Another Barbarossa AAR

[golden delicious]

Turn 89 and nominal force supply is back up to 25, bringing more units up to their full stockpile ready for the Spring offensive. AGC is slowly picking its way east towards the immediate objective of Gorky; the terrain here is pretty difficult with the rail not following a road and then the front narrowing dramatically as we approach the city itself, so I expect I'll need to flank the city from north and south if the PO makes any serious effort to defend it. From my experience at Yaroslavl and Vologda, though, I don't expect to find any particularly strong Soviet presence here and may just be able to walk in.

The end of the pestilence effect a few turns back plus the lack of combat has allowed my strength to build considerably, and I'm now up to 38k Heavy Rifle Squads. This has been more or less my baseline strength since early in the scenario. A lot of new German divisions arrive over the Winter however and the same number of squads that represented a full OOB on turn 10 add up to one at 80% strength on turn 89- the typical German infantry division has about 240/300 HRS. The Rumanians are similar, but the Finns are more like 60%.

[golden delicious]

Turn 90 finally arrives with the promised end of the Spring mud. The shock is gone, there's no movement bias and my supply radius is respectable, but there's still a refugee effect over most of the map so movement by road is still at half rate. Nevertheless my guys have been straining at the leash rather too long and so across the front they now surge ahead trapping Soviet divisions mostly in single hex pockets.

AGC and AGN are opposed reasonably strongly and it'll take a turn or two to push past the screen of pieces the PO has forward, but in the south it's another matter, with wide open steppe country between me and my first major objective at Maykop. 11. Panzer closes almost half this distance in a single turn; it looks like this one will be easy. It's considerably further to the next stop at Grozny, however, and that city currently contains a stack of four rifle divisions, more than the whole Soviet force north of the Kuban River.

[golden delicious]

Turn 91 and the refugee effect is gone. The Soviets get a Spring offensive boost, too, shifting the shock ratio from 105/98 to 105/110 against me, but I'm strong enough across the board that I'm going to ignore this and press on, as I only have so many turns before the next weather effects in the Autumn. In general this pays off but I do notice the PO is pretty active on its turn and a few of my more exposed units get tossed around a bit, in particular one Hungarian division which lost about half its strength. In general though I'm back on my 1941 pattern: panzers dash forward, put Soviet units out of supply, infantry comes up to replace the panzers, artillery crushes the trapped units, repeat.

It turns out I was ultimately able to cut off the whole Soviet force on the White Sea Coast, so the road is more or less wide open there. Trouble is, after Onega the rail runs off into the taiga, and the road to Archangel is perhaps too long to support a direct push on its own. We'll see.

[larryfulkerson]

one Hungarian division which lost about half its strength.

How many Hungarian units are there in this division? Is it still combat
ready, or will it be in a couple of turns of rest? Which division is it?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

How many Hungarian units are there in this division? Is it still combat
ready, or will it be in a couple of turns of rest? Which division is it?

I can look up the specifics this evening- but it's one of the regular leg infantry divisions which is sent from Hungary over the Winter 1941-2. As these units were new and fresh they went straight into a screen between the Don and Donetsk during the Winter, an area which was previously wide open.

The division is pretty much a wreck after being pushed around by the Soviets for an entire turn, and unfortunately it is pretty stuck and can't be extracted yet. It's possible the Soviets will continue to hammer it and even destroy it, but the Hungarian deployment here (just north of the Don Bend) is on the south flank of a mid-sized grouping of Soviet units which are also being pressed by German troops from the north and I hope to put the whole lot in the bag, which would take the pressure off and allow this unit to be pulled back to the nearest railhead, which is at least 15 hexes distant from here.

[golden delicious]

Here's the poor guy - 20th Hungarian Infantry division. In fact at this point in the turn I've almost finished mopping up the Soviet forces which were north and northwest of here and as you can see the Axis pretty much dominates this area, and much of the rest of 2nd Hungarian Army has moved up to support, but 20th Division is still pretty vulnerable adjacent to it's namesake, the powerful 20th Guards Rifle Division, and backed against the Don river

You can see in this screenshot what a happy, healthy Hungarian Infantry division looks like. 12th Division is a 7-8 even though it's barely at 50% supply. But 20th Division is down to a 2-2, with just 60 combat squads and 12 artillery pieces. It's possible it'll be destroyed on the PO's next turn.

[golden delicious]

Oof, I was right. Just ran the next Soviet turn and 20th GRD annihilated 20th Hungarian in a series of attacks.

[golden delicious]

Turn 92 and the offensive is accelerating. I forgot to mention that already on turn 91 the recon battalion of 11. Panzer entered Maykop; the Soviets hit it a couple of times trying to recapture but were unsuccessful and now the city is secured by 60. Motorised Infantry. This gives me a handy (if rather unrealistic given the extent of Soviet demolitions) +1 force supply immediately; given the criticality of supply in this scenario I'm happy about this and looking forward to more bonuses later on, but it's a long way from here to Grozny. It's clear by now I'm massively ahead of the historical German advance, and I note that historically Maykop was not occupied until August (it's now May)

In other news, lead elements of 7. Panzer are in the outskirts of Gorky and I may be able to take the city next turn. Across much of the front, though, I'm still working on cutting off and eliminating advanced Soviet positions, so in most places my forces have not advanced more than 100km or so since the weather changed.

[golden delicious]

Turn 93 and AGN's initial surge up the road from Vologda in the direction of Archangel has bogged down somewhat due to lack of supply. Soviet resistance here remains very light, with only battered fragments blocking my advance, but even with a supply unit forward my lead units are overextended, so I'm going to need to start cycling units back and forth from the railhead (still nine hexes short of Vologda) as I was doing during the late Winter offensive. Fortunately I have plenty of units to play with so this should still enable me to make progress, the bigger struggle will be to keep the flanks clear as Russian units have a bad habit of popping in and out of the taiga, where supply is even worse. For now, the joint Finnish-German force pushing out of Karelia is in much better shape as the rail is right on the front and I expect this advance to make much better progress at least until Onega where the rail and road diverge and things become more complicated.

Gorky was captured as hoped this turn so the rail repair unit from here shifts south to the line directed at Kuibyshev/Kazan. My panzers are starting to break free a bit more along the central stretch of front between Gorky and Saratov, but in places the Soviets are fairly aggressive, and 16. Motorised is very badly handled on the Soviet turn, not far from where 20th Hungarian division was destroyed the turn before. There's a huge Soviet force in reserve around Stalingrad, and under the current circumstances I'm standing on the defensive on this front only, until I achieve some of my broader objectives and bring the supply lines forward.

[golden delicious]

Turn 94 and AGC has finished clearing the far bank of the Tsna river, leaving apparently very little Soviet opposition between it and the Volga. Again, the limiting factor here is supplies: my spearheads are already operating overextended, and while for now they haven't burned up all their supplies and so aren't suffering unduly from it, I can't continue a full-blooded offensive under these conditions. My advance will slow down considerably if the Soviets are able to oppose me with more than just scraps, until such a time as the railhead can be brought forward.

Speaking of railheads, this is how far they have to travel:
Karelian Group to Archangel: 34 hexes
AGN to Archangel: 73 hexes
AGC to Kazan: 61 hexes
Army Group B to Saratov: 43 hexes
Army Group A to Baku: 99 hexes

The Autumn mud period is due on turn 136 (another 42 turns) at which point everything off the rail net will be "overextended" and so I will need to pull most of the army back to the rail on or before that time. Typically, I'm repairing two hexes a turn on each route (except for the Karelian group where it's already at the front and can't be brought forward except after each Soviet position is cleared): at this rate the railhead will still be about 15 hexes short of Baku by turn 136. Once each objective is taken or nearly taken I'll begin drawing rail repair units off to the Caucasus Front but it's going to be tight. If I can accelerate the rail repair in the south to three hexes a turn from about turn 115 then that will do it. I should be able to add one more RR repair unit to the south in the next few turns as the Finnish rail net's connection to AGN is almost complete.

Clearly Georgia is going to have to wait as I have no excess capacity to push a rail line down the Black Sea Coast. However I'm not too concerned about this as the Caucasus Mountains should serve as a very defensible frontier to the south; I'd be a bit more concerned about an attack on the long northern front across the Steppe, especially if this threatens the rail link to Baku; ideally I would like to push a screen up to the Volga River but again I wouldn't be able to support this with a rail line. I had wanted lateral rail links to connect the fronts, too.... maybe in the Autumn?

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Ben: did we ever figure out if it helps the rail repair effort to split the RR engineer units into pieces? I don't remember how that argument came out ( about two years ago now ). Didn't somebody do some tests?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Hey Ben: did we ever figure out if it helps the rail repair effort to split the RR engineer units into pieces? I don't remember how that argument came out ( about two years ago now ). Didn't somebody do some tests?

In this scenario, all rail repair is automatic. So no matter how you split your RR repair units you will still repair the same number of hexes each turn (currently 12) across the whole map. The auto-repair is biased towards hexes close to rail repair units.

The question I have is whether more rail repair occurs if there are multiple RR repair units in the hex, or if what matters is how many individual hexes there are on the map; i.e. if I cut each sector down to just 1 RR repair unit and concentrated all the others in one place, would it speed that one up and slow the others down?

[sPzAbt653]

if I cut each sector down to just 1 RR repair unit and concentrated all the others in one place, would it speed that one up and slow the others down?

If each one has an 80% chance to make a repair, then ten 80% chances is more than one 80% chance. If I can attempt to explain it that way.

[sPzAbt653]

Hey Larry, you probably knew this and maybe forgot it, but you can check on the effect of splitting units on their capabilities in the Unit Report. For D21, splitting a Bautrupp into two results in both pieces still having a 100% chance, but in the screen shot you can see the result of splitting one into three. The chance drops to 69%.

Therefore, splitting might help in some scenarios, but as Ben said, in D21 you get twelve auto repairs and splitting won't get you any more.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

If each one has an 80% chance to make a repair, then ten 80% chances is more than one 80% chance. If I can attempt to explain it that way.

OK- is that how it works, though- that auto repair runs through the on-map RR repair units and does this kind of test for each of them unless it runs out of the # hexes per turn?

Or does it just use hexes which contain or are near to a RR repair unit as part of the way it favours certain hexes?

I note that if it's the former, then splitting the RR repair units won't give you more repaired hexes- but it will ensure that as many as possible of those repaired hexes are actually on your desired routes of advance. Of course, this quite quickly means your main routes wind up with significant numbers of units filling up the railhead hexes, which are usually quite busy anyway with units arriving from reserve or coming back to resupply.

[sPzAbt653]

We don't know for sure, but I assume that the repairs 'tend to be near' rail repair units, so the more the merrier at one location. So spreading them out one per location will have little effect.

For D21 and RGW, I feel it is better to divide them into three mini-stacks, one for one line for each AG. Later in the scenario when some of them are removed its probably best to reduce that to two lines, or maybe even one if you need to get serious somewhere.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

We don't know for sure, but I assume that the repairs 'tend to be near' rail repair units, so the more the merrier at one location. So spreading them out one per location will have little effect.

For D21 and RGW, I feel it is better to divide them into three mini-stacks, one for one line for each AG. Later in the scenario when some of them are removed its probably best to reduce that to two lines, or maybe even one if you need to get serious somewhere.

OK. As suggested above I have four stacks of three which gives me roughly two hexes a turn in each direction, plus a single unit in Karelia which seems to also do two hexes per turn...

Honestly it sounds like it could do with some testing. Anyway when AGC and AGB's objectives (Kazan, Kuybyshev and Saratov) are cleared they'll be handing over some but not all of their RR engineer units to AGA and at that point either I'll see an improvement for AGA or I won't. If not then I can probably forget about capturing Baku in the Summer campaigning season

[sPzAbt653]

Another factor is repairs occurring 'closest to Supply Points'. I think this affects the Rail Repair in Karelia, because I think that scenario has a Supply Point at Helsinki, and the further the main Axis force moves east the further they get from their Supply Points, which probably makes the Auto-Repair give a little priority to Karelia. Plus there are fewer rail lines up north.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Another factor is repairs occurring 'closest to Supply Points'. I think this affects the Rail Repair in Karelia, because I think that scenario has a Supply Point at Helsinki, and the further the main Axis force moves east the further they get from their Supply Points, which probably makes the Auto-Repair give a little priority to Karelia. Plus there are fewer rail lines up north.

I think RR repair moves toward supply points rather than occurring near them? Certainly the rail started leaping ahead when I approached Stalino (one supply point) and then jumped from there to Rostov (another supply point) in about four turns. Going south from Rostov was then at a much more measured pace. I was hoping for a supply point at Maykop to accelerate things further but alas it was not to be.

I also note that the rail has extended- quite unbidden- halfway towards Kharkov from both of AGS rail routes. So the reaching towards supply points seems to be independent of whether any RR units are involved. At the time that I was planning these routes, I deliberately skirted either side of Kharkov knowing there was a 75% supply point there which I could fall back on for the Winter, but in hindsight going via Kharkov would have accelerated the development of the rail, then a quick cut down south to the supply points at Stalino and Rostov would have been possible.

[golden delicious]

Turn 95 and Soviet resistance against Army Group B (the northern part of Army Group South) remains strong. Although I'm able to put each enemy unit into a pocket as it appears, this screenshot really illustrates why Stalingrad is not on my list of 1942 objectives: besides the forces I've already encountered, there's a major reserve here, and the whole thing is backed by two supply points and ringed with fortress hexes. I think it would be no exaggeration to say that I'm facing more Soviet troops in this one sector than across the entire front north of here.

It's my intention to move up to roughly the line of the river which joins the Don near Ilovlya Station and then settle onto the defensive in this sector until most or all of my 1942 objectives have been achieved and AGB's forces are themselves well rested and supported (the current front is 17 hexes from where I intend to build my rail line which will anyway go to Saratov first). Then I can consider tackling this force, probably beginning by moving into the rear of the city to cut it off from reinforcement.