Making History III: fiva55 vs Sillyflower

[fiva55]

End of Turn 5, July 17 1941
Central Sector
Clear Weather

An expected breakthrough near Velikie Luki, which could have been completely cut off if the calvary division I left behind had refit. As it is, only the lead motorized division is surrounded by 29th Army, forcing the Germans to send more units that direction to relief it.

[fiva55]

End of Turn 5, July 17 1941
Southern Sector
Clear Weather

A counter attack briefly opens a supply route to some isolated units. Southwestern Front and Southern Front remain in place, though some divisions have been moved to put more units between 1st Panzer Group and Cherkassy. As it is, the Germans can still move either north, directly east or south, forcing me to somewhat evenly distribute my forces.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm really impressed with your "remaking history" style my friend.  It's a winner.  I love it.  Mind if I borrow some of your style to do my AAR's?  Details and pictures to go with the words has revealed your situation with clarity unmatched.  Keep up the good work.  This AAR should be required reading by Soviet WITE players.  

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: fiva55
1 armaments point has been evacuated from Mogilev.

Why did you evacuate only 1 Armaments point from Mogilev? Ran out of rail cap.?

[fiva55]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: fiva55
1 armaments point has been evacuated from Mogilev.

Why did you evacuate only 1 Armaments point from Mogilev? Ran out of rail cap.?

I did ran out of rail cap. As I mentioned before, the first four turns, I prefer to rail in troops before evacuating factories, allowing me to form reasonably strong and dug in defence lines that will buy more time, thus hopefully allowing me to evacuate the cities with large numbers of industry at leisure in the later turns.

In hindsight, in this instance I could have evacuated Mogilev first and that move in troops, still ensuring that I have reasonably strong lines. Still, I stuck to my original gameplan, resulting in the lose of a few armaments points, but the next few turns will show us if it was worth it.

As for borrowing my style for your AAR, go ahead, I know I borrowed enough of other AAR writers.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: fiva55

End of Turn 5, July 17 1941
Southern Sector
Clear Weather

A counter attack briefly opens a supply route to some isolated units. Southwestern Front and Southern Front remain in place, though some divisions have been moved to put more units between 1st Panzer Group and Cherkassy. As it is, the Germans can still move either north, directly east or south, forcing me to somewhat evenly distribute my forces.

Excellent excellent excellent [:)]

This is what I will be doing when I'll be starting another PBEM game (as a Soviet, of course!).

When Sabre told me successive lines were the way to go (as opposed to er... funny carpets) I obviously believed him.

Now I can see these successive lines in action in 1941. Excellent as a learning tool [:)]

[bigbaba]

amazing defeisive work. espacialy the attack at pskov which ruined a complete german panzerkorps! getting 190.000 men and 3100 guns together in a concentrated attack in the 2nd week is impressive.

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: fiva55

Turn 4, July 10 1941
Northern Sector
Clear Weather

Not entirely unexpected, Sillyflower managed to establish a bridgehead across the Velikay, just north of Pskov.
Possession of that hex allows easy access to a row of unfortified clear hexes, greatly jeopardizing my forward
defence, especially since the Luga line has yet to be completely fortified.

Thus, I had the option to either pull back Northwest Front (Zhukov), or try to launch a counter-attack. Naturally,
I chose to attack:

Although that counterattack was an excellent job, it shows it is to "easy" to brush aside axis tanks with soviet infantry this early in the game..

[randallw]

Perhaps this is just a result of game mechanics.  When a unit retreats all the pieces of it retreat, though perhaps in real life the elements would not move at just a single time.

Did the battle occur with 200-ish German tank crews saying "Ahhhhhh too many ants!" so they retreated in flight?  Maybe not, but those infantry and artillery units too enough hits that they didn't hold their ground, then the tanks wouldn't necessarily want to stay on their lonesome, so they would hang around long enough for the infantry and artillery to get some spacing on the attackers, buying time for the rest of the division.  Or maybe none of this makes sense, who knows. [:D]

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: randallw

Perhaps this is just a result of game mechanics.  When a unit retreats all the pieces of it retreat, though perhaps in real life the elements would not move at just a single time.

Did the battle occur with 200-ish German tank crews saying "Ahhhhhh too many ants!" so they retreated in flight?  Maybe not, but those infantry and artillery units too enough hits that they didn't hold their ground, then the tanks wouldn't necessarily want to stay on their lonesome, so they would hang around long enough for the infantry and artillery to get some spacing on the attackers, buying time for the rest of the division.  Or maybe none of this makes sense, who knows. [:D]

It is a result of gamemechanics. It is just adding up that wins the day. Make sure the odds (numbers translating into combat value) are big enough and no matter the skill of defending troops the attacker simply overwhelms by numbers... Losses after combat are maybe 3-4% for the germans (the rest being retreat attrition).. No way they would abandon that bridgehead...

The annoying part is that the axis player lost 50% of his tanks for those two PZ divisions...

He did, however, move his troops into a unfavourable position.. Clear hex, 4 hex sides controlled by russians with a ton of rifle divisions in striking range? Ouch.. Perhaps having a division west of the Pskov hex in reserve mode could have helped..

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: randallw

Perhaps this is just a result of game mechanics.  When a unit retreats all the pieces of it retreat, though perhaps in real life the elements would not move at just a single time.

Did the battle occur with 200-ish German tank crews saying "Ahhhhhh too many ants!" so they retreated in flight?  Maybe not, but those infantry and artillery units too enough hits that they didn't hold their ground, then the tanks wouldn't necessarily want to stay on their lonesome, so they would hang around long enough for the infantry and artillery to get some spacing on the attackers, buying time for the rest of the division.  Or maybe none of this makes sense, who knows. [:D]

Not really. Probably most of those 200 "tanks" were Pz II and early Pz III models, being peppered from sides and front with ATR's as they become engulfed by a mass of Soviet infantry[:)]. And I'm sure not even half of them were destroyed. More like many of them are damaged and will be back in the pool in a couple turns.

[fiva55]

Begin of turn 6, July 24 1941
Southern Sector
Clear Weather

I usually don't bother with begin of turns screen shot these days, but I thought this was a worthy one:

An heavily reinforced 1st Panzer group makes a clean breakthrough towards Cherkassy, though luckily fail to cross the Dnepr.

[fiva55]

End of turn 6, July 24 1941
Northern Sector
Clear Weather

The Luga line is nearing it's completion. 27th Army and 24th Army will remain in a forward positions for one more turn, before being repositioned to build fall back lines for the Luga line. 11th Army an 8th Army remain in place to guard the the flank against a possible right hook.

23rd army (Northern Front) is still being build up, most likely it will be used to fortify the city itself. 7th Independent army (Northern Front) is still fighting up north. With just 2 rifle divisions and 3 security divisions, it is doing an admirable job delaying the Fins.

[fiva55]

End of turn 6, July 24 1941
Central Sector
Clear Weather

With the bulk of the German armor in this sector located near Velikie Luki, the weight of my defence has shifted accordingly. 29th Army (Reserve Front) forms the main line of defense, and managed to make some successful counterattacks against the German mobile units.

Meanwhile, large parts of 22nd Army (Reserve Front) have been isolated behind enemy lines. Suspiciously so, because most of those divisions got there after "routing" westwards instead of eastwards. Rather than risk more troops rescuing those unreliable troops, the divisions have been detached from 22nd Army HQ and have been ordered to run havoc in the German rear area.

[fiva55]

End of turn 6, July 24 1941
Southern Sector
Clear Weather

With a thrust towards Kiev unlikely, parts of Southwestern Front have been shifted south-east. 5th and 26th Army now cover the river banks, while 12th Army forms the final line of the defence of D and Z town.

Meanwhile, 38th Army (Kharkov MD) has been positioned to halt any advance towards Poltava.

The armies of Southern Front (9th, 19th, 18th, 21st) are positioned in such a way to prevent 1st Panzer group from either directly advancing to D-town, or reaching Z-town through Krivoi Rog.

[fiva55]

End of turn 7, July 31 1941
Northern Sector
Clear Weather

The Germans have finally reached the Luga line. Seeing the concentration of force arrayed in front of my lines, I must admit that I am not sure whether I can prevent AGN from capturing Leningrad. Still, the die has been cast. Although common sense says I should evacuate all industry (only the KV1 factories have been evacuated so far) and redeploy my forces for better use in the center and south, I intend to slug it out with AGN.

In order to replace all the losses I am certain to suffer, north has been prioritized in getting replacements, while center and south will start pulling back in order to minimize losses.

[fiva55]

End of turn 7, July 31 1941
Central Sector
Clear Weather

Having learned the hard lessons to minimize contact with German infantry when mobile units are just behind them, Reserve Front and Western Front have started pulling back. With 4 lines between the German spearhead and Moscow, I am sure the capital will live another day.

[fiva55]

End of turn 7, July 31 1941
Southern Sector
Clear Weather

Southwestern Front guards the Dnepr, with 5th Army positioned to counterattack any German bridgehead. Meanwhile, Southern Front slowly pulls back towards the Crimea. I had several opportunities to attack the German spearheads, but for now I will favour retreating in good order.

Edit: Is it necessary to evacuate all the t34 factories in Kharkov, or is a certain amount sufficient?

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: fiva55

Edit: Is it necessary to evacuate all the t34 factories in Kharkov, or is a certain amount sufficient?

The more T-34's the better. I usually evacuate as much as railcap allows. I don't know what would be the minimum number to evacuate to reach historical production in January 1942.

PS: Let me remind you that as soon as Kiev falls, the Kharkov MD will disband leaving any unit you have attached to it under the STAVKA.

[fiva55]

Soviet OOB
Men: 4.191.828
Guns: 42.488
Tanks: 5.251
Air: 5.677

Northern Sector
Northern Front: 603.347 men 5.854 guns
Northwest Front: 532.259 men 5.593 guns

Total: 1.135.606 men, 27% of total OOB

Central Sector
Reserve Front: 317.867 men 3.594 guns
Western Front: 495.478 men 5.537 guns
Bryansk Front: 133.652 men 1.346 guns

Total: 946.997 men, 23% of total OOB


Southern Sector
Southern Front: 557.012 men 6.119 guns
Southwestern Front: 640.166 6.426 guns
Southern Ural MD: 133.239 men 1095 guns

Total: 1.350.417 men, 32% of total OOB