Neogodhobo VS TheLysander AAR

[Neogodhobo]

Hello everyone

My experience level :
I have played my first MP games as the Supreme Commander in 2by3+ (still going on ) and Chief of Staff in TTG ( still going on), I was a ground commander in Connect 4 ( no longer exist) and I was ground commander in BlitzFour ( no longer exist).

Both my games where I am a ground commander either never started yet (B4) or was abandoned in the first few turns ( C4). I am not a very methodical, expert like some of my colleagues became to be in those games. I consider myself more of a..
brute zerg player ( if that make sense for some of you ).
I am not very experienced and this is my first real multiplayer game.

A couple of days ago, I embarked into a game against TheLysander and this will be the AAR. I am not looking for advice as it wouldnt be very fair to my opponent but you are free to leave your thoughts on everything I post.
We started the game yesterday or the day before, and we are now at turn 6.

My first post will be about Turn 1.
So here we go :
+1 Attack
Reduced Blizzard
Full FoW except movement
Lock HQ


TURN 1
Officer changes :
Model was changed into 1st Corps of 18th Army for that extra punch.
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Northern Front
The opening moves of the Northern Front went particularly well. Rige was captured and a bridghead accross the Daugava river was established close to Daugavpils.
Infantry divisions captured Kaunas and kept moving forward.

Not much to go on here.


Central Front

Central Front went particularly well. Brest and Vilnius were captured. A large pocket was formed. Minsk was at a door step away. 3rd Pz.Gr's objective is to capture Smolensk and meet 2nd Pz.Gr to form a pocket.
2nd Pz.Gr's objective would be to secure the bridge at Gomel and to close the pocket in Smolensk.

9th army would secure all pockets and rush to the Dnepr river.
4th Army would rush to Gomel.

Nothing else going here.



Southern Front
Southern Front didnt go particularly well.

All armies were ordered to go to Kiev and in a way, this is what happened, but I was hoping for a bigger push.
Nonetheless, 1st Pz.Gr established a hole in the enemy defense, and the infantry followed slowly on the side. 6th army is
on its way to exploit the hole made by the Pz.Gr.

Nothing else to go on about here.





Air Warfare

Percentage required to fly is set to 0%.
Recon is done on airfield.

Damage is not extraordinary but I was successfull in getting some important aircraft. Substantial losses on IL-4 and Mig-3, Yaks-1/2 were hit as well as
some Recon. Small numbers compared to others, but an efficient one Im happy with. Migs-3s and IL-4s were hit pretty badly.

[Neogodhobo]

TURN 2

Northern Front

Nothing much happened here. I regrouped my Pz.Gr and made an HQBU. Objective is stated to go to Narva.
The rest of the infantry keeps pushing.
Security Divs. and White divs are use to mop up the pocketed units.




Central Front
Infantry Armies were stuck keeping the pocketed units at bay. Security divisions are being brought forward to mop up.
The Inf. Armies will proceed to go forward as soon as possible.

Papa Hoth and his 3rd Pz.Gr have made some steady progress. Moved a few divisions in front of Vitebsk and the Dvina river
in order to distract the enemy from the real position of engagement for the battle of Smolensk : Polotsk.

Plan is to bring Hoth's 3rd and Strauss's 9th together, along with support from Busch's 16th, to Smolensk by crossing the bridge at Polotsk
Once a bridgehead is established, Strauss will push trough the forest and Hoth's divisions will take a break. Once the forest is clear,
Hoth will push trough Vitebsk to gain Smolensk.

At the same time, Guderian's 2nd Pz.Gr will push to Gomel by way of establishing a bridgehead trough Zhlzobin. It is not expected to meet
a lot of enemy resistence in Gomel, and so only a few divisions will be giving the order to capture the town. The others will go to Smolensk to form a pocket.

Nothing out of the extraordinary here, we will see how it develops.




Southern Front

Southern Front has turn into a disaster. Progress is slow. Same objectives are being expected to be achieved.

[Neogodhobo]

TURN 3

Northern Front

HQBU was a success and the Pz.Gr went all the way to Talinn and at the doorstep of Narva.
Security units were busy mopping up the remaining defenders. 18th Army was just beginning to cross
the Daugava river and the 16th Army were starting to arrive to support 3rd. Pz.Gr and establish a defensive
line in front of Pskov.

Air Recon indicated that there was no defense in the Chudskaya Rudnitsa area, making it a perfect place to cut trough the Pskov
and Narva defense with infantry divisions crossing the river and landing in the swamps ( North of Pskov lake, South of Peipus lake)




Central Front
Security units along with some of 4th army were busy mopping up. Other elements of 4th army started their advance to Smolensk.
9th Army was beginning to rush to Smolensk.
3rd Pz.Gr regrouped in front of its principal objective : Polotsk
2nd Pz.Gr is starting to arrive near Gomel.



Southern Front
Same old same old in the Southern Sector. The Pz.Gr is getting closer to Kiev, while putting itself in a dangerous position.
Pocketing of some of its divisions are expected.




Air War

[Neogodhobo]

Turn 4
Northern Front
16th Army was still arriving in front of Pskov.
18th Army was moving rapidly trough the Latvian tunnel created by 4th Pz.Gr.
4th Pz.Gr started their assault to Narva.

Northern Front Detail
Enemy cut off my troops while doing his move, forgot to show so I made an after map ( actual map shown after)

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Northern Front Battle
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Actual map turn 4 :


And at the end of the turn I noticed....



Central Front

9th Army finally arrived at destination, one more week to get them in order for some units to be able to be operational.
Elements of the 9th crossed Dnepr the river and took position with 3rd Pz.Gr in support of a push trough the Forest leading to Vitebsk.

4th Army completely stopped mopping up in order to get to more serious business. Elements of its infantry arrived at the front line,
Air Recon showed a large formation of Reds in the swamps and so it had to intervene, HE-111 bombers were sent to bomb them.
More delay for them in order to arrive near Gomel.

2nd Reserve Army is helping up mop up the Soviets with the Security divisions.
Both Pz.Gr. has started their assault on Smolensk.


Battle of Smolensk







Southern Front
1st Pz.Gr got a litle pocketed as expected, we got out of it no problem but it was nonetheless a waste of time. Although it
did help to pocket further enemy troops. After air recon along Kiev ( whom now became "Fortified Kiev"), Von Kleist's 4th
decided to help move further south and ultimately move trough Cherkassy bridge where it was least defended to complete its
objective. Leaving elements spreaded out quite a bit in order not to tip the enemy on his next move.

17th Atmy was still pushing slowly and taking care of mopping up units and pockets.
6th Army was ordered to establish a defensive line in front of Kiev and at the same time, attack from the North.
Axis Minors would continue to push slowly towards Odessa.

Plans to make Von Kleist move to Odessa was starting to brew but ultimately, it was decided to stick with Cherkassy.




Axis Minors

[Neogodhobo]

Turn 5

Turn 5 is a bit less detailed but I still have pictures.

Northern Front


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Battle of Narva
he Battle of Narva took place on (the 4th turn) 10th July 1941.
Just south of Sillamae, trough the light wooded terrain, with no air support. Von Manstein employed the LVI Corp's 3rd Mot. Div.
to do the initial clash that would start the Battle of Narva.

At 4:44am, elements of 3rd Motorised Division advance and met elements of the 2nd and 4th Gd.Len.PM Rifle Divisions, supported by Howitzer regiments and several I-16 Type 18.
The Soviets took a hard beating with severe casualties. The fight was ended around 6am when the Soviets started to retreat to Narva. It pursued the Reds all the way into the city
under constant probing attacks of I-16. The battle in Narva continued until 8am, when, the Red Army once again retreated.

Von Manstein ordered the 3rd Motorised to rest and occupy the city, while the 8th, 6th Pz.Div along with 36th Mot. Div. pursued the enemy into heavely fortified enemy entrenchement
The Soviets had snipers and infantry garrisonned in the Ivangorod Fortress overlooking the small bridge. Taking this position would be extremely hard. By 9am, the first
elements were ready to cross and a barrage of artillery, and cover fire was administered into the Fortress. The first tanks started to cross the bridge but were destroyed on the way
blocking the path for the infantry and other vehicles. After several attempts and hours passed, the attack was cancelled and the divisions regrouped into Narva.

Attempts to break trough all trough the week were unsuccessfull. By 17th July, 1st Fliegerkorps had arrived and was ready to set out on bombing missions. It flew several sorties and
the attack to go towards Leningrad continued after. 6th Pz.Div. and 36th Mot.Div. attacked at the South-East sector of Narva for several days and pushed the enemy back, successfully crossing
the Reka Narva river. At the same time, Totenkopf Div. pushed back the 2nd Len.PM Rifle Div, and the 1st Pz.Div made pushed back the 10th Rifle div.

All located in the South-East sector of Narva. By the 23rd July, all Soviets had retreated and abandoned position, the Germans were getting ready to advance and by-pass the Ivangorod Fortress.


Meanwhile, 18th Army air recon was still indicating no enemy presence in the Chudskaya Rudnitsa.

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Central Front






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Battle of Smolensk

On the Morning of 17th July, the battle for Smolensk was starting to rage, there has been a few skirmishes the week prior and now the Pz.Gr were ready to be in full swing.
At 4h40am, JU 88A's and a few HE-111 started to bomb the fortification north of Vitesbk. The 9th and 16th army repelled the Soviets who had taken defensive position in the woods
Thousands Soviets died in the few hours that span the skirmish. The road was now open to the armor divisions.
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Southern Front

I forgot all about Southern front, sorry, but it was basically the same thing, and move progress towards Cherkassy.

[mrhuggles]

The lunge across the Narva is really cool, he might be in danger not covering the swamp crossing near pskov as well. [:)] The escaped units in the south may hurt you in the future, however.

[SparkleyTits]

Great stuff man!
What's the Soviet OOB looking like so far?

[weinsoldner]

If you set the % to zero shouldn’t this mean no planes will actualy fly?

[SparkleyTits]

Having the air doctrine on 0% means that even if there is only 1 undamaged plane in a sqaudron out of 30 it will still join in on the air mission, this way you get the absolute maximum to fly that can be made to fly

It's a great setting for when you want to be very aggresive in the air (Great for turn 1 as Axis!) the downside is it does mean your planes will be flying many many more missions and all the disadvantages that may come with so it can mean you are burning the candle at both ends if you use it at the incorrect time or use it too often

On the opposite end of things if you had the setting on 100% it means only sqaudrons that are completely fresh and undamaged will join in the air mission which translates into a sqaudron running 1 mission before it is not used again for the turn (If you keep it on 100% those planes also will not fly in your enemies turn if any of them are damaged)

[Neogodhobo]

[SparkleyTits]

Thanks Neo!

That's a very quickly building OOB the Soviets may get some good opportunities to slow you to a grind if you cannot keep them off balance like you are in AGN
Good thing is a lot of that force seems to be in AGS atm which you can work around with the area being so open and full of clear terrain so he is not maximising the advantage to it's fullest

Great job in AGN though hopefully Leningrad will be yours in no time!

[Neogodhobo]

Battle of Smolensk turn 5

[Neogodhobo]

ORIGINAL: SparkleyTits

Thanks Neo!

That's a very quickly building OOB the Soviets may get some good opportunities to slow you to a grind if you cannot keep them off balance like you are in AGN
Good thing is a lot of that force seems to be in AGS atm which you can work around with the area being so open and full of clear terrain so he is not maximising the advantage to it's fullest

Great job in AGN though hopefully Leningrad will be yours in no time!

Thanks. Yes a lot of troops in AGS. I am really struggling down there. Will wait a bit before posting other pictures, but the next turn is really looking good ) At the rate of 3 turns per day, it should go quickly though. I spend more time editing in Microsoft Paint than on the actual game haha.

[Fanstar1]

No lvov will be an issue, but as long as you can achieve encirclements and take the key cities of the north you should be fine.

[SparkleyTits]

ORIGINAL: Neogodhobo

Thanks. Yes a lot of troops in AGS. I am really struggling down there. Will wait a bit before posting other pictures, but the next turn is really looking good ) At the rate of 3 turns per day, it should go quickly though. I spend more time editing in Microsoft Paint than on the actual game haha.

Haha well from the completely selfish point of view of the reader this is a great thing as it means I get to read more the AAR!

At 3 turns a day you'll be an Axis and paint pro by the end of the week [:D]

[bigbaba1111]

very intresting. you did much better than me in my first game.[;)]

no lvov pocket means that the enemy has some high quality infantry, armor and mountain infantry units to cause problems but your move in the north was very refreshing.

[AlexSF]

Hey, great AAr, thx for taking the time doing it. I just finished a game against your opponent Lysander and he is a good player. I beat him while playing the Soviet (he had to quit in March 44) and for me it's great to see him play the other side now. He's good with surprise armored breakthrough and mega-pocket, just a friendly warning... !

ps; when I saw your AGS first turn I thought to myself Oh mein Gott he is so screwed now. On the other hand it will make that AAr the more interesting

[EwaldvonKleist]

Well done AAR. From my armchair general perspective, letting the green and blue PG operate separately is questionable. As can be seen here, one PG on its own has not enough striking power to form even single stack pockets if facing the Soviet wall of steel.
In my first GC1941 vs humans as Soviets my opponent did the same, and his breakthroughs constantly threatened, but barely succeeded with encirclement.

[821Bobo]

If I may suggest, in north don't try to assault Leningrad from Narva. I would rather outflank him from right towards Novgorod. This will also force him to abandon position around Pskov.

[Neogodhobo]

Oh were far from there now in the game already.