Pride goes before a Fall Blau - 42-45 GC AAR

[Tarhunnas]

And here is a shot of the front after the German turn. Most of the surrounded forces have been rescued and the Soviet sperheads isolated in turn, but as can be seen, it proved impossible to break through to relieve the Totenkopf division and the troops defending besieged Makaevka! They have been given orders to hold at all costs!

[Tarhunnas]

Lastly a closeup of the Stalino area and north. The surrounded Totenkopf division to the north and two divisions in Makaevka, including one panzer division!

[Tarhunnas]

Turn 62! I thought it couldn't get much worse than turn 61, but this comes real close! Many divisions cut off! The problem is, if I don't launch relief attacks, they will be lost, but if i do, I set myself up for another encirclement next turn! I want to disengage and move back a couple of hexes, but it is hard without abandoning our encircled comrades!

[Tarhunnas]

Kurs region at end of German turn 62. Again, a brave division has volounteered to a man to defend a surrounded city, in this case a hungarian division defending Kursk! A whole section of Deutsche Wochenschau is devoted to the subject of the brave hungarians!

[Tarhunnas]

Turn 63 is another bad turn for the Wehrmacht. About 15 divisions surrounded and lost!

Turn 64, I pull back along the entire southern front. Not as far as I would like, but I need time to comlete the fortifications along the Dnepr. I have nothing to stop them otherwise. 11th september, much too early for mud, and with the state of my army, I am not sure even mud will stop the Soviet steamroller...

Somebody in Berlin has decided to send us a Ski brigade as a reinforcement! That will sure come in handy for the mud!

Map of sector southwest of Stalino, end of German turn 64.

[Tarhunnas]

The Soviets have finally started moving in the AGC area. I am surprised they haven't tried anything there earlier, the area is completely denuded of anything even remotely resembling reserves. I guess they are short of trucks. A nasty little breakthrough west of Vyazma almost cuts off a couple of German corps. Most can get out, but a couple of divisions will not make it! One will stay in the city, at least they will be harder to smoke out there.

The entire front is starting to come apart. I guess it will only be a couple of turns before a complete rout of the Ostheer.

Edit: As most of my units are now CV 1, this feels almost like playing the Soviets in 1941! I just have to invent some appropriate defensive tactics. The black carpet perhaps...? [;)]

[Q-Ball]

Thanks for being the first to play the 1942 game. Your 1942 campaign was solid, destroying 100+ Rifle Divisions, 12 Armored Corps, and alot of other units. I don't see how you could have done much better, despite the numerous mistakes your opponent made (3-deep stacks....yummy!). Nice job there!

Despite that, you're screwed 1 year later. You might hold out until Mud, but Winter will feature a full-scale retreat back to Germany. Berlin probably will not hold past summer of 1944. The only way to get a break at this point is to probably pull back 3-hexes a turn indefinitely. That will buy you 3 months of rest-refit, but you can't do that forever.

I don't see that there is a big inbalance here in play abilities, if anything, you certainly "Won" 1942. Does anyone think this is a fairly balanced scenario at this point?

[Scook_99]

Your experiences are very much the same as mine. I had 9 divisions attached and parked right next to OKW on refit mode, they were gaining a couple hundred men each turn. I combined many divisions out of necessity just to have some combat strength; a 4 strength infantry division is a treasure. Operationally, I feel the Soviets are a bit overpowered. A German player can easily have a vast majority of his army deemed 'unfit' by the game, too soon. If (big IF) I get more time, I would love to play more of the '42 scenario to clarity more on how the Soviets are too powerful (or the Germans are not powerful enough, hard to pinpoint exactly).

Realistically, yes, the Germans should be getting hammered. Just the pace of the hammering is up-tempo anywhere from, say, 20 to 52 turns.

[Aditia]

Well, judging from what you are going through, in any prolonged campaign it is essential for the germans to make sure they have enough armament points to equip rifle squads. You obviously have the manpower, just not the correct equipment, and your front is shattering because of it. Not sure if this is all as intended

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Thanks for being the first to play the 1942 game. Your 1942 campaign was solid, destroying 100+ Rifle Divisions, 12 Armored Corps, and alot of other units. I don't see how you could have done much better, despite the numerous mistakes your opponent made (3-deep stacks....yummy!). Nice job there!

Despite that, you're screwed 1 year later. You might hold out until Mud, but Winter will feature a full-scale retreat back to Germany. Berlin probably will not hold past summer of 1944. The only way to get a break at this point is to probably pull back 3-hexes a turn indefinitely. That will buy you 3 months of rest-refit, but you can't do that forever.

I don't see that there is a big inbalance here in play abilities, if anything, you certainly "Won" 1942. Does anyone think this is a fairly balanced scenario at this point?

Thanks for the kind words! Though I do not really think in terms of winning and losing. It was fun playing, and I will try to hold out for as long as possible. I will try to refrain from anything like whining here, though I must say I think the scenarios seem to need some adjustment of long term manpower and armaments issues in human vs human play.

[Tarhunnas]

Turn 65. Heavy attacks at Kharkov and Bryansk acheive breakthroughs. I should have moved back more there, but I didn't want to abandon my fortifications, now I am paying for that. A bunch of divisions surrounded in the Kharkov area.

Overview of southern front at start of German turn 65 with attacks marked.

[Tarhunnas]

However, in a heroic counterattack spearheaded by the Grossdeutschland division, our mobile units succed in routing a Soviet mech corps and blasting a three hex wide path so even the infantry can escape the trap at Kharkov! As usual, an Hungarian division volounteer to a man to hold Belgorod and a security division offer the same for Kharkov until our V-weapons are ready and the enemies of the Reich come sueing for peace.

[Tarhunnas]

In the north, we have made preparations to withdraw to a fortified line in the passes between the lakes. However, we cannot execute this withdrawal yet, as that would uncover the left flank of Army Group Center. Eventually though, a withdrawal to this line has the potential to free up several divisions for service elsewhere.

Note also enormous numbers of trucks and ludicrous amounts of AP. If I want, I have the APs to reorganise the entire General Staff just to keep them on edge...[:D]

[Tarhunnas]

Turn 66. Continuing withdrawal of the front. Some unlucky divisions isolated and written off. The Kharkov situations has put us in a somewhat awkward position. This is a map after the German turn.

[Tarhunnas]

Map of entire front after German turn 67. I just looked in a WW2 atlas and discovered that the front is actually well east of where it was at this time historically, despite the sorry state of my army!

[Tarhunnas]

Turn 68, 9th october. Hoping for mud! The Soviets have gotten across the Dnepr in one place, and easily broke through my Ostwall south of Zaporozhye! I had hoped to hold them there until mud...[:(]

[Tarhunnas]

And a tally of losses. Below losses and production on 9th october, as well as the rifle squad count. There is also a tally of losses for both sides since I last posted losses on turn 55 in july. This is clearly headed in the wrong direction. I now take larger losses than the Soviets in men!

[molchomor]

Tarhunnas can you please click that light-blue "Armaments production" text to check that your factories are producing as they should ?

And also please check how much armament the allied axis have (maybe you have given it all away?)

In my '42 game against the AI I am at about the same turn (~63) and I don't have the same problem (from memory I believe both German pools are very low for me but not empty, something like Arm. pool ~5k and manpower pool ~2k. However my losses at about the same turn are much lower, still got some 3.5M Germans (this number is slowly dwindling despite being very careful).

You have more than 1 million disabled right now and probably had even more just after the dreadful winter. Could it be that when those guys trickle back they effectively consume armament points once more which could cause the problem ?

One last thing, perhaps it possible to increase armaments by capturing cities? (it was in SF/WiR), but perhaps this incentive for attacking cities was removed in WiTE.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: molchomor

Tarhunnas can you please click that light-blue "Armaments production" text to check that your factories are producing as they should ?

And also please check how much armament the allied axis have (maybe you have given it all away?)

Sure, here it is. I don't know what the number 145 means though, if that is good or bad.

There is 500 armaments in the polish pool (whatever it's doing there, is that the home army producing? [;)]) and 10000 in the italian pool, but that's all. It is only supposed to give armaments away when the German pool is above a certain level I think. The interesting thing is that the majority of manpower that has been produced during the whole game is just sitting around doing nothing!

[Tarhunnas]

Turns 69 and 70, october. Finally mud!

Still have to withdraw about 1-2 hexes every turn in the south. The Soviets can kick me around as they wish even in the mud.

Nothing much interesting to show in a screenshot.