Icarus 1916 campaign, Version 7.1 - hannaj (Central Powers) versus mdsmall (Entente)

[mdsmall]

1. I recently completed a terrific play-test with hannaj of the 1916 campaign for the Icarus mod, Version 7.1. After recently playing the Central Powers against Old Crow Balthazor in both the 1914 and 1916 campaigns using Version 7.0 I was interested in trying the Entente side. People who followed our recent matches on his YT channel might be interested to read the following account of my game in the same campaign, this time playing the Entente.

2. This time – given the new features of 7.1 – the Russians were highly motivated to launch a Brusilov offensive into Galicia from the start. In the latest settings for the 1916 campaign, Romania swings by 4-6% towards the Entente every turn in which there are two Russian corps within three hexes of Lemberg. Despite increasing casualties, the Russians occupied and maintained a salient in Galicia in order to drive Romanian entry into the war. This happened in our match in early August 1916 - very close to the historical date. As Old Crow says, Romania is a two-edged sword for the Entente and this proved to be true in this match. Germany deployed General Falkenhayn (recently fired from the High Command) to the Bucharest front, while the Austro-Hungarian army rapidly pushed into the empty space of northern Romania towards Jassy. While I had seen Romania hang on for a long time in previous games, I had never seen Jassy (their alternate capital) threatened as the same time as Bucharest. In the end, Romania surrendered in early 1917.

3. In the East, hannaj used an interesting tactic against the Russians. Rather than capturing Minsk and Riga as soon as possible, he was content to destroy the Russian corps defending both NM hexes every turn without occupying them. This encouraged me to send in fresh corps to hold onto these cities, until I finally realized that the Russians were running out of manpower. I finally had to abandon both locations in October 1916 and retreat to a straight line which I could defend. He also send almost the entire German fleet into the Gulf of Finland to attack the Russian navy in port. Even though we were playing with a house rule that submarines can only make one attack per turn on a given port, using a combination of subs to reduce port values and surface vessels to exchange fire with Russian ships, we was able by early 1917 to destroy the entire Russian navy, even though it almost never left port. I took advantage of the new DE in Version 7.1 allowing the Russians to scuttle ships in Finnish ports just before it declared independence. In the end, it had little effect in reducing Russia’s naval NM losses.

4. The coup de grâce was a daring amphibious attack by the Ottomans across the Black Sea against Sevastopol. I had stupidly moved the Russian garrison from there to plug a hole on the Romanian front. Losing Sevastopol cost Russia 3000 NM they could not afford. In addition, there was a glitch in the pre-release version of 7.1 which we played (I had not yet reduced the NM value of fortresses to zero as intended) which costs the Russians about 2000 more NM points over the course of the game. In the end, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed at the end of the Entente turn on May 5, 1917.

5. The Salonika front played out differently than my other recent games of Icarus. France redeployed their field artillery unit from there to France on the first turn, while the Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians bided their time after eliminating Montenegro until Bulgaria could build a field artillery unit. Once they started to push towards Salonika, the French were able to pivot and move all of their units in front of Salonika into Albania. At one moment, Montenegro was briefly liberated and it looked like the French would be able to push towards Uskub. But the Central Powers took advantage of their interior lines to quickly send experienced corps and at least one experienced AGH general to that front which turned the tide. The Entente was able to bring Greece into the war after the Russian Tsar abdicated (as per the DE in Icarus). Greece was better able to defend itself, given the changes made in Version 7.1. which allow Greek units to mobilize with full research and which give Greece an alternate capital in Kalamata. Serbia’s last remaining units were evacuated by sea from Albania to the Peloponnese where they valiantly held out against the advancing Central Powers. But by the end of the game, Athens had fallen and Kalamata was only a turn or two behind.

6. The Ottoman front was the most unpredictable aspect of the game. The Ottomans start the 1916 campaign in a relatively strong position having just defeated the Entente attack on Gallipoli. The British tried to rush their lines at Gaza as soon as possible, but they found that the low supply from the Port Said and the dwindling unit morale from sitting in the desert in front of Gaza meant their forces could not destroy the well supplied Ottoman corps on Gaza even after de-entrenching it. More curious was that the Arab Revolt never really happened. The DE for it fired on the first turn, and the hexes south-east of Medina were transferred to the rebellious Arabs. But somehow hannaj managed to cover every P hex in Arabia with a unit and he succeeded in preventing a single Arab partisan from spawning – something I had never seen in the Icarus mod.

7. This came at a cost though in uncovered hexes along the long Ottoman coast. The Entente spotted that Beirut and Tripoli were empty and managed to land a British marine unit that captured both ports and the cut the railroad inland by taking Homs. With a working port on the Syrian coast, I moved most of the units that had faltered in front of Gaza into northern Syria and I managed to capture Alexandretta. I cut the rail line due north of Alexandretta and the critical industrial center at Antep almost seemed within my grasp, but hannaj managed to deploy two reinforcement corps there and forced marched in more forces in from Anatolia. Gradually, the Ottomans pushed back the British lines towards Homs, while the British tried to attack Damascus and found they did not have the strength to defeat the corps defending it. Eventually, they were able to remove all of their forces by naval transports from Syria within only minor losses, but at a considerable cost in terms of MPPs and time spent for no tangible gain.

8. Things went much better for the Entente in Mesopotamia once General Maude arrived and they were able to steadily March northward taking Baghdad by early 1917. In eastern Anatolia, the Russians made steady advances taking Erzurum and eventually Trabzon. But Russia did not have the units to spare to make a push from Tabriz towards Mosul (which is very possible in the Icarus mod). Instead, the two British corps and a division, plus General Haig, which the U.K. sent to Russia to bolster Russian morale after the First Revolution chose to escape the fall of Russia by marching south along this route, rather than evacuating by sea from Murmansk. The British ended up capturing both Mosul and Baghdad with sufficient force to hold onto both NM objectives until the end of the game.

9. After Russia withdrew from the war, the Ottomans were unable (or unwilling) to send three divisions or corps immediately towards the newly acquired territories, so Kars and Batum seceded from the Empire and joined the newly independent states of Georgia and Armenia (a new feature in Version 7.1, replacing the historically unstable Trans-Caucasian Republic). Their forces put up a good fight but a CP task force of Ottoman units and Expeditionary corps led by an Austro-Hungarian general pushed into both new republics. I tried to trigger the spawning of the British HQ under General Dunsterville in Azerbaijan, but that required capturing Tehran first which proved too much of a stretch for the British forces in Mesopotamia. Still, it was fun to see this new late game theatre of war play out.

10. While the Arab Revolt was a fizzle, the Senussi were a much bigger threat. They managed to capture Benghazi, which the Ottomans occupied with a regular division and then they started threatening lower Egypt by riding through the desert around the Qattara Depression. Entente forces were able to beat them back, but given their ability to evade combat losses, they proved very hard to kill unless I was using full strength corps that had recently arrived in Libya and had not suffered morale and readiness losses due to low supply. In the end, most of the forces that I withdrew from Syria were reduced to fighting off raids by the Senussi.

11. In a first for me, a major uprising occurred in Morocco. In Version 7.1 (at the suggestion of a reader in this forum), I added an extra P hex just south of Rabat. I took a calculated risk early in the game and left this uncovered for one turn – which enabled a Moroccan partisan to spawn there and capture Rabat. This meant that Morocco became an Ottoman minor and they could build a detachment on Rabat, which proceeded to occupy the port of Casablanca. Suddenly the Central Powers had a port on the Atlantic which they started to use as a refueling base for German subs. The need to cover the three other P hexes in Morocco slowed down the Entente counter-attack. Eventually, I had to use a British marine unit in an amphibious attack from Gibraltar to retake Rabat and then finally Casablanca. It was a huge distraction for the Entente, tying up four French and British divisions and corps for most of the game, all for an initial investment of 30 German MPPs to fund a revolt in the Rif. It was fascinating to see this new campaign play out.

12. The Italian front on the other hand proved to be more predictable. I had tried in an earlier game in this campaign to send in the French field artillery unit to help the Italians take Trento in the first few turns but found that they simply did not have enough corps to carry through this assault. So, instead they adopted a purely defensive posture and the Austro-Hungarians, aided by the Bulgarians and a couple of German corps steadily pushed them back, killing an Italian corps just about every turn. Even sending corps from Belgium and Portugal did not help much - the Italian generals lacked the experience and the reserves to effectively fight back, even with their field artillery unit. I wondered how Old Crow had managed to hold a line in northern Italy against me when we played the same campaign in our most recent match. Eventually, the CP forces pushed through to the valley of the Po and captured Bologna and Milan. When Turin fell, Italy surrendered.

13. Of course, the main theatre for the whole game was the Western Front. For most the game, I thought the Entente was doing quite well. Germany does not begin the 1916 campaign with a large enough army to go on the offensive simultaneously on both the Western and Eastern fronts. Most CP players – including hannaj in this game – choose to concentrate on defeating the Russians first. This enabled the British and French to sustain steady attacks in the West. I gradually managed to recapture Belgium from the Germans, one hex at a time. Over time, this steadily increased both Britain and France’s MPP production, as the cities and mines in northern France and Belgium returned to Entente control. I was vigilant throughout 1916 and the first half of 1917 about ensuring that the Germans never controlled more than two hexes adjacent to Verdun. However, I was more lax about defending Belfort at the south-east end of the line and a German attack in late 1916 when I had only an 8 strength corps defending it captured this important fortress.

14. Once Russia withdrew from the war, hannaj was able to build up his forces in the West and he redeployed one of Austria-Hungary’s heavy artillery units to the Western Front. At this point, he had the artillery shells and the surplus forces to capture both hexes of Verdun and to start grinding down the French every turn. Even some well-targeted counter-attacks in Flanders by the British tank corps were unable to slow down the CP offensive. His attacks in September and October 1917 to capture the two hexes of Verdun were costly; even when fully de-entrenched, each assault cost him more strength points than I lost. But once captured, I would have needed more reserves than I had to counter-attack at poor odds to be able to retake these key hexes.

15. The Entente’s last hope lay with the U.S.A. The USA starts the campaign at 30% mobilization and it stayed there until the end of 1916 when Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare to offset its morale losses due to turnip winter. The combination of the submarine campaign and Woodrow Wilson’s re-election, plus the First Revolution, causes U.S. mobilization to increase briskly. The Germans in fact sent the Zimmerman telegram to Mexico in April 1917; however, by the time the British intercepted it in May 1917, U.S. mobilization was increasing at 5-8% per turn due to Russia’s withdrawal from the war. As Britain, I decided not to share it with the U.S.A. and the U.S. started to mobilize for war by the end of my turn, before developments in Mexico could hold it back.

16. In the recent versions of the Icarus mod, the USA receives a series of DEs that allow it to build a serious army. I opted to start conscription right away, which generates a fresh American corps every turn for ten turns. I opted not to build American heavy or field artillery in France, as the U.S.A. still lagged behind in these techs. I did build a U.S. recon bomber in France. Thus began a steady stream of U.S. transports across the Atlantic taking corps to Europe, which took four turns to depart from Boston or Providence and arrive at Le Havre. The arrival of substantial U.S. forces provided a much needed boost for French national morale and the unit morale of all Entente forces on the Western Front. By the last couple of turns of the game, the U.S. had occupied the central section of the front, reducing the French army’s exposure to losing more corps.

17. In the naval game, hannaj spent 1916 degrading the Russian navy in the Baltic. In the Med, after losing his one German sub, he carefully kept his two Austro-Hungarian subs in the Black Sea away from Entente destroyers. I managed to kill two Austro-Hungarian pre-dreadnoughts outside of ports in the Adriatic to a sneak attack. After that, their navy stuck to shore bombardments against Italy until Italy was on the verge of surrender, at which they ventured into the Ionian Sea.

18. In the North Sea, hannaj was much bolder. I tried to bottle up the German navy while it was concentrated in the Baltic by placing submarines and mines next to Kiel and Wilhemshaven in order to degrade them. I backed them up with two lines of destroyers and dreadnoughts. However, after scouting my blockading navy with airships, he figured out how to remove one mine in front of Kiel by passing through it into the Kiel canal. That freed up a sea hex from which he could attack the blockaders. He also sent submarines through the blockade line to strike from the rear. In a well-co-ordinated series of counter-attacks, he killed two British dreadnoughts, a destroyer and a seaplane tender.
Once I retreated back to the Northern blockade line, he then rushed the approaches to London and did much the same thing to me in reverse by placing a mine in the English channel. In the Icarus mod, the U.K. loses 250 NM points per turn if there is a German CL or heavier ship in one of four hatch-marked hexes off London. He managed to hold this position for at least eight turns, inflicting 2000 NM losses on the British. It was only after I moved all of my recon bombers to the English channel and started inflicting casualties on the blockading German capital ships that he withdrew back to his ports.

19 In a further bold strike in the summer of 1917, he sent his dreadnoughts and subs against a line of British light cruisers on the Northern blockade line and sunk three of them in one turn. Normally, this would expose the German High Seas fleet to heavy counter-attack when they were far from home ports. However, he protected his dreadnoughts with a screen of naval mines and subs. The cumulative Entente losses in destroyers and seaplane tenders meant I had a very limited capacity to pierce that. A summer storm further protected his fleet, so I withdrew back to Scapa Flow and the German attackers escaped. It was only after the large U.S. navy entered the war and the British had a chance to rebuild destroyers and torpedo boats that they could protect the blockade lines from further sneak attacks.

20. In the Atlantic, after reducing Liverpool below 5 through unrestricted naval warfare (thus disrupting the convoy from the U.S.) hannaj was content to just have a couple of subs raiding against two convoy lines far from my ports. At the end of the game, he had secured through diplomacy access to the Danish straits and to Reykjavik. It would have been interesting to see how he would have used both to support a sub campaign against Britain's convoy lines.

21. Despite the U.S. Army’s arrival, France’s continuous unit losses, compounded by the 3000 NM hit when Italy surrendered, finally drove France down to 0% National Morale by April 8, 1918. France then surrendered securing the Central Powers a Major Victory. At the end of the game, all three Central Powers were at 58-60% National Morale. The U.K. was slightly under 50%. In my view, how long Russia can hold out till it signs the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is a critical factor in determining the length of a game. In this match, they lasted 34 turns. If the NM value of the captured Russian fortresses in Poland had been set at 0 (as intended), and I had not made the blunder of leaving Sevastopol open, I estimate they would have lasted for 43 turns. That would have delayed the Germans assault on Verdun until the surplus troops were available from the east. But it would also have delayed U.S. war entry by four or five turns. The game would have been closer but would still have probably ended in an CP victory in the summer of 1918.

22. I greatly enjoyed this game – which is why I have bothered to write a long AAR for it. Towards the end, I was experiencing what Old Crow calls “the snowball effect” when your opponent appears unstoppable and it is just a matter of time before a major power cracks and surrenders. It is not fun to experience (I inflicted the same thing on him our two recent games of Icarus on his YT channel). But I think it is also important to play games to the finish to see exactly how they end. I had opportunities for counter-attacks in the West right up till the end and the naval game was unpredictable till the finish.

23. I have already made a number of adjustments in Version 7.1 of the 1914 game to assist the Entente. More play-testing will be required to determine if those changes levelled the playing field for them. In my last two games of the 1916 campaign, the Central Powers won a Major Victory by 1918. It may be that the scenario is still tilted slightly in their favour. For example, Austria-Hungary seems to have an easier time demolishing Italy than happened historically. Even though Austria-Hungary’s national morale will decline below 50% due to nationalist tensions late in the game, I have yet to see them on the verge of collapse after Russia has left the war. However, the Central Powers face pressure on all fronts in the opening turns of 1916 and it is not a given that they will have the upper hand throughout the campaign.

24. In terms of the mod, I was very happy with how a number of new features played out. Reducing HQ experience maximum to 2 points rather than 3 increased the casualty rates for the attacker. I don’t think there were any occasions when Germany destroyed an Entente corps with only two attacks (something that happens frequently once their generals reach 3 points). I had three Entente generals (Foch, Petain and Brusilov) who were able to maintain 1.5 or more experience points almost right up to the point where their respective armies surrendered. The two hexes of Verdun were hard to take but still feasible with the right amount of preparation by Germany. The new scripts that drive American war entry in 1917 seemed to play out just about right, with the arrival of the USA offering hope to the Entente just when they need it most after Russia withdraws from the war. Enabling the USA to become a serious land power by 1918 makes the late game much more interesting. Creating an NM risk for the UK if they do not protect the naval approaches to London creating new opportunities for surface combats in the North Sea. The incentives for Germany to launch unrestricted submarine warfare to offset turnip winter in 1916/17 also seem to work as intended.

25. On the Ottoman front, there was a lot of late game action in the trans-Caucasus after the Russian Empire broke up and the Ottomans invaded Georgia and Armenia. It was fun to see a British expeditionary force go to Russia to prop up the Kerensky regime and then retreat into northern Persia and Mesopotamia to assist the British army advancing on Baghdad. Even though it drove me crazy, having a serious uprising to deal with in Morocco was fascinating. And quite how hannaj managed to completely supress the Arab Revolt, I have not figured out, but I know there are better ways than I found to make the Ottomans pay for doing so. The one experimental feature we tested in this game which did not really work out was the new approach to German storm-troopers that I introduced for the 1916 campaign. I will probably revert to the system used in the 1914 campaign until I can figure out a better way of modelling them.

26. As always, after I finish a game, I can see some improvements to make to the mod. I will post those sometime this month. But before doing so, it would be good to hear reports about other players experiences with Icarus Version 7.1.