TTG multi-player teaching game

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Soviet northern front’s response was to strengthen its defenses in the Pskov region and withdraw several hexes in front of 16th Army. Reserve Front was shifted to the command of Soviet northern sector and tasked with the defense of Velikie Luki. One army, 7th Independent, redeployed from the Leningrad region south to a position between Northwest and Reserve Fronts.

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Meanwhile, on the Finnish front, with the support of a couple of divisions railed up last turn, Northern Front was able to extract all but one of its Finnish frontier divisions. The Finns have no armor and only a few cavalry brigades as a mobile force, so if the Soviets can present a solid line, they should be able to avoid any pockets during the Finnish opening move. The Soviets have clearly signaled their intention to neutralize the Finnish front by building a line of fortified zones the whole length of the Finnish no attack line, all the way from Lake Onega to the Gulf of Bothnia. At a cost of 60 AP, the Finns will become completely harmless until or unless the Germans manage to take Leningrad.

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In the central sector, the Soviets faced the combined forces of two German Panzer Groups and two and a half infantry Armies. They committed their most powerful forces and best generals to this sector last turn and clearly understood that this was the critical theater at this stage of the campaign. The Axis salient looked solid, though, and few Soviet forces were in reserve to the east of the salient, making a breakthrough or even a move to choke supplies unlikely to succeed.

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Therefore, the Soviet central commander chose the better part of valor and withdrew to a new defensive line based on Smolensk. Again, the most powerful Soviet forces are north of the Dnepr, and there are few Soviet units behind the initial triple line.

Orel Military District units south of Smolensk, lacking cavalry for exploitation, refrained from pushing across the Dnepr to try to cut or hinder supply to the salient. Instead, they withdrew behind the Sozh River to strengthen their defenses. They can offer little resistance to a German push to the southeast, however. Of course, the Soviets assume, probably correctly, that the main German thrust is aiming due east, towards Smolensk, Vyazma, and then Moscow. Similarly, in the swamps, there appeared no hope of rescuing the trapped armor, and so the Soviets settled for a picket line behind the Dnepr.

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In the south, the German forces appeared to be readier for an attack against Southern Front in the central Ukraine. Two turns of relative immobility for the armor and motorized divisions in this sector suggests that they will have something like their full movement allowance next turn, even without any HQBU. The corps of 1st Panzer Group diverted into the swamps has broken contact except for one motorized division, suggesting that it could be available for operations in the bend of the Dnepr in the next turn or two.

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Soviet forces retreated five or six hexes, to the Ingulets and the city of Krivoi Rog, while more weak divisions garrisoned the Dnepr as far as Zaporozhye and the city of Dnepropetrovsk. Both sides’ forces in this region are weak, and Axis supplies are restricted with the railhead still in Bessarabia.

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The pace of air operations picked up significantly this turn. The Soviets detected a fuel or ammo shortage in at least some German air bases when, while moving units in the central sector, they got an interdiction attack and then a “mission cancelled/supply shortage” message. This led them to launch air attacks across their front. The outcome was dramatic in terms of total losses and loss ratio. German fighter losses totaled 51, well above the rate of replacement. Soviet losses included about 140 first-line models and a host of I class fighters and SB-2 bombers.

Ground losses this turn were 256,405 Soviet to 21,073 Axis. Deployed numbers are 3,760,173 Soviet to 3,339,309 German (6,534 to 3,535 in the air).

I would assess this as a mixed outcome for the Soviets. They have now certainly lost another 30 divisions, but on the other hand, their main forces are still strong and their air force is beginning to claim at least equality.

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Comrade Marshal Fetterkrolle, commander of northern sector, points out:

In times like these when we see defeat after defeat we have to celebrate every victory we can. And this turn we won 2 out of 6 battles in the Northern theater. The Heroic men of the 182nd Rifle Division held two attacks from the so called elite SS Totenkopf division, while being under heavy air bombardments. Not only that but the German division is no where to be seen, maybe they fled back to germany after their defeats?

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And he continues:

Due to the Situasation in the center on the land bridge we have to pull back further North on the line aswell. Still my position is strong and I expect a lot of fighting now that AGN has made contact. This is the first turn I have seen action since Riga. The german motorized spearhead kicked back 2 divisions garrisoning old forts across the river (marked in red).

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And air commander Comrade Marshal Grant points out:

Heavy losses in air 800+ but also did heavy losses to Luftwaffe,they seem to be massing against our centre.

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Real Life has interfered to some extent with this game, so the players have slowed their pace of play and I have slowed my pace of writing AAR's. But the game goes on, with the caveat that we are remaining five turns behind the players in posting the AAR. The Axis just completed their turn 11, so here is Axis turn 6 for your reading pleasure:

TTG Teaching Game Neutral AAR
Axis turn 6

The Axis turn was much more dramatic than I had anticipated when looking at the Soviet moves. There were big offensives in all three Axis regions, with generally positive results for the Thousand Year Reich and its allies.

In the north, the Axis faced a strong defensive line across most of its front from Lake Pskov south to the Dvina. The troops that stood off an attack last turn by the concentrated power of 16th Army, led by Model, withdrew almost entirely out of deliberate attack range, while the defenders in the Pskov region appeared to have only gotten stronger, with defense strengths showing in the 20’s and 30’s in level 2 forts. German 18th Army was still mostly out of range in the northern sector.

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The Axis advisor, ST, gave AGN commander Philly a choice of a move to the north into Estonia to try to stretch the Soviet defenses or a direct assault on the Pskov strongpoint. (This is ST's map)

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Philly, being an aggressive fellow, chose the attack option. He transferred Model back to 18th Army, to XXXVIII Corps, stacked the corps up with artillery and rocket launchers, and made the indicated attacks. The first two succeeded, clearing the left bank of the Velikaya, but the cross-river attack was twice unsuccessful. Russian defenses around Pskov held, but for how long? Surely with all the action to the south, Soviet troops will be leaving this sector for the critical defense of Moscow.

In 16th Army’s sector, AGN punched into the Soviet position with a series of corps-strength hasty attacks. Mostly, you don’t get far with hasty attacks against a prepared enemy, but the Soviet retreat paradoxically put their troops in less favorable defensive terrain with lower fortification levels. This permitted AGN’s infantry to stack three-high, make liberal assignments of support units, and rupture a line they could not break the turn before with deliberate attacks. Then, XXXXI Panzer Corps jumped through the gap, shouldered the weakened defenders out of the way, and drove most of the way to Velikie Luki. The Soviets still have good defensive terrain to fall back into in this sector, and with 4th Panzer Group split in two, large pockets are unlikely, but at least AGN’s aggressive moves this turn will limit the amount of reinforcements the Soviets will be able to move from this sector southwards.

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Army Group Center faced the strongest Soviet defenses, in positions they had adopted precisely to avoid deliberate attacks by infantry. A large mass of German infantry in the land bridge region had some avenues for eastward advance, but mostly faced the troops of last turn’s pocket, not yet in isolated condition and so immune to attack (since you don’t want to attack a unit that you can cut off, keep isolated through its own turn, and then attack next turn when a morale failure means surrender instead of rout). On the positive side for the Axis, the armor/motorized of 3rd Panzer Group got most of their fuel needs and had movement allowances in the 40’s.

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AGC’s commander put those high MF to work by driving southeast from last turn’s salient to create a new, even larger, pocket along the Pronya River down to Gomel. At least 20 Soviet divisions were cut off in this area, in addition to the dozen left behind last turn in the land bridge, whose fate is now certain. The infantry in this sector more or less sorted itself out, with 2nd, 9th, and 4th Armies lining up north to south, closing the pockets and positioning themselves for attacks on the Soviet main line of resistance next turn.

One thing to note about this move: dramatic as it was, and productive as it was in terms of destroyed Soviet units, it does have the mass of German armor moving north to south. The territorial objective lies to the east. A mass of substantially undamaged Soviet infantry still sits astride the main route to Moscow. AGC will have to either relocate north to return to the land bridge, taking most of a turn, or turn northeast and face a river crossing and a good bit of swamp before arriving before Moscow.

In the swamp sector, the elements of AGS’s 1st Panzer Group that had been chasing the Soviet armor were withdrawn southwards, while AGS’s 17th Army screened the river.

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Army Group South continued to face light resistance in its sector. In the north Ukraine, Kiev is strongly defended, and a thin line defends the Dnepr south to Cherkassy. The 1st Panzer Group units that had been supporting the drive to pocket the Soviet armor refugees in the swamps were far from their railhead and low on fuel. German 9th and 17th Armies were closing in on the front, with the pocketed troops still in their way.

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The panzer units, mostly XXXXVIII Panzer Corps, that had been in the swamp repositioned to threaten the Dnepr line north of Kiev while conserving fuel. The infantry constricted the pocket, killing seven divisions. Elements of 17th Army pushed into the Kiev defenses and ZOCed the factories there. Moving factories from a hex in an Axis ZOC costs double rail capacity; presumably, the Soviets will have other priorities for evacuation this turn and the 4 Armaments and 4 Heavy Industry factories in Kiev will be lost.

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In the southern part of its sector, AGS faced a thin line of Soviet defenders along the Ingulets River, with, apparently, nothing behind it. The three panzer corps in the vicinity, 2nd Panzer Group’s XXXXVI and 1st’s III and XIV Panzer Corps, were far from their railhead but still had movement allowances in the 30’s thanks to their conservation of fuel last turn. If you don’t use all your movement points in one turn, the fuel remains in your stockpile and, in addition to what you get in the logistics phase, can give you a reasonable movement allowance on the succeeding turn even without a headquarters buildup.

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One down side to conserving fuel is that your fuel status should be visible to your opponents if they have a good detection level on your unit. If you set the “soft factor” on fuel (upper right hand corner of the screen next to the turn number and date), you can see graphically how much fuel your opponents have managed to save after their turn. As the Soviets in this part of the game (or the Axis later), you should give any enemy armor with green or yellow fuel a wide berth. So, for example, here is the Soviet view of that Army Group Center salient at the end of their last turn. Five divisions and one corps HQ are showing green or yellow fuel. They did back off, just not quite far enough.

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In the south, they did not have that kind of detection level on the armor around Kirovograd, unfortunately for them. The Soviets backed away in this sector, but also not far enough to prevent AGS from forming a small pocket around Krivoi Rog. Axis infantry menaced both ends of the Dnepr line; 11th Army near the mouth and 6th Army in the vicinity of Kremenchug. OKH sent substantial reinforcements to this sector in the form of 60th Motorized Division, 1st SS Motorized brigade, and five German infantry divisions.