8MP Team Game - The Axis team

[Telemecus]

Turn 15 01-October-1941 Centre

Stelteck
Moscow is isolated, still only the 7th panzer division guard it and so the soviet have a decent chance to free moscow one turn more. Worst case scenario we get moscow during the snow turns.

The jaws close around Moscow - but we fully expect them to be opened up again. Nevertheless we give the HQ of 7 panzer a new leader and stack it with support units to make its attack as painful as possible for our opponents.

Stelteck
Yes they really lack troops.
ANd the troops present did not have time to dig.

They needed 30 more divisions one month ago here
They probably should have scrapped other fronts. But difficult to do in multiplayer game

While it is true to some extent that playing a team side constrains you to a broad front strategy, I would contend that it does not necessarily prevent concentration of forces. By moving Centre's command boundaries with other commands towards the centre we have created our own concentration. The Soviet team equally could move their boundaries in a similar manner and may have done so. There is no reason that the Soviet South commander could not have their boundary with the West commander at the Oka. Or even at Moscow itself. However it would also mean every commander is involved in the battle for Moscow rather than strict demarcation of responsibilities. I believe with some imagination, but also some bureacracy and extra time, you could emulate anything you can do in a solo game within a team game.

It looks like almost everything is perfect, but ....



One setback as one of our airbases gets displaced during the go. More than 40 fighters, mostly Bf109E3s, get destroyed.

[Telemecus]

Turn 15 01-October-1941 North

During the Soviet action there continue to be local counterattacks - in this turn seven against the broken down regiments of the 16th army along the Volkhov and near the boundary with Centre. As this is a repeat pattern we are assigning SUs at the end of the turn to the HQs of these areas specifically for this and the uptick in Soviet losses there may be a consequence of this.

[/img]

The remaining forces are overun at Leningrad - the area is now ours. The Finns quickly deploy south on to the Volkhov. 16th army remerges some broken down units and shifts its focus south. Meanwhile 4th Panzer group and lead assault units of the 18th army head for Kalinin and Torzhok.

[Telemecus]

Turn 15 01-October-1941 Air War AKA SparkleyTit's Dishonourable Carnage Report

During their last logistics phase there was no partisan supply again. Soviet air activity during their last action phase consisted of no ground bombing or ground support, no recon, and just one airbase of ours bombed. And during our action phase there was no interdiction or ground support - aerial interception was the sole mission.



So after all the immense resources poured into aircraft development and production by both the Third Reich and the Soviet Union at the pinnacle of the clash for Moscow it all comes down to this - U-2VS versus Fi 156C!

At least there was a return to the map of more Soviet aircraft though - in the images below can be seen all the airgroups they have deployed with their numbers after all action.

North

Last turn saw airbases deployed in a long trail to Vologda. But this turn they retraced their steps to Cherepovets and concentrated there in four hexes. Two had just interceptors, and two had just level bombers only one of which had the very long distance models suitable for partisan supply.

The interceptor are dealt with by our fighters, leaving clear unopposed unescorted daylight bombing of all their airbases! Having moved west from Vologda they are even in range of our Ju86s and can all be bombed twice.

Interestingly though they have moved an empty airbase in the group forward towards the front for the first time. Is their Northern commander, Comrade SparkleyTits'in taking tips from his distant cousin and 2by3+ Axis Centre commander General von SparkleyTits?



Centre

In a repeat of last turn their interceptors in airbases near Ivanovo quickly get swept out by the intense dogfights over Moscow. But having got past Moscow we now have Gorky in sight. Their interceptors are also badly depleted in dogfights over the Ivanovo airbases. Once our reconnaisance finds no more interceptions are being flown we return to daylight unescorted bombing - including the LaGG-3 factories at Gorky and Dzerzhinsk. Again their night fighter group is reduced to low single figures without flying any missions. Given that their night fighter factory has just been surrounded and may be lost we may already have destroyed most of the airframes of this model. And their remaining bombers capable of partisan supply are left in a similar state.



Saratov and Stalingrad

Only interceptors are deployed south of Moscow in two hexes near Stalingrad and one at Engels. They are too far from the front to effect the ground war at all and so are probably there just to defend the industry. The four interceptor groups at Saratov start the turn with complements of only ten each which is very low. Even flying reconaisance we find their interceptors already being depleted just from chasing our recon. Our hunch is that these aircraft are in a very poor state and so we take a big risk of unescorted bombing in daylight which we know will be opposed. A large number of bombers could be destroyed, but if their interceptors cannot fly any more missions we have the prize of free bombing of their Yak-1 factories for yet another turn. Our hunch turns out to be right in a different way. Their interceptors actually manage to contest three of our bombing runs on their factories but only down eight of our bombers - so they lasted longer than we thought but are largely ineffective. The Saratov Yak-1 factory for instance reaches 35% damage.



The thirteen interceptor groups near Stalingrad are more resilient. They are left to the Rumanians (and one Hungarian air mission) who draw them in to dogfights with their fighters and night bomb their airbases. After this is complete reconnaisance confirms their interceptors are no longer flying so we can bomb the factories at Stalingrad unopposed in daylight.



Overall we find this turn our opponents airbases are back in effective range for our offensive against them. As we have advanced east, they have either remained still or headed west. Where they want to defend their industry this may be unavoidable. But if their air groups are conducting no other missions there is no reason otherwise to move their airgroups towards the front other than just to present themselves as a target or a decoy to our bombers.

Nevertheless at these distances our bombers are expending greater mileage attacking their air force. After bombing all but one of their airbase hexes and the interceptor factories there is little left for other strategic bombing. After the factories at Stalingrad we are only left with Kerch and Novorossisyk. Other general industry is now seeing its repair get ahead of our bombing damage.

Our southern allies though continue to use their shorter range bombers to "spam" ground bomb everything they can. But whether this is a good idea is now contested.

Our air losses look consideraby worse this turn - particularly at our key fighters number. But this is exagerated by the large number of old Bf109E3 fighters lost by displacing one of our airbases during our turn. Most bombers are still not being lost in aerial combat. And Soviet interceptor losses are well ahead of production in all categories this turn.



And finally a thoughtpiece from our opponents on the air war this turn

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS
Here's one way to use the German air force wisely. Spam so much recon that the Soviet fighter pilots, exhausted from chasing recon planes, can't get out of their bunks when the Heinkels show up to blast their airfield.

[Telemecus]

Turn 15 01-October-1941 Economic War

This turn the advance of Axis forces did not overun any more evacuatable factories.

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
Turn 13 17-September-1941 Economic War
with West Moscow now in our Zone of Control evacuating the Pe-2, 5 vehicle or 8 arms factories there would cost double the rail cap if this remains the case.

No, it did not remain the case.

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
Turn 14 24-September-1941 Economic War
Finally Moscow and West Moscow are in our zone of control meaning evacuating the Pe-2, 15 vehicle, Il-4, Pe-3, Pe-2R, U2-VS, Il-10, 9 arms and 9 heavy factories would cost double. With 3 divisions exerting control over Moscow and 3 more exerting control over West Moscow this time it might remain the case.

This time it did remain the case! Only the Pe-2R and four arms factories were evacuated - plus all of North Moscow. We now have all of the Moscow area isolated. Even if the encirclement is broken they will still not have the rail links to evacuate any of this industry. If we assume this industry cannot be saved then total Soviet industrial losses are

104 Arms (4 Minsk, 3 Kirovgrad, 3 Krivoi Rog, 3 Odessa, 2 Kremenchug, 3 Nikolaev, 6 Dnepropetrovsk, 8 Poltava, 15 Kharkhov, 3 Kramatorskaya, 1 Mariupol, 29 Stalino, 3 Makeevka, 3 Gorlovka, 2 Taganrog, 8 Leningrad and environs, 3 Kalinin, 5 Moscow)
72 Hvy (4 Minsk, 3 Kirovgrad, 3 Krivoi Rog, 3 Odessa, 2 Kremenchug, 3 Nikolaev, 2 Dnepropetrovsk, 4 Kharkhov, 2 Kramatorskaya, 5 Stalino, 3 Makeevka, 3 Gorlovka, 2 Kaluga, 2 Tagnrog, 10 Leningrad and environs, 4 Rostov, 4 Voroshilovgrad, 4 Kalinin, 9 Moscow)
40 Vehicle (20 Kharkhov, 5 Stalino, 15 Moscow and West Moscow)
Su-2 (Kharkhov)
LaGG-3 "11 series" (Taganrog)
BA-10 Armd Car (Leningrad and environs)
Li-2 and Li-2W (Khimki)
U2-VS x 3 (Moscow, 2 x Dubna evacuated from Kazan and Cheboksary)
Pe-2 (West Moscow)
Il-4 (Moscow)
Pe-3 (Moscow)
Il-10 (Moscow)

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
Unfortunately two U2-VS factories were evacuated to Dubna - right in to the clutches of advancing Axis forces. I am sure when STAVKA faces the stern faces of EwaldvonKleist and Dinglir this will be explained as a "fat finger" mistake.

No, it wasn't a fat finger. I only did two because I didn't have enough railcap left. I'll send you the rest later.

The U2-VS factory at Shumerlya remained unmoved as did all the other U2 factories meaning promise not kept - though it would be difficult with the tight rail cap this turn.

[Telemecus]

Turn 15 Allocations
For information only - allocations for turn 15

[Telemecus]

Turn 16 08-October-1941 Centre

When the turn comes back from the Soviet team the big surprise is no break in to Moscow. Only one panzer division held the cordon at the weakest point and was exposed to Soviet attack on three sides.



Giving the units direct HQ a better commander and lots of SUs at the end of last turn helped. As did a high level of ground support. We can see a lot of interdiction too which inevitably upsets the best laid plans. We will have to see from the Soviet side though why it was not possible to break back in to Moscow.

It is mud in the North European zone - and in as much as that makes any subsequent break out from or break in to Moscow even more difficult there is a silver lining. In spite of the mud we are even able to extend the cordon around Moscow.



The Soviet team in the 2by3+ team game are looking for a new commander. It is a much lower commitment than going solo. A great way for a beginner to do their first game against others. And if you are an old hand come and show us your stuff. If you would like to join the team do post on any of the games threads, or feel free to message Neogodhobo or myself.

[Telemecus]

Turn 16 08-October-1941 North

During the Soviet action there continue to be local counterattacks against 16th army - but with the Finns streaming south they have been mostly south of the no move line.



It is mud in the north Soviet zone. But at the lower Volkhov a number of units are just beyond the mud zone. These are heavily attacked by 18th army units now redeploying from the battles in Leningrad - and the Finns make the incursion deeper reaching for the first time the port of Kobona. Even some hexes in the mud zone are successfully attacked. The only guards unit we have seen so far is left on the wrong side of the Volkhov with a very awkward retreat.

[Telemecus]

Stelteck - need to clear you message box as we cannot message you. Olga has been sending you too many message again! Something important I sent by email instead!

[thedude357]

Turn 16 Army Group South

11th Army and Romanian allies push the issue to try and break the Soviet lines in the Crimea. No choice but a frontal attack with heavy losses as Soviet forces are dug in well and time is running out for good weather in 1941. A lack of prioritization for the Crimea rail line means supplies and replacements are slow in coming. However, massive amounts of heavy artillery and nebelwerfers are brought in to break the Soviet defenders. The Romanian commander for some reason decides not to commit artillery to the attack, and displays an incredibly poor performance as a result.

Further east towards Rostov 11th Army postures for an Army Group split.

[Telemecus]

Turn 16 08-October-1941 Air

You could be forgiven for thinking this turn was still turn 15 - for it is almost an exact replica.

During their last logistics phase there was no partisan supply again. Soviet air activity during their last action phase consisted of no recon or airbase attacks. The only ground bombing and support was in the attempted break in to Moscow - by contrast we had a few very big interdictions. And during our action phase there was no Soviet interdiction or ground support - aerial interception was the sole mission.

Nor it seems was there any discernable change in the disposition of their airbases and air groups. There continues to be a very large number of airbases which are empty. And the same clusters of airbases with aircraft can be identified far from the front often with the same number of airgroups and in the exact same location. One change that is noticeable is that biplane models of fighters are being deployed on the map in numbers again. They seem to be the only ones receiving replacements as airgroups with other models have very low complements.

A northern group of airbases west of Cherepovets contains a large number of interceptors. But again many of the airbases with aircraft are in swamp hexes from which they cannot fly. This includes all their aircraft that could supply partisans. The Finnish air force now has airbases along the Volkhov and can fly missions right down to their no move line (and beyond when the AI takes control!) They sweep away Soviet fighters until they no longer fly - leaving all their airbases to be bombed unopposed in unescorted daylight raids. This is left to the Finns - apart from one hex with a particularly large concentration of interceptors which the Luftwaffe bombs with some spectacular results even for unopposed day raids.



In the centre the interceptors in airbases near Ivanovo quickly get swept out by the intense dogfights over Moscow again. And their interceptors at Gorky get swept out by the dogfights over the Ivanovo airbases again. Again our reconnaisance finds no more interceptions are being flown. So again we bomb their airbases in daylight, unescorted and unopposed. The airbase at Dzerzhinsk is still not bombed as we need the two bombings in its hex for the factory. Again their night fighter group is reduced to low single figures without flying any missions. And again their remaining bombers capable of partisan supply are left in a similar state.

Our longest range bombers succeed again in choking the expansion of the tank factory at Gorky. But our attacks on the LaGG-3 factories are left till last this turn - meaning that the few bombes we had left in an exhausted state caused barely any damage even in unopposed daylight bombing. However our shorter range bombers are now able to join in on the industry bombing and augment damage levels at the Murom vehicle factory and the heavy industry of Ivanovo and Rybinsk. They also bomb the isolated units in Moscow - at the very least their anti-aircraft fire will further reduce their stock of supplies.

Mud means our tactical forces near the centre have a turn of R&R.



Again at Engels they have an airbase with just four interceptor airgroups - but with even lower complements than last turn. Some contain only single figures at the start of the turn. Our reconnaisance soon finds their pilots have decided to sit out the war this turn. As we are not bombing their airbases, we need the two bombings on the hex for the factory, we guess it is live and let live.

Concious that the impending bad weather could impede our strategic bombing in coming turns we concentrate on the Yak-1 factories near Saratov. They currently produce fewer interceptors than the factories at Gorky - but only because we have choked their expansion. Every turn that we can keep their factories with at least 1% damage is another turn they will not expand - each turn we succeed in this means at least another 44 Yak-1s will never be built. So instead of starting with the Yak-1 factories with the highest damage levels we start with the one with the lowest, Engels, in order to prolong the period when no Yak-1 factory will have any expansion. In fact we more than double it from 7% to 16% - meaning it will not be repaired and start expanding for another five turns. Damage levels on the other Yak-1 factories are further augmented and are in the thirties - meaning at least ten turns for them.



Finally and again near Stalingrad we have thirteen interceptor air groups, though decidedly more battered than last turn. They are left to the Rumanians who soon find them losing heart and so we return to unescorted and unopposed day bombing of their airbases. With the skies clear further damage levels are built up at the Stalingrad Tank factory and at the South Stalingrad arms factory. The Rumanians also keep damage levels at Novorossiysk high. With the lower Don and Crimea out of the mud zone the Rumanian air force also finds itself fully engaged in ground support and bombing missions.



We are no longer destroying 1000+ Soviet aircraft a turn as in the heady days of a few turns ago. But the new norm does seem to be around 500. Very few aircraft types other than fighters or fighter bombers are being caught - mainly because they are not on the map at all. But if anything we are continuing to get as many fighters and fighter bombers as we ever did. The uptick in quality and complements we had detected recently seemed to have had a blip this turn. And the Soviet crunch on interceptor numbers seems to have caught all except their biplane groups.

Mud has certainly curtailed our air operations this turn. And our airbase munitions stocks started to run out in most of them this turn- some were preserved for the fighters during the Soviet phase but little has been left for interdiction in what will be mostly a mud turn anyway. As a result far less was availiable for strategic bombing - only the Saratov and Stalingrad group of factories along with a few others in range of our shorter range level bombers really got hit this turn. General industry is certainly being repaired faster than it is being damaged.

On the other hand the lower level of air activity has meant lower loss levels for us.

[Telemecus]

Turn 16 Allocations
For information only - team allocations for turn 16

[Telemecus]

Turn 16 14-October-1941 Soviet

When the soviet turn comes to us we eagerly await to see their action packed turn!



Maybe not.

The fact that there is not even any interdiction indicates hardly any movement. Apart from a few cases of retreat where units would otherwise have their supply lines in our ZOCs we can see no changes on the front.

So the question is what did the Soviets do in their turn? - we will have to find out ...

[Telemecus]

Turn 17 15-October-1941 Centre

Our Centre commander gets some Lebensraum of his own around Moscow

[Telemecus]

Turn 17 15-October-1941 North

After Leningrad 18th army flips to be south of 16th army. 4th Panzer Group surrounds Kalinin and gives further elbow room to our hold of Moscow. The last forces west of the Volkhov are pushed back

[thedude357]

Army Group South Turn 17

Some action on this turn as the weather turns clear and 11th Army has a successful attack near Sevastopol. An Airborne regiment was dropped on Kerch to cut supply for the defenders near Ak'manay, relief was supposed to come with 11th Army and Romanians, but they failed to breach the defenses. The airborne regiment is unfortunately now doomed.

Elements of 1st Panzer Group, 11th Army, the Italian Expeditionary Corps, and Romanians briefly cross the Don River and raid Azov, Bataysk, and Manych. The Soviets defending the Don are extremely weak and are smashed out of the way. This secures the Army Group South split on Turn 17, the importance of this Army Group split cannot be understated. The huge command point overload in AGS is now solved. Army Group A & B will be on the map next turn right in time for the approaching winter. Successful leader checks, slight supply increases, reserve activation, and support units committed to battle will now be optimized by German generals.

The other action is around Voronezh but the 6th Army will not be able to capture the city before the weather turns bad. A small pocket is formed by elements of 3rd PzG and 6th Army west of Lipetsk. It is not exactly a strong pocket but some Soviets will be isolated.

[Telemecus]

Turn 17 15-October-1941 Operation Dumbo Drop

Although it did not achieve all we had hoped, Operation Dumbo Drop as it had been code named by the team, showed that the Soviets are not the only ones with the ability to land airborne troops. This would leave the Soviet forces in the Kerch peninsula isolated at the start of their turn 17.

[Telemecus]

Turn 17 15-October-1941 Air

During the Soviet logisitics phase there was no partisan supply. During the Soviet action phase there was no interception, no airbase bombing, no ground bombing, no city bombing, no ground support, no reconnaisance and no air supply missions. During our action phase there is no interdiction, no interception and no ground support by the Soviets.

Our recon air groups set out to conduct extensive reconnaisance of detected Soviet airbases to establish their dispositions.



AIR WAR? WHAT AIR WAR?

[Telemecus]

Turn 17 15-October-1941 Economic

So what did the Soviet team do?

With no battles, no movement and no air force the big question is what did the Soviets do in their turn? After a lot of searching and clicking we finally get the big answer:-



The LaGG-3 factory at Dzerzhinsk near Gorky faced no prospects whatsoever of being overun by ground forces in the near future - its evacuation is solely down to our air bombardment of the factory. In itself this is a remarkable achievement.

The LaGG-3 factory at Dzerzhinsk, if left unhindered, would produce 22 LaGG-3s every turn from turn 2 until turn 54, 1,166 in total. We are unlikely to be able to cause further damage to the factory in its new location. The bombing damage together with its evacuation means we expect it will only produce 889. The 277 LaGG-3s we expect they lost in production from this factory however are all front loaded to 1941 and a little in January 1942.

The evacuation of the LaGG-33 factory doubled the damage levels we left the factory at last turn, but clearly the Soviet team saw that as a price worth paying to remove the option of continued bombing in future. If we had done no more bombing and there had been no evacuation we expect they would only have lost 67 LaGG-3s in production. The fact that they would evacuate causing the probable loss of 210 extra implicitly means they think our continued bombing would have destroyed 211 or more extra LaGG-3s. I'd like to think the Soviet team hired an expensive investment banker to use the Black-Scholes formula to accurately price these options. But even if they did it by intuition they may be right.

Strategic bombing

With no Soviet Air Force to oppose us it perhaps makes more sense to address strategic bombing from its economic effects rather than as part of the air war. Having started off as a way to disperse the Soviet interceptor force it has become an end in itself.

Our strategic bombing campaign continues along the length of the Volga valley and into the West Caucasus - and is now unopposed. In spite of the loss of a target at Dzerzinsk we continue to bomb another LaGG-3 factory at Gorky and the three Yak-1 factories near Saratov whose output has been choked to 10-11 a week with damages in the twenties or thirties percent. We attack the vehicle factory at Yaroslavl while the Murom vehicle fatory reaches 45% damage. The T-34 factories at Gorky and Stalingrad are under bombardment and a new tank factory comes into focus



The South Stalingrad T60 factory started production last turn but we forgot to bomb it then. So it's capacity has expanded from 1 to 2 a week - eventually it will produce 50 a week if allowed to expand. But bombing damage such as this will prevent it from doing so. In discussion one person thought damage in the Axis turn had to be at least 4% to leave 1% damage in the Soviet phase after repair for no expansion - but this is not so, 1% in the Axis phase is enough to prevent expansion in the Soviet phase. So expanding factories expanding from a small production run to a final large one are prone to enormous losses just from as little as 1% damage. But we see here how much damage can be inflicted on a factory with a small production run - 42% damage after two raids by the Rumanian air force would be unimaginable for the T-60 factory at Gorky which has already reached a capacity of 50. This level of damage will not be repaired for 14 turns, in about 8 of which we would expect to see production stop or about 16 T-60s lost. But the delayed expansion means we know for certain that an additional 672 T-60s that would have been built now never will be. Again front loaded. There are different views about the value of bombing T-34 factories with some believing it is only drawing down on the large pool of surplus tanks of this model they will have anyway. But on the loss of T-60 production there is near-univeral agreement.



As has been posted elsewhere the T60 factory is so vulnerable that it makes sense to evacuate it early before it has even started production to the East when it is also cheapest on rail cap. The ToEs of Soviet tank units are largely light tanks at this stage which are in short supply, losing this amount of production in 1941 is highly significant.



So close - but it looks like Kazan will be the one that gets away.

Factories lost

With further industry being overun by ground forces this turn the total Soviet factories lost or isolated stands at

-Arms 104
-Hvy 74
-Vehicle 40
-Pe-3
-Li-2
-Li-2W
-LaGG-3 "11 series"
-Su-2
-Il-4
-Il-10
-Pe-2
-U2-VSx3
-BA-10 Armd Car

[Telemecus]

Turn 17 Allocations
For information only - team allocations for turn 17.

[Telemecus]

Turn 18 22-October-1941 Centre

Mud



Edit:

Also the following picture shows rail repair in centre at end of turn 18



to see a debate on it see post 15 here tm.asp?m=4639282&mpage=1