Beethoven (Axis) vs Bobo (Soviets), 1941 GC

[Beethoven1]

Axis Turn 2

I thought I had some screenshots of what Axis turn 2 looked like prior to recon that I was going to post, but apparently I don't or can't find them. There is sometimes a decent amount you can tell even pre-recon.

However, I will show 2 things that I could see even pre-recon which were not in areas where I saw other things post recon, which told me some things, focusing on the south:

First, I could see these 2 units:

prerecon1.PNG (278.04 KiB) Viewed 833 times

One of them was an airborne brigade, which was a bit surprising. Not because it is necessarily strange for there to be an airborne brigade there, but usually you can't see counters that you did not touch or fight the previous turn. So I presume this is one of the southwestern front airborne, but I wondered if it could somehow be one of the western front airborne that I attacked last turn. I think that is probably impossible, but it is weird to see the airborne.

Anyway, the fact that Bobo had units there told me that he probably did not have other units significantly further forward in that immediate area. Though you never know.

Secondly, here I could see Bobo railed a mountaineer towards Odesa:

prerecon2.PNG (198.3 KiB) Viewed 833 times

My guess is this was the 60th mountain division, because it starts off bordering a Romanian unit. But it is possible it could be 96th or possibly 58th also. This told me that Bobo railed away at least some units. Though how many, and where exactly they are going, is another question.



Here is a top secret leaked OKH report (don't tell Stalin or Zhukov), assessing where Bobo's units went in the south, to the best of OKH's estimation in any case:

I would not not normally try to track it this much, but am doing so for the AAR to document just how many Soviet units this turn 1 is capable of isolating, attacking, dooming, or potentially dooming:

OKH1.PNG (1.96 MiB) Viewed 833 times

The highlighted areas are isolated pockets. The red units are units that I know specifically where exactly they are. The dark blue units are units which I know (or think) ended up in a particular pocket, but which I could not see precisely at the start of the turn. In the case of the 80th rifle division defending Ternopil, I know that it ended up a few hexes south (though not pocketed). The light blue units are units which are presumed to have escaped (may or may not still be in the general area).

Here also is a similar view further south:

OKH2.PNG (2.23 MiB) Viewed 833 times

The only difference here is that the white units are units that could (potentially) be trapped in a turn 2 Lvov pocket. Some of these will get out, others may not. How many of them will get out can make a big difference in the progression of the game in the next few turns (especially in the south, but also elsewhere by butterfly effect), and could be a close run thing.

OKH suspects, based on recon and other information, that a good number of these units may have ended up on the yellow hexes. On other of those yellow hexes, there may be one or 2 routed units (e.g. that 80th rifle division in Ternopil), or a handful of other southwestern front units that start within walking distance but well away from the reach of Axis on turn 1.

[Beethoven1]

I will show the Axis view post recon in 2 important areas.

First, in the north around Pskov:

postrecon1.PNG (286.32 KiB) Viewed 824 times

In this area, Bobo has clearly done about as good of a job as possible of putting up a hasty defense on the Velikaya river. He has got 3 counters in Pskov (one of which is the fort that starts there), which likely means he has 2 units that he railed there. There are 2 counters on each of the hexes to he south which start with the other forts (i.e. 1 fort and also one other unit).

There are a couple of NKVD speedbumps in the VERY front (literally touching my units), which won't do much substantively but on the other hand can't be ignored and have to be dealt with in some form.

There are also some counters further back on the rough terrain. A further zoomed in view shows me the "0?0" though, so I suspect it is probably a HQ stacked with a relatively good unit (perhaps 3rd tank division or 163rd mech).

Although the units on the river are basically all likely to be very weak, it will take some effort and careful planning to get through these well placed defenses.

Recon did suggest that the area in front of Velikie Luki seemed to be pretty barren, so OKH suspects that many of the units that start in the area roughly between Velikie Luki, Idritsa, and Polotsk, may have been marched as quickly as possible up to help try to defend Pskov. If so, that was probably the smart move on Bobo's part, as speed of initial advance makes a big difference one way or the other as far as Leningrad and Pskov are concerned (pretty much more so than any other part of the map).



Secondly, in the south, in the area of a (potential) large Lvov pocket. In this area, Bobo's defense also looks pretty well prepared and similarly shows that he knows what he is doing:

postrecon2.PNG (579.5 KiB) Viewed 824 times

The main line of defense is obviously that yellow highlighted line around 12-13 hexes from the front. This is about as far forward as I would have thought Bobo might try to put up some sort of a defense. I suspected that he would not leave too many units very close (at least if they could escape further away), which is part of the reason I did not bother to attack the fort line 3 hexes east of Proskurov on turn 1. The other reason is that it safeguards Proskurov a bit more and because Axis no longer starts with RFSS, it is good to have 2 regiments blocking the Soviet rail south of Proskurov rather than just 1.

So I did not think there would be that much that would be gettable. But post recon, I think there is perhaps a bit more than I suspected which might be gettable.

Similarly to in the north, from a further zoomed in view (not shown) I do know (or think) that all of these double stacks likely have at least 1 HQ or possibly depleted unit, because they are "0?0".

We can see that the green unit is a mech division. OKH suspects that this may be the 7th mechanized division, because it was bordering a German unit at the end of Axis turn 1, and that is typically about as far as it can retreat. However, it could also be 240th or (less likely?) 216th mech.

The fact that it has a partially built fort suggests that it is either a strong unit, or had some MP left, or possibly the fort could be from an engineer SU.

The purple units around Vinnitsa are interesting, both because he is defending Vinnitsa and also because there is a routed unit immediately next to it (maybe he wants it to be displaced there).

The red unit is interestingly placed, because there is NOT a fort that starts there. Perhaps (probably?) it is some sort of expendable airborne brigade or NKVD or something, but if it is a serious unit, it is boldly placed.

The blue units are interesting, stacked on top of the forts. I sort of do have to go through those forts in some form or another. Bobo may want the routed unit on the northern of the 2 blue forts to be displaced and hopefully (for him) get away. That may happen, but sometimes routed units stacked on top of another unit surrender as well. The bigger question though is if the other blue hex has a routed unit or a real unit. I suspect it may be a real unit, simply because there are not that many routed units. The only ones that I can think of that those 2 routed units could be are the 80th rifle division that defended Ternopil, or possibly 216th mech or 22nd NKVD border guard (OKH records do not mention whether those units were routed). I suspect the one next to Vinnitsa might be the NKVD, and the one on the fort may be 80th rifle, but may be wrong.

The yellow unit is interesting mainly because of the level 1 fort. The fort suggests it is a strong unit that was put there deliberately and had some MP left (but possibly the fort maybe from an engineer SU). It is bypassable, but only awkardly bypassable, particularly if the blue unit to the north is a strong unit.

OKH assesses that the Soviet main line of defense may be somewhat vulnerable, but that if it is, it will be a VERY close run thing. It looks so close run, and Bobo's defense looks sufficiently well formed, that one or 2 hexes could very easily make all the difference here, and so it is necessarily to plan our advance very carefully.

[Beethoven1]

OKH staff made the following maps to aid in planning for the south.

The first map shows our calculation of the MP cost of moving mobile regiments to various hexes (starting from territory we already control). This is assuming that there is no combat delay or anything unexpected (i.e. units not spotted on recon) to slow us down:

regimentMP.png (3.68 MiB) Viewed 697 times

That regiment map is pretty straightforward, it is pretty much 3 MP per hex (except when crossing rivers or into the few non-clear hexes).

For divisions, however, it is a bit different, because it only costs 2 MP for full divisions to go on a clear road hex:

divisionMP.png (3.7 MiB) Viewed 697 times

You can just compare the 2 maps, and see it makes close to 10 MP difference in some cases by the end of where I drew the maps to. So in many cases it makes sense to recombine regiment into divisions if you can drive along roads. HOWEVER, that depends a lot on the random MP rolls and where the regiments are. If you have regiment #1 with 30 MP, regiment #2 with 40 MP, and regiment 3 with 47 MP, it probably does not make sense to recombine them. Whereas if they all have 42, 43, and 44 MP or something and are 1 hex away from each other, you will probably want to recombine them (even if you later re-regiment them)

Overall in the south the MP are relatively straightforward (even for divisions). MP calculations are more complex in other parts of the map though where the terrain is more varied, and also for infantry where you more commonly have some divisions < 81 morale and others with 81+ morale.



For most of the game it is not necessary to go to such lengths to plan things out, because the front will quickly start to become much more stabilized and huge maneuvers like this will start to become impossible by as soon as turn 3 or so. It then becomes relatively straightforward matter of dealing with the front line opposing you.

But for turn 2 especially in the south in particular, I think it is essential for Axis, at least if you are going for the sort of all-encompassing pocket that I am going for in the south. The goal is basically a massive pocket stretching all the way back to Lvov. If the pocket gets broken in even a single place, that can mean the ENTIRE thing could be un-isolated. It is generally not possible (or at least possible without using mobile units) to eliminate the Rovno pocket in a single turn, so not only does the double rail repair path need to be protected, and not only does the new pocket stretching all the way to the Romanians have to be held, but also the remainder of Rovno has to continue to be held.

So there is very little, if any, margin of error to make this work.

The situation at the start of turn 2 is also typically chaotic, because there are regiments of divisions all over the place, which may have widely varying MP, and Rovno pocket has to be cleared enough at least to allow the mobile units to continue forward with as many MP as possible.

And of course I could just do the turn casually and a lot faster without this planning, but that's the way Axis loses as early as in 1941. There are lots of other AARs showing what happens when Axis is not careful.

There may be some very skilled players who have played Axis for years going back to WITE1 like HLYA, K62, tyronec, or whoever else who can pull it off without carefully looking mapping out the MP and planning where units should go, but that's not me.




The following screenshot is NOT from the current game: It is from another game I am playing, where I did a very similar (but slightly different) turn 1 in the south. The other game is currently on turn 6. Our goal for the south for turn 2 is to try to do something similarish to this, insofar as possible:

othergame.PNG (961.76 KiB) Viewed 697 times

So that, roughly, is the sort of thing we are going for (everything did hold in that other game, by the way).

There are some differences between that game and this one, most importantly that was with the old patch where Axis starts with RFSS. And what is and is not feasible depends a lot on how the Soviets set up their defense, and on the random movement point rolls. Another important difference is that in the other game, the Soviets did not have a continuous line in the area where Bobo set up a continuous line, so I was able to drive straight through.

In the case of this game, some of my units have quite good MP, others have less good MP. The biggest thing I have going for me is that all 3 of the Das Reich regiments have very good MP and they all start the turn within 1 hex of each other. But some of my other regiments have atrociously bad MP (as low as 28 on one of them).

[Beethoven1]

I was going to post screenshots, but unfortunately I forgot to take a screenshot of the map without units. So it will have to wait until I can post a screenshot with units.

In any case, we did do something in the south quite similar to that previous screenshot from the other game. The difference is, instead of that far south-eastern portion of the pocket being closed, it is instead only ZOC locked. I think it was impossible to outright close it given how Bobo set up his defense and how my MP rolls were.

However, the flipside of that is I think there are a few more units there than in the other game which may be either trapped or otherwise doomed. However, it depends on whether Bobo decides to try to counterattack, and whether he can. And if he does, if a counterattack just has the effect of meaning the units that counterattack themselves become doomed. There are also several Soviet units in that ZOC lock area which I attacked and which will hopefully have low MP. That should hopefully limit what he can do, both in terms of potential counterattack and potential escape.

There is also a pocket around Vinnitsa, although unfortunately I think it pretty much only contains NKVD, but those are nevertheless more valuable than their weight in manpower, and we have to take what we can get.

Virtually the entire gettable portion of the southern front in Bessarabia is also either isolated or ZOC locked, with the exception of 2 or so NKVD which I routed away.

In the north, we took Parnu, crossed the Velikaya near Pskov, and also reached Velikie Luki and crossed the Lovat right next to it.

In the center, we approached Vitebsk and Orsha, and reached the Dnieper near Gomel.

Soviet losses are low so far, only 722k. However, that is highly deceptive, because it is not including the isolated units, or ZOC locked or doomed ones, of which there are many. And I have been lackadaisical in eliminating the Bialystok and Rovno pockets, preferring instead to march a few more units closer to the front more quickly (or even rest a handful), so the body count still has a ways to go up from those as well.

OKH assesses that we have kicked in the door, and the Red Army can now be expected to promptly collapse without much fuss or ceremony. The Soviets have few reserves and little ability to form new armies to replace the ones that we have destroyed or doomed.

Moustache man is jubilant and has already begun planning the post-war architectural renovations of the Kremlin that will be undertaken with the aid of Albert Speer.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

What patch was this started on, any of the mods being used and are you playing to any house rules ?

It is unmodded, 1941 GC, No Early End, theater boxes open, server game.

We are NOT using any of the custom morale changes or the lower retreat losses option for this game (despite me being an advocate of those options) because I want to play at least 1 proper fully vanilla Axis game or 2, to get the "true Axis experience."

A "true" unmodded game would be "closed" theater boxes