The Road to Leningrad: AtAtack (G) vs Beethoven (S), Soviet Viewpoint

[Beethoven1]

NOW HERE IS WHERE THINGS GET INTERESTING [X(]

In the Baltic, Germany also has started advancing, seemingly with one division moving forward a long way. I'll bet that is the motorized division that was just fighting nearby last turn...


Given the situation on the road to Pskov, some sort of withdrawal there is necessary. However, there are different ways I could withdraw...

I know that I will have to send at least some units back into the Baltic, but it is a question of how many - and if I send too few, then a few screening divisions might just end up being encircled.

I decide to pounce......

[Beethoven1]

As it turns out, the Soviets do actually have quite a few units with quite a few movement points, which (at least potentially) provides an opportunity to deal with an individual unit snaking deep into Soviet territory.

Given the opportunity, I decided to take it. I sent a large number of divisions north to encircle and try to eliminate the German motorized division - at first about 1 and a half armies, and the next turn up to two (or even a bit more) Soviet armies.

Why did I do this?

First of all, because it seemed like it ought to be possible. This motorized division was presumably the Totenkopf motorized division, which had fought several battles the last turn and consequently was presumably not that fresh. In addition, as mentioned in the previous post, the other German mobile divisions had also fought a lot the previous turn, and were all pretty far away. So I thought they would have a tough time quickly coming to help with the German mobile divisions.

Secondly, part of the reason for doing it was simply to test whether or not it was possible to punish Germany for snaking forward with a single division all by itself. I honestly don't know (or didn't know when I did this, which at this point is a few turns ago) whether it was possible at this stage in the game to actually eliminate an encircled German mobile division.

Thirdly, I thought that it would make this game more interesting. What I could have done is simply kept up a slow cautious retreat, and at this point in the game it seems like Germany is significantly behind historical schedule, so I could probably just have taken the easy and straightforward approach for a "win." The risk of doing this was, necessarily, I had to weaken my defense of Pskov a bit to send so many divisions to the Baltic. So the risk was that I could lose Pskov more quickly.

Fourthly, part of the reason to do this was simply to seize the initiative and attempt to distract Germany from Pskov. Having encircled this division, and not just encircled it 1 hex behind the lines but 3-4 hexes behind, I knew that if AtAtack wanted to break out the division without losing it, he would have to divert a large amount of troops, presumably including many or all of his 5 other less-than-fresh mobile divisions. If they went to Estonia, they would not be attacking Pskov, and would be out of position to attack along the double rail line through Pskov afterwards.

I actually wasn't totally sure how AtAtack would react to this. Maybe he would divert a lot to try to rescue the division, or maybe he would abandon it and just keep pushing straight through to Pskov.

[Beethoven1]

Meanwhile to the south, I pulled back for the most part to the Velikaya river line:

[Jajusha]

Not criticizing anyone, trying to be purely constructive, but i believe the german attack lacked objective.
The panzer army was divided by turn one, and even after taking riga and crossing the duagava, half the panzer divisions decided to stay south of the river until turn 5, dreaming for an encirclement that never happened and letting you reach not only lvl 1 forts, but defending on a major river all over the line.

By then you had already a 2 to 3 hexes deep defense on the way to pskov and only now on turn 7 are the germans on the position they should be by turn 3. You capitalized on the divided spear head, you retreated as the infatry arrived, and i belive your delay tactics won you this game.

[Beethoven1]

Turn 7: The Battle of the Turi Pocket

Early in the morning of August 3, 1941, General Konev's orders for Operation Tot-the-Totenkopf went into effect.

Unfortunately, despite the Totenkopf division being completely surrounded/isolated and attacked with 124,062 men, 1422 guns, 751 tanks, with 50 fighters and 125 bombers helping out, and the Soviets all under the command of a good General (Konev), the Germans held firm (with 2 to 1 odds in favor of the Germans, even!). There were some factors that helped the Totenkopf division to hold, however:

a) They unfortunately happened to have stopped in a swamp hex.
b) The hex was also a town - AtAtack said afterwards that being in a town (the town of Turi) apparently helps supply even if you are isolated (I was not aware of that beforehand).
c) The Totenkopf division had received air supply from German transport planes.

I could have attacked with more divisions, and in retrospect perhaps I should have, but I was hoping that with the huge number of divisions I had in the way, I could keep the German division motorized and then attack it the next turn if I did not manage to eliminate it in one single turn.

Surely with all those divisions there and so many zones of control etc, and with the German Panzer divisions being fatigued and having been in heavy combat and out of position at the beginning of the turn, surely under those conditions I should be able to hold out and keep them isolated for one more turn...

Right?

Wouldn't you think so?

Right?

Right?

[Beethoven1]

Turn 7 South:

Not much happened in the South. It appeared that the Germans had diverted a large and powerful force to try to free the Totenkopf division from the Turi Pocket. Still, I expected some sort of attack on Pskov and/or the southern flank towards Veliki Luki the next turn. And frankly, my line looked pretty weak there. The flip side of having sent so many troops to try to eliminate the Totenkopf division was that I was definitely more vulnerable than I otherwise would have been at Pskov, and I could well lose it over the next turn or two, depending on how far the German infantry had advanced and how many of their mobile divisions had been sent north.

Given that my attack on the Totenkopf division had failed this turn, I wasn't sure if it had been worth it. It had clearly diverted some German effort, but it also had diverted my defense.

[Beethoven1]

Turn 8:

Unfortunately the Germans managed to break out the Totenkopf division. In the last hex, Germany made 3 separate attempts to dislodge the Soviet 163rd Mechanized Division, the first two of which failed. The final and 3rd attempt was made by the Totenkopf division itself, which broke itself out despite being isolated. [:(]

[Beethoven1]

Meanwhile to the south, Germany had pretty much reached my lines just about everywhere. However, Germany did not do more than a few attacks on my line. It appeared that Germany had sent either all or almost all of its mobile divisions to the north. I counted 5 out of the 6 of them that were visible having fought in battles or on my intelligence when I hovered over the units to the North/West of Pskov.

This bought me a bit more time to reinforce the defense of Pskov.

[Beethoven1]

In the north, I reacted to the breaking of the pocket by retreating and sending as many units back towards Pskov as I could. I abandoned Tallinn, because it didn't seem to make any real sense (?) to just sacrifice units there to certain encirclement/destruction. The only reason I didn't retreat further was lack of movement points to move out some of the units that were stuck partly in German zones of control.

My assumption was that Germany could not really sustain an attack towards Leningrad from Estonia alone because there would not be enough supply without a double-rail track. This goes back to the point that I thought Pskov was the really vital area due to its importance in WITE1 AARs that I read and due to the double-tracked rail there.

But was this assumption actually correct? Does Germany actually have any supply problems? TBH I hadn't seen much if any sign of Germany's mobile units becoming noticeably weaker, either from continuous combat or from the various times that I had cut off divisions (several times in the game so far). Honestly I couldn't really judge this, due to lack of experience playing WITE2 at this point.

I also assumed that Germany would probably spend the next turn sending most or all of its mobile units back towards Pskov. But that too was just an assumption.

One thing to note is that my flanks in the north are weak - perhaps too weak. Perhaps in my . But I thought that surely... surely... after all of this fighting... after having cut off some Germans at various points... surely... they ought not to have too many movement points and supply left...

[Beethoven1]

In the south around Pskov, at the end of Turn 8 my line still felt sort of thing (and definitely lacking in depth). But the saving grace was that the German mobile units were (at least mostly) out of position for any attack on Pskov, and most of the German infantry - at least that which was visible - was in regiments, so HOPEFULLY somewhat thin...

[Beethoven1]

Turn 9 Start (North):

The situation that greeted me in the north at the beginning of turn 9 looked pretty dangerous, and was definitely worse than I was hoping for. One division was encircled, and about one and a half Armies were at at least some risk of encirclement before they could make it back to to the Narva.

AtAtack had clearly not returned his Panzers to the Pskov area, and instead had barreled forward full tilt into Estonia.

Since wide gaps had been left between the German units, in theory you might think that Germany would be vulnerable to counter-encirclement, similarly to what I had done previously with the Totenkopf division. But given how my previous attempt at that had gone, I decided not to risk trying this again (this was probably a very good idea).

Despite having been recently isolated, the Totenkopf division leapt forward and won battles easily against anything in its path, along with several other German divisions.

Most of the battles seemed to be routs, and ones that were not routs were almost always retreats.

One weird thing I noticed, but didn't quite put together at first in this screenshot (see the yellow highlighting) was that the Germans had gained 141 tanks this turn, which didn't make sense given all the combat that the Panzers had been in.

[Beethoven1]

Meanwhile in the south, not much happened again, but more and more German infantry was showing up and Germany forced my units in one of the forts to retreat (destroying the fort) a few hexes south of Pskov (but didn't cross the river).

[Beethoven1]

The Red Army is growing and now has a clear lead in # of men:

[Beethoven1]

AFVs:

The decline in AFVs seemed to have stabilized, at least for the moment.

The weird thing was that German AFVs going up, which I had noticed earlier and been confused about.

After seeing this chart, I loaded up the Leningrad scenario in single player and discovered that apparently Germany gets an extra Panzer Corps in reinforcements at this time!

[X(]

UH OH.........................

[Beethoven1]

Tank:
So what do you need? Besides a miracle.

Neo:
Guns. Lots of guns.

[Beethoven1]

The VVS keeps shrinking and shrinking. Maybe it is not shrinking quite as fast as before. Maybe.

That probably partly has to do with me raising the requirement to fly to be 40% strength, in an effort to preserve at least some strength.

One weird thing I also noticed is that the biggest contributor to Axis "victory points" so far is the huge number of planes they have shot down, but I don't particularly care about "victory points," and that is not why I am doing this.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: Jajusha

Not criticizing anyone, trying to be purely constructive, but i believe the german attack lacked objective.
The panzer army was divided by turn one, and even after taking riga and crossing the duagava, half the panzer divisions decided to stay south of the river until turn 5, dreaming for an encirclement that never happened and letting you reach not only lvl 1 forts, but defending on a major river all over the line.

By then you had already a 2 to 3 hexes deep defense on the way to pskov and only now on turn 7 are the germans on the position they should be by turn 3. You capitalized on the divided spear head, you retreated as the infatry arrived, and i belive your delay tactics won you this game.

Hopefully so, but given the situation in the north and also the extra German Panzer corps reinforcements which sooner or later is going to have to show up somewhere, that seems less clear than it did to me a few turns before.

The main thing I am genuinely unsure about is whether it is possible for Germany to reach Leningrad from Estonia if they don't have Pskov (or if Pskov is taken late). My whole gameplan was centered around the idea that Pskov is the key and that Leningrad can't fall without that double rail line.

In addition, German divisions seem pretty close to invulnerable - maybe not totally invulnerable, but definitely very robust - to any Soviet attempts to punish them for advancing too fast without adequate backup or without covering their flanks adequately (given the situation with the isolated Totenkopf division).

And they really don't seem to be slowed down too much by combat or by getting cut off.

[Beethoven1]

Turn 9 end:

In the north, I retreat. Surely that is enough depth to stop any German attack, right? And another German armored division is cut off from supply again. And both of the two German divisions have 4=4 on their combat value, presumably that must mean they need a turn to regroup and are having supply problems, right? That is what I assumed...

[Beethoven1]

In the south, I reinforce the hex where Germany destroyed my fort and took control across the Velikaya river with the best units I can find. I thought that I would probably lose it next turn anyway though with another attack. However, the reinforcements are arriving back from the Baltic, now allowing me to start adding at least a little bit of depth behind Pskov and to fill the main defense line with 3 units per hex.

Another thing to note is that only now, in this turn, do I start building forts along the Narva river. Up until this point, my assumption was the main threat was from Pskov. How much would Germany actually be slowed down in the Baltic, could they just keep routing everything and blow through my troops there?

[Beethoven1]

Turn 10 North:

Whaddya know, Germany blows through quite a few Soviet divisions, despite the things that I would have thought would be slowing them down (supply, and their tanks constantly fighting, with the 4=4 combat value noted last turn for example).

This looks quite bad, and I could potentially lose a significant number of units here.

The screenshot shows what a typical battle here looked like, basically every battle was a Soviet rout across the board. If I had known it would be this bad, I probably would have sent fewer divisions back to Pskov until I was sure that the German Panzers were also going back there, and also would have started building forts earlier.

This is a good lesson for newer players such as me, to not underestimate how much German mobile divisions can keep on pushing even if you cut them off and even if they only have supply from a single-line rail. Perhaps he was using a super depot or something, I don't know.