My first Operational AAR (Leningrad)

[heliodorus04]

Now it’s time to move motorized formations.
I decided to commit to that encirclement by adding 6th Panzer to L Corps (Totenkopf/Polizei divs); it’s now a crack SS panzer corps in 1941! If I were messing with leaders in this game, which I’m not, now would be a good time to have a good mech commander in this corps… Right?

Anyhow, this is how it looked after I completed the encirclement and moved all motorized.





Note that I had to commit an additional armor division to the southern encirclement. What sacrifices that may entail longer term concerns me.

[heliodorus04]

As T6 starts, it seems like I really have to start thinking about switching my operational focus back from maneuver to smart engagements. This turn my forward elements are still suffering from fatigue, and supply is pretty close to its range limit at there on the Northeast edge. Moreover, at both my NE and SE flank (the latter covered by 9th Army), I have solid recon on a solid defensive element. The Russians are signaling that they have sufficient strength to claw at the flanks. Bigger decisions still this turn. After recon, the game looks like this (North first):





You can see the Soviet attempt to contain my advance, and the blue marks things I might like to TRY to do this turn. Of the 3 options available, encircling Pskov looks profitable, and I might try to do it hard-core this turn. That’s a lot of units to bag.

Vyshny Volo-whatever is low on the priority list, BUT, it’s the least defended. And the circled Tikhvin location is paramount to my operational plan.

I have reached the limit of casual, callous advancing with little concern for my own encirclement. Beginning this turn downside risk of over-extension becomes a game-changer. I can’t let spearheads get encircled.
I am strongly considering this turn doing some HQ re-supply functions, and preparing one turn for a prepared offense for T7. All those advance elements are at risk where they are right now let alone if they move further ahead.

[heliodorus04]

In the south, there are some puzzling issues.




Let’s start in the northwest. That empty circle? That’s where an Armor Div and Mot. Div were encircled next turn. Where’d they go? Is that one of them to the east? How can they extract themselves and not leave hexes under Soviet control? This leads me to believe they moved South (the red circles) and maybe other units escaped encirclement. But it’s puzzling. I’d like to be able to see enemy moves particularly when it seems obvious I would SEE their movement given I have them surrounded!

Note that in the far south, 9th Army has encountered a pretty strong defensive element SW of Velikie Luki. Looks like they get to join the party.
Also, I have created for myself one operational dilemma from last turn. Basically L Corps is now a de facto panzer corps, with 6th Armored and Totenkopf, plus the Polizei Div. And they are in a position to either add hammer-type strength to the drive for Velikie Luki (and possibly Rzhev and it’s 300 VP), or it’s got to move itself back north to help out in meeting the fins. And that’s a tough call for me right now.

Finally, add in Pskov. By diverting the motorized around Novgorod to isolate Pskov, I can have my largest encirclement yet. But it would be very tricky to pull off, and as I see growing strength around Leningrad/Novgorod, I have to accept the fact that I won’t have uncontested initiative anymore. I think that’s over, THIS turn.

I think the only thing I know for sure is that I want to bag the units in the encirclement and make a consolidated front in pursuit of Velikie Luki. In the North, no idea. Up there, I’m gonna move the Fins first…

[Josh]

About the "missing" Armor Div? If you press the "battlesites" key, I think it's f11, it'll show you all the battles and recon. Click on a battle and you get to see what happened there, or hover over it with your mouse. It might show you that they may have surrendered. It would show you a battle icon in the place of the missing units, clicking on that icon will bring you the battle report: xxx div surrended. At least, I think that's what happened.
 
There ain't much Soviet units at first, the *real* battle begins at Leningrad, there you'll meet quite a few enemy counters. That's where I send my armor anyway. Meet up with the Finns to "awake" them, meaning they can move beyond the " no move/ no attack line" (forgot which one). Use Inf stacks to take Leningrad. Pocketing early in this game doesn't bring you much IMHO, pocketing later on, from T6 say, especially in the North, is what brings victory.
 
Whatever happens, playing this game is the best way to learn it. [:D]

[heliodorus04]

The turn flowed pretty fast, I guess because there was a lot to do. I’m breaking it down into Pskov, Lake Ilmen, and Velikie Luki screenshots, and I’ll start with Pskov.



Practically all of 18th Army was used to encircle, including the key ‘Panzer’ Element, L Corps (Totenkopf, 6th Panzer, SS Polizei Div.). First I forced the cav in the center of the Soviet line to retreat (red circle) then I moved through the motorized elements along the red arrows.

One thing I learned this turn is that you MUST OWN all the hexes around the Soviets for them to be considered encircled. If they have even a contested supply path, they apparently draw some supply, and it may not be much, but it’s enough. We’ll discuss that again in the Velikie Luki section, because they didn’t get encircled the way I thought they would. This config should encircle Pskov and bag all those units in a turn or maybe 2. L Corps’ commitment had better net good results. They’re not available out east, though maybe that’s a good thing (again, more later).

[heliodorus04]

Velikie Luki looks like this.



This is the area where I’ve had the least success this turn. I thought all those motorized elements were encircled before, but they had a path of friendly-owned hexes, 1-hex only, that stretched into Velikie Luki (I don’t know if it was open all along, or if they opened it somehow in their movement phase.

From last turn, the western-most Armor routed (seen to east now in SS). Some disappeared, which I spoke about before. And the bulk pressed SE toward Velikie Luki. This turn I tried to ensure they couldn’t extricate themselves.
I am very concerned with that stack in the SW by that single element of 9th Army. That’s an NKVD Regiment, a Rifle division, and a fortified area. I wonder if that division would hold if attacked… Enemy fortification level is 2, and that turns out bad to attack most times.

I thought about attaching that 16th Army element to 9th, but it’s very expensive (something like 25 AP estimated), and I’m not willing to risk that. As it was, 9th Army inherited an out-of-command range Inf. Div, while 16th Army inherited an Inf. Div that had been attached to OKH while it marched forward. I think if I’m going to give up on any one victory point location, it’s going to be Rzhev/Velikie Luki. But we’ll see.
On to the panzers…

[heliodorus04]

Panzers look like this:


I’m less happy this turn than I’ve been in several. Not only are we low on movement and high on fatigue, I did NOT get to rest this turn, and I did not exploit. I’ve sort of done a tepid move to consolidate flanks here, to scout the SE corner (of the SS) and to try to prepare for the attack to link up with the Fins east of Ladoga. Maybe I’ve tried to do too much of everything?
It just didn’t seem prudent to extend my line of advance all the way to Tikhvin, even though I could reach it with multiple armor units. The Russians are growing in strength and I am ebbing.

In any event, that’s how T6 is going to end… T7 should be interesting… It’s about time the Russians show me what they’ve got.

[Mynok]

They show up in droves very soon.

[heliodorus04]

You can sort of see why Hitler might have thought his Generals lost something:

You blitz from the frontier to the outskirts of Leningrad in 30 days, with hardly a fight, and then suddenly the Russians are going to show up in force and ready to fight (not to mention they've been digging in for weeks at Leningrad).

I'm worried.

My eastern advance is a paper tiger, I think. This Pskov stuff better resolve itself cleanly in a turn, and I hope I can roll back the Velikie Luki defense.

Man, what a beautiful, fun game.

Bearing in mind that my Logistics, Admin, and Transport are set to 110 percent of normal, I wonder how much worse T6 would have gone without that handicap!

[2ndACR]

The Russians will really start showing up soon. You made a great push up north, but I would be worried about the lack of support if they cut you off. That is a long, long way for any help to go.

[heliodorus04]

Turn 7 post recon looks like this (Velikie Luki not included):



Let’s talk blue lines first. The line from Novgorod to the NW (slightly NW) is a dream I’m talking myself out of. It isolates everything west of Leningrad, but there are two serious problems. 1) I don’t have enough troops to do that AND eliminate Pskov’s troops. 2) Supply could still go by sea.

So NE of Leningrad on the way to Tikhvin is my seriously gotta take it objective. And in the SE we have a line that’s also a dream, because 8 Panzer (my furthest SE unit) has critically low fuel and supply. I left it in a bad spot in terms of resupplying itself.

The one thing I can do and will do this turn is wipe out Pskov. Since that’s something I do prior to motorized moves, I’ll do that, which in turn will dictate where L Corps (de facto panzer corps) moves. Out East, I have a strong impulse to HQ Buildup this turn. As I understand it, no HQs can move, and once I do a buildup, all “Eligible” units will lose their remaining movement (a unit is eligible if it is within 5 hexes). So it seems like I can move some units a bit and then spend the AP to Buildup.

Fatigue has many of my units in poor shape to resupply. I don’t think it’s the railhead difference: I have units farther away from Railhead getting more supply than units closer. It’s fatigue (and to a lesser extent, supply pathing).

I kind of wish I’d done HQ Buildup at T6, but I try not to regret last turn’s mistakes too much. I am definitely doing HQ Buildup this turn for the 2 main (lead) Panzer corps, because I expect to have serious fighting to do shortly, and for the rest of the game. Maybe the lack of mobility will be really bad to do this turn, maybe not. I’m going to try to get some units into better position to reduce fatigue, and try to learn something here…

[heliodorus04]

Pskov is the first order of business. Here’s the post combat screen-shot:




THING OF BEAUTY! Major major lessons learned here.
1) Regiments can destroy larger forces if the defenders are Isolated (or so I deduce from my combats)! There were 2 attacks by divisions in there; the rest were repeated attacks by various of the 2 divisions broken down into 3 regiments (each). That saved me a LOT of combat power.

2) Retreat paths still matter. I’m not unhappy with the way the combats took place, I think I did a pretty good job with economy of scale. But I had to spend some extra MPs to move/hasty-attack because some units had retreat paths.

3) I got a Leningrad GUARDS Rifle division in there! Bag-it-N-tag-it, boys! Woot!

Yeah, seriously, that worked like a charm. Zero losses. Every fight a retreat/surrender. I bagged over 40,000 russians in there from what I counted. Welcome to the construction battalions, boys! If you’re lucky you can join the White Russians and be sold back to Stalin by Churchill at the end of the war!

Now I have a LOT more operational flexibility in how I move 18th Army…

[heliodorus04]

Down to the Isolated pocket NW of Velikie Luki: Again, full surrenders (achieved by a single brigade). Note also that based on something I read, I turned Air Doctrine such that you needed 110 percent of aircraft to fly – thus no AC are flying support, thus no AC are suffering losses/fatigue. They’re not necessary!
Here’s how things look after my movement/combat operations.




Note that two brigades are out of command range from their HQ. I think those are the most forgiving units to have to draw their own supply next turn. Their third regiment (NE of the Fort) will handle the combat operations next turn. If this turn is any indication, that’s all that will be necessary for an isolated unit (although I don’t think it’s technically isolated given ownership of hexes). That fort has a 2-fort level, and that dissuades me from making hasty attacks to “see what happens.” It pays not to get “defender held” results…

I have moved that odd corps from 16th Army into here, but the plan is to extricate it next turn back toward the Pskov-Novgorod operational area. I expect 9th Army from here on out will go it on its own toward Rzhev. I debated moving the NW corps of 9th Army under 16th, and the SE of 16th into 9th, but the fact is that that’s ridiculously expensive in AP. It’s a bit a-historic to get so mixed up in an operation like this with units from different parents, but whatever. This is how my war transpired. I’ll pay some small sacrifice in mobility next turn…

My recon shows precious little to the East of Velikie Luki… Somehow I bet the Russians have other plans in motion…

[heliodorus04]

Okay, let’s look at Pskov again, and talk about recon/routed units.


Remember before where the thick yellow line is, there were 3 scouted Soviet units. As soon as SS Polizei made contact, they routed. This has happened several times in various places as I advanced over several turns, and it’s something I don’t understand. I don’t believe these routed units are units that *I* routed in prior turns’ combats – I simply haven’t had that much combat where units kept escaping encirclement. I do suppose that it’s possible my perceptions are inaccurate, but I don’t think so. Note the 2 routed units on the SE of Leningrad: same thing, they were a solid line on the NE limit of advance, and as soon as my units made contact, route… It makes me wonder if new Soviet units arrive in some fragile/routed state? Any insights here would be informative…

Now, on to operations. I Corps has taken up positions N of Novgorod, replacing 16th Army elements, who in turn moved East to support the advance on Tikhvin (next turn). I’m happy with how it played itself out. I did the Eastern motorized moves, then came back to L (de facto panzer) Corps. It was possible and not terribly risky to encircle units W of Leningrad, so I did (though it’s probably not a full encircle, and Talinn can probably be used as a supply source there.

This L “Panzer” Corps has me wondering what you all think: good use of motorized element? Foolish? I’m pleased with how it’s worked out. L corps is responsible for noteworthy (if not decisive) encirclements NW of Velikie Luki (T5/T6), Pskov (T6/T7 – pretty decisive) and now the Western frontier (T7/T8). It has performed very well. In writing this, I decided they deserved a new commander. Please welcome one Walter “Ich bin hier vertfol” Model… (12 AP). One thing it also is, though, is tired. It’s about time to give them some rest space.

Next up, Eastern advance…

[heliodorus04]

Not much to report out east:



Circled are the 2 Panzer Corps. In the North, I moved motorized elements, but NOT the fatigued armor division. In the south, my armor fought back west after 16th Army elements encircled the Russian brigade that had been blocking. Routed it. (Don’t ask me where those 3 routed units near the eastern map edge came from, I forget, see above).

Both Panzer corps did HQ resupply, and both corps’ elements are above 95% in Supply/Fuel (well over 100% ammo). It cost me 22 or so AP. I felt it necessary. Fatigue levels are still high in those elements, but we’ll see what a turn can do…
On to T8!

[heliodorus04]

T8 Gives me a lot of hope…



Sorry for the small scale. The 3 Red circles near Ladoga are critical geography to hold. Tikhvin I can take. The port and Lodeynoe Pole can be influenced by Fin ZOC during THIS turn. It’s possible I can encircle Leningrad THIS turn, with I corps forcing itself from its AO north of Novgorod to Lake Ladoga – that’s not encirclement while ports are open. But if I take Tikhvin and put ZOC on that port, Supply becomes strained, and next turn it may become closed. That’s really important for taking all Leningrad objectives. I’m not even at the halfway point of the scenario, so I feel like I’m really kicking ass.

But I remember the screenshots of other AARs where this Soviet formation bacteria multiplies out of nowhere. Where are they. Where are they coming from? When? I’m going to push it for Ladoga this turn. If I can make supply tight, and dig in on the perimeter of existing defenses, then I have a better chance of surviving the onslaught.

The trick will be to advance along a front I can also defend and hold, and supply…

[alfonso]

Where is your FBD unit?

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: alfonso

Where is your FBD unit?

2 Hexes SW of Pskov (stacked under the Security unit).

[Mynok]

I would take the route further east after HEAVY recon with your northernmost panzers. In both my tries at this one, those two swamp hexes sw and se of your red circled rail junction were occupied by Soviet infantry. If you have 50 mps for your tanks, you should be able to make a nice wide corridor of control up to the border. You'll have to hold that for two turns against what could be a mass of Soviets.

Once you've taken Leningrad, you're good as the Finns free up to take over for the panzers and infantry.

Just screen those units with the yellow angle marker. Use one div in regiments. The rest of your 16th army inf needs to head north to help the tanks hold.

[heliodorus04]

I was looking at movement for an hour, and doodling in Paint (because I think I like drawing out my plans ‘on paper’ more than I enjoy writing about them, and I should probably be embarrassed to admit that), and ultimately this is what doodled itself into my mind:


It’s based on the movement capabilities of 8 Panzer, which is highlighted in the bottom right (and with a cutout to show you how much better it’s doing than last turn when it had all of 7 movement, and I used HQ buildup for LVI Panzer). As you can see, there is no movement limitation preventing me from taking Tikhvin THIS turn, and that is my operational imperative.

However, as Mynok notes in his comments, I can expect the swamps SW and SE of Tikhvin to be guarded, and possibly fortified, so a proper scout by panzers is necessary. Thus, why I’m checking 8 Panzer for the extreme movement limit there. That will be the scout through the eastern edge of advance, and I’m cutting that damn rail line. By the way, cutting that rail line looks to me like taking a bat to a beehive, and I’m afraid that Leningrad is going to see its supply line threatened, and bust out to the Southeast (while new reinforcements arrive in the East later).

One corps of 16th Army is done moving, and way behind (i.e., newly allocated ‘reserves’) south of Novgorod. One corps will hold the line on the east where 8 Panzer is now (I don’t know where the Russians will be coming from, but I’m holding that rail junction until 9th Army can come north from Rzhev, and the reserves can move east during T9. The last corps of 16th Army is at the NE edge of the advance, and can form a line along the rail line leading to Tikhvin.

All of 18th Army moves north and/or east (breaking a division down into regiments out west has been a deeply flawed operational scouting operation. Divisions move better for some reason.)

Then there’s L Corps Commanded by Walter Model™ (that’s a joke on Model’s ego) and it’s LONG movement range. That’s where the “???” come in that I’ve drawn at the SE outskirts of Leningrad. L Corps Commanded by Walter Model™ can reach within 1 hex of Ladoga (assuming scouting is accurate, which I suspect it is) and create an additional ZOC/supply choke there. I’m tempted to do it, because doing so puts heavy strain on all those airbases and on supply, possibly having a double encirclement west/east of Ladoga. But I also know I can’t control that 1 hex opening, and I MIGHT be a little bit outnumbered by the Red Army around Leningrad… This is more of a job for Hausser than Model… Still, the romantic idea of the SS sealing the fate of the city that birthed the ascension of Marxism – jeez, that calls to me (this isn’t a roleplaying game!)
I’m not sure what to do there. Any advice?
Note that I haven't plotted any movement yet for 1 Panzer there in the NE amongst 16th Army elements (and it's motorized division, scattered around it as regiments).