"AAR Germany faces East", formerly not an AAR

[freeboy]

t93 Lt Jerson detached commando recon deep inside enemy territory.
The breakout towards are possitions are begun and our brother commandoes lead the way, we know this as we are picking up brodcasts from each side, as a fluent speaker in german, Rusian as well as my native Norwegian, sp?, the account show a frontwide breakout from Taman to V along the Donetz. Berlin radio reports 28 trapped enemy divisons south of the Donetz and a like number of our forces streaming toward the South out of Rostov. We see little enemy activity after the trucks of the first morning. No movment in the port althoough we believe that is where the troops we saw day one are stationed. Our orders remain unchanged, but the men are anxious for action as I relay the days events. From the scattered red army reports one of our units dropped right on a deployment of rear area troops and was killed to the last man! We thought this was a one way ticket! Perhaps we are being the lucky ones again?

[freeboy]

Army group South Breakout HQ Manstein in overall command subbordanet to OKS VR.
personal notes generals eyes only

We are fantastically lucky and seem to have caught the enemy without a rear gaurd. I temporarily ordered Model to release back to my controll several formations that are now advancing Northward from the Don to link up with our Panzers near V.. Things look grim for the enemy south of the Donetz! Several groups are surrounded and several more must break and run or face the same fate!...
the map below shows our advances up to the attacks. More good news, Both mobil front supply groups are being assigned here as Hoths troops are advancing in meters and we in km! the rails guns go North soon though.

[freeboy]

Advance group HQ Model
Barbarossa is in full swing now and the enemy troops withdrawing from Rostov are being surronded and overun as we continue to deepen and widen the breakout. The troops near Taman advance East.. soon we will link up and my supply concerns will lesson. Grossduetchland also should arrive, the sea tranport was blocked and now we await it.. the newly formed dicision was built on the former Regiment and is considered a Veteran unit equiped with some experiemental weapon, even a new mobil artillery gun being feild tested to observe reliability.(players note the GD comes with some mobil artillery in place, which is not manufactured till 43!)
We did take the first rail junction that the enemy had advanced into against the initial paras... all still too weak to be more than a nuisance to the enemy. We also attacked an enemy armored formation before it was compleately detrained with great success along the line leading NorthEast toward Stalingrad!

[freeboy]

Models nottes continues t93
this map shows the extent we have penetrated and the troops South of Rostov overrunning the cut off enemy

[freeboy]

t93
FM Hoth
Operation Barbarrossa commences and my op Northstar begins as well. We aim at , ultimately the destruction of all force in and around Lenningrad and the capture of this vital City. This last week saw literally thousands of Red army infanty men die as we continue our bombardments... The section north of Lenningrad saw another 10 KM advance, we now control 20 km inside the fortified zone.. we also advanced in the Easter wing.. but I see an ominous buildup of red army troops allong our flanks. Still OKE has not releasd the rail guns and a massive 800 mm gun was destroyed on route by enemy planes!
We are on the verge of capturing another rail line leaving a small gap between our forces and Lake East of Lenningrad

[Telumar]

We try.. Is it just me or is this scenario really tilted too the Sovs side?

Gary Gringsby's classic War in Russia (available here at Matrix for free...if you like 16 colours VGA and know how to run a DOS game in XP..) is a well balanced war game. It works, to speak in TOAW terms, with some kind of shock value. The soviet formations suffer cooperation penalties and do not always follow plotted orders, this is getting better as the war progresses and the penalties are removed somewhere in 43 or 44 i think. Maybe a certain shock adjustment in FitE could bring in more balance. This might be the problem:

"The Soviet Forces have a general Shock of 100 in 41 and 42, 105 in 43 110 in 44 and 115 in 45."

Maybe a general shock of 95 in 41 and 42, 98 in 43, 100 in 44 and 45 would be better. I wouldn't give the soviets any general positive shock, they suffered incredible losses (and were running out of infantry replacements in 45 [X(]), even when running against a depleted and worn down Wehrmacht, being a shadow of its former power, in 44 and 45. Now..not that any game that i heared of had advanced that far but...
Supply radius is also a nice instrument to tweak force performance. Sad but true we don't have the ability to change force proficiency, communication level, electronic support, Night combat, movement bias etc by events. Yet. Ralph?
There is no use of the pestilence level event in this scen, right?

Another problem might be that the soviet players won't throw their troops against the germans in early counterattacks or try to stand fast in the very west of the Soviet Union, unlike their historical counterparts. Now, you can't force players to repeat historical mistakes..

Also true, this might not be the best scenario for beginners to play as the axis.

But now that we have BioEd support for TOAW III it would be possible to tweak infantry squad strengths of the two sides.

Also i don't understand why the designers have shown almost no feedback in the face of this amount of playtesting.[:(]

My 2 cents

[Monkeys Brain]

Also i don't understand why the designers have shown almost no feedback in the face of this amount of playtesting.[:(]

I haven't been in touch with Soren Gaun for long. But you must know something. In real life he is a doctor. So he doesn't have too much free time I guess.

Any scenario for TOAW is voluntary work not some work that has any responsibility to do because of you, me or anyone else.


Mario

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: Monkeys Brain

Also i don't understand why the designers have shown almost no feedback in the face of this amount of playtesting.[:(]

I haven't been in touch with Soren Gaun for long. But you must know something. In real life he is a doctor. So he doesn't have too much free time I guess.

That could explain it.

ORIGINAL: Monkeys Brain

Any scenario for TOAW is voluntary work not some work that has any responsibility to do because of you, me or anyone else.

Sure. But to do such a scenario and to develop it over years probably means being a toaw fanatic. On the other side there is nothing that prevents anyone from modding.

[Zort]

I agree with you Telumar. I am willing to do changes but don't have the resources to come up with correct mix of forces. I found that when I did change to the 150mm light guns for the german inf regts the defense strength went down for a few units.

I also need to figure out those game mechanics on if I have different inf squads how many to I have to have so the second group will fill up.

[Veers]

Any chaqnce for a mini-map shot of the front? Or a small icons shot of the southern front, so we can get a better feeling for the larger picture, Freeboy?

[freeboy]

OKS
General VR Commander
Corperal Stendistz maps room
Berlin has requested a series of Maps to publish in our propaganda, I wonder if they will believe these ?
This first one shows out to Stalingrad, not that we are anywhere near there yet!
All the red dotted red army units where either over run or displaced and forced to retreat

[freeboy]

t93
Corp S continued
This next map in the Southern extent From near Tamen, not shown on the bottum left.
All the red dotted red army units where either over run or displaced and forced to retreat

[Veers]

Sweet. That really gives a good feel for how you are doing in the south. Nice break-out.

[LLv34_Snefens]

Available time is a big part of the reason. We are no longer students able to use a whole week in the holidays or extended weekends doing concentrated work on the scenario.

Like mentioned in THIS thread, a new map is needed for a new version.
I didn't write WHY at the time, but it has to do with the commotion about using the DNO-map as basis for FITE. We pretty much agreed that we wouldn't use it anymore if we were to make a new version. A new map of such size is gonna take rather long time to complete and at the same time it will disrupt all unit placements, event location ect, making an almost complete rewrite necessary.
There has to be some real benefit for making all that work, and I don't feel that is present at the moment. There might be some balance issues, but no showstoppers (I know of).

Because of this, mods created by "third-parties" isn't anything I can then support or assist with advice or comments, since this would be just like having them acting as my strawmen (is that a term in english?), bypassing the agreement.

I hope you understand.

[freeboy]

In discussions with Larry, we propossed to allow almost no restrictions on the German player... They can stack together attack everywhere immediately and without any restrictions.
For the reds, they cannot move any troops out of the occupied baltic states or Poland, they may move in, why would they?
The red air force in Siberia needs to remain there until Jan42.
Perhaps we should also insist the reds declare war on Sweeden in 42? Although that helps them if the Sweeds come in I think the US always sends its UBER air force!

In my other pbem against Lovemann,sp?, as the Red player HE KILLED my army! I lost like 50% overcommitting along the Dnepre near Kiev.. although this seriously slowed him down, he just took Smolensk and Stalino before the red winter games began, 1st winter offensive! I have rebuilt my forces and have befroe the offensive built up a huge reserve of inf replacements, only tanks and artillery remain drained out to 0.
My point is that perhaps some 41 42 issues with shock should be addressed. I do not mind the reconstituting red army as they arrive in terrible shap.. really terrible..
BUT the air force is WAY to strong.. in this game my oponent during the Barbarrossa attacks that have started WITHOUT US intervention has about a 5-2 air supperiority, granted I lost a good deal of fighters inm the fall but my groups now look good, mostly veteran or elite, above 90% proficiency and filled out!

Perhaps running air shock at 130 till 43 and the110 will continuing to pour red air in might work.
Z any thoughts?

[freeboy]

Thanks for the positve feed back Veers... it really is do or die time for hte Germans... they South holds several more 5% cities and Persia.. If I grab it all MAybe I can hold off his 43 counterattacks!.. Lenningrad looks like a tough nut althou I am slowly moving in, the problem is you just do not have the infantry to build a line all all0ong the front and support two offensives.. just impossible even with all the allies and turkey to boot.
Hopefully I can kill off all those great gaurds troops he has south of the Donetz.. they are getting savaged by Mansteins forces while Model races South~!~[:D]

[freeboy]

T93
FM Hoth
Berlin has requested some additional maps, evidently a big propagganda campiegn is underway to enlist greater recruitment outside Germany! Well, I could use more troops.
The map is current showing the areas just attacked and taken and the empty Red circle which is the prise!

[freeboy]

94

Feild Marshell Hoth AGN HQ
Rreview of battle to date.. we almost have the strategic railhead in the East.. We take another km or ten allong the coast North and South.. the first shelling of Lenningrad takes place. Our losses are terrific! Terrible horrible.. We must dislodge them, Damn OKE for not releasing all the rail guns from the South.. They have their break through!
Operation Golden Doose Egg and North Star scribbled on these maps, Corperal, clean them up before sendingthem to Berlin.

[freeboy]

94

AGS Manstein. These troops are doing well.. too bad we let the tanks go South.. we could have bagged this entire front!
After we catch our breath and count the enemy destroyed South of the Dontetz and East of Rostov, there may be quite afew !, Stubborn my foe, he actually tried to counterattack, and VR said probes where made near Karkov. If they attack they will not be dug in. Several pockets where destroyed and more troops pushed into tighter spaces. Our supplies are more than double what they have been, I hope Model continues to have success.. I see from his reports the forces are ruly out from Taman, GD lands there too and All three strategic cities are threaten! The map I include in this short briefing shows the advances we have made to date minus a few small gains made yesterday, Stallingrad is only a few weeks march away!

[freeboy]

94

Operation group HQ Southern Front attached to AGS
General Model acting commander
Colonel Beck making the reports today.. The general is seeing to the unloading of our vital frontal supply depots that are detraining...
The enemy here fights hard, all the troops he had broght up to rostov made a brilliant but fated left swing counter attack into our flanks, but by God we own this ground,, they where stopped cold and all but a few stragglers are already destroyed! The rail towards Stallingrad remains problematic as the thrust is South toward Cherkasy, Miokop and Krasnador,sp?...
We continue to drive on, with 18th 7 6 9 and viking das reich to name a few bypassing the city we surrrounded and proceeded toward the link up woith the commandoes and paras droped along the rails to isolate these cities. GD landed at Taman intack, reports of enemy heavy BB and SS where unfounded and joined in the attacks the troops there are now free to advance!
Note on maps the highlighted completed rails, our engeniers working right near the fighting! True heroes of the Reich! Also see the circle para and para commandoes, and the spearheading light armor racing again to cut the rails to forstall the enemy!






Player note if I take these three cities my oponent losses amnother 15% apx replacments, 5 supply levels and I gain 5! ahuge bonus. Also Cherkasy allows in the Turks.. not a welcom sight to my air force as it allows the US UBER air to come, so I do not think as weak as I am that will happen till latter in the game.. also in the South is Baku and I think another strategic city plus Persia, all told if He losses all the South his forces will have a tough times pushing my back to Berlin in 45!