George vs. Seille - A Russia 1941 AAR over 60 turns

[Frido1207]

Followed this epic battle right from the start.
Huge thx for sharing it with us in this outstanding AAR.
(sad to see that is it all over now - maybe a rematch?? [;)] )

[LazyBoy]

I have enjoyed every post in this AAR, thanks for the huge effort guys

[seille]

Ok, here are some statistics for the game:

I´ve put together some interesting screens for production, losses/kills
and final army condition.

Here is the victory screen for Germany first
(even it´s obvious Germany did not win......)

[seille]

Losses Graph

[seille]

Production graph

[seille]

Losses Totals (probably the most interesting screen)

[seille]

Overview final army condition.
As you see from the Wehrmacht was only a shadow left.....

[Widell]

Seeing the graph, the turning point was in early 1944, or possible late 43. Any comments as to when the tide started turning and some discussion on what lead to the turning point. Strategic/tactical etc. Would be interesting to hear you elaborate a little on that.

BTW, when will the epic HBO series based on this AAR start broadcasting? [:)]

[seille]

Hello Widell,
 
The turning point was north of Baku when i moved my front back for a 1-turn-break.
This way i reduced losses and allowed my fresh troops to get some experience.
In addition i moved my planes down to attack between Stalingrad and Baku.
 
From my point of view this was the turning point in the south.
A high impact had the destruction of the many german planes on the unguarded airfield near Stalingrad.
 
That was the key in the south in winter 43/44. In the north it was the successful defense and counter attack
after the fall of Leningrad. Played very good there (in the south i made more mistakes...)
 
Over the whole game i was close to surrendering three or four times especially when the romanians
kicked my ass after the fall of Baku with often 500+ infantry losses per turn. But i had always front parts that made me happy,
so i continued [:)]

[Grymme]

Some comments. (note. these are all my personal ramblings, while in high fewer etc).

First of all. I generally think that you both fought well. That being said.

Notable tactical mishaps
1) Obviously when George forgot his 40-50 airplanes to close to the front in july 1943. I think the game could have looked differently if that hadnt happened. These things will happen in such a large game, but the magnitude is hightened by the fact that airforces were so concentrated.
2) The german airforces kamikaze attack in january 1942. Not realizing that the winter penalty applies to aircraft and loosing some 30 aircraft
3) Seilles fighting in Leningrad in april-may manning leningrad a little to easy and leaving some 15 fighters/divebombers within range of Georges forces.

Notable strategic strangeties
1) Seille concentrating so much on his northern offensive that he ignored Georges thrust into Caucasus which in the end cost him Maikop, Baku and almost the game.
2) George not taking a couple of turns taking Crimea in 1942 (and instead using for example the SS to run around seemingly without a goal in 1942).
3) Seille never exploring or exploiting the huge gaps in german lines. I know. FoW. But still.

Time when it seemed most likely that
1) George would win the game. In januari 1943. He had captured Maikop and Stalingrad and cut of Baku from outside reinforcents even reaching the end of the map. This while still holding Leningrad. What did the Russians have left?
2) Seille would win the game. December 1941. George hadnt gotten anywhere or taken anything. And what he had he was retreating from (which altough a good tactic didnt seem as grand in the homeland newspapers).

Notable observations, differences, oddities in production etc
1) George constantly went for producing Mortars which Seille didnt to any large extent. Mortars are IMO the best unit in the game and a large reason (although only partial) why he constantly caused greater losses to Seille than Seille did to him (i know there were other factors also).
2) nobody used to any extent Bazookas, AT-Guns or Scouts.

Honorable mentioning to
1) The Romanian AG. Much maligned in the official newspapers these stout balcanic peoples showed the world where its really at.
2) The defenders of Sevastopol. "Wait, they are coming, no... doesnt seem so. Wait, now they are really comming. Still nothing." etc. The final fall of fortress Sevastopol must have had some instance of " a boy crying wolf about it"

[seille]

I´m not sure George "forgot" to move the fighter group back.
I think he simply didn´t expect i would "see" them and be able to break thru the front
to destroy them. But when i realized these unguarded airfield i did my best to overrun it.
Was like a great offer while shopping [:D] . Some little guards (10-20 rifle) could have safed them.
 
Then, i produced a lot of Bazookas, but more early in the game for defending Smolensk area especially.
But to be honest i prefer AT guns. MG, Bazooka are dying too fast.
 
Most of the time i wasn´t able to produce what i wanted since i simply had not the production to produce
all i needed. Especially the buildup of the red airforce was a handicap here. Kept a lot of capacities
busy. But without my planes i would have lost VERY early that´s sure.
 
But analyzing my mistakes you were right.
At Leningrad i wasted forces and planes when George attacked.
I started the real fight way too late in the south. Think i could have prevented George from
taking Baku at least. But he attacked great here and cutted my N/S connection which made things difficult.
Moved my planes too late to the south. Kept them 5-6 turns near Riga just to support that attack.
BUT i did not know the area was free of enemy planes.....Not enough recon.
 
Mortars i started to produce when i had the capacities left and when i started to attack myself [;)]
 
George did a great job in keeping his forces strong especially in the south i fought most of the time
high XP units with superior equipment. There was not much i was able to do at this time.
 
Imho the mistake which costed George the game was his use of air power. He never aimed
for hitting my planes really hard. Never tried to knock my planes out of the fight. Most of the time he had
similar air power or he was stronger, but the fighters were too spreaded.
I would have used his planes totally different, more concentrated. And more focussed on destroying
the red airforce...air superiority.
But probably he would have won with his strategy of spreaded planes without losing the 40+ Stalingrad fighters.
 
We both made some mistakes, but only due to these mistakes we were able to deliver the full 60 turns [:)]

[Widell]

And in hindsight, "mistakes" are abundant in real history as well, so I guess these events can be written off as things that could well have occured in a real life war as well. Really enjoy to read the AAR and the analytical discussion afterwards as well. This should be mandatory reading for new AT players [;)]

[george1972]

First of all I would like to thank Seille for this great game. Although I lost the war, at least the scenario gave me a "pat on the back" for "holding out so long" [:D]

Grymme's analysis of the game's major turning points are spot-on, so my version of the story will sound pretty similar. In essence, I think a properly handled Wehrmacht can win this scenario, although it isn't easy to do and it will take a certain amount of luck to pull it off.

As the Germans I was constantly aware of the huge production deficit in the game. I also have great respect for Seille as a player since he knows this game inside out. This made me a little too careful during the opening phase of the campaign. During the first battle of Smolensk in 1941 I didn't have a clue that he was pouring everything into that battle and the other fronts were hardly covered, especially the Ukraine.

I think I had a real possibility to win that battle if I had persevered, diverted troops from AG North sooner or even sent AG South towards Moscow after the fall of Kiev. But the mounting losses on my side scared me into a defensive posture too soon. And after the winter air attack I completely lost confidence in my chances for a complete victory.

Sevastopol also was a clear mistake on my side. Although it didn't contribute too much to the Russian war machine, it nevertheless produced for them for 50 turns, where I could probably have taken it after 10 turns. 200,000 production points thus went to the Russians when in my hands they could have made the difference during the later stages of the campaign.

The winter of '41-'42 I think I handled pretty well, opting to pull back to avoid losses costing me a lot of territory, but ultimately giving me a strong and experienced army. The only regrettable accident was the near-loss of the Romanian Army Group during the last winter turn, which cost me a lot of troops and not to forget a lot of time to correct, which prevented me from having better starting positions during the subsequent Summer Offensive. Although seemingly a small incident, had I prevented this from happening, I might have gotten into the Caucasus much sooner than I did in the end.

The Leningrad offensive which culminated in the capture of the city was a nice "side-show" but essentially a waste of resources. The city itself didn't produce enough to make a real difference and the terrain beyond the city made any further advances of mechanized forces against an abundance of infantry a futile proposition. Although I managed to destroy a lot of Soviet troops and equipment in those battles, strategically I think it was a mistake.

The key to winning as the Germans in this game is capturing and securing a major production center BEFORE 1943. As Seille already commented during the game, had I captured Baku a few turns earlier, the outcome of the war may well have been very different. I realized too late the possibilities in the South-East and became embroiled in bitter fighting for Maikop and the approaches to Baku which took precious time and a lot of casualties. It also allowed Seille to exploit his growing numbers near Leningrad and recapture the city, knocking the Finns out of the war and pushing AG North back all the way to Riga.

When 1943 arrived, I still had a smaller army and less production then Seille, the only thing he had to do know was to keep losses to a minimum and let his production give him an overwhelming superiority on the ground and the game was over. Lucky for me and you, the reader, he wasted his surplus production in futile attempts to fight the Romanians to a halt in the steppe between Don and Volga. After he overran my airfield in the Don Bend I knew the game was over. Despite this, I managed to trick him once more in believing he was vulnerable by inflicting the greatest casualties since the start of the campaign.

But after his "retreat" in the steppe, things started to finally work out for his Russians and the rest is essentially history.

My handling of the air war was without a doubt in my mind THE biggest mistake in the game. After the first setback I never again tried to take on the Red Air Force, since I expected Seille to have embarked on a fighter production spree just as ambitious as mine. I was very surprised when making the force overviews that I outnumbered his air force in fighters in mid-1943.

It's too bad I was too lazy to make my own "force overviews" during the battle with available intelligence information. It is just too tedious to do, but perhaps I would have noticed the lack of growing Soviet fighter strength in '42 and the reason for it being the abundance of infantry produced on his side.

As for Seille's tactics employed during the game, I must say they were very effective. His primary unit was simple infantry but lots of them. He also didn't create any "super-units" just many and many "average" units. Losing one of them was never a problem, where every time I lost a high-valued unit to his concentric "150 infantry and 2 tanks" counter-attacks I threw up my hands in despair and went "It's not fair! This isn't how it happened in the real war!". His tactics prevented me from executing anything like the historical "kessel-schlachten" simply because even a strong unit will still be thrown back when attacked by masses of infantry from 2 opposite sides.

The battle of Smolensk in the late summer of '41 taught me these kind of tactics don't work here. You just need to butcher your way through endless lines of troops and hope they don't have enough readiness left to hit you back, because if they do, your "spearhead" will be dead.

Due to this my overall tactic in the game changed to Nimitz' tactic of "hit'em where they ain't". Every time I got stuck somewhere, I dug in and started pushing someplace else. I hardly ever decisively defeated any major Russian concentration that way, but Seille was forced to fight me with new recruits without proper support and they suffered terrible losses in consequence.

In the fighting towards Stalingrad and the Caucasus in '42 en '43 I took tremendous risks by leaving a practically open flank in the Ukraine. If Seille had sent off a few good units from his Smolensk Front supported by his big air group towards Gomel and Kiev, I would never have come close to Baku. Fortunately, I had gotten a good impression of his overall playing style even during the previous games I lost big-time to him. As he said himself, he doesn't "gamble" and attacking towards the Germans so soon after they beat him back beyond Kursk looked like one. Of course this didn't keep him fooled for long, but long enough to keep the initiative in the South a little longer and take Baku.

All in all, Seille's the toughest player I've met playing AT and although "officially" I won (thanks to Tom for putting in that outcome after 60 turns) I still don't have the idea I've ever beaten him.

[george1972]

Finally I would like to sum up some of the "issues" I encountered with AT's engine when simulating this campaign specifically. Again I would like to say beforehand that no, I'm not saying this is bad game, just that there's a little room for improvement [;)]

First and foremost on my mind is of course the often-mentioned concentric bonus for attackers. I agree this keeps the game "fluid" but it also means that the only way to fight defensive battles while preserving your army in the field is to run away in the face of a superior enemy. Fortifications help a little, but they get destroyed way too easily by only a handful of artillery in a very short amount of time. If that was realistic, then World War I would have played out very differently. (The funny thing is, the Great War scenario starts out with exactly the correct "feel" to it until you research Artillery II and Tanks, after which it suddenly becomes a mobile war because the defenders are simply too weak to hold off attacks).

As said earlier, in my opinion a bonus should only apply if all pieces of the puzzle fit together for a coordinated attack: high staff experience and enough of them to command their units, high morale, high mobility and lots of firepower. The Russian Front is the place where "mobile defense" was practiced for the first time and the history books are full of occasions where smaller better trained and led German units fought off overwhelming enemy numbers because of the Russian lack of coordination and tactical skill. Unfortunately, the tactical combat simulator doesn't seem to take this into account.

This also explains why the Wehrmacht "melts away" during the last few turns of the game. There is no way a smaller force can hold back a larger one, no matter what terrain they are in. Perhaps putting in defensive artillery fire would even the odds a bit (as they had in the good ol' "Panzer General". Attacking a fortified position sickened you in that game because you knew you were gonna take some serious casualties from those damned arty you couldn't bomb because of all the AAA surrounding it...)

There are some minor issues compared to the previous one, but still annoying:

• Destroying an HQ has no effect on the units it commands, they are 100% effective on their turn. Obvious bug in the engine in my opinion. If transferring to a new HQ costs you 50% readiness in peace-time conditions, then having your HQ being overrun by the enemy should have at least the same consequences to the subordinate units if not more. In my opinion it should cause a morale loss as well as not allowing the unit to add to a concentric attack bonus while not attached to a HQ.
• There seems to be no stacking limit for air forces... (Or I missed it...) Putting it in would prevent the "mega-air-groups" from forming and forcing you to build more airfields and spread out your air power. A little more realistic in my eyes.
• The stacking limit for ground forces seems to be a bit harsh, again favoring the attacker by penalizing the defender for putting a lot of troops in the front line. In my opinion, cities and fortifications should have the ability to house more troops than other terrain types. After all, they were built to house troops and allow them to fight effectively in limited space and deny this ability to the attacker. Desperate house-to-house or trench-to-trench fighting with high losses for the attackers never happens in AT.
• The "burn rate" for troops in the field seems a little high, troops melt away rather fast, this is a basic feeling I have, no real empirical evidence.

Nevertheless, AT still is the most complete war gaming engine out there, don't get me wrong. The most brilliant "invention" I think are the staff, they are a crucial element of warfare but this is the first game I've seen them being so explicitly a part of game play.

[henri51]

Very very interesting AAR, and congratulations to both players for a very interesting game and a grand AAR.

This game illustrates very well the importance of intelligence in warfare and in this scenario with FOW. It is clear that if either player would have had unlimited intelligence about what the other was doing all the time, he would have easily won, because the "failures" in both cases were due to lack of intelligence or misconceptions about the opponent's strength, dispositions and plans.

The AAR also illustrates the importance on knowing the possibilities of the units. Apparently Blitzkrieg tactics don't work as well as they did in real life, since according to George, massed infantry can stop the exploitation of breakthroughs. Maybe this can be corrected to some extent by giving a shorter leash to HQ units, making it more likely that they would be overrun by exploiting units. Or perhaps by increasing the penalty for lack of experience? Or maybe Soviet units should have almost ho HQs at all in 1941 to reflect the combined effect of the 1937 purges and of bad orders.

Apparently the game also favors huge concentrations of air power - I don't know how realistic this is, but it is worth noting.

This version of the scenario may not give sufficient penalty to the Germans in the first Winter, which really ground the German War machine to a halt. Later versions may have corrected this to some extent.However making this penalty much more severe might unbalance the game in favor of the Soviets, unless some other compensation was added (such as a higher penalty to Soviet units in 1941 to reflect the Stalin "not one step back" orders).

A great scenario, and one which is worth the game by itself.

Henri

[seille]

In most points i agree with George looking at the problems
especially the high concentric bonus and also the stack point limit for ground units.
 
Sometimes i really won battles against german monster units (for example a huge SS unit close to Sevastopol)
just by attacking from 3 directions with often infantry only. I used often green troops in these attacks and i won
under high losses the battles.
IMHO a very small downtuning to the concentric bonus would be good, but a VERY small.
 
In addition i think it would be good to increase the stack point limit for fortifications and cities to 150.
 
For air war i must also agree with George. There could be a stacking limit, but i fear this could completely screw the air war
since if the enemy defends with flak and fighters he´ll wipe out any attackers too easily.
At the other hand i just ask myself if the air war wasn´t handled my way in reality. Just read a book about d-day and how
thousands of allied bombers broke off small corridor in the german lines by carpets destroying everything. Whole divisions were eliminated
this way. Very high concentrations of air attack power against a few kilometers of front line.
 
Looking at the game i think a player using his air force in bigger concentrated attacks already get a "penalty"
cause he can hit only a limited amount of targets while the player with more spreaded air units can always hit more targets,
kill more tanks/artillery. As long as there are no enemy planes...
In air war in this game the players must search for a decision and try to be on the level of the enemy air force or above.
You simply should not fall below the enemies level too much.
If you do and the other player knows he´ll not stop attacking you. Then it´s time to mass produce planes.
 
@henri51
The winter penalty for Germany in first winter is definitely realistic. Germany can still go back a bit to save the troops.
If George wouldn´t have done that he would have lost early. But he handled that very well (except his air attack...)
and kept his forces in good shape. COMPENSATION: Germany get the same bonus in 1942 for 3 turns. And this in good weather !
Is this not enough compensation ? The german 1942 bonus can finnish off the russian army. At least Germany will get back
any terrain lost in winter 41/42.
The chances for the russians are LOW to win against a experienced german player attacking without bigger mistakes.
Herman, writer of "Blitzkrieg Staff Academy For Pacifists" kicked my russians out of the game in 1941 when he destroyed my Smolensk HQ
and surrounded my complete center defense. I had to surrender in turn 4 or 5....
Just a example how such a game can go.
BUT: If Germany can´t win before 1943 things might become difficult due to the increased russian production.
Without that additional production i would have lost that´s sure.
 
Btw, most guy´s i played said Germany always wins this scenario. The easier part...
That´s why i prefer to play the russians. Imho the scenario setup is balanced except some little things
George and i mentioned ("weather start", concentric bonus, stacking point limit and so on) and to win
for both players if on the same level. George and I, we´re on a similar level that´s why the game was so close
and found no clear winner.
 
One of the best and most challenging games i played so far [:)] 
I have to thank George for this game and that he never stopped fighting even in difficult periods of the game.

[seille]

@George
 
Burn rate: Don´t judge this looking at my greenhorns dying to your Romanians.
We both know it was a mistake. Not the right armamament, no XP, no support, no entrenchment
on my side. A mistake to send them into fire that early.
 
I think the most losses were caused by the artillery. Not in kills, but in preparing the attacks
by reducing readiness a lot. That´s why i lost so much infantry most of the time against very low german
losses during their own ground attacks.
 
In future game i´ll play with a house rule btw. No strategic movement after combat !
This was a annoying thing for me and completely unrealistic. Imho the game should not
allow any strategic movement after fighting.
Long time ago i suggested a imho VERY good way to move artillery out after firing.
A AP reserve to set for a unit. This way you limit the attack rounds and keep enough AP to move the unit out
(normal movement) after fighting. Then the player would pay with limited attack power.
Unfortunately Vic did not like the idea so much.
 
I think a little list of house rules could make things more fair for both players.
 

[JJKettunen]

Just read a book about d-day and how
thousands of allied bombers broke off small corridor in the german lines by carpets destroying everything. Whole divisions were eliminated
this way. Very high concentrations of air attack power against a few kilometers of front line.

Not true. Only during the start of operation Cobra did the Allies use concentrated carpet bombing against a German division (Lehr). While it must have been a mentally shocking experience (the German commander exaggerating the effects in his post-war memoirs), it didn't wipe out the division, and caused casualties to Allied ground troops too. The method was never used again. During WWII whole divisions were never ever eliminated by air power alone.

(Great ARR, btw! [:)])

[seille]

Panzer Lehr was hit this way, but other divisions, too.
It was the case for a limited time only, but it happened.
After that kind of bombardment there were survivors left, but the division
did not longer exist as a combat unit.
 
Air power was often decisive for the ground operations.
During Citadell single german tank divisions lost most of their tanks and
armored vehicles during a few hours of attacks. Similar effect.
Their strength was gone.
 
I just wanted to point out that there are aspects for and against
these very high plane concentrations in AT. And any changes here
could easily screw the game balance.

[JJKettunen]

No, no, no, there are several studies showing how limited the effects of air power actually was for the combat units. For example the tank killing capabilities were often wildly exaggerated by air pilots and commanders for obvious reasons. Limiting movement and supply (soft targets) was their real strength.

Anyway, stack limits for air units are the very basics for boardgames/boardgame-related computer games of this sort.