Me (AXIS) vs. Piotrmx (LOSING FRACTION):-)

[Bear1888]

https://youtu.be/DHQxtgPp7fM

German 20mm in action. This thing is murder. In our game it takes a heavy toll on Il-2 squadrons.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: Bear1888

https://youtu.be/DHQxtgPp7fM

German 20mm in action. This thing is murder. In our game it takes a heavy toll on Il-2 squadrons.

It will do a great job on Guards Cavalry too .. [;)]

[Bear1888]

OK guys, here we go.

I will first produce several pictures to show you the overall situation at the starting date (1943/2/25) and then go to the hotpots where the main action is. in case I get a remarkable result, I will post the specific battle report and at the end I will post the casualties and the OOB. So have fun.

AGN:

Basically the standard move. Captured Leningrad, activated the finish army and manned the west river bank of the river Wolchow:



AGC:

Here is where Piotrmx decided to attack. You see a lot of guards corps full stacks. I moved 1 SS tank corps and 1 regular tank corps here to help with the defense. Also, the corps HQ's are packed with artillery, AA and each INF corps has at least 1 SPG unit:



A close look at the Moscow area:



The biggest Battle around Moscow. I wonder how long it will take for his La-5 units to wipe out my fighter force.



AGS:

Now that's another hot spot. After capturing 350k red army soldiers near Tula in early summer, I decided to relocate the Schwerpunkt to Rostov, cross the Don and attack the Caucasus. I was not able to capture Baku because it was too late and because my opponent brought in powerful corps size units and blocked my attack.

But I guess it was not a complete failure because I got some industry, damaged his oil production and captured some manpower centers.

So in the winter I began to retreat my mountain, infantry and tank units from there while 1.5 tank army covered the left flank near Stalingrad.





So now you got an overview over the strategic situation.

Here are the loses. I think as long as I keep them at 3:1 in my favor, i still have a chance.



The Air lose screen. The Luftwaffe fighter units are still superior and I tend to have all LW AA units in corps HQ's while the SPG AA units are assigned to Tank corps HQ's.



The OOB. The red army is pretty strong for 1943 but I guess my 7200 tanks are also not too bad.



My best unit:

[Bear1888]

Forgot to say that we are playing random weather which I find very interesting and not static like non-random weather. It was a good suggestion from Piotrmx.

Turn 90:

AGN:

Nothing new here. Recon detected no offensive build-ups on the other side, so the units stay where they are and get no reinforcement.

AGC:

No major action here except 2 soviet attacks. One hold and one retreat. Gave up a level 1 FORT hex to avoid a strong attack by 9 soviet corps. The Tank Divisions stay in reserve mode. Soviet Air power supporting the attacks got mauled by axis fighter units flying CAP.



AGS:

I saw an opening here to attack at the 34=20 hex. The objective was to break through and encircle at least 4 soviet Tank Corps with the aim to destroy enemy trucks and some good quality units. At the end of the turn, 22 PD/MD were involved. Also, most of my ground attack AC are in the region.


Here the situation before and after the attacks.





The pocket walls are mostly 3 stack PD in the hope that they will hold. it would be a major victory at the near end of the German offensive.

Loses:



Air Loses after some large engagements around Moscow and in the south:



Plenty of Manpower to replace the loses which will doubtfully happen when the Soviet meat grinder starts to work in summer 43.

[piotrmx]

I hope most of reserved manpower are Hungarian, Romanian, Italiano, Crotian, Espaniol and from the rest countries of Free Europe ))))). Some new pretty syberian gulags are waitong for them .

[Bear1888]

Turn 91:

AGN: Same old. Nothing newsworthy here. Finnish Air Force recon shows no reinforcements in this sector.

AGC: No attacks around Moscow. Although, the heavy concentration of enemy corps size units is still in the area.



AGS:

The enemy was able top open the pocket! I guess the fact that he can move 3 stack German Panzer Divisions indicates that the Axis has reached its high mark a few turns ago. This should mean the end of large scale offensive operations.

It would be wise to not sacrifice the high moral Panzertruppen in Kursk like fruitless offensive battles against rifle corps. The better option will be to do what Guderian wanted to do in 43:

Waiting for the soviet offensive and to attack the tired soviet spearhead units with well rested and fully equipped German divisions.

The situation after the soviet counterattacks:



And after my movement phase:



The loses are still in my favor. Although the soviets were able to save their corps, the battles took a heavy toll on their forces. 340 soviet tanks were shot down by expert German gunnery.



Air loses were high for the Red Air Force. The Axis fighter units once again granted the ground attack AC's total air supremacy in the region. 78 Il2 were shot down:



A typical air battle around Stalingrad:

[Bear1888]

Turn 92:

AGN:

No major enemy troop movement.

AGC:

One major attack in the Moscow area. My troops had to retreat and were overwhelmed by 220k enemy soldiers and 5k artillery pieces.
At least the enemy lost 3500 men and 54 fighters were shot down by the Luftwaffe:



AGS:

South of Stalingrad, we saw another major soviet attack and another retreat.270k troops and 5.4k guns were involves.axis fighter units shot down 31 soviet fighters. The Hungarian fighter units are now equipped with the export version of the ME-109.



The situation in the lower Don region:



The loses:



Air loses:



A new German fighter plane ended the testing phase and is rolling out of the factories now:

[xhoel]

Will be following this AAR with interest.

One advice I would give you is to not waste your Panzerwaffe on mobile operations in the blizzard since that takes a huge toll on available AFVs and trucks. AFV and truck repair rates are much lower during the blizzard, truck repair is capped at 10k trucks a turn instead of the 25k during summer and the percentage of damaged AFVs returned to transfer pools drops to 20% in blizzard as opposed to 40% during clear weather.

Cheers!

[EwaldvonKleist]

Will be following. Your Air force seems to rule the sky with excellent loss ratios? The Wehrmacht looks well-prepared numbers wise for the coming grind.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: xhoel

Will be following this AAR with interest.

One advice I would give you is to not waste your Panzerwaffe on mobile operations in the blizzard since that takes a huge toll on available AFVs and trucks. AFV and truck repair rates are much lower during the blizzard, truck repair is capped at 10k trucks a turn instead of the 25k during summer and the percentage of damaged AFVs returned to transfer pools drops to 20% in blizzard as opposed to 40% during clear weather.

Cheers!

I think this is a good general rule of thumb, and I have some regrets bringing out the Panzers in a blizzard, but look at the 8MP game for a successful blizzard offense. Your framing of the costs are quite correct, but one thought is the Benefits. In this case routing cavalry units so they would not harass the Germans. This particular offense had lots of parameters including the Soviet total manpower to guide objectives. But .. there might be circumstances where the price of admission might be worth bringing out the Lions in Winter.

[Bear1888]

With 4 games running and being beaten to dead meat by fetterkrolle[:D], I stop this AAR. But we are still going strong and are in august 43 now and i for my part will go the whole distance.

Such a reliable and skilled opponent like Piotrmx is rare.

Piotrmx, feel free to take over the AAR. I think its even more entertaining to post from the soviet POV from 43 on because you are on the offensive during the entire time up to 45.

[piotrmx]

I think my English isn't good enough. The second problem that I looking for a gap in the frontline and you are doing what you can to minimaze risk of breaking the frontline. So the news should be delayed more than 10 turns.
My opponent fights like Model but now I can see that red hammer made a chance to take Berlin before 1950

[Bear1888]

I hope to hold the line until 2200 when I can introduce my battle droids.

[Fetterkrolle]

ORIGINAL: Bear1888

With 4 games running and being beaten to dead meat by fetterkrolle[:D], I stop this AAR. But we are still going strong and are in august 43 now and i for my part will go the whole distance.

Well I am not beating you that badly yet. But soon you will see[8|]

[piotrmx]

Best units.

[Bear1888]

[:D]

[Bear1888]

BTW: I think Guard units do not profit from the moral boost bonus of a shock army. Only regular units.

[piotrmx]

But in shock army I have 5 corps with Zukov . Nov I have one Shock Front and one Tank Front