1st PvP+1st AAR, Shalkai (Axis) vs GamerDad (Soviet), v1.12.0x

[Shalkai]

I’ve been lurking and learning here in the Matrix forums for years now, and I’ve spent many an hour reading through AARs. I’ve been hoping to actually write an AAR once I could start playing human opponents. With the kid off in college, I finally have the time to try a PBEM game. That’s going well so far, and I’ve been taking copious notes since the beginning so I’d have material for a possible AAR. So, here goes…

This AAR should be of interest to beginner and intermediate players, and also to those who want to see how the changes in WitE Beta v1.12.0x compare to v1.11.03. IMHO version 1.12 isn’t quite ready for prime time, but it is playable, and after another patch or two I’m hopeful that it will be a solid improvement over v1.11.03.

I’d rate myself as an intermediate player, despite this being my first game versus a human opponent other than myself. I’ve been playing WitE off and on for five years or so vs. the AI and myself, doing scenarios and a couple of campaign games. I also have decades of experience with other WWII games, both computer- and board-games. The Gary Grigsby Discord channel and Telemecus hooked me up with GamerDad, my opponent for this game, who is also an intermediate skill level player. GamerDad chose to be Soviets, so guess which side I’m playing.

We actually started a game in late September on version 11.03, but we had game load crash errors once we upgraded game to v1.12.01. Since we’d only completed 1.5 turns by that point, we decided to discard that glitched game and start fresh with 12.01. We’re currently running on 12.02, and intend to upgrade as further beta patches come out. During my descriptions of my first two turns in this game you’ll notice me frequently comparing the two versions and the 1st/2nd turn results I had, along with notes of changes along with areas of possible interest/concern.

We’re currently in Turn 7, and I intend to keep the AAR about 5 turns behind current play. We’re averaging one or two turns per week so that’s how often you can expect turn updates. Since this is my first PBEM game this is very much a learning experience for me, so comments and feedback will be most welcome from players of any skill level. Beginners are especially encouraged to chime in and ask questions. The experts can toss me suggestions on better play, as well as things I should try to show in my AAR. Thank you all in advance!

[Shalkai]

Shalkai (Axis) vs. GamerDad (Soviet), PBEM game started 2Oct2019 with Beta v1.12.01

Game settings, chosen by GamerDad - 290 VP auto-victory, full FoW, HQ Lock, non-Random weather, full blizzard, no Soviet CV bonus, default CV.

Axis strategic goals - Focus at all times on pocketing and destruction of Soviet forces. Territorial focus will be on capture of Leningrad, then hard push on Moscow. AGS focus will be on Southern Ukraine to Donbass, and moving my mobile forces south during the first 2-3 turns to set this up. Getting across Dnepr early is a major goal, but probably not by Kiev. Personal goal - see if this southern Ukraine focus makes a capture of Rostov possible in ‘41.

AGS FBD will rail south when Hungary is unlocked, then advance rail lines from Rumania (not Poland) since the Rumanian border is farther east. This will leave Kiev area out of supply reach til turn 5-6 at least. I’ll use RHG HQs with some construction SU attached to help slowly pull forward rail lines with auto repairs just north and south of the Pripyat Marshes.

I’ll go for a conservative AGS opening (no SuperLvov), with no units south of Tarnopol on Turn 1 so the Rumanian border zone stays locked. This is by GamerDad’s request, and also because I like the idea of keeping to a fairly historical opening plan. GamerDad has also stipulated that there be no PanzerBalls (no problem, I’ve never tried it anyway) and to keep all mobile formations within their original PanzerGruppe. We also have house rules limiting airborne and amphibious operations. Both of us want to keep things fairly close to historical operational limits. GamerDad said he dislikes ‘gamey’ tactics in general, which matches my own philosophy just fine.

This is my very first WitE match against a human player that isn’t me, so chances are that I’ll lose. Since I have that expectation going in, there’s no pressure to win, need to play a ‘perfect’ game, or motivation to search for gamey tactics or exploits. I’ve no reason to try and emulate the most effective stratagems that can be found in AARs by expert players that I’ve perused . They mostly seem to take a *lot* of work and micromanagement! Veteran players will notice me using many things from other AARs, but it will often be simplified or partial use of these advanced tactics. I try to find a balance between effective and easy when looking to improve my play. I’m still figuring out lots of things, especially the use of air units and support units, and this will be mentioned often during my turn reports. Hopefully these mentions will be helpful to other new WitE players.

The new WitE Beta has many changes. I’m looking forward to them in general, as the Soviet side seemed very hampered in v1.11 by the morale gain bug, and Axis supplies seemed a bit generous. This is comparing my recent v1.11 play to when I did a bunch of solo games back in 2016-17 under whatever version that was.

I will need to keep in mind the new Fortification rules. Odessa and Tallinn may be 2-3 times as hard to crack now, and Leningrad/Sevastopol nearly impregnable. Leningrad will likely be immune to direct assault. It will have to be isolated by Osinovets capture or a push across the Volkhov river.

Also important are the Morale and Fatigue recovery changes. Better morale increases will aid the Soviets more than Axis, since their levels are so much lower, and five extra morale will mean the difference between a retreat and a rout. More units will be ready and not in forced refit. Faster digging in, too. All this should make for tougher battles and harder slogging in Aug and Sept turns.

There are several supply changes, and these will mostly affect Axis, obviously. I’ll keep an eye on Rail points and supply usage, and try to note down both rail and vehicle totals in each turn. AGN and AGC should still be in pretty good shape, as I use the Baltic Rail Zone to push my railheads east faster than was historically achieved. AGS will be choked more than the other sectors I suspect. Hopefully the planned rail push from Rumania will balance that a bit. This will all be good practice for the eventual appearance of WitE2.

[Telemecus]

++1! [:)]

[lecrop]

Subscribed[8D]

[Shalkai]

Axis Setup for Campaign

Command Point problems:
High command: AGS -50, AGC -24 (AGN is +33, so new arrivals and some AGC will go there)
Armies: 9th Ar -7, 2nd PzG -7, 11th Ar -5, 17th Ar -5, 4th Ar -4.
Corps: XXXXII Korps -5, XXIV Pzr -4.
I will use AP for unit transfers to reduce Corps CV overload during turn.
Army overloads will also get some AP spent to fix/reduce. On Turn 2 assign SEC div to OKH. In later turns, feed reinforcements to AGN, keep new HQ in OKH if they aren’t pre-assigned to an ArmeeGruppe, and slip a few AGC InfDiv to adjacent AGN formations.

Commander problems:
I will replace Halder as OKH commander with G. von Kluge (4 AP cost), and von Stulpnagel in 17 Armee (~10 AP) on Turn 1.
XIV and LVII PzKorps commanders are low morale, targeted for Turn2 reassignment. Maybe get LVII turn 1?
VI, IX, XVII and XXXXII Korps commanders are mediocre - upgrade later, as AP become available.

Air Forces general plan:
I have an evolving T1 airbase plan. The notes below show my plan as this game started; readers will see things evolve further as this AAR progresses.

Get all airbases within command range of air HQ. Don’t forget Rumania.
Transfer the single air bases assigned to Luftflotten to a Fliegerkorps.
Try to set up each Luftflotte/FK in groups of 5 airbases - two for bombers, two for fighter/tac/recon, one empty for use as advanced airbase.
Recon plane balancing goal: FlKorps - 1 Fi156, 2 Hs126, 1 Do17P1, 1 Ju88D1. PzG - 2 FI156, 2 Fw189, 2 Hs126, 1 Bf110C5, 1 Ju88D1. Armee - 1 Fi156, 2 Hs126, maybe 1 Ju88D1. Armees on Baltic and Black Sea coasts will need some long range recons.
Air Transfer some Stukas to AGN and AGS once advanced airbases moved to front lines.
Transfer excess recon and all the night fighters to Reserve. No reason to waste supplies and vehicles on surplus recon capacity.
Air Doctrine settings: %fly 5%, GndSup 80/50, GndAtk 100/50, AfdAtk 120/70, Inter 70/30, CityAtk 120/60, FgtInt 75/50
Get all airbases within command range of air HQ. Don’t forget Rumania.
Turn off auto-upgrade on air units scheduled for withdrawal. I may want to turn off swap as well on some of them.

Ground Forces general plan:
Adjust support unit settings as desired for each HQ (use Commander Report for efficiency). I’m going to unlock most Corps HQs, set them to 2 (Inf) or 3 (Pzr), with further adjustment depending on how heavy the defenses they face, and how many divisions are assigned to the corps. Army and AG settings will be low (1 or 2). Goal is to get some SU filtered back up to OKH for future reassignment to critical HQs. I may keep two Infanterie Korp locked as ‘siegebreakers’ for use against Baltic and Black Sea ports.
A couple Inf Korps have lots of SUs assigned - forget which ones off hand. They can be siege specialists.
Eventually I’d like to get used to using locked SU but that’s going to need some learning, research, and practice. Discord chats were invaluable for that. I’ll relate my shifting to locked SU during turn play starting around turn 4.
Turn Ground Support off and on in Air Settings during the turn (this is new to my repetoire). For the most part, during Turn 1 I’ll leave it off and save Luftwaffe sorties for airbase attacks.
Transfer a pioneer to units that will be attacking a Fort.3 or major Fort 2. (Brest, etc.)
Assign whatever Construction SUs available to RHGs, concentrating on AGS first.

AGN Turn1 goals Riga plus panzers over the lower Dvina/Daugava.
AGC pocket Bialystok, take Brest, advance panzers to near Minsk, help AGS secure Kovel pocket.
AGS pocket Kovel, pocket Lvov, advance Rovno, if possible advance Tarnopol.

Soviet airbases I should be able to overrun this turn:
AGN area - Siauliai, Kaunas, Vilnius, Ogre.
AGC area - Bialystok, Lida, Pruzhany, Baranovichi, and maybe Minsk.
AGS area - Lvov (2), Lutsk, maybe Tarnopol

Notes to self:
- do all Air Transfers before doing any ground attacks - don’t want any fighter intercepts locking air units before I transfer them.
- try to reassign divs to remove Corps HQ CV overloads before any move/combat takes place. See if I can get 2nd PzG fixed at start of this turn. Better chance of making command rating checks if this is done before combat begins, so better results.
- remember to rout all possible airbases. Make only one attack per airbase before rout on the ones that I can reach this turn (this keeps bomber attacks from wasting bombs on damaged planes). Zero them afterwards, or rout them again where possible. Move up my air units again near turn end, then hit the rear area airbases before finishing turn.

Questions:
Are those night fighter units actually night fighters, or just recon units currently set to fly at night? Will they actually intercept Soviet night missions? If no, I should set them to fly day while they are parked in NR before sending back to the front.
[answer: no, there are no night fighters in recent game versions. These can only perform recon, and only after they are set to perform day missions]

[Shalkai]

Axis Turn 1 play notes part A:
2Oct 2019. Start working on turn at 22:30 (Real Life chewed up most of the evening). I spent some time earlier checking if WitE would load new game file (yes), then posting on Discord and in Matrix forums. I got around to actually playing a couple hours later.
Air Group check - all GE air groups start turn 1 fatigued between 11% and 19% (avg 14%) so my seeing 15% average at start of Turn 2 last game is actually fine. About 500 planes start as damaged, so mechanics will be busy.

General shuffling: Halder out, vKluge in at OKH (4AP). Model gets auto-promoted to 4A commander, but loses a point of Initiative and one in Admin. Not ideal, and means Model won’t be available to lead a fortress-busting Korps. However, 4th Armee is a big one and key on the Moscow drive. Next, vStulpnagel in 17A replaced by vObstfelder (10AP). Balck gets promoted to XXIX Korps, but loses a morale. He’ll get transferred to a PzK next turn most likely. Kirchner now the only 8 Morale general unassigned who isn’t a GeneralMajor. He’ll probably be tapped for a Korps very soon.

Divisions are shuffled to eliminate overload in 24 PzK, 4K, and reduce penalty in 42K. This uses 7 more AP so 9 left right now. Will ponder on 57PzK commander swap possibilities. Could swap in the newly-promoted Balck for 6AP. Or Kirchner. Probably Balck - looks like vKnobelsdorff or Kirchner would get stuffed into XXIX Korps for free if I did that. All three are top-notch Korps commanders.

Airbase reorgs: My airbase usage plan for both sides has been going through rapid revision these last couple months, as I learn good ideas from AARs and synthesize them with data on plane ranges, airbase supply totals, etc. One note for new players - be sure to air transfer some Stukas to AGN and AGC before attacks start on Russian airfields. Tac bombers are way better than all others at killing planes.

Air reorg, starting with AGN. Luftflotte 1, 1st Fliegerkorps , 1st-5th Luftwaffe Air Bases.
1st LW Airbase - send one Ju52, one Ju88D, and Do17 to National Reserve. Choose units that got the worst of morale/readiness checks, assign to 1st Fliegerkorps HQ. Send Ju88A to 3rd LW AB. Move 1LW AB to 49,49. Other air units transfer then air bases move nearby. 5 LW AB ends up empty and moves (for now) to 48,48. This will later be used as the advanced AB. 1st FK and Luftflotte1 HQ units move to 48,49. AGN air now staged.
As ground attacks clear Soviet units, 5 LW AB will move up more, and later all AB will move up to bring more enemy airfields within Stuka range.

AGC N of Bialystok - 8th Fliegerkorps, 12th-16th LW AB.
Air bases gather around 50,52. Again transfers and bases moved, 12th will later be advanced AB. 8th FK HQ move to 49,52.

AGC S of Bialystok - 2nd Fliegerkorps, 6,7,8,10,11 LW AB. Group up around 49,68, just W of Brest.
(first in AGS) 21 LW AB move to 50,79. 10 LW AB sends the two smaller Stuka groups to 21 LW AB.
Transfers and bases moved, 8th will later be advance AB. 2nd FK HQ move to 48,68. Assign 6 LW AB to 2nd FK HQ.

AGS N of Lvov - 5th Fliegerkorps, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24 LW AB. Group up around 49,79 north of Lvov. 21 LW AB already at 50,79 (see above) with 109s, Stukas, and a recon. Air transfer and move bases. 22nd will later be advance AB. 5th FK move to 49,79.
18 LW AB emptied, but left assigned to LuftFlotte 4; it will later move to Rumania to even out AB numbers.
Luftflotte 4 and the empty 18 LW AB can remain where they are for now.

AGS in Rumania - 4th Fliegerkorps, 19, 20 LW AB. This group is on vacation but it is a working vacation.
19 LW AB and 20 LW AB move to 66,105. (4th FK is static this turn, so we have to move the airbase within HQ range)


Rumanian Air: 3rd Rum. Army has one airbase with 3 tac and 1 rec squadron. 4th Rum. Army has one AB with 2 tac and 1 rec.
So, if I give each Army AB a total of 2 ftr, 3 tac (light bomber), and 1 rec they have a minimal harass/interdict capability. I’ll try this, see how it works out. RM Cmbt Air Command can have all the rest, centered near the border facing Odessa.

The rest of the air units cluster around Barlad - 66,110. Use air transfers to save flying miles. Four Sov AB are within 17 or less hexes, and it is within RM Cmbt Air HQ radius.

Check R.Combat Air Command. All nine AB should be within command radius. (alternate - leave/move one empty north for staging)

The picture below shows two of the LW AB clusters; red arrows show them by Brest, and the SE corner of the Polish border.

[Shalkai]

Axis Turn 1 play notes part B: (4-5Oct, two more nights of prep and reorganization)
Something jumped out at me while doing the air unit moves. Supply numbers on-hand in each airbase, esp. fuel and ammo, are WAAAY lower in v1.12 than what I saw in v1.11.03. 5th LW airbase, for example, has 64 ammo and 123 fuel in the unit. All airbases have numbers similar to these. I believe those numbers were about twenty times higher when I did airbase reorg during the halted v11.03 game, just over a week ago. We’ll see if airbase bombing effectiveness is altered at all once combat begins.

Rumanian Air Command has four frozen airbases attached. Ignore for now. They hold 9 of the 17 ftr squadrons, so 8 available. Each Rum. Army airbase gets only 1 fighter squadron but I make it a good one. The other six go to the Combat Command airbases.

Since this is my first PBEM and primarily a learning game, I might as well delve more into better handling of SUs. I reread that section of the rules, then used that when I got into those settings on my HQs. This game has HQs locked to start, which is what I think I’ll eventually want for most Corps HQs. For now, most of them are set to 2 so excess get pushed to higher HQ. SU assignment is going to be tricky, because up til now I’ve just set everyone to auto and level 1/2/3 depending on how many I eventually want there.

All the overloaded Army Group and Army HQs are put to a 1 auto setting, since they won’t be making many leaderships checks with their negative modifiers. I’ve spent tons of AP on unit and leader reassignments, so I’m not going to be able to manually assign SUs upwards. Low AG and Army settings are set across the board to make more SUs filter up to OKH for later assignment downwards.

I decide to do the Balck move to 57PzK. The only other thing I could use those AP for this turn would be assigning a Sec div or two up from AGC RHG to OKH after they fight around Bialystok. That still wouldn’t eliminate the CP overload for AGC so I think that’ll be best done next turn, and 57PzK can benefit now from a top general both in fights and in Turn 2 Logistics phase.

LVII PzK - Kuntzen replaced with Balck for 6AP. Hollidt assigned to XXIX Korps for free. He’s less morale but better Inf rating than Kirchner so all good. That leaves me only three AP left this turn - but three marginal generals are shuffled out, replaced by three excellent ones.

Things to note during opening attacks; look for possible differences between v1.11 and v1.12:
- Airbase attack casualties. I managed about 4200 planes destroyed two weeks ago, and would expect a slightly higher number this time if all other things are equal.
- Combat results. Forum threads mention unexpected surrenders and retreat routing. Hard to quantify, but I’ll note weird events.

[Telemecus]

I am going to be learning v1.12 from you now! [:)]

ORIGINAL: Shalkai
Something jumped out at me while doing the air unit moves. Supply numbers on-hand in each airbase, esp. fuel and ammo, are WAAAY lower in v1.12 than what I saw in v1.11.03. 5th LW airbase, for example, has 64 ammo and 123 fuel in the unit. All airbases have numbers similar to these. I believe those numbers were about twenty times higher when I did airbase reorg during the halted v11.03 game, just over a week ago. We’ll see if airbase bombing effectiveness is altered at all once combat begins.

You are probably working your way through the world where airbases pick up their supplies on-the-fly from towns during the action phase rather than into airbases during the logistics phase. I have not even begun to think of all the consequences so I would be interested to hear in future turns how you think this has changed the air war in v1.12.x Typically in v1.11 and earlier the Axis air force used to hit a brick wall from around turn 8 onwards.

[Shalkai]

You are probably working your way through the world where airbases pick up their supplies on-the-fly from towns during the action phase rather than into airbases during the logistics phase. I have not even begun to think of all the consequences so I would be interested to hear in future turns how you think this has changed the air war in v1.12.x Typically in v1.11 and earlier the Axis air force used to hit a brick wall from around turn 8 onwards.

Indeed - 12.01 and up have a JustInTime supply scheme, which I'll mention more in my next few posts about Turn 1 combat and results. It did NOT have any major effect on Turn 1 air strategy or outcomes. At this point I've completed Turn 7 and we'll see about the brick wall from Turn 8+ shortly, as the Luftwaffe withdraws a third of its fighters and deals with supply degradation from being farther east.

[corbon]

Hooray!

And thank you. I'll follow when I can.

[Shalkai]

Axis Turn 1 Play Notes Part C:

Prep work finally finished, now a couple hours of play into the actual invasion. Combat results definitely a bit different in 1.12 compared to 1.11. Less units randomly routing off to one side or another. They line up along the rail line to Riga, then further panzer advances results in the following after two or even three rout displacements results. Here's a screenshot of the 'conga line' formed northeast of Riga near the end of AGN's advances.

[Shalkai]

Axis Turn 1 Play Notes Part D:

The number of shattered units seems about the same, and I saw no weird surrenders as reported in v1.12.00 before the hotfix. Indeed, there have been no surrenders at all - Fort units now shatter instead of surrendering. Most of AGN plus a few AGC combats have shattered 2 tank div, 5 rifle div, and 5 fortified regions so far.

Like two weeks ago [during our v11.03 first turn], I get both 1st and 6th PzrDiv adjacent to Riga. 42st PzKorps HQ moves close enough to be in command range. 22 NKVD Rifle is defending, CV 1-8. Again there are two full-strength air attacks to disrupt the defenders, and Combat Support is turned on in air settings before the ‘Panzer Vorwart!’ command is issued. This time, the first attack is successful - results below. Noe the two HQ units that are shattered - this is new to v12 beta. They get recreated, but off on the Ural map edge.

[Shalkai]

Axis Turn 1 Play Notes Part E:

After Riga is seized, 36 Mot and 41 PzK HQ then roll in to town and take charge of the ample supply dumps present. Reinhardt will be sitting pretty, supply-wise, for Turn 2.

Airbases then advance towards Riga, and destroy all planes in 6SAD base in Cesis (it is too far away to be displaced, so I bombed it three times). Luftflotte 1 then turns their attention to 4SAD in Turi, four hexes south of Tallinn. LW planes are tired so only ~50 bombers per attack actually participate. After two attacks Luftflotte 1 has nothing left to fly, but 4SAD is down to 74 working planes. The three German airbases with bombers are at or near 0% for both ammo and fuel. I will check supply totals for them at beginning of T2 and record them. [the 0% isn't relevant due to JIT supply to air bases, which became clear shortly after these AGN attacks]

Total Soviet plane losses just in AGN are at ~890. Von Leeb in AGN reports about 120,000 Soviet POWs taken. Von Kluge tells him to put away the schnapps and count again.

Seriously, I think this is about the best turn I have ever managed for an AGN opening. Next, let’s see how AGC goes. I want to minimize attacks west of the Neman river, so that more units can be forced to surrender on Turn 2. Six airbases with a total of over 1200 planes are within movement range, and I plan to overrun as many as I can.

After some play, the AGC advance is goin pretty well, though not as well as the above AGN results. I got 3rd PzG armored units tangled up a bit moving up north of Minsk. HQ coverage and unit placement is not great. Definite error that will cost me a hex or two of eastward progress on Turn 2.

The routing behavior changes are quite noticeable. Clumps of routed units pile up then start another adjacent stack. Pocket creation is easier, and Turn 2 destroyed unit counts are going to be pretty vicious, I think.

Using almost all my AP has caused a bug where I can’t reassign a unit between corps in same formation (1 AP) - sometimes. I did one OK an hour ago. Now, though, 167th ID refuses to give me the HQ change popup. Hm...did I note down unit transfers done two nights ago? Yep, I just checked them, and Nope, I transferred 267ID. 167ID is in the HQ where it started. Not a huge issue. 167th will be left behind its HQ, but it is only 7 hexes from Axis rail.

Just to see, I did a ground attack on one of those stacks of routed divisions in clear terrain. Two Rifle and a something. 40 bombers participating gave 60 casualties and six arty lost or dmg. Looks the same as bombing a unit in good order. No extra casualties even though men and equip are presumably scattered and not dug in. Both AGC Fliegerkorps are just about out of bombs and gas. There won’t be any long range attacks to rack up further kills, looks like. Bobruisk on the Berezina is the nearest air base with more than a handful of planes left.

Three pockets are made by AGC. Bialystok has about 16 divisions trapped, 7 more isolated around Lida, and then four routers stuck NE of Vilnius. The latter *might* be able to open a hole if they get lucky on rallies, but they won’t get far. AGN Courland pocket has one routed div, one routed sec rgt, and the fort in Ventspils.

(Note for turn two - 11 routed units and 4 HQs are in a conga line from 59,31 to 63,31. Possible isolation opportunity for next turn.)

I’ve made sure to put garrisons in Riga and Vilnius this time. I don’t like partisans, Sam I Am. Looking further east at Minsk I wonder if it could be taken with a panzer stack using hasty? Two rifle div defending, fort level 1 +2 for close terrain, so 3.1 effective. Maybe a really good Axis player could manage to do it.

Here's a zoomed out view of AGC at turn end and the pockets made.

[Shalkai]

Axis Turn 1 Play Notes Part F:

46 PzKorps from AGC wasn't moved towards Minsk. It’ll be used to help make the double envelopment around Kovel. Not historical at all, but I really have little use for another two mobile divisions west of Minsk right now. Looking at AGS I want to do about the same things I tried in our previous 11.03 start, just do them a bit better. The Soviet SW Front has better and more Soviet units, so less room for mistakes. The 41st RD at 49,81 gave me fits last time thanks to Fort Level 3 for example. Memories from a few years back are resurfacing. I think the answer is a left hook around the 52,80 hills, isolate and rout that defender, then wedge south along the 83 column? That becomes my central area AGS attack focus.

Looking at casualties so far, I’ve destroyed 77 total units. 11 rifle and 4 tank divs, along with 4 HQs shattered. Baltic Military District shattered...that’s hopefully going to play merry havoc with setting up a good Pskov defense. Air losses currently at 2274 to 15. Sheesh. Notable type losses are 372 MiG-3 and 48 SB-2 Rcn.
Axis Ground Losses: Men 5104, Guns 107, AFV 36, SP 1. Soviet totals are Men 308848, Guns 5678, AFV 1986, and SP 696. That looks pretty harsh. I still have about 20-25% of my attacks to do, both ground and air. Huh - ‘Vehicles Captured’ 2980. I’ll take ‘em!

6Oct2019, trying to finish the turn.

Assault from AGS starts with one bombing per nearby airbase (2 for Lvov; first one not enough) then some Ground Attack on 52,78 and 52,80 so I can blow the hole needed for Kovel and Lvov pockets. Ground Support turned on for these key initial attacks.

I decide to go after that pesky 41st RD in the level 3 fort again, but this time I don’t mess around. Surrounded on 5 sides, they rout. Now my rail lines right at the border won’t be hindered.

Picture shows battle results, along with the ground taken during initial attacks to start the Lvov pocket.

[Shalkai]

Axis Turn 1 Play Notes Part G:

5th Fliegerkorps air units are now down to 5% or less ammo for the most part. Combat Support turned back off. There are still some Soviet air units about 15 hexes from the border that I haven’t touched. In v1.11 I had enough supplies to move 5FK forward, get them in Stuka range, and pound them. We’ll see how much of that, if any, I can do in v1.12 beta.

There’s at least one stubborn Soviet opposing AGS. GM Andrei Vlasov (4th Mech Corps) leads the 32nd Tank Division during a spirited mobile defense. German generals can only shake their heads in wonder and admiration as the 32nd Tank is repeatedly attacked, from both the west and east, by a series of infantry, panzer, and mountain troops. The 32nd falls back not once, but four times, yet never breaks, as it is battered from Lvov all the way to the Carpathians in a single week. The heroic Vlasov and his tankers actually stand fast and throw back the third and sixth attacks, conducted by the 24th ID and 100th Light, then the elite 1st Mtn Div.

Rundstedt is not amused, and orders that General Vlasov be turned into either a dead or a captured hero. Tentative plans to push panzers all the way to Tarnopol are dropped - instead units move up for a seventh, and if needed an eighth, attack on the 32nd Tank. Luftwaffe bombers are also ordered to assist.

It takes both attacks to smash the 32nd, but it finally breaks in the town of Stryi after 100km of constant battles. Luftwaffe scouts report a few thousand men fleeing southeast towards Stanislav. No word yet has been received about the fate of General Vlasov.

Stepping out of roleplay mode, that was really interesting! Sov division got nice CV boosts every battle, and I can’t ever recall a lone unit holding up to 7 consecutive attacks (some at up 14:1 final odds) without routing. I dug into all the battle reports: it retreated after 2.5:1, 8:1, 8:1, 10:1, and 14:1 odds. One stubborn tanker!

[Shalkai]

Axis Turn 1 Play Notes Part H:

Spending all but 3 AP has bit me again. This will go in the error tally. I want to swap a couple div to better HQ in 1PzG and 17A but can’t. Grrr!

Back to the northern sector of the AGS frontline. Ideally I want to use 1 panzer korps to pocket Kovel, the other to drive to Rovno, and keep them separated plus as close to HQ as possible. 46 PzK gets the Kovel assignment. It only has 2 div and GD rgt. Might need one more unit.

… the heck? How did I miss this in prep phase? 1P air base really does not need eleven recon staffeln. I booted 6 of the 9 Hs126 to NR. Will check other army air HQ in a bit.

Kovel and Rovno went well. Much happier with results this time. 10th PzD from 46PzK ended up near Rovno, but that’s because it wasn’t needed for the Kovel encirclement. More units seem to have been routed, and we have another conga line in the marshes. 6 routed, 3 HQ there on the rail line. 4 div pocketed in Kovel, another 4 in Lvov, and ~5 div pinned against the Carpathians, though most in supply. Panzers mostly split up to form a solid perimeter, and most of them have 5-10 MP left. That’s about it for ground stuff. Need to finish air attacks then tidy things up. Might get this turn done tonight after all.

Something new going on with airbase supply, as mentioned above. I reported earlier they were just about empty. I moved them 3-4 hexes forward into Soviet territory, and now they’re showing 77/78% fuel. Possibly some JIT resupply from HQ? There was something in patch notes, if memory serves. Test of moving an airbase one more hex forward shows fuel in unit going up, not down. Working S to N, all groups of air bases bomb airfields til two or less bomber squadrons can be found. Those little 3-bmr groups I attached to the Rum Army air bases work well. Very useful to hit airbases with only a couple dozen planes left.

FBD1 fixes that one rail junction N of Lvov, then rails to Slovakia. FBD3 goes to Prussia, and works with FBD4 towards Riga. FBD2 to Kaunas. Plenty of rail cap left, so I rail AGC and OKH to Ebenrode on the German/Lithuanian border. Reduced range penalties are my friend. AGN and AGS have to do a bit of driving but also move up to the border area. I’d forgotten the 16 PzD back in Poland. It motors down and ZOC-clears the hills SE of Lvov. It will be on detached duty for probably 2 turns while the rest of XIV PzK rails down to Rumania.

Tidy phase is busy. I have more warnings on the DtHQ unit report than I usually do - those couple of AP I can’t spend are the main cause. The lowest morale Inf are choked to 95% ToeM - they have to morale up to earn a full share. AA and Art SU choked to 50% ToeM - Telemecus recommended 20% but I’m going to try a less drastic setting, at least for now. That was a lot of clicking. Went back and toured the army and PzG air units, they’d moved so couldn’t transfer any more to NR. It looks like I did the army air bases but forgot two of the panzer group air bases at start of this turn. Only 2P Air Base left to fix in turn 2. Ground Support in air settings left off since I exhausted all the bombers. About 15 divisions with ToE at 85% or below due to hard fighting are set to refit.

Losses at end of Axis Turn 1: Axis 8446 men, 168 gun, 100 afv, 3 spac. Soviet 377573 men, 6728 gun, 2958 afv, 873 spac
Net gain of about 3000 vehicles from lost in combat and captures.
Air losses: Axis 33, Soviet 4624. Best I’ve done in current versions. 700 MiG-3, 100 SB-2 Rcn, 100 Su-2, 20 Il-2.
Destroyed units: 92. Six HQ shattered (including Baltic MD and Baltic Air), 4 tank, 13 rifle div are the big scores.

Turn 2 to-do list:
Get flammpanzers (2 SUs) out of panzer HQs. Fix up recon plane assignments. Check where those packs of routed units went. Plan reinforcement unit rail movements carefully - there’s probably less available in the new beta. 14 PzK and its two divisions to Rumania have priority.

AGS map at end of turn...

[Shalkai]

Axis Turn 1 Results and Eval: (done while GamerDad working on Soviet Turn 1)

Supply in air units is indeed heavily changed in v1.12; the changelog point 28 discusses it. It is a JIT supply scheme where they pull from their supply city. Seems to be working well enough. Comparing this start to the previous Turn 1 in v1.11, I killed about 10% more planes. At a guess, 5% of that is from running many air groups til not a single bomber could fly, and the other 5% was more aggressive forward movement during the turn, which brought Stukas within range of another airbase or two. Supply changes, major as they are, don’t seem to have had a noticeable effect on the results of air attacks. It is just harder to estimate how much fuel and bomb supplies are left available in a particular airbase. Ah, just thought of one major benefit to these changes - in v1.11 I was worried about doing air transfers from groups with lots of ammo/fuel to groups with less. That meant the bomber air bases needed to be the destinations. With this new JIT supply, that is no longer a concern for either side.

The routing/retreat behavior changes are another big difference between the two versions. I don’t have a good sense yet of how the retreat priorities work so unexpected results disrupt my attack plans more, at least right now. Another couple weeks messing around in v1.12 should teach me enough so I know what the algorithms are and then I can channel retreating units a bit better.

Reading through the patchnotes again also reminded me that there’s an editor function for WitE. I vaguely remember that from when I played this a lot about five years ago, but the details are forgotten because the memories are overwritten by play of other strategy games since then, like HOI3+4 and EU4. I’ll do some searching and get those WitE tools back into my skillset. [I did that, didn't find anything terribly useful to do with it, though]

Soviet troops losses, and OOB disruption due to shattered HQ units, are going to have some level of effect on Soviet campaign game openings. This is going to be hard to judge. I don’t really have the time to do a solo game in between turns of my game with GamerDad, so this’ll be something I just monitor on the forums and in Discord over the next couple months. It’ll probably balance out? The fixes to morale gain for green troops should stiffen Soviet lines after 6-8 turns have gone by, and all the recreated units that come back on the map edge will be useful a turn or two earlier than they were previously. Seeing more Soviets killed on Turn 1 is still slightly concerning to me. If I cause 375k, and Sov T1 attrition takes another 125k+ before he opens the turn...Well, things snowball. It’ll be interesting to see how the dynamics change in this beta.

I have been taking good notes in a separate document about all the reorg and admin I do in first two turns of the 41 campaign. Soviet side of that doc is still pretty sparse, and probably will remain that way until I do a match playing that side. My Axis setup is becoming pretty refined, which is good. It will cut hours and add effectiveness to all my future Axis 41 starts.

Turning back to this game and Turn 2 plans, my general strategy remains unchanged. If Pskov is heavily defended, AGN will look for a weak flank. AGC may have a bit more trouble dealing with the Bialystok pocket as I didn’t use as many surrounding units this time, but it is solid. Panzers will head east, pushing where they find weakness. AGS is doing fine - panzers should be able to get to Rumania even if GamerDad doesn’t do a full pullback. That was actually a secondary reason for me not to race a panzer into Tarnopol on this first turn - I didn’t manage that in the first v1.11 game so it is fairer for me to do the same thing in our v1.12 match. Turn 2 is mostly consolidating the advance, with some pocketing if Soviets allow opportunities. In my play, I try to concentrate on setting things up so I can manage a big Turn 3 of exploitations and encirclements. Since Rumanian activation was delayed by my choosing a smaller Lvov pocket, it may be Turn 4 for the next big clashes in the Ukraine.

Risks and errors: (self-assessment of Turn1)
- Risk - not taking the last port in Courland (see AGN). My thinking is that the two routed units in the area might rally and make it near or to the port, but they won’t have MP to flee via the Baltic. There’s no HQ to rally them. Three German ID nearby, some/all will take port on T2, surrender stragglers on T3. I think it’ll be better to have an ID doing mopup than have a Motorized take port now, then waste all of turn 2 rejoining the main advance. Will review results after Axis T3 to see if this was a good idea or not.
- Risk - One Motorized rather lonely a bit south of Daugavpils. It’s got supply path both west and south so I don’t think it’ll be isolated, but maybe.
- Risk - FBD1 already on the train, so I’ve committed before seeing what GamerDad does to a major push in the southern Ukraine. I’m not really worried about him trying to stymie that. The Rumanian border is so much further east than the Lvov borders that it practically demands to be the main AGS rail trunk.
- Error - I mishandled advance of 3rd PzG units. They are mixed together, with HQs awkwardly placed and one div is out of command range. I’ll straighten this out during Turn 2. My error means the routed units aren’t as well contained as they should be. ZOC control means they can’t possibly break out, but they’ll get to better holdout positions than I should have allowed them.
- Error/game bug - Unable to swap units to new HQs. Morvael just posted that he isolated this bug and it will be fixed next patch. Not a huge deal, but annoying. It will cause a couple units to be down a few MP. Still a good lesson that I need to reserve a few more AP for some key swaps in AGS, which I normally do last of the three areas.
- Error - forgot to balance recon plane assignments (see above). I think only one group is really overloaded right now.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Shalkai
I have been taking good notes in a separate document about all the reorg and admin I do in first two turns of the 41 campaign. Soviet side of that doc is still pretty sparse, and probably will remain that way until I do a match playing that side. My Axis setup is becoming pretty refined, which is good. It will cut hours and add effectiveness to all my future Axis 41 starts.

One thought - you might want to make those notes as attachments to messages posted here. I can understand not wanting to post them in the main narrative. But I can see many of those who like and want more detailed information on openings in turn 1.12.x really lapping them up. So making them as attachements will provide the detail some want without making the narrative for those who just want to read too heavy.

I can see this turning into a real resource for new players especially though.

[corbon]

Really good job on the AAR so far. Lots of good first turn info, and change info. Thanks.

[corbon]

Really good job on the ARR