Defending Leningrad (A Road to Leningrad PBEM)

[loki100]

This AAR is going to be a beginners play through of one of the less complex (relatively few units) scenarios in War in the East. The ‘Road to Leningrad’ covers the tussle between AGN and their Finnish allies and the Soviet Northern and North Western Fronts. The primary goal of both sides is Leningrad. It ends in October so there are no poor weather periods or other problems.

Should say this is more an AAR by beginners, I doubt the gameplay is going to be optimal. What we’ll try to do is to explain what we are trying to achieve and why as well as out understanding of the tools to hand. We’ve played this scenario PBEM once and I lost (completely and utterly 18-1, no Soviet units left on the map). The mistakes I made on the road to that outcome will inform a lot of my planning.

Neither of us has that much experience but from reading comments here and elsewhere, there seems to be a demand for more 'how I did/tried to work out what was going on' style AARs. Equally the smaller set up allows a bit of focus in discussing events, options and understanding.

Anyway if you take the Soviet side in these ‘Road to ..’ scenarios, of which there are 4 (Minsk –only 3 turns; Leningrad, Smolensk and Kiev) modelling the historic split in the German invasion, then you never get to see the peaceful vista of 20 June 1941. If you play SP, you are treated to the sight of the AI trashing your border positions, if you play PBEM, your opponent does his thing and sends you the results. You just see the results.

Now this is not too bad as you have quite a few tools to help you understand just what happened. So lets start the AAR … with the results of the opening German offensive.



As a first note and question.

I'm more used to doing AARs on the Paradox/AGEOD forums where using an imagehosting site and linking to that is the usual way to place images in a post. I understand that I need 10 posts + 7 days to be allowed to embed links. Does anyone know if at that stage I can put up a post with 10 or so images (linked to), or if I need to keep to 1 post/1 image. Guess its just a case of adapting writing style.

For the moment, I'll spread the opening discussion over 10 or so posts.

[loki100]

Now that is useful, my border force has been removed and it appears as if the Germans have 11 Army in a pocket. Note my units are brown (the yellow tells me they belong to NW Front) and the numbers are an approximate combat value (for the hex) and the Movement Points (MPs) of fastest unit.

Note the Germans come in 4 types/ If I can see both numbers (that is combat-move), so I know pretty well what they are, some 0/0 or ‘?’ but with a symbol (so I know why type they are) some are blank and ? (so all I know is something is there), finally there are hidden units that I cannot even see.

So lets find out more about that debacle.

[loki100]

Now that is useful, my border force has been removed and it appears as if the Germans have 11 Army in a pocket. Note my units are brown (the yellow tells me they belong to NW Front) and the numbers are an approximate combat value (for the hex) and the Movement Points (MPs) of fastest unit.

Note the Germans come in 4 types/ If I can see both numbers (that is combat-move), so I know pretty well what they are, some 0/0 or ‘?’ but with a symbol (so I know why type they are) some are blank and ? (so all I know is something is there), finally there are hidden units that I cannot even see.

So lets find out more about that debacle.




This is the same but with the option to show hex ownership enabled. Brown is German, green is mine. Much the same as above but now I can see that 11 Army is completely surrounded and that the Germans are over the Dauga. Somewhere in those brown areas are additional German formations. For obvious reasons, I tend to play with the mapmode on most of the time, especially in these early turns.

[loki100]

This shows were the combats were (the black tank thing is a German ground attack, the black air thing is an air attack). If you hover over one of these, you get a pop up that tells you more – this shows the battle at Riga. My 22nd NKVD routed losing almost 5,000 men and killing 68 (at least I destroyed 5 German AFVs).

[loki100]

There is more information available from the 'losses' screen.

This comes in 3 types.

The first shows losses in a lot of detail (the lhs gives German losses too, I’ve just shown a portion of the Soviet ones here). As you can see, almost 50% of my losses were surrenders (this will get worse as most of 11 Army will surrender next turn).

Then Air losses. Most of mine were of course destroyed n the ground and culled a fair number of the useless I-153/I-16s.

And destroyed/surrenders.

This will be bad for the first few turns, then hopefully calm down

[loki100]

Finally you can hover over a counter and find out a lot about it (I’m using 2 mods – one just adds more on map detail, the other creates this pop-up). So the doomed 23rd Tank Division has 373 tanks – fortunately all should have been sent to a museum some years ago.

I’ll come back to discuss some other bits such as HQs et al in another update. What I’ll do now is to discuss my plans

[loki100]

Leningrad is crucial

Key to this is the Finns can move past the line to the north but cannot attack over that line. So I need 4 combat units to hold that line (they can be weak). The Germans have no restrictions but I want to hold them on the dotted line to the south. The zones I’ve marked A+B are where I intend to stack the combat formations of 2 armies (the stacking limit is 3 counters per hex). In addition I want to deploy 2 airbases (& their command HQ), 2 armies and the Northern Front HQ, so I can have about 3 more combat units as an emergency reserve and have some room to move.

In between those lines – 25 combat formations (4 facing the Finns, if needs be I can skip 3 of these), 3 air bases/HQ and 3 land HQs.

Now my belief is I want this OOB as I can then add lots of support units to those 3 land HQs and in turn those support units will give me extra fire support, allow me to dig in and so on.

To get ready, I am going to start allocating support units to the Northern Front and 23 Army (notionally deployed up around Viipuuri).

To do this, you need to spend ‘admin points’ and I have 13 per turn. APs also pay for re-organising the OOB so I need to use them with care. Here is what is available and what I have initially allocated to the Northern Front and 23 Army (it started with quite a lot).

I’m still feeling my way as to what is good to create and what is of little value. Construction battalions (plus the citizens) are key to building a viable defense. Equally from somewhere I need another Army HQ and to build that up to.

Finally, Leningrad can cope with being isolated as long as I still hold one of the 3 ports on the other side of L Ladoga

If I lose them, the garrison gets a huge malus for being ‘isolated’ and will collapse (which is what happened in our first game). So in addition to creating a solid fortification in Leningrad, I need to make the Volkhov unbreachable (and keep the Finns away – note their stop line is just to the north of Svitsa).

Anyway, planning and review done, its time to move things

[loki100]

With 11A lost I actually do not have much this turn I can move. So I concentrate on creating a weak defence line from Pskov to the river Luga. This won’t hold but it costs MPs to enter Zones of Control so the goal is to make the Germans slow down and give me time to construct those lavish defences I am planning for Leningrad.

I have 3 defence lines – around Pskov making use of the rivers and lakes, between Pskov and the Luga – really just to extract MPs from the Germans and on the Luga, anchored by Novgorod. This, somehow, has to hold. In addition there are quite a few locked units, such as the formations at Velikie Luki that I cannot move.

Note at this stage, I have done no sorting out of the OOB, even with perfect supply those units will not hold. I’m using my few APs for the real battles yet to come (forts in and around Leningrad matter more). Thus I have yellow (NW Front), orange (N Front) and white (subordinated direct to Stavka) all intermingled. In my view, the combat malus from that is the least of my problems.

[KenchiSulla]

Note that with a rail line into Leningrad gone it will be very, VERY hard to get reinforcements into the city. You won't be out of supply but your units will atrit very fast into a state of unready..

I would focus on defending more forward. Use lines about 3 deep if possible to stall the german advance...

[Seminole]

Get the Security units and Bdes forward, in terrain (preferably behind rivers) to screen his forces (places like Ostrov and Rezekne deserve a unit the first turn). The security units will be disbanded soon, and the Bdes are just speed bumps anyway.

Enemy Zone of Control (EZOC) costs are your friend. Learn them. Even a unit 10 miles (1 hex) away from a river line raises the cost of crossing that river. This is critical to exact the highest possible MP costs from his motor units as they range ahead of the Landsers. In the first two or three weeks, with so many units frozen or already overrun they key is to slow him down.

Also, especially in a scenario like this, you want to keep an eye on the reinforcement window. Knowing when and where your reinforcements are coming in can help you avoid wasting APs on re-assigning units to HQs

Also keep in mind the enemy can't discern the type of a unit that is under 'cover' (in trees, rough, swamp) from air recon alone. He'll have to move a unit next to it in order find out if that is a AT bde, security unit, or maybe multiple rifle divisions hiding in that swamp (if he notices it at all!).

[SigUp]

Your opponent has done a beginner's move (didn't we all do this?) by unnecessarily breaking down the motorized units and not push them past the Dvina. Therefore you get 1-2 extra turns to fortify the Pskov line. Retreat behind the Velikaya, give up everything west of it, as well as Estonia. As has been said, use security units (when you play the Germans you will get to hate them, they don't rout that easily) and brigades to create ZOC to burn up MP. And use the terrain, for the Soviets in 41 it is essential to use the double or triple bonus that woods and swamps provide.

[Qitbuqa]

ORIGINAL: SigUp

Your opponent has done a beginner's move (didn't we all do this?) by unnecessarily breaking down the motorized units and not push them past the Dvina.

Hey, I've got one Pz. Div. over Dvina. [:'(]

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: Qitbuqa

ORIGINAL: SigUp

Your opponent has done a beginner's move (didn't we all do this?) by unnecessarily breaking down the motorized units and not push them past the Dvina.

Hey, I've got one Pz. Div. over Dvina. [:'(]

Oops, sorry, did not see that division on the edge of the screen. But in general, you want to get at least 2-3 divisions over, so that you can aggressively attack towards Pskov on turn 2. And in the North it is not necessary to break down your motorized units. It burns up MP to recombine them. On turn 1 it is important for the German to realize, due to the crappy Russian morale and restrictions during the first turn, Soviet units basically can't cross into a German ZOC after already having moved. It is enough to create a buffer of like 4 hexes and put a unit at a key hex to prevent conversions that break the pocket.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

Note that with a rail line into Leningrad gone it will be very, VERY hard to get reinforcements into the city. You won't be out of supply but your units will atrit very fast into a state of unready..

I would focus on defending more forward. Use lines about 3 deep if possible to stall the german advance...

I'm trying to get something together along the Luga with a disconnected set of speed bumps out in front as the main forward defense. In the time frame of this scenario, I'm not so sure that reinforcements, as such, really matter (could well be wrong on that), if so my fundamental goal is to avold the 'isolated' malus

[loki100]

The next three posts are my view of my second turn

There is, to me, a rather realistic feel to managing the Soviets at the start of these scenarios. Soviet histories, record, particularly on the NW and W Fronts the struggle of Front and Army commands to create even the semblance of a front line and the way these improvised structures fell apart as the speed of the campaign slipped beyond the Soviet’s commands ability to respond.

I’m going to split this update over three posts of: an overview of what happened in the German turn (ie the situation I faced when I restarted), a discussion of my plans for the airwar and a review of the emerging defence at Leningrad (there will be a small portion missing from this as it would be useful to Qitbuqa in the coming turns).

Outcome of the Axis moves

My losses were not that bad (at least in combat) but mainly as the shattered remnant of 11 Army kept the Germans busy it would seem and most of my losses are in units that surrendered.

This shows up more clearlyby looking at the battle overview screen

Oh and the VVS took another pounding

So lets look at the main map (remember brown is German, green is still mine). Main thing is their spearheads are in Pskov, but generally that isn’t too bad. I guess I am going to have 1-2 turns to try and develop some sort of defence on the Luga line.

The battle at Pskov, by the standards of June 1941 can almost be seen as a victory for me.

For a start I retreated in some sort of order, secondly the loss ratio is almost respectable. You can see quite a lot about the combat engine from the report.

The German 8 Pzr belongs to 56 Pzr Corps and was supported by 2 specialist formations (pioneers and flak). In combination that lot has a combat power (CV) of 92. My 183rd Rifle was supported by a lot of firepower from its controlling corps giving me a notional combat value of 127. Now these base numbers are varied by the quality of leadership and a nasty early game malus for me, so the German 92 becomes 194 and my 127 dips to 62.

Now I’m still feeling my way, but that does indicate that well supported, even my rifle divisions can hold or slow the Germans. The key is the force multiplier that comes from Army level assets (my corps will disappear soon). Equally, once I do have the semblance of a front I can use the ‘reserve’ mode (will come to this later) to mean I can engage more than just 3 divisions in a given defence.

[loki100]

Air Deployment

As mentioned in the first update, the game uses a rather realistic HQ-OOB system. This means for the Soviets, airbases are attached to a controlling HQ and that HQ in turn is associated with a given Front.

One thing I did last turn was to send the VVS squadrons on the advanced, surrounded or exposed airbases back to the Stavka ‘reserve’. I’ll start feeding these back once my airbases are in their new position and a bit more secure but this shows the range of squadrons I have in reserve

Some of those are bi-planes, the useless I-153s and the rather useful (and for which I have a soft spot) U2s. Key to the Soviet partisan war and inflicted terror on the Germans well out of proportion to their actual effect. Soviet pilots, flying at night and low, would turn off the engines and lob bombs or grenades over a German formation. The lack of warning and the fear of being attacked from the rear was pretty demoralising. I think in game they are less useful, except for building up the partisan formations.

I have 7 Air commands, each linked to a higher HQ. The number after the HQ name is the manpower and to the right of that is the available aircraft under that HQ’s control.

Once I have completed my movements (many elements are still in transit) I intend to arrange the HQs.

I’ll then assign the airpower to give some coverage everywhere but to prioritise the Leningrad sectors.

[loki100]

My response

The units on the Baltic Islands go for a cruise back to Leningrad

Overall, I have two Fronts. I’m planning to use the Northern Front for Leningrad and to contest the Finnish advance between Lake Ladoga and Onega. Zhukov has taken over from the unfairly maligned Kuznetsov (Stalin didn’t like him as he resisted Stalin’s schemes for a Soviet blue water navy. Equally he defied orders on 20 June and put the Baltic Fleet’s submarines to sea to defend against a naval invasion of Estonia or Leningrad).

The HQ image is from the end of turn, but it shows m army or higher level commands. As with the airwings, it indicates how many men are under that HQ. The numbers are manpower, artillery pieces, tanks (a lot of the Mech Corps are at this stage linked to the Front commands or direct to Stavka).

Note that 8 and 11 Armies are shell commands, after the slaughter on the borders neither have units under their control (this will change as I feed in replacements and the front solidifies). 23 and 24 Armies will be the base of my Leningrad operation (at this stage 23A is mostly on the Finnish border).

This shows my deployment on the Pskov-Luga sector (before I made any moves). In this I have enabled another map mode that shows the level of fortifications in a given hex. If a hex is occupied by a unit it will try to dig in. Chances are enhanced by being static, the level of Engineering support in the related HQ and how close I am to a major city.

I’ll juggle those formations around to dig in along the Luga and create a small screen in front of what will have to pass for a front line.

To the south, things are even sketchier. What in theory is 3 armies is in reality 2 understrength formations (11 and 22) and a scattering of airborne troops and units reporting direct to the NW Front.

Finally, the last image is a quick look at the VP position.

Somewhat misleading at the moment but it gives you some idea of the objectives. We both gain VPs as the game goes on. The Germans from Soviet losses, me from their losses (I gain at a slightly higher rate) and per turn for the 3 hexes in and around Leningrad.

The bulk of the VPs are awarded on the basis of who controls what at the game end. Note they are asymmetric, but outside Leningrad, I plan to hold Rzhev, Vyshny Volocek and maybe Volkhov. That should mean a final award to the Axis of 1200-1500 and to me of 500-600. So to get a draw I need to be ahead by around 800. Holding the 3 Leningrad hexes for all 18 turns gives me 144 towards that. I need to do a lot of damage, and this is one reason for my planned aggressive deployment of the VVS. I’ve found in other games with this scenario, between the VVS and flak units (another thing I am attaching to my HQs) I can inflict decent losses on the Luftwaffe and their somewhat weaker Finnish allies.

[loki100]

Turn 3

This turn proved to be a bit of a false dawn. I’ll mostly concentrate on the Leningrad sector as in truth the Southern sector is very quiet and the Finns only get going next turn.

So when I opened it up I found the Panzers on the south bank of the Luga but not across it yet except for some sort of bridgehead at Oredezh. In consequence the amount of combat was limited. I’d put a few weak formations in contact with the German spearhead at Pskov which were swept away. The logic to this is twofold. First it will cost the Germans MP to clear them out the way, second units in contact take attrition losses. Not sure in the timescale of this scenario that is that important, but any loss for them may end up in my VP column.

One thing I’ve been doing is to assign AA formations to my HQs. This seems to pay off in that the main destroyer of German aircraft has been flak rather than my fighters. I presume ‘operational losses’ are accidents and stuff crashing – so we’ll draw a discrete veil over the VVS’ performance in this respect.

Anyway, I concentrate on building up and shifting my reinforcements to the critical sectors. The rough layout is as before, except that 31 Army has been fed into the line along the Volkhov. Its very unready divisions are mostly deployed in poor terrain so as to slow any German advance, it won’t as such win any battles.

The way to read the OOB is that to ignore the Northern Flt Air Cmnd (that historically controlled Soviet aviation up towards Murmansk). Basically the Northern and Baltic Air commands are supporting the northern forces except for Leningrad (so some 800 planes in combination). 7th IAK is in Leningrad.

Since everything in the end of the OOB chain reports to Stavka then I have close to 1 million men, 10,000 AT/Artillery pieces, 1800 AFVs (most rubbish) and 1,000 Aircraft. It doesn’t feel like enough.

So next turn my relative calm will be shattered. But I am still prioritising using my Admin Points to create Army support units and have just built my first fortified zone.

[cpt flam]

just a note about your score
you will gain 8 points for the 3 hexes each half turn
this will make (max) 8*17*2 for 272
better than you think
good to see you there from paradox forum

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: cpt flam

just a note about your score
you will gain 8 points for the 3 hexes each half turn
this will make (max) 8*17*2 for 272
better than you think
good to see you there from paradox forum

thanks that does make a draw if I hold Leningrad that bit more plausible (& I guess the intended outcome if you pull it off).

still getting used to the different AAR production culture here, not least attaching single images rather than the text-image approach I've got used to ... have tried another experiment for the next post