8MP Team Game - The Axis team

[Telemecus]

Turns 22 to 37 Operation Pegasus Plucked: A Retrosective on our 1941/42 Winter - Ground in detail

We went through the blizzard with that can best be described as one of contrasts between the different commands.

NORTH - REFUSAL TO GIVE BATTLE

The opening weeks of blizzard saw our German forces in the North repeatedly redeploy away from the enemy - this was sometimes mistakenly refered to as "retreating." This did mean we gave up significant territory, including more easily defended areas like the Valdai. The bulge they created towards lake Ilmen is, by some measures, the closest they now have to Berlin - but also more difficult to defend in itself. However it also frustated the Northern Soviet commander at not being able to have battles. The extra hexes to travel through meant fewer units had the movement points left to initiate deliberate attacks. As a result our units there suffered less in losses of men, material and morale. We assume our opponents gained less in experience or credit to becoming guards. By the time our North started to stand its ground, the Soviet North had lost momentum and ultimately ceased trying to make any attacks at all.

North also covered the frontline down from Kalinin to Moscow and later also to the south of Moscow. A harder defence was established here, but was never really tested. Indeed later North was able to push back Soviet units adjacent to the Moscow-Kalinin rail line so that it could act as a supply route again.

And the areas covered by the Finns actually saw us gain ground on where we started the blizzard.

CENTRE - HARD DEFENCE ... AND OFFENCE

In our centre, from Moscow down to south of Tula, our troops were to standfast and not give an inch. The opening Soviet turn saw us immediately counterattack and seize back what they had captured and this set the flavour for the rest of the blizzard. The main effort of the Soviet offence which started along the Oka and north of Tula shifted southwards as the Blizzard went on - and Centre shifted southwards to meet them. Ultimately the Axis Blizzard offensive started here. As a result our forces went through many battles here but gave virtually no ground - indeed in two hexes the frontlines of Centre ended the blizzard exactly where it had started. Amazingly Tula, which all but our Centre commander assumed would be lost in the blizzard, remained in our hands.

SOUTH - STRETCHED THIN BUT FIGHTING BACK

Our poor south commander had to contend with a long front stretched thin. Hence our opponents were able to conduct numerous battles and farm many wins. And yet many of their wins scored virtually no losses against much of the front which had to be held by regiments, or were losses for allies which we will not have any manpower shortages with for a long time. Nevertheless many of the regiments, particularly the ones interspersed with allies, still got to have low ToEs by the end of the blizzard and very low morale. But as North and Centre became more secure we started to shorten the front covered by South and use fresh arrivals from Germany to bolster the frontlines.

OPERATION RUDOLF THE REDNOSE REINDEER

A special mention should be made of a group of interconnected operational plans. These never happened, at least other than a partial Rudolf operation.

The Janisjarvi line had been formed straight afer Finnish units joined the war in 1941. It meant they were never able to break into Karelia and its defence gave the Soviets their first guards unit. It was the one true success of the Soviet side during 1941. Worryingly for us it left the Soviet side perilously close to Vyborg - and a Finnish surrender. But as Soviet units were being drawn down for operations elsewhere our Northern commander reported he had seen a chink in the lines and believed it could be broken. However this single attack was soon being explored as the first part of a larger operation in which motorised forces supported by transports would follow through any success - this being the genesis of Operation Rudolf.

At this point we added a seperate study of how an attack on the lower Volkhov would impact Karelia - in particular how it could impede or delay any reinforcements. Combined with Rudolf this could have been followed by a further operation we named Reindeer. We game planned what would happen over several turns including what the Soviet reaction would be - and in one case managed to close down the entire rail line in Karelia and surround and isolate all the forces then on the Janisjarvi with other Soviet forces entering Karelia to rescue them being more than a turn away. A successful combined operation of Rudolf/Rednose/Reindeer would have produced high value results but with a very low probability of success. It depended on multiple parts coming together in sequence, many of which were not under our control. In the end changes in Soviet force dispositions the very turn before Rednose was set to begin led to its cancellation. It would not have made sense to deploy the motorised forces to Karelia for Rudolf alone, but with the deployment already started it made more sense to use what was already there.

The end result was a Janisjarvi line that was broken and pushed back hexes to give the defence of Finland in Karelia some strategic depth. Although lowsugar, our summer 1941 North commander, is rarely seen at HQ these days we did contact them specially on this event. And he expressed quiet satisfaction on seeing his old bug bear finally overcome.

FORTS

We had actually created our own forts on the flanks of Moscow, along the Mius and also at the entrances to the Crimea. The orthdox view is these should be used to held raise fortification levels, but should be disbanded before coming into contact with the enemy. Earlier in this AAR we had discussed taking a different approach to take advantage of a special rule



So we had planned to keep the forts with artillery directly attached but still stacked with other combat units to see if the extra disruption compensated for the lesser combat value of forts. At this point we would have reported the results, except that there are n't any. With one exception the forts were never in any battle, the one exception being an error we had not prepared for rather than the intended use. So it remains an open question.

However the forts even if not used (properly) in combat had their uses. They allowed us to deploy some units elswhere that otherwise would have had to be used to dig there, to plan retreat paths and stacking slots to them and to concentrate our efforts in other weaker places. The Soviet team did at least once come adjacent to our forts and may have picked them up with recon, so would be aware of our use of forts and adapted acordingly. Even from afar the forts had an impact.

THE DOGS THAT DID NOT BARK

On three occasions we ended a turn expecting to see the next turn come back with units isolated and possibly set for surrender the following turn.





In every case it never happened. On the other hand in one turn we did get back what we really dreaded...



For only one time did a gap appear in our front lines. But having blown open a hole when we looked for the exploiting cavalry we found none, if ever there was a time made for them this was it and none were to be found. Perhaps only Shakespeare can do justice to this moment:-



Ultimately we lost 4 German support units, 1 Rumanian support unit and 1 fort only during the blizzard - no on map combat units from the order of battle were lost at all. By contrast for the blizzard the Soviet losses included 4 on map rifle units. Inspite of all the losses we never once lost control. Never once did we find cavalry running around our rear. Never once did we have to rescue or lose an on map unit. Losses and retreats we can manage. Chaos and pandaemonium we cannot.

[Telemecus]

Turns 22 to 37 Operation Pegasus Plucked: A Retrosective on our 1941/42 Winter - Chain of Command and Leadership

With points spend no longer going on HQ buildups we started to look at how we could spend to shore up our defences for the winter. We had budgetted for a large number of forts - but in the end we only built 14 for our defences in the winter. So we looked next to our chain of command and leadership

Chain of Command

All systematic command penalties were removed from our chain of command.
-A large number of German units as well as some German HQs were placed into Finnish armies. This meant the command capacity of Finnish leaders, who are good, was fully utilised and more space was left for more units in German HQs further south. The forces within Finland's High Command extended to well to the south of its no move line. To their cost the Soviet team found our Finnish forces could still directly attack the hexes immediately to the south of the line from its north side. But in addiition Finnish units on reserve and Finnish SUs did commit to battles many hexes to its south. Thus the area of influence by Finland's blizzard penalty immune troops was usefully extended - see https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4826110 for a further discussion of this
-A whole German army (9th) was reassigned from AGC to AGN leaving each with four armies. Four armies can have their command capacities fully used without giving the army group they are in a command penalty, five cannot.
-Corps HQs were transfered out of 9th and 4th armies to other places where needed. Armies with three corps can give all of their units at least both corps and army levels of command whose command capacities are fully used but not exceeded, four makes it easier. Five or more though usually means a corps command inside an army is being underutilised.
-103RHG was assigned cavalry units, independent infantry brigades and regiments (some of which became divisions but remained in 103 RHG) as well as security units including the Slovak security unit that continued to have a ToE of a combat unit. This meant in effect we got an extra combat corps/army HQ for the frontlines.
-Panzer armies that had many of their motorised units reassigned to OKH and in winter garrisons took on command of frontline infantry. Panzer corps commanders also have some of the best infantry combat ratings.
-In addition some corps HQs were kept independent of army and army group command meaning the units that could not fit into the army groups and armies when their command capacity was reached still had an HQ to go to which itself did not have a command penalty.
-Finally southern allied HQs also took on some German units that could not be found a home elsewhere. Even bad southern leaders have better ratings checks than the best German whose command is overloaded.

In terms of bangs per buck, spending points to get rid of command penalties did far more to improve the combat value of our frontline troops than anything else we could have spent points on. Unless ground commanders chose otherwise, and usually then only on a temporary basis, no HQ would have a command penalty from having too many units assigned. But with this job done we turned to systematically changing our leadership.

Leaders: The Plan

Leaders were chosen in the priority of
i) Panzer corps (best average of morale, initiative, admin and mechanised ratings unless their infantry rating was higher than their mechanised rating)
ii) Infantry corps (best average of morale, initiative, admin and infantry ratings)
iii) OKH (best morale with other ratings as a tie breaker)
iv) Army groups (best morale with other ratings as a tie breaker)
v) Panzer armies/groups (best morale with other ratings as a tie breaker)
vi) Infantry armies (best morale with other ratings as a tie breaker)
No points were spent on changing leaders of air commands or of allies

As a result of this order of priority some of our best leaders who were then in charge of armies found themselves demoted to commanding corps!

We tried to do this systematically using the leaders spreadsheet found in the library of WitE resources. Minimum thresholds were set for each level of command (e.g. the average of their four combat ratings) to match those we had in the pool or expected to be in the near future given the scenario data. Some who fell just below this for one level we found automatically through our spreadsheets could nevertheless automatically qualify for the next level.

We also replaced leaders in a sequence which minimised cost. As the cost of replacing a leader decreases the higher the political rating of their superior, we only replaced leaders before their superior was replaced with a leader with a lower political, or after if replaced with a leader with higher political. And similarly carrying on up the chain we had to consider in which sequence to change their superior commanders by any changes in the political ratings of their superiors and so on. In the case of some armies it was even cheaper to first appoint a leader we did not want but who had high political and replace them after we had replaced their corps leaders.

Finally when we were confident we had the quota of leaders meeting our thresholds from the pool, we started replacing leaders with other leaders who already had other positions. The AI then selects a leader automatically to replace them - in effect we get two replacements for the price of one. Many leaders which would have been too expensive to appoint without a promotion were appointed for free. Some however did get ratings reductions. However the few that did were more than compensated for by the better leaders we got overall. Having already selected the leaders we banked on, any new promotions without reductions was a plus, any that had reductions were not a loss.

Leaders: The Results



i) Panzer corps are now lead by our first choice team from those leaders available all of whom have an average combat rating of 7 or above. This includes early auto promotions for leaders like Balck. Thus we were able to follow the advice of one of our earliest posters in this thread at zero points cost.

ORIGINAL: Northern Star
And don't forget to put the best [...] generals there, Model for the 1st Infantry and Balck!

ii) All but three infantry corps commanders have an average combat rating of 6.25 or above, almost half have 6.75 or above. Again this includes a number who ordinarily would only achieve General Leutnant rank much later but for whom we got an auto promotion and appointment for free. According to scenario data indeed Friedrich Mueller would never have achieved the rank in this game at all! Indeed we had so many surprise early promotions of future good corps leaders that we had to raise the threshold for who could be a corps leader. Many of our early appointments, especially in the North, went from being our first team line up to ones we wanted to replace. If we had known this at the start many points could have been saved from redundant appointments.

iii) and iv)
High Command - vKluge remained at OKH
AGN - with the withdrawal of Luftlotte 2, Kesselring was unemployed (in WitE at least) so his high high morale rating was used in AGN
AGC - Reichenau with his high morale ratings went to AGC, which since it was down to 4 armies also meant all his ratings became effective particularly as AGC was more geographically concentrated than other army groups
AGB - unchanged with Jodl - who although not appreciated as a leader does have high morale and high political to make changing army commanders cheaper
AGA - the leader was not changed and left as vRunstedt - although he had much lower morale than the other army group leaders, with corps leadership prioritised ahead of army groups there was no one better to replace him (typically he gets sacked in the blizzard anyway, but amazingly in this game he got just enough victories to cling on to the end)
Finnish High Command - with almost half the troops under their command being German army, including some German HQs, Mannerheim has become de facto leader of a fifth army group of the German army

v) and vi) Being our lowest priority, and with many of their best moved to corps or higher commands, army level leadership is now much weaker. And we have yet to appoint all of our first choices there anyway so we will have to work on this still after blizzard. In particular some armies, such as 3rd Panzer army which has only two corps at the moment, were used effectively as corps HQs themselves having units directly assigned to them. If we had know this in advance it would have been more sensible to leave them with better leaders.

[xhoel]

Stellar report as always Tele! Looking forward to see what the Axis have in store for the spring and summer.

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: xhoel

Stellar report as always Tele! Looking forward to see what the Axis have in store for the spring and summer.

Ditto.
The only thing not mentioned is the handling of air assets.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Zorch
The only thing not mentioned is the handling of air assets.

That request got me interested. A lot of the blizzard relatively little use was made of the air force on map. But there was quite a lot of swaps and pools management, as well as changes of the structure. I was not planning to post on that as I thought that would have little interest. But is that what you were after or something else?

[Telemecus]

Turns 22 to 37 Operation Pegasus Plucked: A Retrosective on our 1941/42 Winter - Wintering

When we started the game we hoped to send all our motorised units and our best morale infantry to winter quarters protected from the effects of the full blizzard. Given contingencies we might not achieve this but at least it was held as the ideal. They could be assigned to OKH to give more command space to other units such as forts and broken down regiments. In particular our best leaders in panzer corps could command more of the front line infantry. This would avoid the large vehicle loss penalties and preserve unit morale levels as at the end of the summer in 1941 for the summer in 1942.

While some advocate sending them to Poland or Germany for the winter, our preference was simply to place them in the cities and urban areas we had conquered. This would have the same effect of protecting them and they could remain close for emergencies. It would also mean the garrison units they would be replacing, mostly allies and security, would be brought to front lines even if only to act as MP eaters, routing fodder or diggers.

Feedback from another game with a similar reserve policy showed how deadly it could be even in the latest versions of the game. It was said the Soviets held the advantage right through 1941 and in to the blizzard. But when the motorised forces and good infantry came out of winter quarters for the summer campaign with full ToEs and morale in the 90s it led to a knockout blow. But it was felt the large number of wins it gave to the Soviets during the blizzard allowed them to max out on guards creation and this could have been moderated.

timmyab's plan called for half of the motorised forces to remain on the front lines in the south and not to use southern allies at all.

In the end we did use southern allies in the south on the basis that they were mixed in with German units, so there would not be any general sections of the front lines collapsing because of them. Many southern allies outperformed our expectations, with some significant helds, and the cavalry brigades were good reserve activators in the blizzard with all the advantages then that they did not have during the summer. The mountain units were, as expected, useful. But even when southern allies did rout they were simply withdrawn to the rear to be garrison troops and recover. Some units such as the Italian infantry cycled several times from front line service to being refitted in the rear and back again during the winter. This meant many movement points of our enemy were used on attacking them, and our allies took attrition losses in place of Germans. On the other hand significant numbers of wins were farmed leading to many units and even an army attaining guards status. And the German units standing shoulder to shoulder with the allies also were more battered. The 17th army for instance had many German infantry units with morale in the 50s.

We also moderated the wintering policy to allow some motorised units to remain in the front, in particular
i) Motorised units that were withdrawing before the 1942 offensive so we did not care where their morale gets to - 10Panzer, Das Reich, LAH, 900 Lehr
ii) Motorised units that were already at or below 85 morale
iii) Motorised units that gave a bonus to national morale that would get them back to above 85 morale - Gross Deutschland, Totenkopf, Wiking (although the latter two would need to be brought into rear and refitted to a better morale before the national morale changes down too much)
But we hoped to keep other motorised units with moral above 85 in winter quarters. With these levels a motorised unit can travel through 25 clear enemy hexes at best rather than 16. For similar reasons we hoped to winter many of our highest morale infantry.

Finally we hoped to avoid the use of motorised support units for similar reasons and even maybe keep a few panzer corps HQs above 85 morale (for better movement behind thir units when they are moving far)

The Results

In practise many more motorised units were left out still. We have a core of wintered motorised units with high morale units but fewer than it could have been. Many AFVs were lost, particularly due to the bad weather penalties on damaged vehicles in logisitcs. Many more motorised SUs were used, especially more motorised flak than we had envisioned given the lack of any enemy air force. And our cohort of self-propelled anti tank support units is pretty much spent. However this was the flip side to a much harder blizzard defence, and even offence, that has left us better off for our summer plans. And our own team doctrine has moved to see flak units as being intended parts of the ground war too.

Also there was some disquiet in the way motorised units reassigned to OKH and the rear were intially split down into regiments and used willy nilly wherever there was a garrison need. This meant a panzer division could see one of its regiments in a city in the far north and another in the far south. This was needed to get the summer garrison troops out and to their new winter positions as quickly as possible. Such a system does need tight control and efficient use of rail capacity and maximum ToEs after the blizzard to pull these units together again when and where they are needed. This can be done in a solo game. But is this possible in a team game where use of resources such as rail capacity is distributed?

[xhoel]

Very nice inside on the matters of wintering too. A quick question: what does the morale of HQ units do? Since you mentioned better movement behind their units what does that mean?

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: xhoel
Very nice inside on the matters of wintering too. A quick question: what does the morale of HQ units do? Since you mentioned better movement behind their units what does that mean?

Usually when I answer that someone makes a comment about femto management - you have been warned!

A motorised unit needs 2MPs to cross a clear enemy hex captured that turn if its morale is 86 or higher, 3MPs if below. So a motorised unit with 86 morale could potentially travel 25 hexes into enemy terrain, but only 16 if morale 84 say.

There have been times when I have had high morale panzer units that have travelled far, but the corps HQ on a slightly lower morale is not able to keep up with them. So at the end of an exploitation move by panzers, the HQ is not able to catch up with them and be within 5 hexes of them, let alone a place it can be safe at. A similar thing has happened when I wanted an airbase to follow up in the same turn as a staging base etc. (this by the way is one of the few advantages getting an airbase to guards status has)

So other things being equal - and if not needed elsewhere or for anything else - then stick some of your corps HQs and airbases into winter protected hexes too. If there is no downside then there is no reason not to? Or is that too much detail? [:D]

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: Zorch
The only thing not mentioned is the handling of air assets.

That request got me interested. A lot of the blizzard relatively little use was made of the air force on map. But there was quite a lot of swaps and pools management, as well as changes of the structure. I was not planning to post on that as I thought that would have little interest. But is that what you were after or something else?

Yes, that is it. Also, did you have contingency plans to use the Luftwaffe if the Soviets broke through?
I suppose you have reallocated air assets in preparation for the summer offensive.

[Telemecus]

Turns 22 to 37 Operation Pegasus Plucked: A Retrosective on our 1941/42 Winter - Manpower and Equipment

In this game we set maximum ToEs on units deliberately to maximise the ToEs of German infantry divisions as we came out of the blizzard. Key chokepoints tend to be German manpower and arms points. So we set to a maximum of 20% all support units that were replaced using arms points except pioneers from turn 1 - so all artillery and flak units for example had no replacements in 1941. We also choked replacements of withdrawing units from the start - 20% if a support unit, 50% if an HQ but 70% if an on map unit. As on map units only are allowed to withdraw if they have a minimum 75% ToE, but automtically go to refit in the turns before they leave, this usually placed them just above 75% when they had to leave. Some units like LAH which withdraws were left on 100% of ToE before their upgrade as this became approximately 70% of ToE after their upgrade (before they left). Our motorised on map units and best infantry in winter quarters were also set to a maximum of 20% ToE at the start of blizzard. And in more static parts of the North command our north commander also further choked his ToEs.

As a result of this at no point during the blizzard did we run out of arms points. And by the end we did have enough arms points to refill all our on map units. Indeed we could have started opening the taps again on some of our units like the artillery much earlier. We still lack German manpower however.

In addition to this there was a need to ration manpower and equipment where this was always in short supply. So Finnish manpower was usually directed to only the best units, and where there was not enough AFVs for all units, only the best were open to replacements.

[Telemecus]

Turns 22 to 37 Operation Pegasus Plucked: A Retrosective on our 1941/42 Winter - Order of Battle

Start of turn 38

[xhoel]

Ok thanks for explaining it Tele, quite helpful

[leverkuhn]

[font="Verdana"]TURNS 1-35 IN SPREADSHEETS. A brief report by Leverkuhn (Part 1)[/font]

As a sign of gratitude for letting me be a part of the Axis team, I will be providing a whole set of spreadsheets for this amazing MP game.

First off, we have the Panzer Division report. Here you can see the evolution in AFV, Morale, Experience and ToE% from turn 1 to turn 35.

1) No. of AFV per division (from north to south) with a focus on turn 20, the first time Moscow, Leningrad and Rostov were all under Axis control (notice the huge decline from that moment onwards due to winter conditions):


2) Evolution of PzD Morale:


3) Evolution of PzD Experience:


4) Evolution of ToE percentage:

[leverkuhn]

[font="Verdana"]TURNS 1-35 IN SPREADSHEETS. A brief report by Leverkuhn (Part 2)[/font]

Next up, we have the Order of Battle report. Here you can see the evolution in active Manpower, Army Status, AFV, guns and aircraft from turn 1 to turn 35.

1) Active Manpower evolution (pools and injured not included):


2) Army status evolution (remember that army status does not take account of whether you units' ToE% is choked, so it will always assume maximum unit strength; also, turn 1 is not included as there is no commander log, which should not mean units are at absolute full strength -but it would be painful to calculate how many men are missing by 22nd June, as one should check every ToE individually-):


3) Evolution of Active AFV, Guns and Aircraft (remember pools and damaged elements are not included):

[leverkuhn]

[font="Verdana"]TURNS 1-35 IN SPREADSHEETS. A brief report by Leverkuhn (Part 3)[/font]

And finally, I have something a bit special: the Panzer Snapshot Report. As a tank geek myself, I love keeping track of the actual composition of the German war machine at a given stage of the campaign. So here you have the active number of each type of german AFV, AC and SP every 5 turns (by axis turn start), so we can know exactly which types are serving in the East and how fast the renovation takes place.

Orange means out of production but units still left (whether in pools or active).
Black means not in production and no units left.
Red means captured equipment.

[Zorch]

Most excellent!

[redrum68]

Interesting spreadsheets. Any thoughts or conclusions from them? Hard for me to make much of them without having spreadsheets from other games to compare them to.

[xhoel]

Really nice job leverkuhn, adds a nice flavor to the game and it's always good to have a point of reference

[Telemecus]

Turn 38 to 45: OPERATION NATIONAL GARDEN

With the snows of spring arriving we move our horizons to what 1942 will bring. In preparation we chose to concentrate our main effort on seizing a bridgehead accross the river Don before it unfreezes. We call this Operation National Garden. If it was a Soviet operation no doubt it would be a collectivised garden. Unlike the western allies we put the country before the market. But will it be a bridgehead too far?

[thedude357]

Turn 38 Army Group South

With the boredom of defending all winter and the need to get a bridgehead over the Don, 17th Army in conjunction with 1st Panzer Army and independent infantry corps come up with a plan to breach the Soviet defensive line south of Voronezh and establish a bridgehead before the spring. This was named by Telemecus as Operation National Garden. This attack also served as a test of the strength of the Soviet line. A bridgehead over the Don before spring would be a huge boost to the upcoming summer offensive as a key defensive obstacle is effectively negated. The attack begins with German infantry conducting a shaping attack against Soviet infantry that pushes them out of the way with plenty of artillery.

In the far south in Crimea, Kerch is captured and most of the Soviets are pushed out of Crimea. One Soviet infantry brigade is trapped and will be forced to surrender next turn. With Kerch practically secured all focus will now be on Sevastopol during good weather.