Helio's Axis AAR (v Cannonfodder Soviet)

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I have to be careful as I start the turn that I don’t rush into the Kiev pocket.  Actually there’s no major city in it…  I came very close to losing the pocket last turn, and so this turn I want to ensure I manage it better.  I start by breaking it into at least two groups along the banks of the Desna.

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The Desna Sub-Pocket

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The Italian divisions are 50, 52, and 55 morale, and will conduct the bulk of the fighting as much as I can control. They are the focus. The Romanian divisions coming in from the west are both at 50, and the mountain corps is further south fighting on the west bank of the Uday river (bottom left of map).have morales of 48 and 50, so there’s some opportunity here to get a little morale training.

West of Kursk, where the pocket is still in danger of being re-opened, I’m switching over to full attack to ensure nothing escapes the pocket. What I’m starting to develop here at Kursk is a plan for getting southeast and northeast, back toward shorter supply lines. I’ve drawn a huge force of divisions by rail into this area, and frankly fighting in here isn’t in the best strategic interest. I think CF’s successful creation of a linebacker from Moscow to Stalino leaves him over-committed in the center, where I have no current interest, and where my supply is weakest.

As I mull over my 5-turn plan (more on that later) I’m struck by the unmistakable importance of maintaining that 20-MP-to-railhead. Yes, primarily for HQ buildup, but just as importantly is for MPs in your infantry.

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It’s time to calculate my railhead possibilities over the next 5 turns… boring stuff, but mandatory. It’s a really, really tough call right now.

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Given where my offensives are in the north, and how far in the east at Tula, and southeast at Orel, it’s clear I have a rail problem. I have to get back to double-FBDs on a line in the center, and I’m also wondering if it’s not time to bring the Leningrad area FBD down toward the Rzhev area. With 2 rail units working south of Moscow along the open plains, the other can slowly rebuild supply lines north to Vishny Volichek. But does that short-change Leningrad’s supply for winter? Some of it depends on how far I wish to push east, but I’m not seeing much reason to push east (which is not saying I won’t push east).

A little bit of calculation, and it seems to me the best support for a Moscow operation, which I am obligated to at least realistically plan for and attempt, is for two FBDs to head toward Kaluga/Tula. I’m not happy leaving Vyazma/Rzhev out of the loop for long, and so I commit AGN’s FBD. It puts itself into rail transport mode, and reaches the western edge of Vitebsk. Next turn, it will take over on the northern line running toward Vyazma. Net time lost in AGC will be 1 turn. Leningrad, it appears, is a front I need to start to plan my digging.

Leningrad’s supply is cut permanently. In celebration, the Luftwaffe goes on a drunken raid on a Soviet airbase raid in vindictiveness: casualty rates reflect that this was very dumb… CF has a point that the bomber fleet historically took heavy casualties in Barbarossa, but the problem is that I’m taking historic casualty figures while (at least in my own head) not flying as many missions as were historically flown by the Luftwaffe (but I’m no historian). In any event, we caught some still serious firepower in the birthplace of the revolution, and the first nail in its coffin.

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Leningrad

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10 relatively good divisions are pocketed, pretty securely, in the Valdai.

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The Valdai Hills are a real joy for me to play for some reason. I love the small unit, infantry-on-infantry maneuver warfare. I want to try to close a pocket here, but he’s not going quietly. It’ll be a turn or two yet to see who ends up inside of it and who ends up outside. Otherwise, northwest of Kalinin, all I want to do is to keep continuous pressure on him until mud hits. I plan deliberate attacks that dislodge, much as I advanced toward Leningrad. With much fewer support units. Starting at the end of this turn, a great many SUs are going to be shifted around toward Moscow.

I would have taken Vishny were it not for failed leader rolls. I must remember my grubs are in command up here… I isolated more troops in the Valdai than I did in all of the Pripyets. We’ll see whether I capture them, but it looks very promising. I have to pay attention to my railheads for the mud turns.

Down at the Crimea, I had an odd collection of artillery between 2 German and 1 Romanian corps, and so I threw a 6-division, 3-corps, deliberate attack against the level 3 fort, and got a great leadership roll and a ton of SU support. Routed 3 units in the level 3 fort in one attack. I then advanced into the newly taken hex to a level 2 fort with 2 units and a fortified zone. One of the units in 11.Corps (which had plenty of SUs including a heavy artillery) had 6 MPs, launched a deliberate attack, and got both a great German roll and a very bad Soviet roll, and I walked through the Crimea chokepoint like it was France 1940…

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Crimea battle #2 was a lucky, lucky break given the disadvantage in men I had…

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Working my way back north to 48.Panzer Corps, there’s just not a lot to do because so much of 6. & 17.Armies are fighting the pocket (and 4.Army for that matter, but we’ll look at that later). Here is the stretch from Kursk to the Sea of Azov.

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And now the Oka River operations south of Moscow

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Elements of 2.&3.Panzer Groups each had MPs in the low 30s, and so I rolled three panzer corps toward Ryazan, and as I got closer and closer, I saw the Oka was unguarded east of Ryazan (always garrison your cities…), and I snuck a panzer division across. I then reinforced its supply line.

On the Vyazma edge of Moscow, I used some creative moves to make two deliberate attacks across the land-bridge. I took one hex and reduced a fort. In general, I had my hardest fighting here in several turns, and all panzer divisions are under 75 tanks, with some down in the 40s. And with no time to stop, we’re just going to keep fighting as a motorized division, I guess…This turn, a couple panzer divisions arrived, and they are headed here straight-away.

46.Panzer used HQ buildup even though it’s trashed on armor strength. I think you use buildup once a turn somewhere no matter what the situation. On the bright side, 24.Panzer Corps is comprised of 2 panzer divisions each with about 95 tanks. They are currently taking a rest/refit turn, and they and 46.Panzer are probably bound to cross the Oka next turn in support of the bridgehead. It depends on where reinforcements come from, whether I really make an effort on that side, but I think I’ve made it a viable option and a realistic threat. With the aggression I’ve made on the western side, he’s got some decisions to make. I brought the infantry corps of 3.Panzer Group back north of the Oka to defend Kaluga/Vyazma. I was too weak there for him to leave it alone for long. So the attacks in the west, though somewhat costly, are intended to make him recognize that the threat on the western side is also real. CF has to choose what to defend in what strength.

As of next turn, assuming the Valdai Hills pocket remains isolated, then much of 9.Army north of Rzhev can move southeast toward Kalinin, and then I have a 270-degree arc around Moscow, and that takes a lot of units to defend. Overall this turn, I’ve done very well at herding counters to places where they are out of position (for example, all the units south of the Oka northeast of Tula – all must cross a major river before they can get anywhere useful). I also know that many of his counters right now are shells of units. He’s going to have some short-term problems with having too few counters rather than too few men, I think.

CF has a lot of units defending the area east of Belgorod running northeast to Lipetsk. I appreciate the need to protect Voronezh, but that’s so far away from a secure supply route that I’m surprised he emphasized it over the entirety of the Oka. And when you’re short of counters to cover a river, I believe it’s best tactically to cover every other hex. It’s one thing to cross a river: it’s another thing to cross it and spread your ZOC virus around for the subsequent turn. If those units had been staggered, I might not have felt secure enough to cross. I certainly wouldn’t have gained as much ground in converted territory: I’d have only secured 1 hex.

That about wraps up Turn 13, but I still have not really developed a 5-turn plan. When I was thinking about one at the beginning of the turn, I never thought I’d cross the Oka so far east, so what’s possible now looks a lot different than I thought it would be at the end of last turn.

My air fleet is so fatigued that I don’t move any airbases (except the empty, staging air bases). I run the usual security operation on my AGC rail line. The AGS rail west of the Dnepr is now very close to having 3 or more alternate routes around Vinnitsa, and I’m feeling a lot better there.

There are still 29 Armaments in Stalino, 15 in Rostov, and smatterings elsewhere on the Don river axis to the southeast. The armaments in Moscow are gone, but the aircraft factories remain. And the manpower, of course, which is itself secondary to the rail capacity I want to destroy in Moscow.

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There’s nothing I hate more than a self-congratulatory Soviet player, and CF decided to announce before he finished the turn that he was having success with attacking me for the first time. Queue Christian Bale screaming “GOOD FOR YOUUUUU!” That’s not personal against CF, I just hate it when my opponent tells me anything about the turn before it’s finished, and particularly it’s Soviet players saying “Meh, I’ve got plenty of divisions…”

So this turn, for the first time, I’m doing a little analysis on the stuff that CF has done in his turn, because it looks like he has had this planned counter-offensive in mind for some time. I don’t think it’s serious at the moment, but it does cause me to take another look at the data for any patterns. I’ll cover his land counter-attacks momentarily, but first, take a look at Soviet recon in the area of Vinnitsa. Does anyone think that he would seriously contemplate an IL-4 paradrop on my rail line? Well, I hope he noted all of the security running around there… And while the issue in the south is actually far more secure, due to backup rail lines, than the center, I’m wondering if he’s got something in range from the Crimea, and I’m going to have to be sure to cover this for a while longer. Note another partisan attack, 3 hexes NW of a location where it would have cut the AGS rail network

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Odd Soviet Recon

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Oh, and by the way, how was Von Bock KIA? AGC HQ is parked safely in Vitebsk with a garrison…Von Reichenau takes over, and I’m largely unfazed by the stats of my AG commanders: in past games I’ve put good commanders in charge, and it makes too little difference. Army and corps are where your APs are best spent.

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A minor attack re-opens a thin corridor to the Valdai divisions. A minor inconvenience.

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RYAZAN

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In Ryazan, he chose to isolate that motorized regiment in the corner of the Oka. This was a dumb idea because I’m going to force all of those divisions, in clear terrain, to retreat/route across a major river. Extra casualties for him. I expected him to pull across, not let me push him. While not a major error in terms of scale, he just needlessly let me consume men and equipment (the latter will be problematic in the short term). The casualty rates were fine by m (2.88-to-1). I’m paying attention to the armies involved, and their SU/command support.

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I will try to attack 20.Army and 24.Army, because I don’t like Soviet Armies that have SUs with guns…

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At Kursk, the 2 SS divisions prove the Heer correct: they’re inferior troops when counted on in critical situations. But these aren’t great defeats in scope or scale. It is time, however, to finish off the pocket and form back up into divisions. In a certain sense, by coming to me here rather than falling back, CF is playing to my supply line. This is a supply dead zone, with no rail commitments here on my part.