1943 Bob vs. Don AAR

[Zovs]

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening,

This 1943 PBEM pits Bob Malin (Axis) vs. Don Lazov (Soviets) in the classic mid-war struggle.

Not sure if Bob created any first turn screen shots from his side, but I created a set from the Soviet, note that going forward the Peoples Protectorate will censor certain documents and map images to protect against the Axis Invader's propaganda and lies.

Not surprisingly the Axis did not attempt their ill fated offensive this summer, some of our intelligentsia reports stated that the German preparations in and around the Kursk salient could lead to that possibility, but we have reacted in kind and found that the Axis Invaders did not attempt such foolishness this week. Never-the-less our glorious Red Air Force conducted many bombings of the Axis invaders from the north to the south to show our superiority over the treacherous Axis invaders of the Leader Malin.

The evil Axis invaders suffered mighty under our bombs and their is a tension in the air as our mighty Red Army prepares for it's summer operations against the hated Axis invaders.

Some basic images at the end of turn one, not much happening yet, but to those that have not yet seen the game (well I guess most of you) this is no surprise or nothing secret but mainly just the starting positions.

Maxed zoomed out in the northern sector


Maxed zoomed out in the southern sector


Maxed zoomed out area in the Kuban sector


Zoomed out in the Leningrad/Volkov Front sector


Zoomed out in the Northwestern/Kalinin/Western Front sector


Zoomed out in the Western/Bryansk/Central/Voronezh Front sector


Zoomed out in the Central/Voronezh/Southwestern Front sector


Zoomed out in the Voronezh/Southwestern/Southern Front sector


Zoomed out in the North Caucasus Front sector


Air Losses at end of turn 1


Ground losses at end of turn 1


That should give you a small taste and hopefully once things heat up we can post some more images.

[Flaviusx]

It will be interesting to see how a Mansteinesque backhand blow strategy works out here.
 
 

[SGHunt]

Oh, no - another AAR.   And, Flavius, it will be PBEM just for you!  [;)]  This should be great.

"What is the reason that is forcing us to attack this year on Kursk, or even more, on the Eastern Front?"
von Manstein to Hitler before Citadel

So let us see if OKH give Manstein his free hand...

BTW, a couple of Q's:

Are there victory conditions, or victory hexes? 

Is this a 'Kursk scenario' - ie is Bob forced to attack towards Kursk?    Or do both sides have a free hand to do as they will?

[Zovs]

7/11/1943

The Axis conducted a lot of Air Recon this week, and the Axis attacked in the Oranienbaum sector pushing my forces out of the Oranienbaum port and into a small pocket.

This week the glorious Red Army has begun preparations for the coming offensives. Again the Red Air Force pounded the Axis Invaders front lines from north to south. Red Army Forces have begun the process of ejecting the evil Axis invaders lead by Malin out of Russia.

The Bryansk Front commander Maks Reiter has stated that "We have a nice pocket of Germans entrapped in the Orel sector, approximately, 6 panzer divisions and 13 infantry divisions have been pocketed, by our mighty tank and mechanized forces." While in the Voronezh Front sector Nikolai Vatutin commented "We are in the progress of an encirclement of the Axis invaders, right now we almost have completed this encirclement which if successful will entrap 2 panzer, 1 PzG division, 3 SS PzG divisions and 1-3 German infantry divisions." Ivan Konev the leader of the Steppe Front has shuffled his mech and tank forces skillful between both the north and southern section of the battle. Meanwhile this week the North Caucasus Front commanded by Ivan Petrov has begun "Cleaning up the Axis scum." in the Kuban sector.

The following maps have been allowed to be viewed by the People of the great Patriotic struggle.

Encirclement and entrapment at Orel


The battles above shown


Near encirclement near the city of Kharkov


The battles above shown


Ground losses at end of turn 2


Air losses at end of turn 2


Fear not comrades, our great leader comrade Lazov has comrade Zhukov in command and we shall be in Berlin soon.

[kfmiller41]

Am I reading that right, you lost 2100 planes in one turn[X(]. Tell me that FOW

[Zovs]

Am I reading that right, you lost 2100 planes in one turn.

Yes, each turn is a week, the German Air is still superior to most Soviet air craft, Bob did an air sweep on turn one and then I bombed from north to south so the total air losses are a combination of his fighter sweeps and my bombing missions.

Are there victory conditions, or victory hexes?

 

Not sure 100% on this one there are victory conditions and these are also tied to hexes so not sure how to best answer your question, perhaps Joel can do a better job then me.

Is this a 'Kursk scenario' - ie is Bob forced to attack towards Kursk?    Or do both sides have a free hand to do as they will?

This is the 1943 campaign game, and no Bob nor I are forced to attack at all. During his turn one Bob choose not to attack, and neither did I (except for the bombing missions I ran). And yes, both sides have a free hand. Although to give Bob credit I think this is first time through with 1943, while this is at least my 20th game of the late war (all up to this point against the AI in both forms).

[karonagames]

Don's 20 games have obviously allowed him to plan the "perfect" offensive around Orel! When I play the TOAW Kursk scenarios, I usually withdraw from the Orel salient on the first turn, and I wish I had done in this game! The minimum I can hope for is to get the encircled units back into supply. If they start Don's turn isolated they will surrender when attacked, which causes massive losses. Also if I can get them back into supply I can at least pull the attached support units like the Elefants and Panthers out.

Interesting puzzle for me to solve.

[Flaviusx]

I'm a bit surprised the German didn't abandon the Orel salient from the getgo, to be honest. No reason to hold it if he's not doing Citadel, and he could have freed up some reserves and shortened the line by a good hundred miles.
 
He's got some nice counterattack possibilities by Kharkov. But he's also got to try to bust out some of those pockets further north.
 
 
 
 
 
 

[kfmiller41]

That's a nasty offensive, not only did he surround you he did it with about equal losses to your own, that's not good at all[:'(]. Doesn't look like you have much help nearby either.

[Flaviusx]

Well, the panzers themselves inside that Orel pocket can presumably cut their way out. Going to be hard to save the infantry, though.
 
Looks like he has air superiority which helps.
 
 

[PyleDriver]

Well Bob welcome to asskicked 101...lol...Sorry...It may be late for hints...In 43 the Germans must vacate the Orel salent and setup a line at the Bolva River. Shorten your line and set alot, and I mean alot of Armor into reserve to counter his attacks...You did well in the air attacks...It does look like Don has learned this game...

[Great_Ajax]

Heh. Well to be fair, Don is the lead tester on the 1943 scenario. Poor ole Bob may get a pounding.

Trey

ORIGINAL: dlazov66

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening,

This 1943 PBEM pits Bob Malin (Axis) vs. Don Lazov (Soviets) in the classic mid-war struggle.

Not sure if Bob created any first turn screen shots from his side, but I created a set from the Soviet, note that going forward the Peoples Protectorate will censor certain documents and map images to protect against the Axis Invader's propaganda and lies.

Not surprisingly the Axis did not attempt their ill fated offensive this summer, some of our intelligentsia reports stated that the German preparations in and around the Kursk salient could lead to that possibility, but we have reacted in kind and found that the Axis Invaders did not attempt such foolishness this week. Never-the-less our glorious Red Air Force conducted many bombings of the Axis invaders from the north to the south to show our superiority over the treacherous Axis invaders of the Leader Malin.

The evil Axis invaders suffered mighty under our bombs and their is a tension in the air as our mighty Red Army prepares for it's summer operations against the hated Axis invaders.

Some basic images at the end of turn one, not much happening yet, but to those that have not yet seen the game (well I guess most of you) this is no surprise or nothing secret but mainly just the starting positions.

Maxed zoomed out in the northern sector


Maxed zoomed out in the southern sector


Maxed zoomed out area in the Kuban sector


Zoomed out in the Leningrad/Volkov Front sector


Zoomed out in the Northwestern/Kalinin/Western Front sector


Zoomed out in the Western/Bryansk/Central/Voronezh Front sector


Zoomed out in the Central/Voronezh/Southwestern Front sector


Zoomed out in the Voronezh/Southwestern/Southern Front sector


Zoomed out in the North Caucasus Front sector


Air Losses at end of turn 1


Ground losses at end of turn 1


That should give you a small taste and hopefully once things heat up we can post some more images.

[karonagames]

As the junior tester, I suppose it is my job to take one for the team!! Thanks for the belated advice Jon! As I said in my original post, I normal do get out of the Orel salient when playing TOAW, but when I played the AI the fortifications held up for 4 turns. It has obviously been a very expensive lesson to see just what the soviet mechanised forces are capable of when in the hands of a master.

I don't suppose Don will give me a mulligan.

[ComradeP]

Can you really afford 2000 aircraft lost each turn? Even if you can afford the losses themselves, can you afford losing all the experience?

[karonagames]

This is one of the many objectives of our testing - to identify if things get too far out of sync with historical results. I was surprised at the number of aircraft my flyboys had taken out. Their morale is pretty good, and on the first turn they do not suffer from fatigue or loss of readiness so this was their best chance to pass their interception rolls; this will diminish as fatigue and supply shortages kick in, as will the attritional losses - 74 of my planes will be replaced with lower morale and lower experienced pilots.

The most important thing that needs to be fixed is fortifications not stopping double envelopments, and giving me time to identify the enemies' main axis of attack!

[ComradeP]

I was surprised at the number of aircraft my flyboys had taken out.

For clarity's sake, in two weeks you destroyed 3% of all produced IL-2's, 9%(!) of all produced Yak 1's, almost 6% of all Yak 7's, 2% of all produced U-2/Po-2's (keep in mind that this plane was in production for 24 years, I'm not entirely sure how many were in service/produced in WWII but naturally the percentage you've destroyed much is higher than 2% for the period), 2% of all produced Il-4's, over 4% of all produced Pe-2's, 5% of all Soviet lend-lease P-39's.

I'm not sure where those Yak 2's are coming from, the source I have in front of me now indicates that the Yak 2 was produced in very limited numbers (around 100) and most were destroyed in the first few days of Barbarossa. Interestingly, dlazov lost more than were ever produced if the source is correct.

In short: a few more weeks like that and there won't be much left of part of the VVS.

As to German aircraft losses: which units are still using the Henschel 126B's, weren't they phased out in 1942?

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

Can you really afford 2000 aircraft lost each turn? Even if you can afford the losses themselves, can you afford losing all the experience?

nobody can afford that many, but, he can take great losses

what experience ? the experience he gets is the ones who make it back

[karonagames]

Regarding HS128B's, none are being produced, 16 units currently have them, but they are withdrawn gradually, the last scheduled withdrawal is in November 1944. I think El Hefe is the man responsible for the OOB and reinforcement/withdrawal schedules.

[Zovs]

Okay, I did my turn in a hurry and did it pretty sloppy. As for the Mulligan I suppose we could start over. What I am guessing you'll try to do is to pull back in the Orel sector (this is what the AI does) and hide behind that river line. If you feel you really need to start over then I guess we can, this is a test and as longer as the public readers don't mind the shift in gears then that is okay with me.

Okay I know were supposed to not peek but I wanted to look at the total losses from last turn, but man your line is in bad, bad shape. I have trapped 6 panzer and 12 infantry divisions in the Orel sector which you can't extract, you have 2 panzer and 2 pzg and the 3 ss pzg damaged in this area but don't have the strength (spread out) to counter attack. Since your new you should probably start it over and I also sent you an email about support.

As far as air losses goes for the Soviets I am not too concerned over these numbers, it's pretty standard in all my other tests and the air units I get back from production, lend lease or the air game more then compensates for the losses.

7/18/43

This week the Axis the invaders eliminated our forces in the Oranienbaum sector. While our forces that have trapped the Germans have also become temporally trapped. In the Kharkov sector heavy fighting has erupted as the Axis invaders have attempted to counterattack.

Heavy bombing by our glorious Red Air Force and combined Arms attacks have re-trapped all the evil Axis Malin invaders this week. Due to security blackouts no imagines were allowed to be show to the general public.


Here is a couple of screen shots that I did capture.

This one shows the start of Soviet turn 3, Bob did a pretty good job of trying to extract out his units but there were some things he over looked. See if you can spot them, but be gentle Bob is a new tester, and if I were playing you I'd be less forgiving. I turned on 'show me isolated units' (units outlined in red).


And here was my counter to his moves, agian I turned on isolated to show you whom is encircling who, lol. This is from the Germans point of view since I forgot to screen shot it and am giving Bob another chance if he so desires to take it. This is the 6 panzer and 12 infantry divisions that have been trapped and you can see when the Soviets end their turn the bad things that can happen, from my experience his remaining mobile forces have only one shot at freeing up that one pocket the other two pockets are lost, but he does not know if I have anything in reserve to counter this, lol (there is a reserve setting that helps against the other guys attacks, don't know if you ever played that board game Panzerkrieg by Avalon Hill, but it works sort of like that, the units in reserve react to the to opposing sides attacks if they make their morale check and have the mp and range to do so, you can put any type of unit in reserve, such as AT and Artillery (good for the Soviets) and there is a neat trick for the Germans to use but I want to see if Bob figures it out, lol.


Here are the losses at the start of turn 4.

Ground


Air

[PyleDriver]

Give him another shot Don...Be very carefull Bob, Don looks to have become very good...