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

[seille]

Starting with the next turn i´ll not longer show EVERY battle in detail.
Only where the battle was and a grand overview of the losses.
For very important fights i´ll go into detail.
I hope George will do the same to reduce the amount of work per turn a bit.

[george1972]

Turn 14: March 9, 1942

When viewing the overview screen, I get this tingling feeling in my neck, telling me I might screwed up last turn.

[george1972]

The Northern half of the front shows some progress in Finland, great progress in the Baltic and virtually no progress in the Center. But AG North was still not receiving any additional reinforcements as I was busy rebuilding the Luftwaffe.

Leningrad was vulnerable now, but still a long distance away. The real problem was the massive Red Army Group in the Center, but I didn't feel I was able to push them away. Not until the coming summer offensive at least...

[george1972]

In the Ukraine things are different. The Shock armies were now close to my lines and within range of my air and artillery. It was time to set up the trap I planned so I launched some attacks and maneuvered my outflanking forces further into their side. If next turn would give me good weather and Seille would not retreat too far back, I might just be able to pull of a stunt here.

The Romanians boldness last turn however is gonna cost me. They have to retreat headlong towards the Dniepr, pursued by hordes of Russian infantry supported by tanks and dive-bombers. If they cannot hold them off, I'm in trouble.

[seille]

turn 14 Russia

First we start as usual with the production and the terrible losses my forces took.
Most of them i lost in the south.

[seille]

The overview over the situation.
After the success during the winter my forces are now back in reality....
Actually we have only one plus, our center fighters. But the germans are on a good way
to egalize the disadvantage. I need to keep the air superiority there ! This is a must !!
My only chance to do some damage yet and forcing the german player to send most
of his reenforcement to the center. That will take some pressure from the other fronts.
That´s the plan.....

[seille]

The center battles in detail.
Overall i destroyed about 100 infantry, 3 artillery and 4 armor.
Lost about 30 infantry and 4 planes.

Not enough damage....

[O.O. Howard]

Sielle and George1972,
 
Every morning, before reading the news of the day, I check to see what happened here first. Yeah, this AAR is most interesting!
 
 

[george1972]

Turn 15 - March 29, 1942

In late March, the sun suddenly makes its appearance and the ground turns firm again. The replay showed a lot of Russian units appearing on the map, especially in the South. I cannot see the strength of most of them, but just their presence on the map is intimidating.

First, my production:

[george1972]

This turn sees the continuation of my offensive, but at great cost. Although the Wehrmacht inflicts a lot of casualties, it doesn't come out of these battles unscathed. Was I a bit premature to start attacking the Red Army on all fronts at this stage? Should I have waited until the Summer Offensive? I'm not sure. At least I inflicted greater losses than I took, which meant the Red Army could only grow at a slow pace.

Seille's forces where still lacking in supporting weaponry, most of all artillery, which meant that his great mass of infantry was not really able to engage dug in enemies. If I had let the pressure off, he might have rebuilt his artillery arm and gone over to a more offensive posture.

This turn also saw the introduction of a new tactic I tried out. Just before Winter came, I got an R&D breakthrough which I spent almost fully on fortifications. Since I didn't have enough to make a useful upgrade, I saved the rest of it. This allowed me to build fortifications in the Center to lessen the impact of Seille's massive air attacks.

The other use I found for fortifications was in support of mobile forces. As can be seen later on in the Ukraine, I have fewer but stronger units, while Seille prefers more numerous but weaker units. This way he can converge on my strong units if they try to punch through his lines and it more or less forces me to either encircle his units and destroy them before they get dangerous (I hardly ever pulled this off in this match) or let the front coalesce into a linear configuration which would degenerate into a slugging match. Obviously, this last option was undesirable from my point of view.

I came up with the idea of having my engineers move with the most vulnerable forward units and create fortifications for those units at their ending positions. Usually the engineers would be mobile enough to withdraw again after building them. The front-line unit would still be susceptible to concentric counter-attack, but since Seille had little or no artillery in the Ukraine, they would have to storm the fortifications. Even if they succeeded, Russian losses would be much higher. In this way I discouraged counter-attacks, while obtaining spring-boards for the continuation of the offensive in the following turn.

Of course, this tactic requires a lot of PP, and I think I easily spent over 60 PP building fortifications in this match, which could have been used elsewhere. But since I had a production disadvantage, preserving my strength while exacting the highest possible toll on the enemy seemed like a smart move.

The following shot shows the location of newly built fortifications.

[george1972]

In the North, all eyes are fixed on Leningrad. In the Center, the stalemate continues, each of us picking of a single unit or so per turn...

[george1972]

In the South, Seille has retreated in front of AG South but is moving towards Dnepropetrovsk in force and I'm running out of units in that sector.

Some attacks were successful, but I also took the liberty of taking Kharkov again (2nd time already), but that attack cost me more casualties than the Russians. But still, less production for Russia is a good thing, right?

[seille]

Russian turn 15

The production:

[seille]

The overall situation:

Leningrad is very critical.
The center is stable yet (we have the air superiority)
and the south is mixed.

[seille]

The Leningrad and Center battle reports:

[Manus von Olie]

I came up with the idea of having my engineers move with the most vulnerable forward units and create fortifications for those units at their ending positions. Usually the engineers would be mobile enough to withdraw again after building them. The front-line unit would still be susceptible to concentric counter-attack. ... In this way I discouraged counter-attacks, while obtaining spring-boards for the continuation of the offensive in the following turn.

This is also a standard defensive tactic key point: building a fortification right away 'under' vulnerable spearheads!

[george1972]

Turn 16 - April 18, 1942

After last turn I thought I had most areas under control, but the losses overview for this turn look catastrophic. My leading edge is melting away as fast as snow melts in the sun. The hit to my air force is the biggest one since the "Winter Mistake".

At the start of my turn my situation looked as follows:

• The Finns were pretty battered by the latest attacks and would soon have to retreat (again).
• AG North had not taken a hit since the end of winter and was in pretty good shape. But it had also not gotten any reinforcements since the winter.
• AG Center just lost its air cover. Offensive operations here were out of the questions until the summer.
• AG South took a beating to one of its units on its left flank. Looking at the opposition, a stalemate is developing here.
• AG Romania is being cut to pieces on the Dniepr. Major reinforcements are being sent that way.

The screenshot shows my production, kills and losses...

[george1972]

In the North I suddenly see an opening. Leningrad itself is not heavily defended, so I attempt to take the city with Finnish forces which to my surprise succeeds. AG North closes the gap with the remainder of the Leningrad Front troops and it turns out it still is stronger than its enemy.

However... was Leningrad a trap for my forces or a genuine mistake? Nevertheless, even if I lose Leningrad the next turn, Seille needs at least 2 turns to rebuild it. That means his production takes a hit of at least 10 000 PP in the coming turns. I should be able to benefit from that.

[george1972]

The Southern half of the front sees a lot of action. AG South throws back its opponent's left flank with heavy losses, while withdrawing its own left flank. The Romanians withdraw behind the Dniepr and start receiving large amounts of reinforcements.

The situation here is tense. If Seille would push aggressively towards Kiev with his Shock Armies and transfer his big Fighter group from the Center to Kursk to support it, I think he could outmaneuver AG South or at least deal out some heavy damage before the German bonus turns start. This was my biggest worry at the time.

On the other hand, I find these "mobile battles" the most fun to play, so I was thoroughly enjoying myself at this point in the game [:D]

[Vic]

Guys,
 
you should really consider sending in this AAR to the Wargamer.com
 
epic stuff. (and i have a feeling it aint finished yet)
 
kind regards,
Vic