Russo-German War AAR

[Cpl GAC]

Turn 20 - This one is over

Gerry is down to 19,030 Rifle Squad +LMG and 10,648 Rifle Squad GPMG - both with more Lost than Assigned and 0 On Hand. Tanks; 689 Mark IIIs and 340 Mark IVs. (and 986 Mark IIs ).

In contrast, the Soviets have 35,273 Rifle Squads Assigned with 25,611 On Hand and 17,503 Lost

It's the end of August and Elmer's Panzers are mostly locked up trying to force river crossings and at the outskirts of Kiev. Rzhev is under pressure and may fall but even there I have the 39A, 58A and 59A building and the tank brigades have started to flow.

Start turn 20 view from space.png (2.22 MiB) Viewed 652 times

The Brobruisk offensive will leave a gap in the German lines from Mogilev to the Pripyay River in about three more turns, which would be a strategic issue to say the least if it wasn't playing versus Elmer.

The German 16 Army's breakthrough on the Northwest Front is about out of gas;

start turn 20 Northwest Front.png (2.04 MiB) Viewed 652 times

I'm toying with turn 21 at the moment but it's more out of curiosity and I'm looking at Elmer's current situation from his side - mostly where are the rail lines. I may post a couple of more comments and will gladly answer any questions.

[rhinobones]

Enjoying the AAR, good job. So far, the Axis seems to be putting up a decent fight. Can you tell us the settings for the PO’s Intelligence and Handicap/Cheat?

For scenarios which aren’t specifically designed to be played against the PO, I’ve thought that a Theater Option should be given on Turn 1to boost the PO capabilities. When selected the TO would give the PO a bit more supply, more automatic rail repair, greater supply radius range and a few units which automatically disband to inject replacements into the inventory. Maybe withdraw a formation or two from the player's side. Not a big editing job and I think it would make the PO more competitive.

Regards, RhinoBones

[Cpl GAC]

I play Strong Intelligence and Handicap/Cheat Computer+2.

I’ve thought that a Theater Option should be given on Turn 1to boost the PO capabilities. When selected the TO would give the PO a bit more supply, more automatic rail repair, greater supply radius range and a few units which automatically disband to inject replacements into the inventory. Maybe withdraw a formation or two from the player's side.

Even though this scenario is designed to be played against Elmer Gerry, I agree. Given my limited understanding of scenario design; In addition to the above (well, not that withdrawing my troops idea...) maybe have a TO giving the Panzer regiments and a few infantry divisions designated to be in the Panzer Groups Major Ferry ability in 1941 & 1942 and fold the Panzer division's engineer battalion into the regiments.

Knowing there's no hiding behind the Major Rivers in 1941 would be chaos for the Soviets. But - I'm not sure how good Elmer is at intentionally crossing major rivers not at bridges because he seems to want to cross at the bridges but gets locked up if a strong defense is there. Historically Gerry went around strongly defended positions.

Give the Soviets their full troop count but don't just erase them with shock levels to open the field. Maybe lower their proficiency in 1941 so they also go into reorganization more frequently. Make them erratic, not just eliminated; you have the troops - they just aren't doing what you want fast enough.

[rhinobones]

. . . maybe have a TO giving the Panzer regiments and a few infantry divisions designated to be in the Panzer Groups Major Ferry ability . . .

Although I usually do not design scenarios in the scale of the grand Eastern Front scenarios, some of these thoughts still might apply.

I’ve seen plenty of AARs (and PBM games) where a player uses engineer units as recon or common infantry units; in essence they become expendable since the ability to ford rivers is organic to higher level units. I prefer a scenario design where engineer/ferry units are more valuable for their primary function rather than being used to supplement combat units. My solution is to remove engineer/ferry capability from the higher units and make dedicated engineer/ferry, bridge repair and fortification units. This injects planning deployment of fording assets as part of the river crossing and not as units off doing missions for which they are not designed. Gives engineer/ferry units a purpose while preserving the importance of the major river as an obstacle. It requires an OOB designed with just enough engineering assets that the temptation to use them common infantry is diminished.

Just some thoughts. Regards

[Cpl GAC]

I beefed up supply radius and rail repair as a test with the altered map of less roads.

Also, I tried this trick with the Bautrupp, but as you can see they ended up with zero MPs (and I'm not sure they know to embark themselves?);

no movement.PNG (1.73 MiB) Viewed 513 times

What did I do wrong? Which symbol would you suggest?

I got 5 turns in before I caught it.

Regarding your comment on the separate engineers - I want to see how Elmer Gerry assaults the Dnepr crossings.

Tinkering with cities (another thread) and removing many roads has been interesting. I end up playing the game in one window and keep the editor open in another to fix geography as I find hiccups. It ends up that I create deer trails between some places that no longer have roads; put up a bridge, erase a forest hex, etc. From the Soviet side, rushing to the front has slowed down as you have to find these deer trails or the least forested/swamped/rivered paths forward. Elmer seems to be doing just fine moving Gerry forward in that regard, but I stopped to fix the rail repair units first.

[cathar1244]

Showing "motorized movement" doesn't look correct. That is value "4" in Flag 1 of the equipment definition; the standard value for rail repair there is "2" meaning "moves slowly without transport".

So you can try to give those units some trucks or change their flag 1 in the equipment definition so they can move as infantry at slow speed.

Standard rail repair equipment definition:

<NAME>Rail Repair Crew</NAME>
<COUNTRY>Common equipment</COUNTRY>
<EQUIP1>3</EQUIP1>
<EQUIP2>177</EQUIP2>
<AT>0</AT>
<AP>1</AP>
<AA>1</AA>
<DF>5</DF>
<ARTY_RNG>0</ARTY_RNG>
<EARLY_RNG>0</EARLY_RNG>
<SAM_RNG>0</SAM_RNG>
<NUKE>0</NUKE>
<VOL>999</VOL>
<WEIGHT>0</WEIGHT>
<SHELL_W>0</SHELL_W>
<ARMOR>1</ARMOR>
<DEFENDER>0</DEFENDER>
<FLAG0>0</FLAG0>
<FLAG1>2</FLAG1>
<FLAG2>0</FLAG2>
<FLAG3>0</FLAG3>
<FLAG4>0</FLAG4>
<FLAG5>1</FLAG5>
<FLAG6>32</FLAG6>
<FLAG7>12</FLAG7>

Not sure why they're given an AA rating of "1" since their antipersonnel value indicates very little infantry armament.

[Cpl GAC]

Yuck - I cannot find which equipment file it is reading from. I opened a few other scenarios and most are showing "Foot Movement" and movement points for the rail troops.

The eqp file in the scenario's graphics overide reads "<FLAG1>2</FLAG1>".

Here's the odd thing; Directive 21 - which I've never played(!) - has the same issue - no movement points and showing "Motorized Movement".

No Idea what I hath wrought. I think I'm better off 1st deleting and re-adding the formation rather than reloading the scenario as I have major map changes and some re-assigning of color IDs.

This is the un-fun part.

[rhinobones]

Is there any chance that adding Rail Transport as the secondary icon corrupted the equipment or game file? I did a little test and received an error message that rail transportation was not a compatible secondary equipment.

Regards

[Cpl GAC]

I bet that's it. I read this in the instructions after the fact at the very end of 16.1 regarding symbols with the Embarked symbol; Embarked unit: These symbols are used to mark units currently Embarked (not available in the Editor).

"currently Embarked" being the key warning phrase.

I may have gotten the same error message but I don't remember. I might have blown past it thinking it was that different Equipment File notice that pops up that I pay little attention to.

[voroshilov17]

Thanks a lot! I understand that on the Excel you are moving manually the Army IDs rather than automatically using a script to read the HQ position of each Army to be mapped on the Excel map. It is fine. I like white/light color map background, looks like boardgame

How could this be done? I tried reading the .sal file (also the converted .sce file) and I could not find any information about the location of the counters.

Anyone has any idea about how to read and extract information of the game from .sal files? The info I could retrieve is about units battles and scenario information

[Cpl GAC]

Voroshilov - the comment is about creating/using a separate map for planning - not anything in the game program.

I paste a downloaded scenario map image onto a spreadsheet background and place draggable images on that sheet. The images are formations - Army numbers and panzer corps numbers in this thread's example.

[voroshilov17]

Thanks for replying¡
I was just referring to what fulcrum28 had said, that it would be interesting and quite useful to be able to get that information automatically.

By the way, the way you have to track your formations and units throughout the game is very interesting.
But you only track their ORBAT and geographical position, rigor? I don't see that you track the health (quality, strength, health value…etc) of the units. And yet I think that would be quite interesting and useful also to make operational decisions. Sharp do you thinkpad¿

[Cpl GAC]

The map is more for a summary overview than details, and I play using 2 monitors. Particularly in the first few hectic Soviet months when units are arriving from all over the map; "This division just arrived in Astrakhan...now where is the 18th Army assembling again... there it is. Head the train to Vinnitsa."

Also, regarding overall health, I shrink the size of the image if it's either acting as an assembly point marker or has been reduced to a handful of spent units.

The map is an overview planning tool. It's not for formation and hexes held detail

[Cpl GAC]

Is there any chance that adding Rail Transport as the secondary icon corrupted the equipment or game file? I did a little test and received an error message that rail transportation was not a compatible secondary equipment.

Regards

So, I found this little devil in the EQP file that I think was screwing up the actual Rail Repair Crew ITEM_65
<ITEM_1251>
<NAME>Rail Repair Crew -RR</NAME>
<COUNTRY>Common equipment</COUNTRY>
<EQUIP1>3</EQUIP1>
<EQUIP2>177</EQUIP2>
<AT>0</AT>
<AP>1</AP>
<AA>1</AA>
<DF>5</DF>
<ARTY_RNG>0</ARTY_RNG>
<EARLY_RNG>0</EARLY_RNG>
<SAM_RNG>0</SAM_RNG>
<NUKE>0</NUKE>
<VOL>999</VOL>
<WEIGHT>0</WEIGHT>
<SHELL_W>0</SHELL_W>
<ARMOR>1</ARMOR>
<DEFENDER>0</DEFENDER>
<FLAG0>0</FLAG0>
<FLAG1>0</FLAG1>
<FLAG2>0</FLAG2>
<FLAG3>16</FLAG3>
<FLAG4>0</FLAG4>
<FLAG5>0</FLAG5>
<FLAG6>0</FLAG6>
<FLAG7>4</FLAG7>
</ITEM_1251>

I gave it the same FLAG #s as ITEM_65 and assigned it to Egypt as the country in a belt-and-suspenders safety precaution (knowing there would never be Egyptian units in a Soviet WW2 game).

The Rail Repair Crew are back to normal.