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Turn 29, the final turn.








Our push in the north and at Smolensk stagnates, walls of beefy German men block our path. Our units on the eastern edge of the Don are routed. And the south continues with our literal cat and mouse games.

At Orel, however, an opportunity arises.



Rough losses for us.



Highlighting the MP costs for chasing. It can be difficult to do much with units given how much mp it costs to enter enemy hexes in heavy snow.




But with enough beefier soviet men, anything is possible. We retake Orel and isolate 12 Infantry Divisions, one Motorised Division, and a degenerate SS Brigade. He can of course break it, but the units themselves are for sure dead with my followup attacks - and if he tries to mount a serious relief effort, the Kalinin front is collapsing Bryansk and risks another envelopment.




With 42, our limits are lifted and we form 2 new guards corps.





As an aside, this is why we ban temp mot:


Otherwise I'd have turned this 11 mp shitter into a 30-40 mp unit and drove down deep to try and cut rails at Dnepro.



Our truck situation is looking less good, that's a pretty massive amount of attrition. My NKPS placement was bad this game, the caucasus should've never received one. My opponent retreating in a lot of the front also meant auto rail repair couldn't keep up, and I was only barely keeping up at Orel with my one other NKPS.




I miss mountain guards




Kalinin/Bryansk fronts have taken basically 0 damage, so are ready to keep up the offensive for the coming turns. The snowball has begun.

Did you turn Rostov into a super depot?

Yes, supplies were good around Rostov though probably I continued the offensive to the South a couple of turns more than was justified. It did pull some Soviets out of the winter offensive.
If things had been better in the center I would have been well placed to launch Case Blue in '44 with I think a bridgehead across the Don. However not enough to do well with AGS if AGC is failing abysmally.

Or it would be, but that's it! Many thanks to my opponent for the game. I'm going to take a break from WITE2, and am very happy I ended with 100% Soviet winrate.

I think however that Tyronec is the objectively better player. I've said it before in the discord and I'll say it again here, but if we had a rematch tomorrow I would be betting on him decisively winning. I've been playing more or less continuously for a long time, and have fresh experience, whereas I believe Tyronec had a lengthy break.

I was also constantly caught off guard - especially with the southern thrusts. Whilst I think overall that push was a mistake (Stalingrad if anything would've been a far more disastrous target) ultimately I succeeded in preserving the red army and concentrated it to pull off my Orel pocket so I don't think it mattered that much.

I think with that pocket there was little chance of recovery, as I was extremely confident that with blizzard breaking it'd actually end up benefitting me more than it did him. Basically nothing he could cobble together could threaten a guards corp at this point, and I was confident of maintaining my snowball at Orel and beyond - eventually reaching Kharkov/Kiev/Dnepr and just collapsing the front. I doubt it'd have gone as swimmingly as I imagined, but I nevertheless have had significant experience doing pretty much exactly that.

Anyway, yes, excellent game I think. It's the first time I've ever been genuinely scared by the VPs and risked an auto-loss on the Soviet side.

RedJohn wrote: Mon Jan 15, 2024 4:08 pm Or it would be, but that's it! Many thanks to my opponent for the game. I'm going to take a break from WITE2, and am very happy I ended with 100% Soviet winrate.

I think however that Tyronec is the objectively better player. I've said it before in the discord and I'll say it again here, but if we had a rematch tomorrow I would be betting on him decisively winning. I've been playing more or less continuously for a long time, and have fresh experience, whereas I believe Tyronec had a lengthy break.

I was also constantly caught off guard - especially with the southern thrusts. Whilst I think overall that push was a mistake (Stalingrad if anything would've been a far more disastrous target) ultimately I succeeded in preserving the red army and concentrated it to pull off my Orel pocket so I don't think it mattered that much.

I think with that pocket there was little chance of recovery, as I was extremely confident that with blizzard breaking it'd actually end up benefitting me more than it did him. Basically nothing he could cobble together could threaten a guards corp at this point, and I was confident of maintaining my snowball at Orel and beyond - eventually reaching Kharkov/Kiev/Dnepr and just collapsing the front. I doubt it'd have gone as swimmingly as I imagined, but I nevertheless have had significant experience doing pretty much exactly that.

Anyway, yes, excellent game I think. It's the first time I've ever been genuinely scared by the VPs and risked an auto-loss on the Soviet side.

I completely agree that tyronec remains a top flight Axis player, despite the recent time off. Get the AS directives set properly unless you are going to go ahead and house-rule out GA or maybe limit it in some way.

The push south of Rostov into Krasnodar was a strategic error, plain and simple. It stripped the army of units it needed elsewhere, leaving parts of the front in a parlous state. You aren't going to gain enough around there to make up for the cost you pay elsewhere.

Tula is a real conundrum for the Axis, whether to take it in 1941 or leave it. In my game, jubjub decided to ignore it, and that isn't at all a bad idea. The +6 VP for city capture isn't going anywhere, and neither is the city. Being patient and taking it later avoids the risk of negating the +6 VP gain if the Soviets retake the city in the first winter offensive.

The number of Axis players winning in 1941 remain exceedingly low. I still say play for the win in 1942. It would have been a challenge, RedJohn conducted a master class in managing the Red Army. Sacrificing 80% of the VVS isn't in anyone's playbook AFAIK, but it had a telling effect. But if the Axis approach here had been on the more conservative side, the 1942 campaign might have been truly epic.

The push south of Rostov into Krasnodar was a strategic error, plain and simple. It stripped the army of units it needed elsewhere, leaving parts of the front in a parlous state. You aren't going to gain enough around there to make up for the cost you pay elsewhere.

I disagree. The push South did some damage to the Soviets for moderate losses, it gained buffer space which allowed AGS to pull back slowly without facing damaging blizzard attacks and it drew off some Soviet strength that would have been useful elsewhere. Enough units were able to pull back to defend Rostov from the East and the North during the winter, though having said that I should have started the pull back earlier.
This really had no impact on the disaster that was inflicted on AGC during the Summer and again during the blizzard which is where the game was lost.

@Tyronec @RedJohn
Excellent AAR. I'm always appreciative of the effort that goes into these posts. The commentary is informative, respectful and always entertaining!

@M60A3TTS
Please clarify -

Tula is a real conundrum for the Axis, whether to take it in 1941 or leave it. In my game, jubjub decided to ignore it, and that isn't at all a bad idea. The +6 VP for city capture isn't going anywhere, and neither is the city. Being patient and taking it later avoids the risk of negating the +6 VP gain if the Soviets retake the city in the first winter offensive.

Since Tula wasn't taken by the Axis IRL, the +6 VP gain can't be negated. The Axis should take Tula if able (and Ryazan for that matter) to get the bonuses, even if they can't be held. The bonuses are theirs to keep even if they never pass that way again.

The "conundrum" is whether to hold the salient at the risk of getting surrounded. Tyronec took the risk, but didn't pull back quickly enough when RedJohn's trap was sprung.

Seems like it was a good game and it is also a great AAR. Well done to both players.

I also like that tyronec was trying to play in a somewhat historical manner - I am not referring to where specifically he advanced (Caucasus etc), but rather the fact that he at least attempted to advance aggressively and blitzkrieg rather than being ahistorically methodical and slow and plodding. I think this game helps show that blitzkrieg is probably not the best strategy for Axis, but it is unfortunate that Axis is not more encouraged to play like this. It can make the game more exciting.

It is a shame that it ended, but (unlike some other games where IMO players prematurely quit) it is easy to see why tyronec had little choice but to give up. Axis cannot really counterattack well in heavy snow (at least in December and idk about later in winter) due to the huge pre-battle disruption (except with substantial numerical superiority and motorized units). If tyronec tried to rescue his ZOC locked units, the units trying to rescue them would have just ended up ZOC locked and subsequently isolated themselves. It can be impossible for Axis units to escape from encirclements and ZOC locks with winter heavy snow, and with binary isolation it is all or nothing and there is no recovering from it.

Tyronec already had way too few units to defend the long front line (though part of that is due to going into the Caucasus, especially with closed TBs he would be lacking counters regardless).

What Bread did around Orel is what I would call "swarming." Since Soviets have a lot more counters, they can simply swarm around the smaller number of Axis counters, and Axis is unable to counterattack all the Soviet counters because Axis does not have enough counters to do so. The heavy snow just makes it worse.

To me, this looks like a key screenshot:



I added yellow highlighting of the Axis units that were ZOC locked, and also circled the cav division in red. To me at least it looks like this one single cav division, is really the fatal thing that set the stage for the collapse of Orel.

It may have had only 1000-2000 men, but it flips so many hexes. Of course, even if cav were brigade sized, Bread could still do the same thing with e.g. a 2000-3000 tank division or something (even if it only had 2000 men).

I think tyronec was able to escape from here on this particular turn, but maybe only because of how weak the ZOC locks are. Even so, that limits how far you can retreat. If the ZOC locks had been with stronger units, tyronec would have needed attacks there like this one (from further south):



tyronec had to attack with 3 to 1 numerical superiority with 3 motorized and SS divisions against only a single Soviet rifle division, and even then he only barely won. Tyronec's CVs are low on those units, but that is because of the pre-battle disruption making it very difficult for Axis to counterattack and break ZOC locks unless you have at least this sort of superiority.

Also I think it is worth noting that I think Bread's winter offensive, as powerful as it was, could have been stronger. In particular, he did not have cav corps ready - if he did, he could have collapsed Orel etc all the more quickly and devastatingly (and perhaps cut off the Rostov rail). What if Bread had 25k man Cav divisions with 3 rifle brigades for the ZOC locks (with the cav divisions also being able to advance further and ZOC lock more easily). ???

And in addition, Bread did not have blizzard for even all of the short time that winter lasted, so if hypothetically there had been blizzard for e.g. all 4 turns in December, it would be even tougher for Axis.

Anyway GG to both players and thanks for the excellent AAR to record the game for posterity.