Helio's Axis AAR (v Cannonfodder Soviet)

[heliodorus04]

Alright, well none of you armchair generals had any advice for me. I had two main problems to try to solve this turn, both involving HQ buildup range for motor elements.
Starting with AGN at turn's end:

[heliodorus04]

Not much going on. 39 Panzer simply displaced the bad guys around Pskov. There wasn’t enough movement to go around the swamp.

If I have not already mentioned it before, chief among my early game plans is to hit the Soviet divisions and cause morale loss. Flavius keeps alluding to how well James (JamiAm?) is doing by engaging in a ton of combats, causing a ton of retreat casualties, and ensuring morale is low for divisions on future turns. I’ve actually played an AI game this way (I think – not sure how closely matched my tactics were). The theory (at least in my mind, since I can’t talk to anyone directly from the beta-game Flavius is in) is that if you keep a unit’s morale low, he’s going to keep routing, and resistance will be crumbling by the time you reach the Turn 14 supply-distance wall.

We’ll see how it works in the long run, but for now, while I haven’t done a lot of combats (if you exclude the isolated pockets) yet, but I’m happy to say that I haven’t had but perhaps 5 Held results (only 1 this turn, and that at Lvov).

41 Panzer returned to Pskov, and the Talinn area will be cleared by the SS next turn. 1 Corps will be at Pskov next turn. Hopefully both 39 and 41 panzer will be eligible for buildup next turn (you may hear screaming from your computer next turn if I got it wrong).

[heliodorus04]

Army Group Center is presented without fanfare.

[heliodorus04]

You can't see the poor movement allowances. I believe in setting realistic goals as much as possible (I’m easily demoralized). As you recall from earlier, I just wanted to prepare the area around Mogilev for a crossing. The two divisions are simply ‘bonus’ since they were positioned poorly (he must’ve wanted me to have them). Infantry progress is making very happy, but next turn we’ll close and probably be unable to make any attacks across.

46 Panzer Corps is basically where 4.Army’s advance ends on Turn 1 (so 8-10 hexes NE of Brest-Litovsk). Next turn I think you’ll see them reach this area – they should have great fuel resources.

[heliodorus04]

Army Group South

[heliodorus04]

So if you’re reading this, I’d ask you to be gentle with criticisms of my play (I’m easily demoralized!).

I had a damn problem this turn here, and that is my Rail Choice 1 line. I have 2 FBDs down in that corner of the mountains. He has pretty strong units down there, and while I saw a method of getting down there (crossing 2 hexes NW of Vinnitsa) when I got to that corner unit, it turned out to be detected (level 7) with 22 defense CV and that plan was over. I had felt I could encircle 8 divisions in there, but that anchor on the corner made me drive toward Kiev instead. I did some conversion to the SE of Vinnitsa to threaten. I at least need him to move out of there, and I’m sure he will.

I do not know if I’m in range for buildup next turn, but if I am not, next turn I will fix my positions so that Turn 5 can be build-up turn. I’m relatively sure I got it right with what I did cutting the travel distance from Romania to Proskurov. If he were to put some ZOCs on the edge there, he could actually prevent me from using Buildup, I’m pretty sure.

Also, I decided to try something different: given how great leadership is in 1 Panzer Group, I attached the 4 divisions at the edge of the Kiev area into 1 Panzer Group directly (and flew fuel to the HQ). The idea is that next turn, these guys will have more fuel than if they were serving under lesser leaders. They’ll run around attacking peripheral units, with the goal of reaching the end of the turn back under one of the panzer corps that can use HQ buildup.

Meanwhile, since 14 Panzer Corps is rather poorly lead, this move freed it from subordinates, and I raced it down to 11.Army area in case next turn I can get an encirclement down that way – if I can then that HQ will be ready with an HQ buildup.

One can argue that Buildup is being abused, but so is Soviet hindsight. I like HQ buildup because it’s the best way for Germany to accomplish “deception.” It’s the only way to hastily change your attack avenues and to throw the Soviet off balance. If you can’t throw the Soviet off-balance, there’s no point in playing Germany. If other people have better ideas for throwing the Soviet off balance when hindsight enables them to avoid the many mistakes Stavka made historically, I’m willing to listen and replace buildup with the workable ones.

So that’s the basic SitRep at the end of turn 3. Now I’m going to discuss gamesmanship. Oh, except I withdrew units from Southern Romania and I see he has 1 brigade across the Danube, and I’m hoping the rulebook is still correct that Romania can’t be knocked out of the war until after 1942 starts…. Otherwise this will be a VERY short AAR, as I’ll have to resign if he knocks out the Smurfs (they’re blue and stupid) of the Romanian Army.

Morale Generators
This game, I am making a super-conscious point to raise all morale to the minimum threshold levels. The idea is to ensure that divisions entering enemy terrain pay the lowest possible cost for moving through it. After asking on the main forum where these threshold cutoffs were, here’s the answer I got:

Morale level & Cost Penalty for entering enemy hexes (or those that were enemy at start of turn even if currently ‘pending friendly’):

86+ morale pays 1 additional MP per hex in enemy hexes
71-85 pays 2 additional MP
56-70 pays 3 additional MP
41-55 pays 4 additional MP
40 and below (that means YOU Romania) pays 5 additional.

So at the start of the turn, I found some morale 39 Romanian units, and German units with morale of 70 and 85, and I bashed them against the nearest unit they could easily beat. It did its job fairly well. I got several morale increases that will help us cover territory more quickly. This is the down-side of using SEC brigades as speed bumps: they are also fantastic morale generators for the Axis army. This will be a theme throughout my campaign: manage your morale thresholds. In the future, I intend to organize some infantry armies around units with 86 morale so that they can follow panzers better, and then these 86 morale units will be pulled out for the Blizzard to prep for 1942 offensives.

OOBs
I’m not showing OOBs, but I will at start of Turn 4 (which will go up on the AAR at the same time as this). Interdiction was WAY down this turn (and Germany performed 31 interdictions on his turn, which was a lot). Only 8 total interdictions, only 1 against an air base.

Speaking of airbases, I didn’t move any LW airbases except the 2 or 3 staging bases that always move forward. It’s a truck-saving measure. I actually did better on T3 for trucks than I ever have before, gaining almost 1,000 total trucks over last turn. My philosophy for Germany is that your air assets should move sparingly in the first few turns (I move the army airbases without hesitation). All that Luftwaffe aircraft takes a lot of trucks to move fuel if they are too far ahead of railhead distance. I move airbases only within hexes that were friendly at turn start. I think this lowers your truck attrition.

I’m also trying to keep these 3-4 hex wide wedges free of Soviet ZOC so that the cost trucks pay to move supplies is lower, and less risky. I’m not sure my tactics impact the truck totals I have this turn – I’ve never tracked this very rigorously. One thing I do try to be rigorous about is keeping HQs within 10 of the railhead whenever its practical – that gives a supply delivery bonus. But as yet, I haven’t held back for the 10-hexes because the distance is too important for the infantry to cover right now.

General Reinforcement Strategy
So far with the 7 or so infantry divisions that have arrived as reinforcements for Germany, 2 have gone directly to 11.Army, 2 have gone to AGS in general, 2 into AGN, and 1 into AGC.

[NotOneStepBack]

I agree with your assessment of the current state of the game (casualties should matter, not arm pts) and will be following to see the outcome...

[heliodorus04]

I’m not sure whether I’m happy or not with this turn, so I better figure out a reason to be happy. I got an empty, German hex across the Dnepr on turn 4 – that’s never happened before. I made a lot better progress at Pskov than I thought I would. My infantry is at the Dnepr, the land bridge, and within range, with luck on die rolls next turn, to launch deliberate attacks across the Dnepr at Kiev and Gomel. I only lost 1 attack all turn (though I still don’t attack a lot; about 20 attacks when excluding attacks against isolated or brigade-sized units).

I’ll start with my AGN end-of turn shot, without comment (I hate side-scrolling).

[heliodorus04]

Screenshot of AGN T4

[heliodorus04]

Elements of 16 and 18 army were able to move into the combat area, and we dislodged a weakened mech division from the swamps. Following this, 39 panzer went on a rampage, hitting the same division, and the 2 others in the area, winning each round and hopefully causing a loss in effectiveness and morale. Starting this turn, any combat involving a Soviet division (outside of the remaining Lvov pocket) is being tracked. I’m tracking the division and the battle’s controlling HQ, the men it has (in thousands) and guns, plus each turn I’m recording how many Held, Retreat, and Route results it gets.

The long-term idea is to understand which divisions, and which HQs are achieving the better results against me, and I can have a general idea how brittle the units next to my divisions are going to be in their next combat. My strategic goal is explaining to the typical Ivan soldier why he’d be better as my vassal than dying for his freedom.

I don’t think the outcome up north is bad; in fact I think I’m in great order on the edge of the Luga, which looks somewhat lightly held. Unfortunately, I did what a grad-school teacher and I came to know as “Dane-math” (my name is Dane). I wasn’t paying attention to my AP expenditures on stupid stuff this turn (transferring a Romanian division from AGS to AG Antonescu cost me 8 points, and there were other useless transfers this turn), and I did not have enough to use Buildup on 41 Panzer… And that’s bad, but as I was realizing near the end of my turn that I didn’t have enough APs, I checked back on AGN (I was finishing AGS at the time) and saw that I had accidentally moved 41 Panzer’s HQ. So at least the 2-stupid moves in one turn offset each other, and only one counted.

Next turn we’ll just try to reach the Luga Orodezh river axis. I consider this the keystone to taking Leningrad in the fashion that I consider ‘simplest’. I airdropped supplies to 1 Corps and fuel to 39 Panzer. Meanwhile, the divisions of 41 Panzer did not move, hoping to get some fuel bonus before next turn. Current MPs are in the 18-25 range, so I’d be really happy with 36-40 next turn for those 3 divisions. LVI panzer actually attacked the tank division opposite across the river, after which I noted that their strategic movement value did not decrease, so I’m hoping they’ll get the “did not move” supply distribution bonus, and those divisions can reach MPs in the low 30s, hopefully. Or maybe wishful thinking.

[heliodorus04]

AGC T4

[heliodorus04]

I don’t think I’ve ever had such mass arrive at both the landbridge, and the Dnepr bend to Mogilev so quickly. Not only did we arrive in mass, we had enough MPs to do 3 hasty attacks. I do actually have enough MPs to do one more, BUT, I have a morale 71 unit in there, and if the hasty attack failed, a loss of morale right now would have an immediate impact next turn when I have to enter enemy hexes. So I held off the attack. Resupply is restricted here next turn due to distance, so saving the MPs now should benefit us next turn with hopefully enough MPs (and morale!) for 2 deliberate attacks (14 MPs?). Plus next turn, hasty attacks can be supported by artillery assets, as the HQs won’t have to move.

I didn’t realize 46 Panzer would arrive so perfectly timed, too. I couldn’t really wish for more! Good argument here for using it in a similar fashion to how I have. By now, CF must know that AGN has an additional panzer corps asset, and he might have thought I kept 46 Panzer down south. Turns out it will be in the thick of the fighting next turn, so effectively, it lost nothing in terms of time on its diversion.

[heliodorus04]

AGS T4 First-half of turn
AGS is where the usual dilemmas are. Recon presented the courses of action I needed to ponder.

[heliodorus04]

The first thing I did was determine how far 11.Army elements could get. See that unit near the bottom center with 16 MPs (it’s the one on top)? Guess what his morale is: 85… But for a thwack at an SEC regiment, I might have covered 2 more hexes. But in the end, I looked at what I would get if I decided to connect the two armies, and it was a small number of rifle divisions, and weakened tank divisions. My supply line to Cherkassy was left wide open, and there’s no practical reason for me to go down there. So I drove on toward Kiev…

[heliodorus04]

Post movement AGS picture

[heliodorus04]

One of the reasons I didn’t have enough AP to use buildup in 41 Panzer (of AGN) is that I thought I was being clever last turn attaching 4 divisions directly to 1.PzrGrp HQ. I wasted a lot of AP moving divisions around the last 2 turns to ‘manipulate’ buildup, and I’m not pleased with the effort. Maybe it allowed some of the fuel that helped do the hasty attack across the Dnepr that succeeded. Unfortunately, the hasty attack across the river accomplished little. I hope it had some PsyOps impact: I hasty-attacked across the river, Ivan. I’M COMING! But probably not. It’s not like that gap is going to be hard to plug with units 3-times as strong next turn.

At one point, I actually reconned a pathway across at least one and probably both major rivers north of Kiev. He, I suspect, actually is relying on ZOCs up there and it looked possible to plow a way west of Kiev to a crossing. But I’ve done those gambits before, and you end up in a supply nightmare with panzer divisions moving and attacking in swamp, and it’s a fool’s errand. I don’t know where I’ll cross the Dnepr next turn, or even necessarily that I’ll try. I try particularly hard not to have battles where the Soviet is strongest.

I’m really thankful I’m not keeping track of armament points. It’s a less stressful game. I’m going to leave the production model to others to discuss. I don’t have enough data to have an opinion, and I am trying to fight the war on the backs of dead Russians (and hopefully a lot of Romanians or something).

In Finland, I borrowed a move I saw Bletchley Geek document in one of his AARs (used against him). Trying to isolate 2 divisions of 7 Independent Army so they surrender. It’s not that difficult a move, but I used too much force in one of the attacks, and I think one will get away. Still, it’s the best possible opening for Finland, at least that I’ve seen.

I keep promising OOB values, and I have them, but by the time I reach this point, I’m too tired to do any more screenshots. Well, the main problem is that I’m only now starting to take measurements consistently. So I might wait a few more turns so the recent trend is more intuitively apparent. To date, neither side’s casualty totals are high. The game amounts to Lvov pocket and less than 50 attacks on non-SEC units. Hopefully I’m playing this part of the game optimally. I certainly feel like my plans are still largely intact.

Mostly this turn, I’m disappointed I wasted a decent stockpile of APs, and I missed a buildup that I was eligible for.

[heliodorus04]

Turn 5 has arrived, and I wait until my opponent finishes a turn to post screen shots of it (I'm still paranoid to protect myself from an opponent reading an AAR).

But I can finally show the OOBs and Pools/Losses.

The losses data won't make much sense at first glance. I'll explain it if necessary, but basically numbers recorded on the Soviet line are after the Soviet turn is done, and are recorded at the start of the Axis next turn. Data on an Axis line are recorded at the end of my turn, and represent (to me) the consequences of my offensive action during my turn. Meh, it's going to be somewhat confusing, as I'm trying to figure out what info I want to measure for my purposes.

OOB data are Ready values only.

[Ketza]

I like your move for AGS. Diverting south would have been a distraction.

[Peltonx]

Nice job so far.

The HQ thing is tricky. I ironed it out playing vs computer 5 or 6 times, turns 1-7. Before I ever played a human. Every patch that changed HQ build range I again had to do a computer run or 2.

I know your looking to pocket units 3.5 million losses, but with the evac/rail/hvy exploit it can only be done around leningrad and moscow, unless this guy a newbie.

It looks like the balance of armor is about right so you should have a chance.

Pelton

[heliodorus04]

START TURN 5
Kiev FAIL:
I tried to attack the hex I owned on the eastern side of the Dnepr. Remember the one I hasty-attacked and won, but there’s no OVERRUN mechanic in WitE so it was a pointless attack since I couldn’t TAKE the hex I won?
This turn I did 2 ground strikes, a hasty attack by the same 3 panzer divisions as last turn (to inflict disruption prior to the hasty attac), then I hit it with 2 infantry divisions and an armor division using deliberate attack, and all I got for odds was 1:1.2, defender held.

I’m ready to quit WitE. I just lost an entire Army’s worth of movement points, and took heavy casualties, to accomplish nothing. I spent something like 15 AP moving divisions around so the best HQ could conduct the deliberate attack, so engineers would be in place, etc. Nothing.

So this is my word of wisdom: Don’t attack across major rivers ever. It’s pointless. Remember when I said I’m easily discouraged? I’m ready to resign this game. All that efficiency gain from moving well is now lost.

I think this combat engine is the root of the problem with WitE. It's not consistent, it doesn't make sense to the end-user, and I hate it.