1.04.11 Klydon (Axis) vs Hfarrish (Soviet) No Hfarrish please

[Klydon]

Here are the turn 7 start stats.

[Klydon]

No counter attacks here, which surprise me a bit. Panzers are gassed and ready to go. He pulled some units off the river line to drop them down to single units. Not sure what I am going to do yet here, but Leningrad still has 8 HI and 8 Armaments left in it, so the priority will be to make sure they don't go anyplace. He shoves a big tank unit in my face just to the south of Leningrad to help choke the advance. I can also make a 3 hex attack on Pushkin, but as you can see, it has some big numbers. I will have to give this some thought. The good news it appears after the two tough stacks to the east with the level 2 forts, there doesn't seem to be a lot of units dug in that well, so if I can crack them, I may get some place finally.

[Klydon]

Turn 7 AGC before movement. Did I mention there seem to be a lot of Russians these days? Geeze I just don't remember this many units being available this early. Looks like the panzers have triple lines in front of them no matter which way they go. I may have to look to head north to try for an encirclement. It is tempting due to the number of mech/tank units he has along the line there. I need to do some thinking on how the attack would link up to the land bridge. My guess is to try to drive on the south part of the land bridge and actually go over where it changes from a major river to a minor. Lot of nice airfields to run over as well. The other issue is the tanks generally have 30 mp or so and I don't know if that is going to be enough to make it up there. Will have to do some math on that as well.

[Klydon]

In the south, the armor looks a bit better with MPs in the 20's and 30's finally, but they are somewhat weak yet. As you can see, 17th army is finally entering the picture. Did I mention there are freaking Russians everywhere? Double line behind the river and extra units to boot. Lot of level 3 forts as well. D town and Z town had most of their industry removed, but not Kerch, so that should be toast. Looks like he is preparing delaying tactics in the Crimea and is forming up a solid line to the south of Z town. Just an impressive pile of Russians everywhere it seems.

[heliodorus04]

Seriously that's a metric ton of Russians, and playing a Soviet 41 GC, I can't figure what the heck he's done to have that level of defense in depth.  My initial guess is that he was very smart about extracting units from the Pripyet and moving them to hot-spots.

This brings me to a point of theory of mine about WitE, which is this:  The game is more fun and better (and easily) balanced for human vs. human play by dropping the Soviet fortification level to 90 rather than 100.  The problem is how quickly 1 Soviet division can dig to a level 3 fort, and the fact that forts are interchangeable in terms of the omni-directional defensive bonus and the fact that a level 3 fort offers the same protection to several divisions even when only 1 division builds it.  Because they do not scale, its advantageous for the Soviet to do linear defenses in depth and when you need to switch from linear to hedgehog (primary example of this need is Leningrad's area) the Soviet has a plethora of level 2 and level 3 forts to choose from in which to place stacked defenses.  It's too flexible, and it gives the Soviet a level of operational flexibility in defense that they really didn't have in 1941 (probably even 1942).  Just a thought to consider.  In my GC'41, I've taken that hit, and it's harsh in 1941, but will probably make 1942 and 1943 a bit more fun for the Axis player, but we shall see.

I am sending Iron Crosses to that panzer corps in the Crimea.  Seriously and masterfully done, and the upper Dnepr line is screwed.  Screwed.  You can get to the Donbas faster than the Soviet can.  What are the plans for Rostov and Kerch?  What are the considerations for the gap between AGC's armor and AGS's?

I think Axis players often underestimate how advantageous it is to send a corps of panzers with 11th Army - it can honestly make the best progress along the Odessa-Nikolaev (at least given initial Soviet force allocation) railroad line, and if you unhinge the lower Dnepr, you have the most advantageous terrain route (south to north, versus west to east) to Kharkov.  The rivers run generally north-south.  Great job!  Axis & Soviet players take note!

Now, you're obviously a better player than I (or at the very least much more experienced, but probably both), but I want to know why you chose to cross the upper Dnepr at Gomel rather than the land bridge.  I consider the Gomel crossing the hardest place to cross the Dnepr because even after you cross the major river, you are still facing significant challenges in rivers and swamps to break out from there.  To me, it's the easiest spot to contain a crossing (for the Soviet).  Whereas the Land Bridge at Smolensk can be forced with infantry, exploited heavily with armor, and leaves the Soviets with lots of challenges for containment since the German can go north to Vellikie Luki, South to Bryanks, or East to Rzhev and Moscow.

I gather from your AGS/AGC flanks that you're leaving a lot of options open for a massive encirclement of Southwestern Front forces with an AGC breakout to the Southeast and an AGS breakout from D-town to the Northeast.  But the scale of management that will require looks huge.

Just curious.

[Klydon]

Lot of good questions there and some I don't know the answers to yet.

My campaign from the start has been to get Leningrad as quickly as possible and to cut off as much industry as possible there. IF I can cut the line there this turn, he has 8 HI and 8 armaments that won't make it out. It is clear he has conducted an all out defense there, so this has become a question of the unstoppable force vs the immovable object. I would like to disengage the panzers here in another turn or two, but it isn't likely to happen with as much force as he has in the area unless I can hit the encirclement on a good number of his troops.

Along with driving on Leningrad, the south would be re-enforced with mech/motorized forces from AGC and attempt to put as much pressure on as many industrial locations as possible along with destroying as much of the Red army as they can. I have put a lot of pressure on his industry and managed to get rid of some of it (I need to go through and check to see how much of it has bitten the dust, but not as much as I would like, that is for sure). In addition, watching a lot of the AAR's, I have felt the Axis have been missing opportunities in the deep south along with not getting their lines squared up for the winter (The Crimea area is always a sore for the Axis during the winter counter attack).

AGC is the obvious loser here and their job was to tie down as many enemy forces as possible.

As they say, the best laid plans of a battle don't survive contact with the enemy, so there have been some changes in the details, but overall, the operation is going as planned for the most part.

This turn, I will cut the other rail line going into the Crimea. This will lock in the industry at Kerch and eventually it will get taken out. I will be looking to force the issue in the Crimea to wrap up the issues there as quickly as possible. I don't know if jumping over is in the cards or not as the couple of times I saw Axis players do it in the 41 campaign, it didn't end well over the winter, but we shall see.

There are a couple of reasons I went with Gomel as a point of focus. First, it starts the game with industry in it. Part of my overall plan is to put pressure on Russian industrial centers, so I had to offer a credible threat to Gomel to make him feel the pressure to move (He moved the industry there). The next part is it sets up the opportunity for a big pocket to the south and cuts the swamps out of the picture for the Russians. This part has somewhat miscarried from the standpoint that the Russians have a very, very strong defense along the river by Kiev and 6th army has been busy trying to get to the front. The other issue has been the panzer corps with 6th army is pretty beat up in part to my mismanagement of the armored division and also a mistake I made on turn 1 that essentially caused that group to go short 1 panzer division. This plan is still in play, but I am going to have to work on getting over the river in the south to present a credible threat of a mass encirclement. Coming out of Gomel also presents a threat of encirclement to the land bridge (likely to happen at this point probably given the situation in the south along with how much mech/tanks he has on the river line between Gomel and the land bridge, but also subject to me figuring out what is needed in terms of movement points) or a thrust towards Bryansk.

I don't know about being a better player than anyone TBH. I have worked hard at trying to learn the game, but I don't have as much time to do it as many people do and I absolutely am short on experience, which will likely manifest itself as we go along here.

Obviously I have been talking to my opponent  and one thing he has mentioned is he gets nervous when the Axis concentrate their mech forces, which I have tried to make a point to do most of the game. A panzer corps all by itself is a threat, but probably won't scare a Russian that much. Start putting 2-3 panzer corps together and the reaction is a whole lot different. In part this has allowed me to get away with some stuff in this game (encircled his checkerboard in the south and wiped out a fair number of divisions). It will also be what helps if I go for the huge encirclement from AGS to the Gomel area if that is what happens, but we shall see on that. (Didn't expect to see so much on the river). This is pretty much been my approach for most of the game and I think its something the Germans need to work at doing.

Thanks for all the questions, etc.

[heliodorus04]

Was your original plan to sustain the Axis through 1945, or was it to obtain the population centers to force Soviet capitulation?

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

No counter attacks here, which surprise me a bit. Panzers are gassed and ready to go. He pulled some units off the river line to drop them down to single units. Not sure what I am going to do yet here, but Leningrad still has 8 HI and 8 Armaments left in it, so the priority will be to make sure they don't go anyplace. He shoves a big tank unit in my face just to the south of Leningrad to help choke the advance. I can also make a 3 hex attack on Pushkin, but as you can see, it has some big numbers. I will have to give this some thought. The good news it appears after the two tough stacks to the east with the level 2 forts, there doesn't seem to be a lot of units dug in that well, so if I can crack them, I may get some place finally.

Backdoor to Leningrad is Wiiiiide open. Bust that 7=25 stack and a couple units south and send those panzers up to Ladoga.

[Mynok]

That's a Sir Robinsky defense for sure.

[Klydon]

My opponent is currently touring the new factory facilities that have been built since the start of the war and is currently unavailable to direct the campaign, so there will be a delay for Russian turn 7. (IE, he is out of town).

AGN area:

Well, my hopes of a "break through" with gassed panzer corps in order to either reach the shore of Lake Ilmen or Lake Ladoga pretty much went up in smoke. His defenses were deeper than I thought even after recon. As can be seen, he has brought in a pile of troops from the center and this continues to be a battle of the unstoppable force verses the immoveable object. So far the unstoppable force has been grinding forward and making progress. The industry in Leningrad is now trapped.

While my troops here are a bit tired, they do have the advantage of the rail head now being into Pskov and the fact that I have hit several of his good tank divisions hard. I am sure he will pile more in here to try to prolong the fight as long as possible to keep me tied up here, but that will come with consequences elsewhere.

There are a lot of Germans involved here now. The entire force of AGN is now north of Lake Ilmen along with XXXIX panzer corps from AGC. A fair amount of re enforcements have been sent along with a pile of engineers. 28 infantry divisions and 10 mechanized units are in the area.

[Klydon]

AGC:

The panzer forces finally got off their butts and got back into the war. I had originally looked at having them swing down to the south in a big encirclement, but developments there have made getting across the river a bit slower than I expected with Hfarrish's heavy river defense line there. A smaller encirclement was absolutely possible to the north to get him off the river line. The operation resulted in 14 trapped divisions including 5 mech/tank divisions. AGC's goal has been to tie down as many forces as possible and this should force him to send some troops to the center.

[Klydon]

AGS:

6th army finally got up to the river in force and 17th army is pretty close as well. In the mean time, XXXXVI panzer continues to recover from the abuse I had put on them for the first 5 turns and are looking much better/meaner than they have been in awhile. 2 corps of 1st Panzer take a shot at trying to claw a toehold across the river and while they have it, I don't know that they can keep it, but at least the fortifications are broken there so even if he pushes me out, I should be able to get across a bit easier next time and make a deeper breech. With 17th army closing up, I will soon have infantry support to help out. Hfarrish knows I have a pile of mech in the area, so a big encirclement could be possible, although the threat from the north is temporarily gone for the moment. The trick for him is how attached is he to his fortified lines? If he stays too long, it could be really bad for him. Rail heads are getting there, but still have a bit of a ways to go.

I could have sent 1st Panzer towards D-town and Z-town, but I felt it was not really worth it. Mostly only heavy industry remains there and although it would be nice to knock it out, the panzers are not getting it done and the infantry is still a couple turns out. The other issue is look at all the cav he has on both flanks. I would have to send all of 1st panzer to try to prevent encirclements perhaps and they have enough gas issues as it is. Of course, I could be getting to the point of "Russian unit shock" brought on by seeing Russian units under every rock. [;)]

[Klydon]

Crimea

Tough choice with the panzer corps here. I elected to stick with my original plan (capture the Crimea as quickly as possible in order to not have it become a protracted campaign). Overall, (at this point at least) I am fairly happy here, although there will be the issue of finishing up the job and the need to likely withdraw the panzer corps to go back up and help the rest of AGS with the advance east. The Kerch industry is also trapped and unless he sea moves in a fair amount of troops, resistance here should be over fairly quickly hopefully.

Too bad 9th panzer did not have quite enough movement to knock out both the fortifications next to Sevastopol, but I am happy they got the one they did. As can be seen by the routed units, there were a decent number of defenders here, but it is clear Hfarrish did not place a pile of units down here. My guess is he didn't attached a huge amount of importance to it from his stand point of view at this point.

I forgot to mention that I was able to run over quite a few airfields both in the AGC encirclement and also here as well. Captured gas is always welcome!

[Klydon]

Production and losses at the end of the turn. Good number of Russian aircraft on the scrap heap this turn.

Note my very high transport aircraft losses. I lost a lot of those before the patch, but losing 24 this turn was not a lot of fun either. Hermann has promised me plenty of transports however, so I am not concerned.

Not even close on the amount of losses I need to inflict on the Russians yet and Hfarrish has not shown he is willing to risk encirclement that easily to make me think I am going to be bagging a lot of Russians anytime soon unless I can perhaps catch him by surprise.

[Klydon]

Something else to report on AGN. I have started to upgrade some of the corps commanders there as the area becomes secured and the assault will go in against Leningrad soon hopefully. Model has been summoned along with some other new up and coming generals who show better promise than a lot of the clowns that start in charge of the troops of these corps. I could spend so many action points to fix stuff, it isn't even funny, but will fix as I go along. Other issues I want to get taken care of is the Rumanian Third Army needs to go back under the Rumanian high command to help take some of the pressure off AGS. The German army group center and south and many of the armies are overloaded. 

[Klydon]

Hfarrish has returned from his tour of the Siberian Gulags.

Here is a shot of AGN Turn 8 after recon, but before anything is moved. I am a bit hesitant to comment about what may or may not be here, but from this, it appears he is weakening a bit, but then as many Germans as I have in the area, I would think that is what should happen. [:D]

[Klydon]

Here is the AGC area turn 8 start. The pocket held and he pulled back north of the land bridge. I will probably have difficulty mopping up the entire pocket this turn and I would also like to crack his next line, but we will see how it all works out. If AGC had their normal complement of troops, this would not be so tough, but their primary mission is to kill as many Russians as they can and keep the Russians honest here while we go to work on Leningrad and in the south.

[Klydon]

And AGS turn 8 start. Here, the Russians launch their first counter attack to kick me back across the river. Not a surprise at all on my part, but I have my spot started where he isn't fortified. Now, if I can break through further up as well, it may cause him to pull back perhaps or face encirclement between the two groups of panzers. Either way, I am not real happy to seen not only level 3 forts on the river line all up and down the line, but pretty significant fortifications behind that. I probably took too long to crack the line and need to do a better job getting some infantry up to the line faster, although I thought I got there pretty quick as it was. Oh well.

In the Crimea, he put another unit in Sevastopol and I will be looking to move 11th army down there to finish the job. I also need to get some more Rumanians moving for security duty in the Crimea. As you can see, the panzers are pretty much on fumes, so they will be pulling back to shorten up the logistics tail. I will have to deal with Kerch at some point and clean it out, but sending the SS unit up there now is a good way to see it get cut off from a quick amphib. I need to get the area secure and as many units out of here and back north as I can muster.

[Klydon]

Here is the battle results of the Russian counter attack. Took a fair amount of losses, but it was to be expected and I didn't feel like I had a choice in trying to force the river line.

[Klydon]

10th Panzer looks considerably better than it did a couple of turns ago.