AGS Turn 1 Moves

[Klydon]

Ok, hopefully all this displays correctly.

On the first map is the AGS area in question. The two mech corps I have circled represent some concerns for the German player, especially if he goes all regimental on a smaller pocket. In addition, some of these guys have a good number of T-34/KV tanks so it would be nice to at least bang them around some (and even pocket) if possible before they run over the hill. The Soviet line of troops to the west and NW of these guys is also a PITA because of the armor there and also cav. (IE someone can move in and break an encirclement. I should have marked it on the map, but another target for AGS is the mech units around the rail cross roads near the boundry of AGC and AGS.

With only 4 mechanized units available (4 weak panzer divisions) and NOT concentrated, the Germans have their work cut out for them in this area. Only a full strength panzer corps is going to deal with two of the biggest headaches in the area in 34th and 12th Tank divisions. (The light blue X is next to both of them).



What we do to set this up is to transfer 10th motor division to XXXVI corps in PG2. (This is the panzer corps that is partially visible in the upper left of the screen). This has the side benefit of giving some relief to the badly overloaded corps HQ of 24 Panzer. We will also use 24 Panzer's 2 infantry and Cav div to help as well. Finally, we will need the 12th infantry corps to help break the north part of the line and free up 6th Army for important work as well. (12th infantry is the stack next to Brest-Livosk). While unfortunate that we have to pull some troops from AGC, I think the benefits far outweigh the detriments. 9th Army can easily cover the pulled infantry and AGC can still pocket huge amounts of troops like they usually do without the use of 46 Panzer. Eventually, I would like to make up a campaign game that grants the Germans the other 6 mobile divisions, which would make using panzer forces from PG2 a lot less necessary. At any rate, here we go. with the first map.

[Klydon]

Ok, this is after the attack took place. Basically, I pulled troops from 17th army left and swung them around to the right to make the initial breach and then pushed further with the troops on the line there. The mountain region along the border is not isolated (no way to make this happen without driving all the way to the Rumanian border and that generally doesn't work). The mountain region will be cut off next turn.

One of the things I like to do early is to make extra wide panzer lanes. This helps my supply and gives me a lot of extra territory under my control, even if the Soviets try to close things in. I did not move the HQ's, but in my testing of this, everyone is in good shape supply wise and the panzers will be in the 40's for movement. 17th army sweeps from west to east to clean up the pocket. They may not get it all, but what is left will be very small. 6th Army is immediately free to continue the advance to the east, which usually doesn't happen in force for the Germans on turn 2. This puts extra pressure in the direction of Kiev earlier than normal, which is what we are after. The panzer forces can now safely head down to the Rumanian border and cut the troops pinned against the border and are also in good shape to take advantage of any other tactical situations that may present themselves.

One last note is to check the rail road repair unit. It has clear sailing to repair the line quickly in the direction of Kiev and there is nothing the Soviets can do as far as parking a unit on the line or doing a zoc on the line.

[Klydon]

One other thing to give you an idea on the strength of 12th and 34th tank divisions. One was attacked at 2.4-1 and the other attack was 2.2-1. This was by XXXVI panzer that is something like a 40 point stack with the SS unit, motorized division and panzer division. Both tank divisions lost about 70 tanks each (they start with over 300). While it is unfortunate that one of them will get away (pushed to the east), the other gets pushed into the pocket formed and will be dealt with on turn 2.

[Mynok]

That's a nice pocket, but you are going to sorely miss those 2nd Panzer infantry when you try to breach the Dnepr later. You won't be able to rail them back, and they won't make it through the marshes in a timely manner.

You will also get an HQ displaced against a human.

And yes, those two Mech units are serious trouble. Best bet is to pin them with infantry and use maneuver to isolate them eventually.

[Ketza]

I like moving a corp down from AGC and splitting the front using 6th and 17th armies to set up a corridor for the panzers to push through and head to Rumanian border. I try to make a gap wide enough where the Soviet doesnt have room to reconnect lines. I am still experimenting but this looks like a promising start for the south and opens the whole front for Panzer thrusts. This is the start of turn 2 against AI.

[Klydon]

Thought I mentioned that I did not bother moving HQ units as I was in somewhat of a hurry and it was rather pointless for a 1 turn opening.

The infantry divisions may be missed, but at least a couple of them were going to be on swamp duty any way. If nothing else, it could be looked at from the standpoint that AGC gets to deal with most of the swamp and 12th infantry is just there to hug the southern portion of the swamp and push east to keep things moving. They are also in a close enough position up there that they could catch up with the rest of the army group.

The other option is to use some of the 9th army infantry, but I don't think this is as effective because they are a bit further away and it would take more of them to accomplish much the same thing and I don't want that much extra infantry down south.

As far as pinning those two mech corps (especially the two tank divisions), you just can't get to them to pull it off. They will get away. I have not tried it yet, but I also wonder how they would do against a infantry division near them (as in attack it and see what happens). I may have to give that a try for giggles.

As with any plan, there are trade offs. To me, I would rather trade a bit of power on the Dnepr later for better results against all those units in the south. Getting rid of all those mech and tank units, especially with the number of T-34/KV tanks in that pocket, will pay dividends later.

[ComradeP]

I really don't see how linking up with the Romanians is gamey, as you need 1 or 2 Panzer corps from AGC to do it right, especially if you want Rovno too. The Axis are in a way penalized by the frozen state of part of the mobile forces in the south, so if you want to go south, you'll have to compensate for it with AGC's mobile units. The Axis have to juggle the means they have, they don't have the ability to customize their army, only the ability to customize C&C, limited by existing HQ's.

[Magnum88]

The Romanian option is relatively easy to do, especially on Normal difficulty, and is almost impossible to break if set-up correctly. Challenging is harder because of less routing and more units possibly adding from reserve, which means more MPs used on numerous attacks and using units to pin reserves by moving next to them. Probably not unbreakable but AI has a very hard time breaking pockets anyways and PBEM I assume a Normal difficulty.

A few things make it less dangerous:
- Soviet units have few MPs Turn 1 which means no Tank or Mech division can do a deliberate attack (12 MP max though the manual makes it appear 8 should be max for mobile divison--manual error?)
- The units inside the pocket have almost no CV unless pocket is broken but have all their MPs but no threat for an attack
- Most Soviet units and all the close strong ones are in the pocket or just south of the Pripyat Marsh where you have all your infantry divisions
- Your most vulnerable units are the panzer/motorized divisons on the southern half spearhead and they are mostly protected by 1-3 frendly hexes which makes getting to them costly and units in area are weak

[PeeDeeAitch]

Other than AP expense in the reshuffling (and I admit this IS a drawback, there are never enough AP early on), what is the drawback to using XXXVI Pz Corps from 2nd PzA south on turn 1 (where it will stay) and sending XIV Pz Corps to the east on turn 2?  This increases the southern striking power on turn 1, it does not irreparably harm the drive in the center (the XIV with full fuel should be able to catch up by turn 3 and the turn 1 drive should be strong enough).
 
This strikes me as just the sort of small-scale "what if" that the game should encourage -the reshuffling of available forces to meet a changing operational goal.  It is the sort of ad-hoc change of plans that the Germans could and would do.  Not particularly gamey, not out of character - I just don't know the full effect.

[Klydon]

I have played around with a dash to the Rumanian border. The issue with it is I can't keep the pocket unbroken, which means extra delays for the Axis unless they are willing to wait and kill stuff on turn 3. That is another turn's delay in advancing towards Kiev, giving the Soviets time to build up the river line and also to make it that much harder to slog through units between the pockets and Kiev. The issue I ran into down by the border is either the border guards (who do have good moral and can move to break the encirclement) or the very nasty Mech corps the Russians have over to the East on the Rumanian border who have no issues at all knocking a blocking broken down regiment out of place. This doesn't matter how much you send from PG2, it is strictly a function of what can reach from PG1 and it simply isn't enough to keep the pocket sealed from what I have seen. 

The other issue (at least for me anyway) is the panzers sent down there often get put out of supply and even if they don't, they are hurting on supplies for turn 2.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Mynok
Two things became much clearer for me doing this interesting exercise: pinning Soviets is critical, and regiments are brittle for pocket holding. Controlling space in conjunction with pinning units is the key to holding pockets.

Those two points are key indeed (and that's from the perspective of the Soviet player).

Pinning can be done either directly (getting units adjacent to Soviet units) or indirectly (by converting hexes). Hex conversion is cheaper and almost guarantees that the encircling forces will be getting hasty attacks on them, due to the very high MP costs involving entering enemy hexes for Soviet units.

Regimental/KG breakdowns are very brittle but nonetheless may be able to weather several hasty attacks from MP starved Soviet RDs and TDs. Using a KG/Breakdown to pin directly Soviet units allows the Soviet to launch deliberate attacks - which may well push around your KG as a rag doll.

[ComradeP]

In my game with notenome, the pocket didn't hold, but that was predictable because units routed to an area where there are normally no units and because my mobile units were not employed ideally near Tarnopol. My goal was to keep the units from escaping, and that worked as they were all doomed on turn 2, even more units were doomed than normal because the units trying to break the pocket were in turn pocketed.

However, if you don't also go for Rovno, it's perfectly doable to create a good pocket. I do try to take Rovno because there's no combat unit in it and it secures your northern flank. With the swamps and the hills in the area, the Soviets can put pressure on your northern flank if you don't clear that area (and encircle the forces in the hills too as a bonus).

[Q-Ball]

Klydon's move certainly produces good results, that takes alot of Southwest Front's Mobile Forces off the board. The key questions is it worth the diversion from AGC?

The Infantry are committed, you could "swap" the Frozen PzGp I units and send them north of the Pripyet on turn 2. This swap would cost a bunch of APs of course. Someone would have to play a before/after on AGC to see the effect.

It might be worth the diversion, because AGC isn't going to run into solid resistance until probably at the Dnepr on turn 3 at the earliest.

[Magnum88]

The only divison I break down is 13th Panzer and they are south of Tarnopol and far away from the strong Soviet mobile units and have 2 friendly hexes inbetween to eat up any Soviet MPs. They are the only ones that need to spread out to avoid the Soviet ZOCs from meeting up and breaking the pocket. The closest unit to 2nd Mech Corps (strong Soviet mobile units by the Romanian broder) is 11th Panzer Divison and he is the strongest I have and more than their match (remember they can only do hasty attacks so no more than three units at half CV).

GD Regiment is behind the rest of XXXXVI Panzer Corps and holding back the mobile units inside the pocket with no CV to be a threat.

[Altaris]

In my experience, the SS Mot divs are the best to break down, as their high morale means the smaller units have better movement. I'd break down that one that's west of Brest-Livotsk (Wyking?) and move it south, should accomplish the same goal and be easier to reform on turn 2 or 3 (or leave it broken down as flank protection).

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Thought I mentioned that I did not bother moving HQ units as I was in somewhat of a hurry and it was rather pointless for a 1 turn opening.

Makes sense.

As far as pinning those two mech corps (especially the two tank divisions), you just can't get to them to pull it off. They will get away. I have not tried it yet, but I also wonder how they would do against a infantry division near them (as in attack it and see what happens). I may have to give that a try for giggles.

I always pin them with 6th army infantry. Works just fine.

[Klydon]

I would be interested to see Magnum's Rumanian dash. I played with it on several attempts and could never get it to work unfortunately. (By work, meaning the pocket held so that on turn two, I could attack units in the pocket and force surrender vs having them rout out of the pocket).

Command can be somewhat of an issue. I am still trying to work all that out, but the two commands way overloaded are AGC and AGS, so switching panzer corps around at start does not make a ton of sense quite yet. Some of the things I have been looking at are putting the Rumanian units under German control in the Rumanian GHQ and I am also considering putting 11th Army there as well. For AGC, some measures I have been playing around with is moving at least 1 infantry corps to 4th PG and also filling in some infantry in the other two armies. This should work out even if not making Leningrad a main effort objective from the standpoint that it just means AGN's border goes a bit further south than normal. The Germans typically find themselves very thin on troops south of Lake Ilmen, in front of the Valdi Hills and down to Velikiye Luki.  A lot of this stuff is just ideas I have been kicking around, but have not had time to play around with in game yet. (Sort of the "sounds good in theory, but in practice ??" ).

My current idea is to leave those PG2 units in PG2 and use them along the south side of the swamp. I have played a couple turns of test and so far there have not really been any supply issues, although I have been fairly aggressive in clearing out the swamp and cutting supply lines in there.

One last note in trying to trash all those mech/tank units in the Lvov pocket. I know I have been highlighting a lot about the amount of T-34/KV tanks such and such a formation has, etc and it is important from my view (knocking out a tank division with 150 T-34's means 4-5 less tank brigades later). One other wrinkle I was thinking about today as well is there are an absolute ton of trucks in there as well and that is something that will make a big difference. (I need to spend some time going through and counting trucks in those formations just for giggles).

[Klydon]

Ok, following up my previous post on the truck comments, here we go:

22nd Mech (around Kovel) 65 KV tanks, 3407 vehicles
4th Mech (east of Lvov and should be nailed by just about any encirclement plan). 113 KV, 300 T34, 4008 vehicles
15 Mech (SE of Lvov). 125 KV, 29 T34 3685 vehicles
8 Mech (bit more to the east of 15 mech). This is not counting 34th tank div, which under my plan gets attacked a couple of times, but gets pushed away from the forming pocket. The other two divisions of the corps have 63 KV and 97 T34 tanks along with 2357 vehicles. 34 tank division has 10 KV tanks and 1770 vehicles.

Totals not including 8 and 15 mech:

178 KV 300 T34, 7415 vehicles (this includes bagging both 22nd mech, which not everyone does in their open and also 4th mech)

Total for my encirclement plans:

366 KV 426 T34 and 13457 vehicles. The vehicle count does not include totals from non-mech, non-tank divisions. (I wonder how many vehicles the Germans will actually capture and use).

Difference:

188 KV, 126 T34, and 6042 vehicles.

Just for some other info purposes: The two mech corps further east have something like 10 KV/T34 tanks between all their units. 16 Mech corps down by Stanislav (at least the two tank divisions as no plan will get the mech division sitting in the rough that I am aware of) have a grand total of 3 KV and 4 T34 tanks and 1610 vehicles between them.

[Q-Ball]

How did you get that unit off the Rough, Klydon? It takes something like 3-4 Divisions on Deliberate. That unit is a b***h.

Although, do you really NEED to get it off the Rough in your plan, since you blew away all the units north of it anyway?

[CharonJr]

This was my move for AGS on turn 1 vs. the AI for my current AAR:

Especially the weak link in the north would have most likely been penetrated by a human with all this Soviet tanks around. I am not sure if I could have done anything to strengthen this point.