Scotty threw in the towel and asked for a mulligan, a re-start for you non-golfers. I granted him that request.

The southern blitz worked perfectly. 100% destruction of the Rifle and SMG Coys. Claimed territory as far east as the level-2 V43-V48 buildings with a bump to X50 to push out the Russian entry 2 more hexes. The entire city block centered around M43 was German as well as the two Nail Factory city blocks out to K36 - P38. The dr reinforcement groups managed to make their way back to the safety of the Railstation area as I had enough troops deployed to form a protective wall south of row 29 in the railyard.

At game end the CVPs were as follows:
7 pts German infantry (squads, leaders, crew) dead
18 pts German tank destroyed (2 recoverable)
25 total

76 pts Russian infantry dead
25 pts Russian tanks destroyed (including 9-2 AL)
101 total.

Hmmmmm, 4-1 kill ratio.

We will restart soon. Scott will be better prepared as he now has has seen the face of the beast called VotGs CG and what it demands of it's players.

Now Scott has seen my plan. He could load up and stop it. If I see too much set up south, I can always to choose to go north and follow the Bob Holmstrom plan. Pavlov's House or bust. Thing is do I commit with bombardments beforehand or save the points and just go with OBA to soften up the Russians? If I buy 2 bombardments (preselected hexes) but decide not to follow-up in that direction, that would be a waste of 4 points. Either way I don't expect a 4-1 kill ratio again. I'll settle for a 3-1 and saving the majority of my points for the -1/-2 dates.

 

[Gunner Scott]

Hi

Ya, it was pretty much over by turn 4 I think, but i treid to hold on and hope my reinforcements would show up to stop the german Southern blitz, but that never happened.

One of the few things that really pissed me off was changing the rule from the Russian AFV;s not have radios until 43 to having them at Stalingrad. Ya i did'nt read that hidden rule in VotG that the Russian AFV's have radios. I hate when designers change rules out of the core rule book.


Scott

 

[Khill]

Hi

One of the few things that really pissed me off was changing the rule from the Russian AFV;s not have radios until 43 to having them at Stalingrad. Ya i did'nt read that hidden rule in VotG that the Russian AFV's have radios. I hate when designers change rules out of the core rule book.

Scott

Dude, I think a LITTLE research MIGHT of went into an SSR that is for ALL the VotG

:crosseye:

 

[Bob Holmstrom]

Thanks for the AAR guys. Bob, looks like your southern plan worked great. 76-7 in infantry casualties. Wow.

Keep us posted on your restart game.

 

[CraigBenn]

Ditto on the wow. How in Cthulu's name did you keep casualties that low?

Clearly Holmstrom was holding you back in that last campaign...

 

[Bob Miller]

Bobby H was the Russian MVP in our partner game. However if he was Ruth, I was Gehrig.

The key to keeping German CPs low is to fight on favorable terms. Attack in a very narrow front with 90% of your forces and don't let half of the Russian OB even get into the battle. 90% of the German forces will destroy 40% of the Russian forces while taking minimal casualties. Being nice and letting all the Russians into the game will result in 1:1 kill ratios. That will lead to a Russian victory as sure as the sun sets in the west. The Russian will try to do this to the Germans at night and even in the day counter attack. Always take advantage of the other side setting up first.

 

[CraigBenn]

Russian MVP? Ruth?Gehrig? - sorry mate I'm from the wrong side of the atlantic that means nothing to me...

I've allways thought the Russian set-up restrictions on Sep 14th combined with the recycling stukas was bad news for the world revolution. Normally the defense against a schwerpunkt is the shifting of reserves (in a tactical sense rather than a one CPP less sense) to block the axis of advance. If you attack at one point, the defender can defend at one point too...but the Stukas make this hurt.

So what's the answer Bob- How would you stop the attack you've just made?

Reserves protected by Flak corridors from the 37mm AA guns? and/or trench lines through the shellholes,cellars and sewers for a covered approach?

OBA? - but there is a limited number of good spots on or west of hexrow "L" with the type of LOS you need...

Fortifications? - but you have to guess which part of the map the schwerpunkt is going to come...

My answer would be to not worry too much about the locations lost, and defend only bits of the map with dummies in between - not a perfect answer but I don't think there is one.

You've got me itching to play this again!

 

[Gunner Scott]

Hi-

Restarted are Votg CG for the last few days and again the stuka's really put a hurt on the Russians, the Arty is pretty brutal too coupled with the bombardments, with one landing right on target into hexF23 (i think) and wiping out the a bunch of nkvd guys. Bob is attacking up the middle and as of turn six has reached the P20 area of the map. A few hard luck highlights for the russians: Arty devestates front line, Commissar stacked with three nkvd guys in the center of an arty mission goes berserk, every body charges out of the building in the center of the oba mission, into the street an get wiped out.

Russians do get their reinforcments on turn 5 (rolled a four) and are trying thier best to reach the p20 area to stem the German Steam roller. I am also lounching a local counter attack out of the rail station into the German flank, but the blazes have been a real killer as far as trying to move around them. CC has been ok, but cx'ed conscripts just are not cutting the mustard on the igger picture.

So far russian loses have been around 65CVP compared to around 20 German CVPs. Here are some pics to give ya an idea.

For the Russian player, this CG can be very fusterating just because the Germans can pick where they attack and the russian player is hindered by stuka's, distance to travel and so on, so you really just gotta smile and say, ok, at least i know where your committed to as far attacking and can now set-up next time to meet the Germans in strength.

Good game both Bob and iare having even though i whined a bit ha ha.


Scott

 

[John McDiarmid]

Russians are going to lose ground on Day 1 no matter what the defender wants. As long as the Germans have artillery and focus their attack the Russians will get pounded hard.

In my mind the best defence for the Russian Guns is well back to stop the Germans around Turn 6-8 where the Guns won't be overrun. The other Russian troops generally accept that things are going to be shitty where the Germans are and run-run away.

 

[IKerensky]

Hope you charging NKVD and Commissar weren't not in a fortified building when they became Berzerk...

 

[Bob Miller]

Scott already posted pictures and related some events to our re-start. I'll throw out my initial buys as the German side as that stuff is always fun to compare and argue about.

Again my goals for attack were:
Concetrate attack somewhere to achieve CVP superiority and to sieze key locations.
Save CP points for later in CG game

Before seeing Holst's set up I picked the northern attack route. Since row 20 is as far north as the Germans can start, that's where I went. Good guess as Holst seemed to set up very strong in the south. I still would have went south into the Children's Home, both my Pioneer platoons were full, thus both flamethrowers, but my onboard leadership was below par. One 9-2, 3 9-1s, 2 8-1s, 2 8-0s and 2 7-0s. I figured not enough to peel open that location if defended well.

Purchases:
S2 Stuka 6 points
05 Offboard obs for 100mm 1 pt
-- PreReg for 100mm 1 pt
O1 Bltn Mtr OBA 80mm 2 pts
O5 Offboard obs for 80mm 1 pt
B1 Bombardments x 2 4 pts (F18, G23, F30)
I2 Stross platoon 3 pts Total 12 spent, 8 saved

Bombardments were 2 for 3. F18 did nothing, G23 broke several squads in the northern switching station and F30 ended up creating a blazing wall on my right flank creating a perfect defensive wall that is slowing the Russians ability to counterattack into my flank.

Turn 1-2 attack went decent, got all but NE corner of switching station (G22) but that started an impressive wall of Russian troops in the H21 and I21 rubble hexes leading to the I20 factory. My turn three I would be stuck movement wise unless my OBA could clear a hole. Got both down, the 80mm in I20 and 100mm in K23 and they took care of business.

Turns 3-5, I started my sprint to the 4 big level 2 multihex buildings (Y18, Y20, BB16 and BB19) Still not there yet after turn 5 and Holst's DR reinforcement group came on in his turn 5 and the KVs (only 3, so one armor platoon was depleted) are racing to block the way. I should be able to swing some troops (including my dr reinforcements) over to Pavlov's House (R5) and it's open top sister building (S7) across the railtrack from it. Those would be nice level 2 multihex prizes as well.

This would leave a bypassed salient of Russian troops (mostly reserved) around the K9 level one multihex building. Would all this territory grab leave me hidiously spread out and vulnerable to a Russian night counter attack? More than likely.

Holst have shifted alot of the southern troops that were around the Children's Home and Rail station north into the railyard and out of the "J" buildings behind the Children's Home northward as well. I guess he knows that I won't be rolling a 5 or less on my DR reinforcement roll when we start up on turn six. Otherwise I can look at grabbing those areas at a much lower cost than I otherwise would have paid. Maybe he still has a lot of HIP and fortifications around those areas that I'm not seeing.

My southernmost troops are from A32 - I32. Thank goodness for the wall of fire in hexes D32,33,34 - F32,33.

CVP so far, German's 23 in infantry and leaders dead, Russians around 60-65 in infantry and leaders dead I'm guessing. 2 German baby Stugs blown up (one burning) while nosing around the C5 area.

 

[Bob Miller]

Strategic objective-wise going south is the best thing to do as the Germans. Day one objective, control the southern board edge up to hexrow V if able and use the wide boulavarde streets hexes 42/43 as a natural protective clear-zone to keep the Russians from counterattacking at night. Plus if you control the south, their is one less flank to protect from the Russian counter-attack as well.

I'm pushing through the middle. I don't like it. Not one bit. I'll feel very vulnerable during the Sept 14th night. However if I can capture those SIX nice multi hex level 2 buildings, I will feel slightly better about my situation. It will make a VERY interesting Sept 14th night. If I do hedgehog around those positions, I can clearly predict that at the end of the night scenario those positions will be isolated, creating a need on the Sept 15th day to breakthrough and connect those locations.

Congrats to Tom Morin and Co for creating ASL chess. One must think out 2-3 game sessions in advance to create an effective overall strategy.

The #1 lesson for people considering playing a VotGs CG IV, the more you can plan in advance what you seek to accomplish AND delay gratification of purchasing units, not when you want them but when you will get best "bang for the buck" for them, the better you will do.

 

[Gunner Scott]

Hi-

Just finished up turn 7 in are VotG's CGIV campaign with only one more turn to go. The Germans are driving hard to to the volga with almost no opposition whatso ever in front of them except a couple of KV tanks. Most of the Russian OB is pretty much toast although many an NKVD conscript did give their lives in the name of the motherland to cause the Germans some casualties, not alot, but enough where it might force the germans in a defensive posture for the coming night scenario.

With that sais, lots of crying and whining on my part (have not whined like I have whined in years) jusat because the first day is just so tough on the Russians. Also playing the Russians is just so damn boring, not as bad as playing the Brits in AbtF CG but close. Personally I think the Russian Reinforcements should enter on at least turn 4 and the initial scenario should have been 7 turns not 8. Bottom line, the 8 turns just drag out for the Russians as they watch the Germans move about with little to no units standing in their way.

Fun CG for the Germans, not very much fun for the russians on the first day of CG IV. Will see how the night plays out but I'll end up probably just regrouping what i have left.

Here are some pics of the end of turn 7:

 

[Bob Holmstrom]

Scott,

What's the CVP count? Hopefully you killed a bunch of his infantry.

Territory wise i don't think you're too bad off.

 

[sdennis]

Scott,

Where in the hell did all your troops go!?!?!!?

If you can't take most of that back in a night counterattack...

STeve