Directive 21 v2.0

[Alpha77]

Confirmed, rail is ok.

Btw: I had not time to play much, but meanwhile Stalingrad and Leningrad are "liberated" from the reds [:)] It seems that the Russians indeed tried a kind of counterstroke at Stalingrad as it was historical the case. But a) My Wehrmacht is much stronger than the historic one (cause I of course tried to preserve my strenght more than Hitler did) and b) I already captured some area north and south of Stalingrad were the "historic" assembly area of the red counterattack troops were.

However it seem when winter comes it might be Germans get in trouble, cause the lines are very long and the area to defend is huge. In the far south mostly allied armies tried to capture Novorossk (sp?). But there is only one direction this city can be attacked. So it would mean frontal attacks. The Russians have a strong arty unit as support. It maybe that the Allies can capture the city and advance on the coast road, but only with huge losses. It is questionable if it is worth it. Even if the Germans in game might have more units then the Germans in reality I recon this area cannot defended. So Russians might cut supply lines if they only send enough units. Axis could maybe make a strategic retreat back to a shorter line and concentrate on Moscow.

But what if Moscow is taken ? This might be a win then. But it seems the game will become very boring after that. Of course the Russians still have a lot of stuff and more than enough land even if Moscow falls.

So the current plan is to fall back before the winter comes to a defense line and see what the enemy does with that situation. Might be more interesting, also it would be cool to see how the better does the Axis will get. Like Tigers, Panthers and FW190 fighters. Russians will get therefore new T34s and SUs in masse. The (I)Su122 and (I)Su152 have somewhat too high AT values in the game, so could be interesting too see how much that helps the red army. While Tiger, Panther are a bit weaker than in reality.....(or 88mm guns generally in this vanilla database)

[Alpha77]

Had some more turns and Fritz decided to step back a bit, plan is to give up Stalingrad, retreat in good order form the city to the Kalach area there form a temporary defensive line. Also we will give up the crimea and most of the Caucasus. So far Russians are too weak to interfere seriously with our movements to the west and north. Now the rain/mud time has arrived and the front comes to a halt. It is early Nov 42...

[Alpha77]

Russians applied maskirovska it seems, as the 42 winter offensive of theirs broke loose. Reds got much more reeinforcements then expected. Mechcorps, guards and huge arty divisions are some examples. The wrong impression the Germans got, lead them to not withdraw to some better lines instead hold more eastern territory. They struggle however to hold those lines now, as Russians have more units. Some breakthroughs by the Reds were already achieved.

[Alpha77]

Kalinin still holds, but not long anymore I guess:

Also forgot that rivers are frozen now and don´t pose big difficulties for the eastern hordes to cross

Railed in reeinforcements, let´s hope for the best.

[solops]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

For those looking for the latest see post #42 on page 2 of this thread.

That would be the latest for TOAW 3.4, that is. [;)]

Thanks so much! This is really important and hard to find information that, I suspect, the majority of us are scrambling for. You guys who do so much of the work probably don't realize how many of us play, but don't keep up-to-the-minute on the developments.
Thanks again.

[Zovs]

How or where do I find the latest version of D21?

Thanks.

[sPzAbt653]

Hi Don ... its at the link on page 2, in post 42, of this thread.

[governato]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Hi Don ... its at the link on page 2, in post 42, of this thread.

May I suggest putting a link to the scenario one the first post of this thread? A lot easier to find and still easy to update.

Also, Alpha77, would you add a screen capture of the whole frontline?

[Zovs]

Thank you!

[Alpha77]

Whow the Russian stuff just keeps coming, they are like the Medusa. If you cut off one head, 2 new ones will grow [:@][X(]

Its now Jan 43 and we had to give up the Kalach line in the South, we are now somewhere in the Millerowo - Woroschilowgrad area Russians have pushed guards and tank stuff in masses forward without waiting for their supply to arrive. In the north we still hold Leningrad, there we at least managed to destroy masses of units, but only because we still had all the arty up there we needed to capture Leningrad. Most of the arty is now moved to the south and middle section as the north seems the least trouble at the moment. Center Russians have pushed us further away from Moscow, but moved stuff from Leningrad area and stabilized front.
However Russians pushed out our Tula garrison last week [:@]

Also now at the Crimea the Russian comes, we only have minimum garrison to keep them sealed up their: 1 single Rumanian corpse plus some German engs and 1 higher HQ. Nutti´more, cause moved everything to the Millerovo area breakthrough of Russian guards mechs+tanks.

They also now have new fearsome units: Artillery divisions !

I noted there are much too much LR 122mm and 152mm guns for the red site ??? They have all 3 hexes range. I guess in reality the Russian arty was fearsome, but I do not believe they had masses of guns with this range (which means triple the range of German standard 155mm Howitzer in game terms!!).....[:-] Also if they used a much stronger charge too fire too much higher distance the AP value of the shell will decrease, but this is not the case. Or was this added to this scen, to give the German more troubles? [;)]


@ governato: Will post some screens later maybe

[sPzAbt653]

... there are much too much LR 122mm and 152mm guns for the red ...

All of the Arty has been reworked. The predominant tubes on both sides now have a 2 hex range. Here is a Soviet Arty Div from the yet to be released v3 :

[Alpha77]

Well revisited this game. Could give a bunch of suggestions but not sure if a) there will be still updates for this scen b) that these are more game mechanics than scen specific and c) that I play the latest version - can someone point me to the latest Dir21??

I am now in 4/43. Short AAR....

Far south: As I wrote above the Reds practically were able to chase (or better partly it was a planned backwards move) me back to an ara around Rostow from the caucasus and some river in the south. However they exhausted their supply too and with the help of only 2-3 German divs the IT/RUM allies were able to encircle some enemies and establish a stable front - Rostow is save and we could even advance again down south now as their lines seem thin now. Also we gave up the KRIMand took defensive position on the smallest portion of the peninsula (only 3 hexes to cover). Reds advanced after us, but weren´t able to break the lines (or better did not even tried as the defenders were fully rested and at ca. 70-80 of max. level for equipment).

South: Even if the storm of Guards units seemed quite threatening in direction of Woroshilograd and even they seemed to aim at Charkow or Rostow, they didn´t reach any of those cities. SS Pzgren Divs returned from re-fit and helped out. Also here the enemy seemed to be too careless in his advance as he could be flanked or better we can give ground and as our rested units from the hinterlands arrived, they were stopped and sometimes encircled. However we need to stress how important Artillery is for this process. Without strong arty (and preferably longer range ones - for counter battery fire) you will lose, because the Russians have now fearfull strong arty themselfes. As was suggested above their may be an error in the range of soviet medium arty. Even if your line seems stable, the enemy arty will bombard you untill you are "undigged" and then attack with the masses. The undigged unit(s) will almost everytime retreat because of the losses from massive arty as well losing their trenches and dugouts. In winter or frozen steppe even more dangerous. Long time, we feared that this could not be countered as air strikes won´t work (first the air is generally a bit too weak in bombing and second the USSR has air superiority in most parts of the map). So 2 things will work, a) massive own arty and b) own flanking fast units to get the enemy gunners. Even if are desperate to hold a line and give units ignore losses at defense that leads to burn out of the Wehrmacht, so no option. Better apply the more flexible strategy which also Manstein and others used and/or proposed in the real world.

Rest of text soon [:)]

Also Question!! regarding AIR: Were there really only ca. 65-70 HS129 planes (2 units) in up tp 4/43 and also only 3 or 4 FW190A units ?? Even if both planes seem slightly underrated in database they are the best I have, but only so few units that take them. There ares stockpiles of both types. Also the JU88 + ME109 late pile is quite huge, but both are not good enough anymore vs. modern Russian air or better also US/UK air (spitfire late, Hurricanes, P39 give headaches in addition to the usual YAK/MIG/LA stuff - as noted above it is now clear the leisure play of first 2 turns might now haunt me at least in the air. 1000+ planes attacks from red air force happen [8|]which also have quite a number of older types which I better should have destroyed early on).

[TPOO]

There is a new version ready for play whenever TOAW 3.6 (or whatever it will be called) is released. It has been ready for 2 years.[&:]

[BigDuke66]

ORIGINAL: TPOO
It has been ready for 2 years.[&:]

Sigh.

[sPzAbt653]

Were there really only ca. 65-70 HS129 planes ...

We went thru http://www.ww2.dk/ to find out what units were where at what time and what planes they had. So, if anybody finds a mistake let us know. Otherwise, it is what it is. [;)]

[SMK-at-work]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Were there really only ca. 65-70 HS129 planes ...

We went thru http://www.ww2.dk/ to find out what units were where at what time and what planes they had. So, if anybody finds a mistake let us know. Otherwise, it is what it is. [;)]

I thought I'd do a quick 3rd party check of Hs129 units, and had a quick look at another site that is referenced on the Hs129 wiki page- http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de - it is in German, but much is intelligible such as aircraft types and dates, and you can always pass it through google translate too.

I checked the 2 pages for Schlachtgeschwader 1 - SG1 (no, not THAT SG1!) and there were some differences.

http://www.ww2.dk/air/attack/sg1.htm and
http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gli ... er/SG1.htm

The lexicon site gives a longer history - from first formation in 1942 with Hs129's & Me109's, the 109's being replaced by 190's in 1943 and disbandment. It then has a separate page for the "new" SG1 formed late in 1943 - http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gli ... r/SG1N.htm - this corresponds to the ww2.dk page.

Gruppe 2 of the original SG1 became part of SG2 according to the lexicon, so I checked the SG2 pages, and there's a difference there - the Lexicon gives SG2 Hs129s, but again the unit was disbanded in late 1943 and the ww2.dk site doesn't cover the first iteration of it.

So still trying to trace the Hs129's, the lexicon says that II Gruppe of SG2 went to Gruppe 1 of SG4 - but both sites give SG4 as having 190's.

And at that point I pretty much gave up.

Dunno if it is of any use, but it was a bit of fun on a cold winter evening

[sPzAbt653]

Thanks, and I'll add that ww2.dk has the HS-129's going to SG9 in 1943, and that is what happens in the scenario.

[Alpha77]

Probably there were not many HS129 units, also the production number was quite low.

Here is quite a bit of info:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=8810


Well, in TOAW the air component isn´t that important it seems, as the Russians have air superiority in this scen basically since end of 41 or so lol Sure I fucked up the air war at the beginning of campaign. HS129 not so important, I would like some FW190s rather, sometimes the Russian air attacks travelling units even int rains which is quite annoying. Does not do much damage, but readiness drops and movement is reduced. I wonder if there is a priority somehow build in to attack lone engineer units and HQ´s ? A poor eng is bombed by 500 planes lol.

I decided to revise the scen a bit (downloaded latest version which is 2.3 iirc) mainly delete some German units and give Russian some more protection for Moscow and Leningrad. Also of course the replacements can now be edited with 200 turn experience. Seems some categories are a bit off (they maybe even historical right but eg. Germans have too much stuff in some categories which builds up and they never need to worry to run out, which seems not helpful). Guess a new TOAW patch won´t come soon, so in the meantime I will maybe start over with the revised version and see how it goes. I wonder if it is possible to edit 2 - 3 suprises somehow, like airdrops, amphib landings and hot Russian soldiers wifes suporting the Mosscow front when Germans reach the city gates [:'(]

BTW: I wonder if we should let the Russian have a portion (which is still to be determined) of the 122mm ER guns. I guess he needs the longer range, but not in the masses like before. An idea would be to leave him ca. 50% of the 122mm ER and the other half will be "normal" 122mm with 2 hex range. I checked the OOB and found that he has only little amount of other LR/ER guns (180mm?) so it would be ok. Germans have 150mm with 3 hexes too. Yes, not to many... but if one babysits his artillery there shouldn´t be too much losses of those. So maybe even downgrade some 150mm ER to "normal" (?) To make long range fire a bit more scarce for the Wehrmacht. 210mm ER need some editing too.

It is now June 43 and Germans (well more brave allies of them) storm the Caucasus again, seems the capture everything they lost during the "retreat" in winter. Leningrad is in save hands and suddenly some Russian units dissapear in the far north. What was mostly a "sitzkrieg" or trench warfare up there became fluid again, as Fins&Gerris probe the enemy lines.......and they are quite thin.

Also in the center outskirts of Moscow were reached, there is now a never to be seen concentration of military in the area. Moved some stuff south - maybe to misslead the opponent. Later moved everything and more back to the center front[8D]


With some more work done on this Directive 21 might be the definitive east front "game" (even if only a scen - it could be standalone game). I don´t need "war in the east" - even if i´m normally Grigbsy&co. fan [:)]

[Freyr Oakenshield]

Can you play d21 (the old or the new version) H2H without serious issues (just like we play FitE)?

[TPOO]

Directive 21 is only for German Human Player vs Russian AI. Most of the events will not fire correctly in hot seat or PBEM.
If you want Head to Head you will have to wait for FITE 2.