Scenario: Road to Leningrad – Playing as Axis (Completed)

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: jlbhung

ORIGINAL: Hardradi

In the three RtL games I have played/playing the weather has been atrocious, incessant rain and light mud everywhere. I like the randomness of the weather but wonder if this can be a bit harsh in a smaller scenarios.

I concur with you that random weather can be harsh for a small scenario. WitE1 allows the choice of random or historic weather. It is unfortunate that this nice feature in WitE1 are not included in WitE2.

The light rain isn't so bad. But the heavy rain is the nightmare. But yeah, there is almost always light rain all the time

[jlbhung]

ORIGINAL: neuromancer

Back to the situation at hand, I am wondering where all the Soviet units have gone. In my game (T4) they formed a line just in front of Pskov, right across the map from the Baltic to the east edge of the map. Not a strong line to be sure - I have the 4th Panzer Group poking at Pskov while the infantry moves up having finished the mop-up and relieved the panzerkorps at VL - but a line nonetheless.

I decided to write an AAR after playing this game to Turn 10 and did not keep end of turn saves for previous turns. This is the drawback of my using screenshots from start of turn saves to illustrate what happened in the past turn. The Soviets did form a line. However, I found that in the early turns the AI often retreat one or two hexes if they were in unfavourable locations (e.g. in clear hex, not behind river, not in rough/swamp hex). These moved units were not shown in the map when the next turn starts. Moreover, newly occupied hexes and battle sites cannot be shown.

I think the AI concentrated their defence in front of Pskov. See my end of turn note for Turn 3, the Soviets actually kept a whole Army of units there. Separately, I found that for a swift attack on targets 8 to 10 hexes away from the frontline in the early turns, the defence is usually thin. I often encountered only about 2 to 3 Soviets units on the way, and in most case they were no match for advancing German motorized units.

[jlbhung]

Turn 5

Raining in the whole map area.

1. In the North, the 41 Motorized Corps took a rest amidst the bad weather. They fought and moved non-stop for four turns already. In the meantime infantry from the 18 Army were catching up.

2. South of Pskov, I crossed the Velikaya River but an infantry division was later isolated by Soviet Tanks. There was insufficient infantry in this area.

3. Despite raining, panzers still crossed the Sorot River.

4. Panzer approaching Adreapol.

[jlbhung]

Turn 6

Raining continued. Roughly about 60%-70% of the map area was raining. Clear weather was in the Southeastern corner.

1. In the North, the 41 Motorized Corps returned from Tallinn to the Pskov area. Three Soviet divisions were encircled south of Pskov.

2. Pskov was heavily defended. Stacks of 3 units could be seen.

3. South of Dno, infantry from the 16 Army was pushing north. Two panzer and one motorized divisions from the 56 Motorized Corps were resting. They could burst forward once good weather returned.

4. In the South-eastern corner, the VP location Adreapol was taken.

[jlbhung]

AOGs at Turn 6

A screenshot showing the position of my AOGs. Generally Recons and fighters were placed close to the frontline, with priority given to fighters if airbase capacity was insufficient. With fighters at the forefront, it is more likely that escorts would be available to accompany Recon flights and reduce Recon loss. One of the reasons that I did not use AI Air Assist is because sometimes the AI put Recon in the front without fighter cover if airbase capacity is insufficient.

Level bombers were all at level 2 airbases near the Daugava River. Koluft North had long range recons, so it stayed at the back.

[jlbhung]

Turn 7

Raining continued for the third turn, all over the map area [:(]. There were not much actions apart from a few hex gains here and there. I was unwilling to commit my Motorized Corps at the moment because of the weather.

The panzer division at Adreapol returned to the vicinity of 56 Motorized Corps HQ. All the six panzer and motorized divisions under the 41 and 56 Motorized Corps gathered south of Pskov and Dno, awaiting order to proceed.

With progress in the repairing of railways, supply came mainly from railway depots.

[neuromancer]

ORIGINAL: jlbhung
I decided to write an AAR after playing this game to Turn 10 and did not keep end of turn saves for previous turns. This is the drawback of my using screenshots from start of turn saves to illustrate what happened in the past turn. The Soviets did form a line. However, I found that in the early turns the AI often retreat one or two hexes if they were in unfavourable locations (e.g. in clear hex, not behind river, not in rough/swamp hex). These moved units were not shown in the map when the next turn starts. Moreover, newly occupied hexes and battle sites cannot be shown.

Ah! Okay, that explains it.

[neuromancer]

Has anyone else found the LW fighters getting ground down horribly in this scenario? I still kill a lot more VVS fighters, in rather impressive numbers actually, but there is just sooooo many Russian planes that even at 5+ Soviet fighters for every 1 of mine I just eventually find that I am running out! It is a war of attrition that I am simply losing despite causing way more losses on the other side. And this is after smashing hundreds of them on the first turn (the total aircraft count chart is disheartening, you see this huge dip on turn 1, and then it pops right back up to where it was as they are all replaced).

[RobWorham]

Yup, I'm at turn 10 and I'm down to the wire for fighters. I thought I'd been real careful with them too!

If I don't get some sort of win, then it'll be abck to the drawing board...

[carlkay58]

Luftflotte 1 seems to take more air losses than any other Luftflotte in any of the scenarios. I am not sure why but I suspect that they are more out-numbered by the Soviets and the distances are too great so lots of operational losses. It also does not help that the ME109s are in a production switch over during the summer of 41 and there is no production for about four weeks.

[RobWorham]

Thanks for the info carlkay58 and the great AAR jlbhung.

I'm falling in love with this game, after skimming off WitE and WitW. There's so much to learn but as long as I make a little bit of progress each day then I'm as happy as the proverbial pig. Great to pick up these little tips like the 109 production and prioritising level 2 air bases to reduce ops losses and flight cancellations!

Looking forward to the next update...[:)]

[neuromancer]

So it's not just me then. Well, I guess that is good to know. [:'(]

No production for four weeks? Now that is some bad timing.

[jlbhung]

Turn 8

Weather finally became clear.

Four VP locations (Dno, Staraya Russa, Novgorod and Luga) were taken in one go in a breakthrough.

[For those new to the game: to make a breakthrough, I often started my attacks with infantry in front to make an opening. The more infantry available for the initial assaults the better. After exhausting the infantry, the motorized units will then follow up to exploit further, in the meantime trying to keep a three hexes wide corridor if possible (if not, then a continuous line of relatively strong units)]

[jlbhung]

Turn 8 Air Combats

Air combats were intense. After three turns of raining, pilots from both sides eagerly engaged each other when the weather became clear.

Most of the air combats were seen in the Axis action phase, suggesting that the Soviets were intercepting actively against Axis ground support missions. The vast majority of air losses were Soviet fighters and fighter-bombers.

Planes lost on the ground were likely be damaged planes destroyed when their airbases were overrun by the advancing Axis units.

[While I only got beginning of turn autosaves, it was lucky that Turn 8 air combat data in Axis Phases was still available at the beginning of Turn 9. It appeared that air combat data in Axis Air and Action Phases in the past turn was cleared only after the execution of the current Axis Air Phase.]

[jlbhung]

I think the locations of JG53 and JG54, which were close to the major area of actions, might have facilitated the provision of effective escorts to ground support missions.

[jlbhung]

Army Command Capacity

More and more infantry divisions under the 16 Army had been breaking down to regiments with the lengthening of the frontline as the game proceeded. The load on command capacity of HQs by an infantry division was 2 and would increase to 3 if broken down to 3 regiments. In the course of Turn 8, the command capacity of the 16 Army approached its limit (the load became 26 out of 27). To increase the Army’s command capacity, I turned it to an Assault HQ. Apart from the increased capacity, I would also benefit from the increased rate of CPP gain for units under Assault HQ. This cost 10 AP.

[the screenshots were as at start of Turn 8 and Turn 9 respectively]

[neuromancer]

ORIGINAL: jlbhung

Four VP locations (Dno, Staraya Russa, Novgorod and Luga) were taken in one go in a breakthrough.

WOAH! Nice breakthrough!


You must have broken down a lot of those divisions into regiments for that kind of coverage, yes? Not just the infantry in A16, but the panzers and motorboyz of PG4.

[RobWorham]

ORIGINAL: jlbhung

Turn 8
Four VP locations (Dno, Staraya Russa, Novgorod and Luga) were taken in one go in a breakthrough.

How many APs do you have? Am I right in saying that it costs APs to build your regiments back up into divisions (I think I read that somewhere)? Do you think you've got enough punching power with all those regiments, rather than divisions, if you keep them as regiments?

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: RobWorham
...

How many APs do you have? Am I right in saying that it costs APs to build your regiments back up into divisions ....

no, that is free

[jlbhung]

ORIGINAL: RobWorham

How many APs do you have? Am I right in saying that it costs APs to build your regiments back up into divisions (I think I read that somewhere)? Do you think you've got enough punching power with all those regiments, rather than divisions, if you keep them as regiments?

Breakdown and re-building existing divisions do not cost APs. I think you may be referring to the situation where a Soviet Tank Corps does not previously exist and you build up a new one using tank brigades. Even in such case no APs are required if you later break it down and re-build it.

RobWorham, you are right. Regiment usually does not have a lot of punching power. In fact, many of the attacks done by motorized units in a breakthrough were hasty ones. So usually a division was required. Sometimes if I am uncertain, I stacked two divisions together for a hasty attack. Divisions were broken down largely in the latter half or near the end of their journey in order to cover more ground. Novgorod was a special case where I was not certain whether I could take it with a hasty attack, but did not have sufficient movement points left to carry out a deliberate attack and advance. So I broke down the 6th Panzer Division and launched a deliberate attack with 2 regiments. The remaining regiment could advance afterwards if the attack was succeed. In WitE1, some players may prefer hasty attack twice if the first one was unsuccessful, but with the introduction of CPP in WitE2 double hasty attack appears to be less appealing.