Operation Barbarossa - Alpha AAR

[Great_Ajax]

FYI, I fixed that in the latest '41 campaign update. SS Cavalry Brigade and the 1st SS Motorized Brigade show up in late Summer '41.

Trey

ORIGINAL: elmo3

ORIGINAL: j campbell

Hi Elmo,

Looking through your units I didn't see the SS cavalry brigade anywhere. i noticed a few cavalry brigades in the south porbably Romaninas but didn't see the SS cavalry brigade attached to AGN. Is it attached to one of your Divisions?

cheers,
john

German units are all divisions that can be broken down into regiments. There are no German brigades AFAIK.

[j campbell]

Hi Trey,

Thats great.  far be it from me to be the champion of the SS but when i was looking through the AAR they happen to be the units that stcik out the most.  Just trying to ensure we have the most authenticity in a computerized boardgame we can get.  i play alot of The Gamers OCS games and i really appreciate the effort they and the guys from GMT do to get all the units in and make it playable. 

It really looks fantastic so far on this AAR. 

Furthermore, i now firsthand that Lee is an excellent  wargamer after he spanked me in SSG's Across the dnepr  a few years back.  Anyway, keep rolling eastwards. 


the Russian winters, are they equal from moscow to the ural and westward or do they change dependant upon how far east you are?  ie is there a difference in snow levels-blizzard/hvy snow/regular winter?
thx,
john

[Great_Ajax]

I came on board several months ago and combed through every German air and ground unit that I could find. Now I am retroactively implementing these units in the campaigns. You have to balance adding some of the more insignificant and obscure units as you just can't fit everything in. I think me and Jim Wirth finally are on the same sheet of music on trying to balance historical accuracy with a playable game. Intent is to have every brigade/divisional combat and security unit in the game along with all of your favorite Flak Regiments, Artillery Battalions, Nebelwerfer battalions, Pioneer/Construction Bns, Panzerjager Bns, Stug Bns, etc.

There are weather zones in the game so weather isn't the same throughout the entire theater. You'll see rain in one section and clear in another.

Me and Lee traded shots in Typhoon and he kept my Panzers from the gates of Moscow and my furtherst penetration was like 20 miles south of Moscow.

Trey

ORIGINAL: j campbell

Hi Trey,

Thats great.  far be it from me to be the champion of the SS but when i was looking through the AAR they happen to be the units that stcik out the most.  Just trying to ensure we have the most authenticity in a computerized boardgame we can get.  i play alot of The Gamers OCS games and i really appreciate the effort they and the guys from GMT do to get all the units in and make it playable. 

It really looks fantastic so far on this AAR. 

Furthermore, i now firsthand that Lee is an excellent  wargamer after he spanked me in SSG's Across the dnepr  a few years back.  Anyway, keep rolling eastwards. 


the Russian winters, are they equal from moscow to the ural and westward or do they change dependant upon how far east you are?  ie is there a difference in snow levels-blizzard/hvy snow/regular winter?
thx,
john

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Von Hindenburg

Thanks for the AAR - the time is appreciated.

Could you comment on the reserve and security divisions?

Can you stack the airbases and have an uber base?

And what about the TOE being above 100% for certain items?

How does the handling of generals work? And down to what level?

Not sure what you want to know about security divisions. You can designate reserves and those units may participate in defense of another unit if they are close enough and they pass some initiative checks.

You can stack up to 3 airbases just like any other units.

Yes TOE can go above 100%.

Generals are in the game for Corps and above. They can be promoted or sacked depending on performance. You can use you admin points to replace a leader.

[critter]

Great AAR.
It's kinda shocking to see that over 1/3 of the 17 Pz div's tanks are Pz 1's and 2's. I think allot of people forget that when debating why Moscow held out.
Out of fuel and half fatigued, a long way to go and the Gen. Mud clock ticking...Good stuff.
Thanks again for your hard work....

[paullus99]

Wasn't 17th one of those hybrid cavalry-motorized divisions that was hastily upgraded to a Panzer Division right before the offensive? Yeah, the Germans were definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel to provide all of AFVs they could at the time.

[Iron Duke]

ORIGINAL: el hefe

'Intent is to have every brigade/divisional combat and security unit in the game along with all of your favorite Flak Regiments, Artillery Battalions, Nebelwerfer battalions, Pioneer/Construction Bns, Panzerjager Bns, Stug Bns, etc. '

Trey

Couple of questions

do the 'independant' stug Bn's upgrade to brigades if yes do we also see some assault gun brigades upgrade to assault artillery brigades (i.e different TOE's with escort battery of infantry and pioneers) If they become Brigades will they stay 'support' units ?

Will the mid/late war SS units that were formed as legions/Brigades appeared as legions/Brigades and then upgrade later to divisons ?

cheers

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: critter

Great AAR.
It's kinda shocking to see that over 1/3 of the 17 Pz div's tanks are Pz 1's and 2's. I think allot of people forget that when debating why Moscow held out.
Out of fuel and half fatigued, a long way to go and the Gen. Mud clock ticking...Good stuff.
Thanks again for your hard work....

You're welcome. I'm playing with random weather so mud could come at any time, but hopefully not for a while. One of the testers mentioned my pull back from in front of Smolensk was probably not a good idea. Seeing how hard it has been to get my planned envelopment going I might to agree. Then again, against a good player, leaving a couple of units overly exposed like that would have been a bad idea too.

[cantona2]

Looking forward to see how the AI handles the counter offensive.

[Platypus]

Terrific AAR -- are you getting any sleep at all Elmo??[8|]

The attention to detail is very much appreciated....great reading.

On another note....has anyone been tasked with running an AAR from the human Soviet perspective?

By this I mean testing the GER ATK under the command of the AI?

I reckon that this would also have the desired effect of rivetting people to their monitors...

cheers

[elmo3]

We're making progress with AGN.  Up north the two corps from 18th Army (purple) are fighting through rough country and slowly pushing back the defenders without the benefit or air support.  The 4th Pz Grp (red) is slicing straight through the lines in the hopes of forcing a general retreat but the AI is holding the flanks.  The 16th Army (pink) is having no trouble so far holding the right flank and staying linked up to AGC off the bottom of the screen shot.

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Platypus

Terrific AAR -- are you getting any sleep at all Elmo??[8|]

The attention to detail is very much appreciated....great reading.

On another note....has anyone been tasked with running an AAR from the human Soviet perspective?

By this I mean testing the GER ATK under the command of the AI?

I reckon that this would also have the desired effect of rivetting people to their monitors...

cheers

As long as I get my afternoon nap I'm fine. [:)] Can't recall if anyone is testing the German AI right now. As with most games the AI on attack usually needs more work than when defending so it may not be ready yet.

The rest of turn 6 will be coming later today.

[Great_Ajax]

Yes, the Stug battalions automatically upgrade to brigades with infantry and pioneer support. There are even two different Stug Brigade versions - one with and one without StuH 42s. They remain off-map as support to attach to units. The SS Motorized Brigades can also automatically upgrade to divisions but the naming conventions make that difficult because the game won't change the name of a unit when it upgrades as the new divisions keeps the previous units designator. For example, the 3rd SS Motorized Brigade will upgrade to become the 3rd SS Grenadier Division in game. It doesn't work so what I have to do is withdraw the SS Brigade and put in an arrival date for the division that upgraded in its place.

Trey

ORIGINAL: Iron Duke

ORIGINAL: el hefe

'Intent is to have every brigade/divisional combat and security unit in the game along with all of your favorite Flak Regiments, Artillery Battalions, Nebelwerfer battalions, Pioneer/Construction Bns, Panzerjager Bns, Stug Bns, etc.

Trey

Couple of questions

do the 'independant' stug Bn's upgrade to brigades if yes do we also see some assault gun brigades upgrade to assault artillery brigades (i.e different TOE's with escort battery of infantry and pioneers) If they become Brigades will they stay 'support' units ?

Will the mid/late war SS units that were formed as legions/Brigades appeared as legions/Brigades and then upgrade later to divisons ?

cheers

[elmo3]

For those of you wondering what I'm up against with the AI, here is the screen showing the various values for Challenging.  In a normal game all these numbers would be 100.  You can adjust the numbers as you want but I took the defaults.  Right now I would say the Soviets are significantly stronger than they were historically.  In my next test I'd probably leave the Germans at 100 and maybe make the Soviet numbers 110 or 115.  With the current settings there is little doubt about the outcome of this game if it went the distance.  Pretty sure I could change the numbers on the fly but will leave them as is for testing purposes. Sorry, the blue is hard to read with the low quality of the screen shot. It says Challenging inside the white box.

[Balou]

Am I right those are airfields east of Novgorod ? Would be interesting to know how the frontline looks from the AI's viewpoint in case he's doing air recon. I'm asking because your frontline has lots of gaps. Not afraid of a push against your supply lines ?

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Balou

Am I right those are airfields east of Novgorod ? Would be interesting to know how the frontline looks from the AI's viewpoint in case he's doing air recon. I'm asking because your frontline has lots of gaps. Not afraid of a push against your supply lines ?

Yes those are airbases. The AI could cut off some of my panzers northeast of Pskov. I don't want to break down too many units into regiments to close the gaps right now as there is a bug preventing recombining them so we'll make do with what we have and hope for the best.

[elmo3]

We made a bold move in the center with 3rd Pz Grp (light green) punching all the way through to seize Vitebsk.  Meanwhile 2nd Pz Grp (light blue) widened it's bridgehead over the Dnepr south of Mogilev.  9th Army (dark green) kept up the pressure between the two Pz Grps while 4th Army (dark blue) continued to slog through the swamp.  2nd Army (light blue) will help 2nd Pz Grp with expanding it's bridgehead even further.

[j campbell]

hi trey,

is the French AVF regiment included? I realise we are talking divisional level but that would be some nice chrome. Plus they come in summer 41' so they would be able to participate in the offensive

cheers,
john

[elmo3]

We also made a bold move in the south with elements of 1st Pz Grp slashing straight for Zhitomir and 13th Pz Div capturing it.  Next stop Kiev!  [;)]

[elmo3]

On the Rumanian front we made some progress but Odessa is heavily defended so we'll have to surround it before attacking.  The Rumanian air force was very uncooperative this turn and there is some discussion in the tester forums about this.  There could be an issue with how the program picks the form up airbase.  We'll press ahead with or without them.