Defending Leningrad (A Road to Leningrad PBEM)

[loki100]

Turn 4, playing around with different ways to work with the single attachment model, hope this is clear:

[AFV]

That infantry division just west of Luga has 7 MP left and looks like it could cut the entire spearhead off by moving 2 or 3 hexes se.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: AFV

That infantry division just west of Luga has 7 MP left and looks like it could cut the entire spearhead off by moving 2 or 3 hexes se.

I know, but that was as far as it could go, one more hex and I would have really cut up the supply lines but the impact of low morale on the ability to push into enemy held hexes ...

[loki100]

Turn 5 - same layout as for Turn 4:

[loki100]

Turn 6:

[loki100]

Turn 7

(now I can make links its a lot easier to set these up, if anyone is interested the same report is on the Paradox OT Forum)

Those of you with long memories will recall that I spent some of the last update discussing how effectively I have 6 hexes to defend and 8 turns to do it in. So I need a loss rate of less than 1 per turn.

Well –



Whoops. So I’ve just lost 3 in one turn but still (just) hold the mouth of the Volkhov.

To the north you can see 7 Independent Army falling back and a line forming up to stop the Finns. The latter may appear wasteful but now the fighting is intense those NKVD formations are no use and I can send damaged rifle divisions to refit and then bring them back to the front.

This shows all the battles:



The main stuff was around Tikhvin, where despite the losses I managed to hold the Axis to little gains and Volkhov which is both key and went badly. Worse (not clear in the screenshot) my last decent armoured unit is more or less encircled.

I decide its time to shake up the Soviet command structure. Berzarin (despite his win/loss record) is more than good enough to keep on.



Political is the cost of replacing him (so some of Stalin’s idiot cronies have very high political ratings), morale helps offset my poor unit morale, (it affects my combat values), initiative feeds into the number of MPs I have (again something I struggle for) as well as the chance to release support/reserve units to the battle and the chance that individual elements will actually fire.

Think of elements in this game as they are in the AGE system, in effect a building block to the counter that you actually see on the map.

Admin again helps with MPs, refit/repair and the costs of reorganising combat units between different commands.

The Mech and Infantry ratings sort of stack with the initiative rating but obviously some officers are better at Infantry command and others with Mech units.

Now Pronin is not long for this world. He’s off to supervise the digging of the White Sea Canal or some equally urgent task.



This gives me some idea how can replace him. These shifts cost admin points and the charge varies according to how you select.



I’ll allocate this key sector to Tolbukhin.



Now that is much more like it.

In addition I gamble on stripping part of the Leningrad garrison so some units are sent across the lake to Sviritsa to form a last line of defense.



That’s the OOB after the final allocations. Scarily (& out of my control in this scenario) Budyenny is now in charge of Stavka [1] - well at least the Red Army is being led by a man with an impressive moustache.



In general, it now looks as if the Germans are going straight up the edge of Lake Ladoga. I manage to shuffle some units from the south to the centre (& in turn to the north) to try and boost my defences on what is now going to be the key sector.



[1] – this is a bit of a bugbear for me. In Russian, Stavka (Ставка) is not an acronym (ie to be capitalised), it’s a proper word. Its not like OKH (ie an acronym). Best translated as Tent, in that in medieval Russian armies the tent of the supreme commander was marked out in camp and on the battle field so generals knew where to go. The Tsar in WW1 adopted the title to refer to the Russian supreme command to support the fiction that he was at the front with his men.

Stalin set it up as a new command concept just after the German invasion and it sat in an odd relationship between the GKO (which is an acronym) and the Military Soviets – the confusion allowed Stalin to play political games depending on his interests of the moment. Sorry, rant over.

[loki100]

Turn 8

So this turn sees my defence at Sviritsa dismantled.



The only marginally good piece of news is that he obviously lacked the MP to actually occupy the port. So that does provide me with a small chance.

So I push some formations into Sviritsa and launch a counterattack with the still powerful 34 Army units along the Ladoga.

Which proves to be a rather spectacular failure.



Now they would have lost anyway but I’d forgotten to check if their HQ was in range (it had been displaced in the Axis turn) so to add to their woes there were out of command range which is one reason why their effective combat power dropped from 9 to 2. Not that it would have made much difference.

Anyway, I do manage to regain the port and thus re-establish a line of communications to Leningrad.



In the southern sector, having taken on fresh units and recovered from the earlier beatings, 29 Army probes into the axis flank.



Turn 9

However, as maybe expected turn 9 confirms what was probably pretty obvious.



I’ve lost the key Leningrad hex



And Sviritsa is now firmly in German hands (so what is left at Leningrad is now isolated)



My one, rather forlorn hope is a counterattack by 34Army, led by 1 Tank Division



(which looks good in theory).

But not, unfortunately in practice



Some comments

Well that was clearly a total disaster. We’ll play to the end, but I suspect in the remaining 8 turns Qitbuqa will take everything on the map. With no Leningrad distraction there is not much I can now do. So I’ll stop the AAR at this stage.

Errors.

Well certainly some of placement, I lost 3-5 rifle divisions by not really thinking about where I wanted them to go. Not decisive, but then in this scenario it does feel as if the Soviets are waging war on a shoestring.

I probably over-loaded Leningrad, but then I wanted that not to fall to the sort of attack that took the main city hex in any case. In scenario terms I can see no merit to holding the Ladoga ports and losing the city (different of course in a campaign game). Equally I now wonder if effectively abandoning the southern sector was such a good idea.

Defending against an axis thrust that prioritises reaching the Luga is clearly difficult, and its not something I have come up with a solution to.

I think that first putting the weight of the non-Leningrad forces along the Volkhov will help. At leas that would avoid the problem I had in turn 4 when 27A was isolated to the west and my Mech Corps encircled.

I still think that once that had happened, I was right to counterattack with the view of cutting into my opponents supply and communication lines. I know I lost a fair bit but I also got a lot out.

Now since then, I’ve played some more and have an idea that might have offset the fundamental problem I faced. One real problem for the Soviets is low MP (add to that the low morale means high costs to enter enemy territory and Zones of Control). Well you can allocate additional supplies to a given HQ which in turn gives you extra MP. It might have been the case that judicious use of that option would have given me the means to seriously cut supply lines and/or reposition my forces as needed.

[Seminole]

Defending against an axis thrust that prioritises reaching the Luga is clearly difficult, and its not something I have come up with a solution to.

You didn't present full maps of the defensive arrangement on turns 1 and 2, but the rifle & AT brigades, as well as security units and the paras need to pushed forward to screen (remember to use the rail to get these units in position), and with a little help potentially cut off, his spearheads over the Daugava river if he is reckless.
The first week I try to get my strongest (best morale) forces around Pskov to hopefully avoid him crossing the river on week 2 (or force him to cross it south of Pskov). With the screen raising MP costs and the best morale units along the Velikaya river, forcing deliberate attacks to cross that river can hopefully give you time to force deliberate attacks across the Luga as well. By that time your unit density should be picking up.
As early as practicable (fixing command chains on the front line overrides) get a fort built on the port that feeds Leningrad, this will allow you to get to entrenchment level 3 on the backdoor of the Neva river line.
I noticed you had rifle divisions on the Finnish no attack line and brigades defending the Neva river. That is backwards.

[swkuh]

I appreciate your effort to show the scenario campaign. Germans should win this one, always. All you could do was hold out with maximum points protected as long as possible. The fun is in the play.

The ports are essential to the Soviets' defense of L'grad. The thrust into the rough terrain that you feared should be easy to contain because of terrain and communication lines (I think.) I'd let the German go there and tie him up.

[Wuffer]

As allways, very well written and illustrated. I think, rrbill is right - any real success for the soviet side in this scenario would be mainly due German mistakes...
BTW, welcome to the post-Hoi-world, what is the most important aspect of this posting

Greetings

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

Defending against an axis thrust that prioritises reaching the Luga is clearly difficult, and its not something I have come up with a solution to.

You didn't present full maps of the defensive arrangement on turns 1 and 2, but the rifle & AT brigades, as well as security units and the paras need to pushed forward to screen (remember to use the rail to get these units in position), and with a little help potentially cut off, his spearheads over the Daugava river if he is reckless.
The first week I try to get my strongest (best morale) forces around Pskov to hopefully avoid him crossing the river on week 2 (or force him to cross it south of Pskov). With the screen raising MP costs and the best morale units along the Velikaya river, forcing deliberate attacks to cross that river can hopefully give you time to force deliberate attacks across the Luga as well. By that time your unit density should be picking up.
As early as practicable (fixing command chains on the front line overrides) get a fort built on the port that feeds Leningrad, this will allow you to get to entrenchment level 3 on the backdoor of the Neva river line.
I noticed you had rifle divisions on the Finnish no attack line and brigades defending the Neva river. That is backwards.

thanks for that, all I did on the first 2 turns was set up a loose screen at Pskov and fall back out of range in the south. Perhaps I should have added the Paras to the Pskov defense and made more of a stand there.

whats interesting in this scenario is the goal is clear and the unit density low enough that it is a bit chess like. Not least you can replay and thus try ideas out (& of course learn how the game slots together) which was our goal. I'm doing another go (PBEM against someone else) and am trying to use refit to force up the CV of a number of key formations so the Luga can be defended with more commitment - of course the cost is that a load of the new divisions turn up depleted rather than just in need of refit. So it'll be interesting to see if they are ready in time to feed into the line.

I'm also experimenting in calibrating the Leningrad force so that there is enough but not too much there.

the layout on the stop line was temporary. I had a number of divisions needing to refit so I dumped them on the line to recover and then rotate back in.

ORIGINAL: rrbill

I appreciate your effort to show the scenario campaign. Germans should win this one, always. All you could do was hold out with maximum points protected as long as possible. The fun is in the play.

The ports are essential to the Soviets' defense of L'grad. The thrust into the rough terrain that you feared should be easy to contain because of terrain and communication lines (I think.) I'd let the German go there and tie him up.

Again thanks. I do find this a good learning scenario (size/focus/relative speed of play), I realised after I'd made those deployments that an attempt to go directly east was in my favour - poor terrain, long supply lines, the VVS hornets nest and the chance to nip in behind a flank, so should have just built up on the upper Volkhov.

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

As allways, very well written and illustrated. I think, rrbill is right - any real success for the soviet side in this scenario would be mainly due German mistakes...
BTW, welcome to the post-Hoi-world, what is the most important aspect of this posting

Greetings

thank you. I must confess becoming fed up with HOI3 was one reason to pick up WITE. In many ways its a good complex game but they have never managed to make the AI into a real challenge. I recall with the final patches of HOI2 with H/VH the AI could scare you and give you a run for your money. So I fancied a shift of approach back to more historically based campaign games - and so far am utterly delighted with WiTE (def got my money back).

Now I#ve worked out how to mix text and images as I prefer, I suspect this won't be the last offering here.

[8D]