Another Barbarossa AAR

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Your progress is really impressive. Good for you. Keep up the good work.
good hunting,
larry

I'm catching up at the moment and only have five minutes to post an AAR update- none to play! Still 12 turns behind on the AAR so you've got a few more posts to read before I'm caught up.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
Your progress is really impressive. Good for you. Keep up the good work.
good hunting,
larry

I'm catching up at the moment and only have five minutes to post an AAR update- none to play! Still 12 turns behind on the AAR so you've got a few more posts to read before I'm caught up.

I'm waiting on pins and needles. Don't tease us please.

[golden delicious]

Turn 16 and 8. Panzer has a ZOC over the Life Road: this means that from the next Soviet turn the whole Leningrad garrison will be unsupplied and will wither on the vine- although it will be many weeks before it weakens to the point where AGN can simply roll over it. A bit cheeky here as the HQ is casting the ZOC, but 3. Motorised and SS Totenkopf are coming up and it's unlikely the Soviets could hold the door open anyway. The Finns are rapidly advancing, having already reached their stopline east of Lake Ladoga.

Off to the south 12. Panzer is now adjacent to the Moscow fortifications but I'm reluctant to attack head-on against fortress hexes with my precious panzers, especially when they're in such poor supply condition. On the other hand, it's going to be a long time to the infantry can get forward. Also this turn, 13. Panzer reaches Kharkov.

[golden delicious]

Turn 17. Army Group South is exploiting in multiple directions over the Dnepr and has brushed aside the Soviet forces blocking the Perekop Isthmus, but supply really is totally abysmal at the front here and I feel no particular pressure to go for Sevastopol at this early stage. Odessa is in the final stages of being cleared, the Soviets having elected not to evacuate before the Rumanians were able to occupy it, although this came at considerable cost; I've lost 1,200 Rumanian rifle squads net of replacements, about a quarter of my initial strength. Once this is complete the Rumanian artillery here is due to move up and work on Sevastopol; the super heavy German guns will go to Leningrad where the rail will be a lot sooner.

AGC made a tentative attack on the outer defences of Moscow but the defending militia division actually came out much stronger as the "seeing the elephant" effect boosted their proficiency considerably. The Panzertruppen are totally overstretched here but even though I have infantry coming forward they're in nowhere near the numbers I would like and are still at least two turns back. For now, the panzers are on the defensive on a wide arc roughly from Volokolamsk to Kaluga- far more than they can hold if the Soviets counterattack on this front.

[golden delicious]

Turn 18 and AGC is still struggling in the salient up to Moscow. Some progress against the outer fortress line has been made but troops on both flanks are highly vulnerable with overextended supply lines. Most infantry released from the destruction of the Vyazma pockets is going to shore up the flanks leaving these troops outside the city itself increasingly isolated as Soviet reinforcements start to trickle in to the front.

Army Group South by contrast is enjoying improved supply conditions, with forward airfield supply points captured at Zaporozhe and Kharkov- the railhead itself is still west of Kiev.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Army Group South by contrast is enjoying improved supply conditions, with forward airfield supply points captured at Zaporozhe and Kharkov the railhead itself is still west of Kiev.

Wow. Good on you. BUT...one quick question: how long ( for how many turns ) are the supply points good for. I seem to want to guess about 15 turns? I'm pretty sure supply runs dry from those supply points at some future turn. It would be super cool if they were good for the rest of the game.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Wow. Good on you. BUT...one quick question: how long ( for how many turns ) are the supply points good for. I seem to want to guess about 15 turns? I'm pretty sure supply runs dry from those supply points at some future turn. It would be super cool if they were good for the rest of the game.

I've no idea- I don't think I've had many of them past 15 turns. A lot of them lie on the obvious line of rail development (e.g. Pskov, Minsk, Kiev) and so become more or less redundant later on anyway. However in AGS I've redirected the rail to run further to the north on the basis that I have a 75% supply point at Kharkov already.

I think in your current game you've done something to boost rail repair as my rail lines are extremely far behind at the moment and a lot of secondary sections of the front are really suffering as a result.

My intention is that if the rail line doesn't catch up then I will fall back on the supply lines a bit during the winter

[golden delicious]

Turn 19 and the Soviets are starting to assemble forces on the Volkhov in response to Leningrad being isolated, but this is now too late, with two mechanised divisions now in this area and infantry moving up to support and ultimately replace them, while the AG's artillery is pounding the starving Leningrad garrison out of existence. With AGN's primary objective secured, the balance of Panzer Group 4 is shifted to the southeast, in the general direction of Kalinin. The mission here is to cut in the rear of the Soviet forces on AGC's north flank to relieve pressure outside Moscow, however it will take some time for the Panzer Group to get into position, first it will pass in the rear of the Soviet salient at Demyansk where I've been unable to commit sufficient troops locally to pinch off the top.

On the Soviet turn, 60. Motorised division receives a beating from the Sevastopol fortress guns. I'll have to either tackle them immediately or rest out of range.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
Wow. Good on you. BUT...one quick question: how long ( for how many turns ) are the supply points good for. I seem to want to guess about 15 turns? I'm pretty sure supply runs dry from those supply points at some future turn. It would be super cool if they were good for the rest of the game.

I think in your current game you've done something to boost rail repair as my rail lines are extremely far behind at the moment and a lot of secondary sections of the front are really suffering as a result.

My intention is that if the rail line doesn't catch up then I will fall back on the supply lines a bit during the winter

Yes, I've given all my Axis Corps HQ's a rail repair crew. They are coming in really handy.

[golden delicious]

Turn 20: with Kharkov well in the rear I need a new set of objectives for Panzer Group 1, so I'm trying to concentrate it to the north of that city to push in the general direction of Voronezh. The intention is to clear the west bank of the Don, then to keep abreast of the south flank of AGC as far as possible to allow as much force as possible to be concentrated at Moscow (similar to the objectives laid out for Panzer Group 4 above).

There, I'm still struggling to bring up infantry, but I've had some success pushing Panzer Group 2 through the mish-mash of Soviet forces south of the city, and this turn elements of 29. Motorised reach the outskirts of Tula, directly south of Moscow.

[golden delicious]

Turn 21 and the Soviets are beginning to put heavy pressure on the near flanks of AGC's spearhead facing Moscow. I've been forced to pull back 19. Panzer from a very vulnerable advanced position near Klin, and am struggling to close a gap on the right flank. I've shut down my offensive operation which was pushing into the Moscow suburbs to focus on defending what I've already taken. Infantry are at last starting to get forward, with two divisions in fair condition coming up the highway from Mozhaysk which will relieve the panzers in their now static positions, and at the same time the Soviet positions west and northwest of Tula are collapsing, which should eliminate the threat from the south. I still have a lot more to do if I want to seriously threaten Moscow before the rains.

[golden delicious]

Turn 22 and I'm hit by a 50% movement bias penalty, slowing my forces to a crawl; at this time I don't know how long the effect last. Nevertheless, Panzer Group 4's new offensive is ploughing on ahead, extending the large salient at Demyansk which I hope to cut off completely in the next couple of turns. There are more strong Soviet positions in front of PG4 between here and Kalinin, but there are also more and more Soviet units arriving north of PG4 as the PO continues to pour troops into the Volkhov front, which may attempt to clear my blocking positions around Novaya Ladoga and relieve the siege of Leningrad.

Elsewhere, PG2 captured Tula this turn, but there are enemy forces in all directions here and I will need a few turns to clear my rear before I can turn this into a threat to Moscow's southern flank. The siege of Sevastopol is becoming increasingly costly as my infantry divisions are overextended and the fortress units here incredibly powerful, but with just 4 MPs each now it would be far too time consuming to withdraw them back out of range of the guns, so they press on with heavy artillery support. I'm coming to regret pushing early into the Crimea.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Wow. Good on you. BUT...one quick question: how long ( for how many turns ) are the supply points good for. I seem to want to guess about 15 turns? I'm pretty sure supply runs dry from those supply points at some future turn. It would be super cool if they were good for the rest of the game.

I just now (turn 28 in my match) lost the Pskov supply point- that's more than 20 turns after I captured it. I'm not sure if the same range applies to all of these supply points but 20 turns is a good long time and it means I'll have the supply point at Kharkov up to about turn 40, which is good as I'm relying on it to resupply AGS.

[golden delicious]

The situation in Crimea on turn 23. Several German divisions have already been through the wringer at Sevastopol- you can see 170. Infanterie there in particular is just a shell at under 1/3 of full strength- but the bloodshed here is close to paying off. I'm not so fussed about Sevastopol per se (I don't think the Bulgarians exist in this version), but clearing the supply points here will enable me to easily cut off the Soviet troops in the southwestern part of the peninsula. Over in the direction of Feodosia, I've also been badly handled, with a few units eliminated as the Soviets repulsed by badly-supplied lead troops, and now I'm on the defensive. With this theatre now slowed down, I'm removing the two mechanised divisions which have been with 11. Armee since Rumania entered the war; they will now support AGS in occupying the Donbas.

Elsewhere, I have pulled back three panzer divisions from AGC's north flank outside Moscow, as they've now been relieved by infantry. This is the first time any of my ground units have been allowed to rest since the beginning of the scenario; it's badly needed but the main reason for it is that my movement bias is still 75% and I'm not sure how long this is going to last. They won't actually gain much supply as the railhead has only just reached Smolensk, but at least they're not overextended. Ideally, I'll get all of the panzertruppen back off the line and then use them to swing around north and south of Moscow once my movement bias has recovered.

[golden delicious]

As requested by Larry, the loss report as of turn 23.

The headline number here is always the HRS. A loss of 17,095 means I'm averaging 743 a turn, or a 312 net, so in theory I have 7,176 fewer squads than if I'd not done any fighting at all. I calculated on turn 8 that I had a bit over 6,000 excess squads to start with so now I'm in negative territory, with the big pool of on-hand squads representing recent turnover from combat and equipment which should be going to units which are overextended and so can't receive replacements right now. The assigned strength is also 1,600 lower than it was on turn 11.

If I go on at this rate of loss then in another 25 turns I'll lose a further 7,800 HRS. Most of this can be met from the on-hand pool, but I still expect to dip below 30,000. On the other hand, I have a further 7 German divisions (including reconstitutes) slated to arrive in that time, which should give me a bit of a boost to that figure, especially if they continue to arrive overstrength.

I already noted the rather worse state of replacements for the Rumanians, and this also seems to be true of many of the other squad types, all of which are hurting worse than HRS. On the other hand, Motorcycle, SMG and Rifle squads are all doing better, and I even have a nice pool of Motorcycles (though I think mainly due to mechanised units being overextended).

There's not too much heavy equipment on this report as it's driven by the big numbers, but if I scroll down I can see my main Luftwaffe types are a bit below full strength, with a net loss of 3 Me-109, 3 Ju-88 and 6 He-111 each turn. Armoured vehicles are a lot lower down, but with correspondingly lower (or zero) replacement rates these are a bit of a concern; I'm probably below 80% of my starting tank strength and this will only continue to fall, especially as my armour continues to be heavily engaged in Army Group Centre.

Overall it feels like while the Wehrmacht is slowly being worn down, the rate is such that I should still be in a good position by the end of the campaign season, especially with some reinforcements coming on line.

[golden delicious]

Turn 24 and Movement Bias is back to normal, so the panzer divisions which were pulled back to rebuild just last turn go back into action, pushing into a gap northwest of Klin with the hopes of getting around to the north of Moscow. At the same time, the Soviet forces around Tula which I've been tied up with for the last several turns are fading away, freeing up Panzer Group 2 to push north. If both these drives succeed I can turn Moscow into a deep salient.

Also this turn, AGN drives the starving Soviet defenders out of Leningrad. This gives me my first really concrete achievement over and above what the Germans managed historically.

[golden delicious]

Turn 25 and Panzer Group 4's Drang Nach Kalinin is still bogged down. There are strong Soviet forces on both flanks here, with the loose pocket around Demyansk only just closed off and the Volkhov front building considerable strength as the troops that should be screening the approaches to the Leningrad Life road arrive too late to save the city: this is the only place besides Moscow itself where the Soviets are present in real force.

AGN is probably suffering more than the others from the diabolical supply situation, with the regiments of 122. and 126. Infanterie either side of Ostashkov in extremely bad condition due to being overextended and not receiving any replacements. The rail head is not moving towards these units (their closest rail line is actually AGC's route through Smolensk) so the only relief they will get will be when the Demyansk pocket is cleared and they can either move to greener pastures or get better supply from the northwest- with Leningrad gone I plan to route the rail east via Novgorod.

Elsewhere, Panzer Group 3 has reached the Moscow-Volga canal, putting 7. and 19. Panzer in place to drive southeast into Moscow's rear next turn. The south flank of the city continues to collapse, too. 11. Armee is in the final stages of the assault on Sevastopol although this battle has been some of the costliest fighting of the entire campaign.

[larryfulkerson]

Wow. Your game is a LOT more exciting than the one I'm playing. Also, I see that only a rare few of your units is green heathwise and I'm wondering what the average supply number your units have. I'm guessing less than 50% force-wide. Am I right? Do you have an absolute limit on a unit's supply level where if it's below that trigger-point it goes to the rear to rest? And speaking of supply, what's the supply level at the tip of your spears? Enquiring minds want to know. Also, what's the tempo of your air war? My guess is that Soviet planes are disappearing faster than a Russian journalist. You've recently captured Leningrad!!! Congratulations dude. Keep up the good work. I'm subscribed to this AAR for sure.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Wow. Your game is a LOT more exciting than the one I'm playing. Also, I see that only a rare few of your units is green heathwise and I'm wondering what the average supply number your units have. I'm guessing less than 50% force-wide. Am I right? Do you have an absolute limit on a unit's supply level where if it's below that trigger-point it goes to the rear to rest? And speaking of supply, what's the supply level at the tip of your spears? Enquiring minds want to know.

Supply is pretty low across the board, that's for sure, I would say a lot below 50% on average. I don't habitually rest units, though I intend to do so once I reach the end of the favourable offensive shock, so that my forces are in a better condition when the Soviet winter offensive begins.

I'll aim to post a screenshot showing supply levels for the next turn. Generally, it's around 5 on the frontline, but at this point the Axis player has quite a few supply units to play with, and there are also forward supply points at, for example, Tula and Kharkov. So in some places force supply is more like 10-12.

Also, what's the tempo of your air war? My guess is that Soviet planes are disappearing faster than a Russian journalist.

The Luftwaffe is getting used more and more heavily as I continue to push the advance. The VVS is concentrated in two areas; around Moscow and in Karelia where they actually have air superiority over the Finnish air force (despite having all my Me-110s around Leningrad to support them as much as possible). Because most of my German fighters are in good condition (dark green), I've been consistently hitting the Soviet fighters around Moscow, sometimes causing these units to evaporate- my bombers are too busy doing combat support and I rest them when their health is amber so I very rarely use them for airfield attacks. The VVS is doing a small amount of interdiction near the front (particularly in Karelia) but their airstrikes and combat support are very costly and ineffective. I don't have the game in front of me but I think at this point (turn 25) Soviet air strength is beginning to deteriorate again having reached a temporary high of about 1:3 air inferiority around turn 20.

You've recently captured Leningrad!!! Congratulations dude.

Thanks, the key thing for me here was to cut the life road and get the supply point at Oranienbaum. With this done, capturing the city itself was only a matter of time. I could have taken this more slowly and potentially saved losses, but with the city's guns shelling AGN every turn I judged it better to just get on with it. Clearing the rest of the garrison will still take a couple more weeks though.

[golden delicious]

Turn 26 and AGS is making steady progress into the Donbass region, with Stalino encircled; to the north are 9. and 11. Panzer which are due to move southeast to secure Voroshilovgrad. As requested by Larry I've left the supply trace on this screenshot, you can see how bad the supply situation is generally across the front; the nearest railhead all the way back west of Nikolayev is pretty irrelevant. Instead these troops are drawing supply from forward supply points: in the south, the 50% point at Zaporozhe and in the north the 75% point at Kharkov (you can see how much better supply is up in this direction in the top left of the screenshot), and the airfield northeast of Stalino, taken this turn, also has a 50% point though this won't show on the trace yet.

Army Group Centre's Moscow pincer movement continues to develop, with the Moscow salient now only six hexes wide behind the city.