Thriumph or Tragedy? (D21)

[Jukipo]

Turn 147, 11/15/42 AGA

Panzers are roaming free along the coast of Caspian Sea. Grozny was captured. Makhachkala is surrounded. There is 90 km to Astrakhan. 350km to Baku.

[Jukipo]

Turn 147, 11/15/42 AGA

Sukhumi was captured. We have gone through that narrow coastal strip between the Black Sea and Caucasus mountains. Now we’ll have more space to maneuver. It’s more difficult to stop us now. Only 140 km to Batumi.

[Jukipo]

Axis Overwhelming Victory! Soviet Union Unconditional Surrender! Stalin Dead!

My victory level is 4472 of 4400. It’s overwhelming victory. Soviets are unable to hurt me, and I can destroy their units at will. I have beaten the Red Army. I could continue to the Urals, but there is no challenge anymore. They don’t have enough units to defend the whole front. I think I could have captured Baku, Gorky and Yaroslav during the winter 42-43.

I'll post some statistics later.

[DanNeely]

Congratulations!

Now that the game's over, would you mind posting a save? I'd like to poke around what's left of the Russians and see exactly what the Turkish intervention with the fall of Makhachkala is.

[Kursk1943]

Hurrah, well done! Your AAR is an excellent incentive to play this scenario, showing how to win as Axis. Is it possible as in War in the East and occupy all territory or is it game over with the surrender?

[Jukipo]

Now that the game's over, would you mind posting a save? I'd like to poke around what's left of the Russians and see exactly what the Turkish intervention with the fall of Makhachkala is.

Sure, here is the file.

[Jukipo]

Here is the situation in the North from Ladoga to Ryazan. There are a lot of enemy troops near Moscow and near Volkhov. Other sectors of the front are not so strong.

[Jukipo]

Here is the situation in the Center from Ryazan to Stalingrad. The enemy is weak in this area.

[Jukipo]

Here is the situation in the South from Stalingrad to Batumi. There are not enough Soviet units to defend this area.

[Jukipo]

Here is the inventory of the most important weapon systems.

Axis strength on turn 147:
infantry squads (all types) - 104400
artillery tubes over 100mm - 15500
panzers - 9776
fighter-bombers - 1166
dive-bombers - 593
level-bombers - 1125

Soviet strength on turn 147:
infantry squads (all types) - 79200
artillery tubes over 100mm - 3300
tanks - 11924
fighter-bombers - 5577
level-bombers - 1665

So, I had about 30% more infantry and almost five times more artillery. The Soviets had 20% more tanks. No wonder they couldn't fight back! My artillery was inflicting continuous losses on the enemy.

Air war was slowly turning to Soviets advantage.

[Jukipo]

Here are the most important events during this campaign.

Turn 11: Smolensk was captured before we ran out of supply and the enemy could form a solid defense.
Turns 13-14: Kiev was surrounded.
Turns 14-16: Leningrad was surrounded.
Turn 31: We decided to stop the offensive towards Moscow and dig in.
Turns 44-59: The enemy suffered massive losses during the winter offensive.
Turns 60-65: Operation Jägerschnizel. Several enemy armies were destroyed in front of Moscow.
Turns 90-92: Several enemy armies were surrounded north of Moscow.
Turns 97-98: Several enemy armies were surrounded east of Kharkov.
Turn 113: Stalingrad was captured before we ran out of supply.

[Jukipo]

Is it possible as in War in the East and occupy all territory or is it game over with the surrender?

I think this scenario will go on until the last turn. There is no surrender. I just decided to end the game as it was not challenging anymore.

[TPOO]

ORIGINAL: Jukipo

Is it possible as in War in the East and occupy all territory or is it game over with the surrender?

I think this scenario will go on until the last turn. There is no surrender. I just decided to end the game as it was not challenging anymore.

Did the victory message pop up when you got more than the maximum points? If so I may need to increase the point totally as I did not want the victory message to pop up that soon and it may have been a TOAW IV thing as it did not use to do that in TOAW III. Anyway hopefully sometime you can try the latest version uploaded to the mod thread as it should have an improved PO performance, at least I hope it does. Thank you.[:)]

[Jukipo]

Did the victory message pop up when you got more than the maximum points? If so I may need to increase the point totally as I did not want the victory message to pop up that soon and it may have been a TOAW IV thing as it did not use to do that in TOAW III.

There was no victory message. I just decided I had won. The game was not challenging anymore.

I noticed two possible bugs:

Soviet 1942 winter offensive did last only two turns 144-145 (Sov shock 120, Axis shock 95). Then shock changed back to Soviet 98, Axis 105. Briefing says shock lasts 10 turns. Is there a bug?

6th Pz Div 43 unit appeared on turn 118 with Pz-IVh tanks. The old unit 6th Pz Div 41 didn’t disappear, so I had two 6th Pz units. I didn’t use the 1943 variant.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

Congratulations!

Now that the game's over, would you mind posting a save? I'd like to poke around what's left of the Russians and see exactly what the Turkish intervention with the fall of Makhachkala is.

So I ran the game forward a few turns, and from what I can tell taking Makhachkala did exactly nothing.

[Nicholas Bell]

Thanks again for you AAR, Jukipo. You showed how to do it right! I think you need a greater challenge for your next performance. [:)]

[TPOO]

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

Congratulations!

Now that the game's over, would you mind posting a save? I'd like to poke around what's left of the Russians and see exactly what the Turkish intervention with the fall of Makhachkala is.

So I ran the game forward a few turns, and from what I can tell taking Makhachkala did exactly nothing.

3 Turk Divisions activate when taking Makhachkala but they seem to arrive at the Batumi hex. If occupied still by the Soviets they will not arrive until the hex is captured. I do not think I like that and they should arrive on their side of the border. Will have to change that.

[TPOO]

ORIGINAL: Jukipo

Did the victory message pop up when you got more than the maximum points? If so I may need to increase the point totally as I did not want the victory message to pop up that soon and it may have been a TOAW IV thing as it did not use to do that in TOAW III.

There was no victory message. I just decided I had won. The game was not challenging anymore.

I noticed two possible bugs:

Soviet 1942 winter offensive did last only two turns 144-145 (Sov shock 120, Axis shock 95). Then shock changed back to Soviet 98, Axis 105. Briefing says shock lasts 10 turns. Is there a bug?

6th Pz Div 43 unit appeared on turn 118 with Pz-IVh tanks. The old unit 6th Pz Div 41 didn’t disappear, so I had two 6th Pz units. I didn’t use the 1943 variant.

Thank you.
The 6th Pz Div 43 had an activation of Turn 118 instead of Event 118. So that is fixed
The Winter 42 offensive had a variable start date set in events and for some reason that can mess things up with other events triggering off it. Steve has the event loop set correctly but what happened with your game should not have happened. I am resetting it with out the variable and should function correctly now. It is just easier that way. I will upload a corrected version.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: TPOO

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

Congratulations!

Now that the game's over, would you mind posting a save? I'd like to poke around what's left of the Russians and see exactly what the Turkish intervention with the fall of Makhachkala is.

So I ran the game forward a few turns, and from what I can tell taking Makhachkala did exactly nothing.

3 Turk Divisions activate when taking Makhachkala but they seem to arrive at the Batumi hex. If occupied still by the Soviets they will not arrive until the hex is captured. I do not think I like that and they should arrive on their side of the border. Will have to change that.

I took Batumi too waited a few turns and they still didn't arrive.

That aside I think either making Batumi the trigger or requiring both it and Makhachkala as triggers might be a good idea. Without any supply point of their own the Turkish divs would just wither away; and with only 3 divs by themselves along the long border it'd be easy for the Soviets to wipe them out if they're lacking in any German support.

[gliz2]

Great AAR.
The main issue here is Elmer. No offence but he was terrible. I have been playing mostly hugh EF scenarios like FITE(2) past 4 years and I know from experience even very avarage players pose much more of opponent.
Hell, I do go as far to say that an avarage player as commander of STAVKA will slow you down more than historically.
I'm having a bit of the problem of making a crushing breakthrough in the first 2 weeks when playing against human. Cause human think and adapt. Elmer does not.
My favourite in D21 was a case when I paradroped in almost undefended Moscov in August. Yes, Elmer had the city emptied of troops.