2x3+ Team Side Game - BOTH SIDES

[Telemecus]

[Beria]

Team Changes

Xhoel takes care of Axis North as well as the Air, Crackaces moves over to the Centre, and a very warm welcome to Joelmar as the new Axis South commander!!!


After a brief stay taking over the Supreme Soviet position I hand over to Bitburger but remain as team manager. And another very warm welcome to Der_Panzer who joins as Soviet North commander and sil01 who takes over as Soviet Centre commander

[Telemecus]

T038-T041 Snow: SWOT Analysis

Crackaces, Axis Centre Commander gave us the following SWOT analysis at the start of the snow turns.

STRENGTHS: Our strength is that the Soviets are very weak. Below 5M. My experience in 8MP is that 5.5M is required to make a 5 unit deep defense in one location. Thus the Soviets have choices to make. I do see in the line between Tambov and Ryazan one position that is 5 unit deep and forms a salient. But at a real cost of coverage in other places on the front. Simply, the Soviets will have trouble covering the front.

WEAKNESS: Many German units are well below national morale. TO&E and manpower are definitely weaker than the 8MP game as an example. The FINNS were neglected for many turns. The Luftwaffe was neglected prior to Xhoel’s arrival and the Soviets allowed to rebuild their air force.

OPPORTUNITIES: The snow turns offers the German’s an opportunity to get into spring staging positions. The 8MP AAR ( https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4250683 ) shows just how devastating a snow offense can be to the Soviets when they do not have the manpower to cover hexes. The team has pointed out multiple opportunities including isolating unsupported Guards units in the North. One opportunity is to focus armor to take Tambov and critical rail junctions. What this will do is force the Soviets to use rail line further east to get units from the North to the South. The other opportunity is to start cleaning out hexes we need to build rail line(s) east.

THREATS: From my point of view, the biggest threat is the seams between the commands. Especially during the “electric slide” south. We need close coordination no matter the plan so the front smoothly shifts without leaving a huge opportunity for a counterattack and disaster.

[Telemecus]

T038-T041 Snow North: Operation Red Sack

The greatest Soviet concentration of Soviet forces surprisingly enough is in the far north defending Cherepovets. Our blizzard South commander TunganNinja suggests this as the place to concentrate for an offensive in the snow.

TunganNinja, Former Axis South Commander TunganNinja
I am not comfortable with the main line of resistance in the north primarily because I am not comfortable assuming we will win a points victory if it happens, thats nice but otherwise I would like as much forest buffer as possible up to the Swampline of Cherepovets west of it Cherepovets is optional touching Rybinsk reseviour

Xhoel, Axis North and Air Commander
The plan is good however:
1) I don't have enough units on the northern side to make the push to close the pocket and have no Finnish reserves at hand. The terrain here is also very bad (heavy woods) so any advance will be meager if the Soviets commit resources to hold the line. This is my main concern.
2) The push from the south is doable if enough Infantry is provided, which is needed to hold the captured ground after the initial advance.
3) I can provide air assets for the southern thrust, but the decision if we will commit to the operation needs to be taken soon, so I can start moving units around.
4) The plan relies heavily on taking the objectives (cutting both rail lines) in the first week of operations. Should that go sideways we will be in a difficult position.
... I am afraid it is a bit too ambitious

Telemecus, Axis Supreme Commander
destroying lots of Soviet guards units would be a big gain... the terrain combined with the weather just means it is very unlikely we can get substantial pockets in the north ...However I would say not to abandon the idea but consider it as a contingency. We will have at least a corps of mobile units for local encirclements and opportunites - and if we see cracks opening up we can rail in lots more. Most of our mobile units are still wintering in rear cities so we have flexibility in where they are railed to.

Judging by other games what I think what is more likely to happen is that easier ground in the centre and south will start to open up and the Soviet side will be forced to transfer units there from the North. This will mean either those units can be encircled in more favourable ground in the centre or south - or less dense lines in the North become open to encirclement.

TunganNinja, Former Axis South Commander
The reason why I believe Operation Red Sack should be conducted during the snow turns, is precicely because the ice levels are in our favour. Let me explain:

The shortest southern path for interdicting the most northern rail is 8 hexes - almost entirely light woods and swamps. Undoubtedly if a layer of defense is present along the way it will eat up considerable movement points. However, with the ice levels being at maximum the swamps pose less of a hindrance to mobile units, and the rivers are entirely absent of movement penalties. Indeed, it is true that we would incur movement penalties from the snow, but as it applies for all units, having iced-out swamps mitigates the movement penalty for motorized units and gives us a relative advantage. Furthermore, snow movement penalties would ensure a sluggish response from Soviet units, hampering their attacks on our spearheads and slowing withdraws from exposed frontage on the line. Therefore, if there was a time for a Cherepovets offensive, it would be most ideal before any thawing takes place.

I concur that the operation carries risk, but not considerable risk. What's more, the potential benefits are greater than the potential penalties. At worst case scenario, our mobile forces become bogged down, but not before the Soviets retreat, granting us shorter lines for long term positioning. Total success would allow us to pocket the entire front, but even if we were only able to pocket the southern half of the front (which I find is very reasonable with cut rail) I would define the operation as cost-effective.

It should take Turn 37 and Turn 38 to rail in earmarked units. Reaching the northern railway is entirely dependent on having sufficient infantry and armour in position, for a mobile formation's HQBU by the end of turn 38. This is because I predict it would take approximately 2 turns to cut the northernmost rail, and 3 turns to guarantee eventual encirclement. Therefore, the earliest possible commencement of the operation would still force us to make moves during the last snow turn, opening ourselves up to Soviet counterattacks before mud. The pocketed units would most likely annoy us until the first clear turns.

As for the infantry advancing on the north edge,a quick advance on the northern section of that front may not be required, precisely because of its isolation. Still, with low fort levels present meager gains along Lake Onega may be worthwhile. In fact, the low fort levels in the entire sector suggest that the Soviets are not prepared for an incursion designed to cut the rail.

Telemecus, Axis Supreme Commander
On the point of operation red sack I still need to do the numbers on what could be railed - although we have until my turn to check on that i think.

To summarise what i think the argument for red sack is, basically we do have to advance on the north at some time, and now is "least worst" time to do it. There is some merit in the argument. My only concern is whether we have enough potential to make any serious encirclements with what we could rail up right now at all. At best we could only rail up three or four fully refitted/ToE mobile units to the north a turn, and many still need to be refitted. And with much of the front held by Finnish units we do nto have a wealth of other units in the area to use. But let me have a deeper look.

TunganNinja, Former Axis South Commander
My argument for Red Sack is less about land gain, and more on disrupting Soviet counters and manpower. Yes, it does knock out two birds with one stone; the intention is to cripple a high-quality portion of the Red Army in the snow so that they are off balance throughout the Summer.

I agree that the operation would be decided on our ability to muster available forces. I would feel confident with about the strength of a Panzer Army or 8 counters, and also a corps of crack infantry to make the breach.

IIRC, since the last snow turn is on Turn 41, and I expect it to take 2 turns to interdict the rail, and 1 more turn to follow up and encircle, then our forces would need to be assembled by the end of Turn 38 for an attack on Turns 39-41. I agree that it's cutting the timetable very close with low margin of error. I assume a likelihood of success based on an understanding that they seem to lack defense in depth in the area, and are preoccupied with defense of a possible attack in other sectors. Because we are so far forward in the Center and South, if I were them I would also lower the priority around Cherepovets. Therefore, I argue that the primary enemy would be the terrain, though once the rail is interdicted, the terrain will hamper the Soviets more. This is because they have to migrate up to 20 hexes in a northward direction, within forests and swamps, and during mud turns to escape encirclement.

[Telemecus]

T038-T041 Snow North: Operation Red Sack continued

Telemecus, Axis Supreme Commander
I spent quite a bit of time trying to see how the rail cap and refits/ToEs could match up with the resources to do this - and it just is not working out at the moment.

The critical points I was looking at were the CVs of the enemy units - they do have a dense enough set of units to use soaking attacks to break any single line encirclement. So quite simply no units really can be encircled and held during the snow period. Without that benefit operation red sack does not really hold up. Also the partisan attacks were unkind this turn, leaving the only rail route to much of the North from coming up from the south. The Finnish units are just not ready to do much combat so any mobile units up there would be badly exposed. So the only real rail cutting opportunity was the more southernly of the two rail lines - and cutting that alone is less beneficial.

TunganNinja, Axis South Commander
After looking at the game recently, I think you are right.

The thing about the Germans is that although I believe we could achieve the immediate objectives of a Spring offensive, if it turns into a serious engagement it's probably not a good idea - even if the Soviets bleed - as we cannot compete against their Hippocratic recovery rate...

Sometimes there are times when sitting back and licking one's wounds are required. For instance, I would be the kind of player to advise stretching the front lines as wide as possible during Summer '42, in order to stretch the Soviet defense, to find a gap and bag their units. If Cherepovets went as I would intend, while the Soviets may suffer a significant loss of experienced guards units, and counters in general, we would suffer from high fatigue and TO&E loss on an army of mobile units, which now spend the first months of Summer in the back doing R&R. Therefore we may be missing out on greater opportunities in the long term.

I wasn't fully paying attention to the state of our Axis units after the First Blizzard: they do look pretty mauled.

[joelmar]

Funny that when I got into the game I proposed something of the kind on a later timetable without knowing about this proposition by Tungen Ninja. I do believe now it would have been an error however tempting it might have been.

[TunganNinja]

Ah yes, it was very tempting for me at the time. I was imagining Santa coming home with little POW Christmas presents in his sack...

I think exploring its potential with Telemecus et al was very worth while. I was not as experienced with specific TOEs as the others, so I wound up assuming like many do that the panzer supermen would blast in and act as a gasket to seal the deal. But, that's the leaning curve for ya. It's interesting that you came up with a similar proposition as well.

[joelmar]

Indeed that is the power of team games. With an open mind you get to see things from different angles.

In this case, the advantage of time and space was simply not there. Even in case of a resounding victory in the north (which might have been easily denied by swift Soviet retreats) it would have taken forever to bring back those guys where they were really needed. And now we have the advantage of hindsight that shows what was accomplished during the spring elsewhere with the same units that had much bigger significance at the strategic level...

But yes, interesting that we both had a similar idea

[Telemecus]

Sometimes you can learn more by the things you did not do than the things you did. Added to the problem of ToEs and morale was the fact that far from having lots of rail cap we were going to use all rail cap for many turns to move motorised and other units in blizzard quarters out to the front lines. But many thanks to TunganNinja for galvanising the idea and as will be seen we came back to it often!

[Telemecus]

For information only - team allocations for turn 38

[Crackaces]

My thoughts for a winter offensive was mainly from my experience in 8MP. Tambov has a river behind it and if one can get past that river and isolate the city .. this is good ..a frozen river is better than one with ice ... or unfrozen in summer ..

I have enclosed a rough sketch showing key rail junctions that if taken will make the Soviets life a lot tougher. The axis of attack aligns with a rail line. Another line of attack is the rail from Skopin (116,58) toward Penza. The key hex is Saray at 122,58 .. there the Luftwaffe commands the whole heartland.

I was initially thinking the pivot point would be Ryazan … but now I think our snow offense should secure a line from 120/53 towards the North?

[joelmar]

Interesting info Crackaces thanks

This was all happening just before I got into the game. Turn 38 is when I took over AGS.

My first task was of course to get acquainted with how the team worked, figure out allocations and make sure I didn't overstep those, while getting an understanding of where the team was headed strategically and how to act within that frame. All of which took a little adaptation.

AGS front was organised from north to south:

6th army
17th army
11th army
3rd Rum army

1st pz army slowly coming out of winter quarters garrisons, as well as some high morale infantry divisions.

Taking in consideration my mission and discussions with my teammates, I decided to start a slow reorganization of my troops, that took around 10 turns to fully implement. With Model as leader of the best corps of 11th army, I decided 11th army would be made as powerful as possible by assigning to it all high morale reinforcements coming to AGS out from winter quarters and garrisons, and was to become the spearhead of the push to Stalingrad. 17th army already had a few mountain/light/jager divisions, and it was decided to make it a mountain army headed for the Caucasus by assigning to it all mtn divs available in our OOB. 6th army was to support 11th army. 1st panzer army was to hit wherever an occasion presented itself. I also planned an inversion of 11th army and 17th army's positions on the line.

But parallel to that, my troops were ordered to slowly push forward at a few places. My aim was to get to the Don river in the Rostov area, and also to get the front nearer to Stalingrad in the Chir area, all before the start of the mud season.

The Soviets still possessed Crimea and it was decided that no attack of any envergure would be done in that area in spring, except for a small scale operation aimed at pushing a Soviet stack from the marshes 2 hexes west of Novoalekseevka, back across the bay to Crimea's mainland. A few high morale units destined to AGS and coming out of winter quarters were earmarked for that mission.

Those plans became more or less the background of my decisions and operations for the winter turns.

[Telemecus]

T038 Axis Rail Repair

Meanwhile I am worrying about rail repair and our supply. Every turn recently has seen intense partisan activity to the west of Moscow. And even with construction units being concentrated in the area they have succeeded in cutting the first line we built to Moscow in two places. Only a single line is supplying our German armies running parallel to the front and coming up from the south. Luckily we held on to this in blizzard. But we are one unlucky partisan strike away from every German soldier between the Finns and Voronezh going very hungry.

[joelmar]

So here is the complete detailed situation at the end of turn 38. No major operations, but small gains were made, mostly in center and in south.

[Beria]

43 more victory points and the Axis have a sudden death victory

[Beria]

Neogodhobo
My spy on the German side is telling me the Axis are counting on a victory by points for 42 "sudden defeat"

Mamluke
that is... quite ambitious of then.... But it is possible
I've made some rough calculations. if they are serious about securing automatic Victory, there are 2 strategies I can see:

1- securing the entire Caucuses, INCLUDING Baku, this way it get's then 16 more points then, they just have to get Gorky and the Volga river. should be at 290 or just close enough

2- Without Baku (and taking Baku is very Dam hard thanks to rifle corps), if they just secure the Kuban region (north of the Mountain range). they will have to cross the Volga, take all Major cities along the river and Secure some 3 or 4 cities inland

keep in mind:
light Urban = 3 points
cities = 1

either strat is going to be hard for then... But it is within their capabilities.(edited)

Hot dam, this game is getting exciting!

In the map below victory points are shown for capturing each circled area. If all are captured then the Axis team get a sudden death victory. Just. If any city is left in Soviets hand they fail.

They will concentrate on destroying our army in areas 5 and 9 first. It's open ground, the russians can't stand anywhere in '42 without forts and difficult terrain. Some big encirclements and they can mop up and get their objectives. I think we can afford to lose area 8, and should actually encourage them to go south. Try to lose only the poor units in encirclements and delay at every chance. Carefully protect our best units until we make our stop lines and hope poor german supply and then weather saves us.

[Beria]

Neogodhobo
Gorky, Stalingrad, Baku and Vologda were already designated as the cities to defend at all cost.

To get a sudden death victory they need to capture urbans like Kazan! If they do not capture these final urbans they lose 3 victory points each. Capturing Cherepovets and Vologda (1 VP each) is not going to make a difference either way. Although prioritising Vologda gives north something to do there is nothing of strategic value there. The extreme concentration of units including guards is now going to be shifted south.

Mamluke
I say Gorky would be the most devastating loss. it take too much rail capacity to evac that city.

The area to Stalingrad on the other hand looks very thin …

Don Bend start of turn 38

Soviet South CommanderThis particular front is almost broken i will try to reinforce it but it may happen that the southern group will need to retreat. No decent rail, can't bring additional units fast... A couple of elite IDs are based near Stalingrad, but as i mentioned there is no decent rail near, and nothing can be done to build a good line that will deny Axis advance right now

[Beria]

We have a pool of zero arms points so can only build what we make each turn. Although only one factory is left to repair now.

[Beria]

T038 Soviet Administrative Reorganisation

ok, first is the size of the army. An army of ten fronts , composed of 4 inf armies and either a shock army or a tank army. That's 160 inf corps, 24 tank corps and 12 mech corps. Calvary corps will be phased out either by not rebuilding or disbanding. Cavalry replacements will be needed in the infantry corps, there won't be anymore cav units built, 16 really is about enough to try to keep up to strength after first winter.

I count 8 active fronts and crimea front ready, which will be receiving armies immediately.I propose we divide command to 3 fronts each command, when the 10 activates it will go to the player with the most important sector and may be allocated to other players as needed. Some fronts are divided and some are worse-overcommand. During the snow, commanders will begin to unify their fronts but it may take the quiet mud turns to complete. All understrenth armies will be brought up to full strength, but if you get an overstrength command, expect that stavka will slowly and with your cooperation take reserves or just not replace losses until they are within command limits. excess armies will slowly be disbanded. Losses are going to be massive and the army is likely to get smaller, not larger this summer campaign.

i count 386 inf div, 127 inf brigades, 104 tk brigades, 22 airborne brigades and 19 cav corps. we have enough infantry units, no more will be built. some won't be rebuilt. 22 airborne will be 11 guards divisions as soon as possible. 104 tank brigades are fine for now, but any lost are not rebuilt. the truckpool will not support more than the 36 mobile corps planned. Cav elements just aren't built in sufficient numbers, and they might be powerful in 42 but get less effective as the war goes on anyways. 6-10 left by 43 is historical with one honorary unit at wars end.

So what do we build? I propose tank battalions, which will upgrade later to regiments. These will be attached to infantry corps. We start now, they need the time to train up. More rr brigades are needed too, as the pool allows. Armaments are low, we concentrate on replacing the upcoming losses, and form airborne into guards, then guards into guards corps as soon as possible. If we can manage to stock up some ap's for the turn when guards infantry corps are buildable, that can really help the situation. I am usually hard pressed to build 2 per week in my games. But until infantry corps , it's impossible to hold anywhere the germans want to go. Tank corps are terribly weak in 42, better in 43, so probably only guards will be considered, but each commander decides what to do with his points. As to points, we could divide into four equal allotments, but i think a quarantee of so many points a commander and then a vote on where to direct the surplus would be ideal. It may be necessary for stavka and a commander to agree to combine points for a leader promotion or fortifying etc.

I would like to have some vvs bases under stavka, ill do partisan and long range recon. Then the commanders can get their turns with some recon done, and then recon to their needs. I count 65 airbases, each front will get a basic air army of 4 and hotter fronts more. A few will be put to rear area industry defense and used to rotate units in for training...

the airforce was reorganized. I took the long range command for stavka, it will be using long range bombers for partisan support and long range recon units will be based there. All air units under 40 morale went into reserve. Many more units were placed into reserve too, but only to ease reorg and will return next week. The North command will start with a defensive posture but will still have an important role. Leningrad air command will now have all the night bombing units, nbad bases are forming there, and it will be used to attrit the finns and overcome their ability to replace losses. North's daytime airforce will be focused on drawing out the finnish airforce. The sooner the finns collapse the sooner the germans are forced to redirect units to save them. North command will be important to stretching the german lines and weakening their summer offensive. All fronts will be getting dedicated air aibases for their air armies. 2-3 fighter, 1-2 level bomber bomber to start. all the tac has been reserved for the new shad bases, which will mostly go where the panzers go. The first shad airbase was built. Recon is in very short supply, most into reserve, but short range will be assigned to each front as soon as possible. I disbanded some BAK and PVO corps , but sent some pvo airbases to the rear military district air commands, where fighters will be able to protect factories and train up. Air command has been moved towards crimea front, it will take a joint effort between stavka and south command next turn to assign it to crimea front, which has no air army. Transcacasus and southern ural air commands are withdrawn to protect the rear, their airbases reassigned to front air commands.

[Beria]

T038 Soviet North

instructions to North
the 54th and 55th armies are understrength but are now at under your command. There are 14 divisions at Cheropovets at 20% toe. These will be brought up to strength slowly and put under your command. The first 3 were put at 100 toe, you can take them immediately. Please co-ordinate with Centre to extend your line southwards, allowing him to move south.

posted on behalf of Der_Panzer