Breakout and Pursuit, or Quagmire and Despair? A Normandy AAR.

[Grotius]

Glad you guys enjoyed it! Ramses, it didn't occur to me to try a second airborne operation. A pre-Market Garden; not a bad idea. I did have some airborne troops in Britain after D-Day, but I just shipped them over to Normandy.

Here are some numbers and graphs. First, the victory point count. I was about 30 points away from a Major defeat!

[Grotius]

My highest casualty-point losses were for men. The air losses are interesting, too. In another thread, there's debate about whether flak is deadly enough. It was certainly deadly enough when shooting at me! But, as I mentioned earlier, I didn't learn how to display opponent flak until late in the scenario. (Actually, one of the tutorial videos did teach me that, but I forgot.)

[Grotius]

Flak was the single biggest source of aircraft loss for me -- slight worse than operational losses, and twice as deadly as air-to-air. Interesting.

Flak losses peaked in week 9, when I made my last big push east, and right after I rebased aircraft west of Paris. I wonder whether they were flying over more unit-based flak than in prior turns, when they mostly had to contend with city-based flak. Or it may just have been that week 9 was my last all-out push in the air, before the weather turned bad.

[Grotius]

And lastly, my ground losses. 60,000 men dead; too many. I don't play to win at all costs; I try to imagine that I'm commanding real human beings. Thankfully, the victory-point system reinforces this play style, by making casualty rates a significant factor. Axis casualty rates were higher than mine, but I'm guessing my rates are still too high.

Especially my AFV losses! I guess that's par for the course in this theater, what with my Shermans going up against their Tigers and Panthers. Still, I don't think I've been handling my armor optimally. Ideally, infantry punches through lines and fights in cities, while armor exploits; in my case, it was too often the other way around! Also, because the AI left Paris open, I seized it with armor while my infantry lagged behind. That was all well and good, but it meant my tanks had to endure infantry-based counterattacks.

Anyway, if anyone has further comments on this AAR, please feel free to chime in. I'm especially curious about the gameplay questions I raised earlier in the thread -- e.g., whether to walk or ride the rails, how to prioritize depots, and whether I built too many depots.

[Helpless]

Great AAR. Thanks for sharing.

What were altitudes you were operating with air forces?

[Grotius]

The default altitudes for each Air Directive -- I never changed any. I'll double-check my last save to be sure.

[Nemo84]

I found the secret to winning this scenario is your airborne divisions. The AI was really good at establishing defensive lines, and quite frankly any attack on such a line means running into German panzer divisions: pretty much bound to fail unless you spend a few turns amassing and preparing. So you need to bypass those defensive lines instead. And with high interdiction each time the Germans have to relocate to a new line they'll leave some stragglers to pocket. I think I ran about one airborne operation every two turns.

On turn 1 heavy aerial bombardment allowed the US divisions serious successes in their breakout at Alencon. The US 8th Airforce annihilates the Luftwaffe in a concentrated bombing campaign in the Paris region, destroying 625 airframes, half of them on the ground. This is half of all Luftwaffe planes present in the theatre. The Luftwaffe will fail to do pretty much anything but sporadic ineffective sorties for the rest of the campaign.

On turn 2 two US divisions and the Polish brigade dropped on rail hexes around Argentan and Alencon to try and pocket the German forces between them and the American armour breaking out. The Poles were surrounded and annihilated, but British armour linked up with the 2 American divisions. The Germans fell back to a line just east of Argentan and Le Mans, but left 2 infantry divisions, an infantry and a Fallschirmjager regiment, an airlanding division and most importantly the 116th Panzer and 2nd SS Panzer divisions pocketed near Avranches.

On turn 3 the Brits landed at Evreux and Rouen to secure Seine crossings. This once again forced the Germans to fall back to a line several hexes behind the Seine (the same line as on Grotius' turn 6 screenshot), leaving behind stragglers. Three German infantry divisions, a Fallschirmjager division, the 17th SS Panzergrenadiers and the 10th SS Panzer division nearly get pocketed around Alencon by the advancing troops.

On turn 4 the pocket at Alencon is sealed. The rest of the army advances on the Seine, pocketing another 3 German infantry divisions.

On turn 5 Paris is liberated, the pockets are cleared and the troops once again organize to break the German line.

On turn 6 the Brits drop at Amiens and Abbeville, while the 17th US Airborne drops at St-Quentin, securing 3 Somme crossings. German forces once again fall back, this time to a Ghent-Verdun line. The fort at Le Havre falls.

On turn 7: a wide advance over the entire front. British armour reaches Ostend. Fortifications at Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne are isolated, also containing 3 German infantry regiments. Another 5 German infantry divisions and the 15th Panzergrenadiers fail to link up with the new defensive line and are isolated in several small pockets.

On turn 8 the pockets are cleared and the advance continues. Two US airborne divisions and the British air-portable land at Antwerp and Leuven. Supply lines are getting stretched on the northern spearhead.

On turn 9: attempts to relieve the airborne landings at Antwerp and Leuven fail. This time the German line does not budge (much). Allied infantry divisions finally catch up with the new frontline. A local offensive at Chaumont does pocket the 3rd Panzergrenadier division.

On turn 10 another US and British airborne division drop at Antwerp and Leuven to reinforce the previous landings. British armour manages to link up with the airborne troops at Brussels, threatening to pocket about 10 German divisions, including 2 SS panzer divisions, at Ghent.

On turn 11 Calais and Brest finally fall. The Ghent pocket is sealed, but only 4 infantry divisions remain in it. The front is mostly static due to foul weather.

Final overview:

- all Allied objectives achieved, except for Metz.
- German losses: 418.000 men, 7500 guns, 1710 tanks, 1033 planes. 19 German divisions and 10 regiments destroyed (excluding airbases and support units), including 3 Panzer, 3 Panzergrenadier and 2 Fallschirmjager divisions.
- Allied losses: 103.000 men, 900 guns, 2500 tanks, 2500 planes.
- Note: the scenario starts each side with 125.000 manpower losses, these have been subtracted from above totals.

The German defense seems a lot more organized and determined than historically, leading to a vastly slower Allied advance. No Market Garden in this war, it seems. On the other hand, the much higher German losses will also mean no Battle of the Bulge, so all in all the Allies will be better prepared than historically for the advance into Germany. Unfortunately, so will the Germans, though their frontline is getting stretched thin.

[Erik Rutins]

In WITE against a decent player it was tough to replicate the German debacle at Stalingrad (you really need AI Hitler to do that) and similarly it's hard to replicate the Falaise-Argentan pocket when the German player is focused on withdrawing instead of counterattacking and trying to seal off the breakthrough. In testing, if the Germans play as the Germans historically did, the historical pocket is possible as is a faster Allied advance afterwards.

Using the airborne to speed up the advance and unhinge the German defenses against a decent German player who is focusing on a slow withdrawal makes sense. The Allies historically planned many airborne ops between D-Day and Market Garden, but for the most part the front lines moved forward fast enough until Market Garden that those operations proved unnecessary. Without Falaise-Argentan, I think we would have likely seen more drops as you did.

Regards,

- Erik

[Nico165b165]

Very informative post Nemo84, will have to try that - the breakout part I'm doing fine, but the pursuit is a mess without paratroopers !

[Nemo84]

My use of airborne forces was indeed inspired by the historical plans for the airborne units in the race for Antwerp, though I must say the performance of my plan far exceeded my initial expectations. I'm also not certain an airborne division at the time was doctrinally and logistically capable of performing a combat jump every 2-3 weeks.

I found the AI to be rather over-eager in abandoning strong defensive positions, and half of the units I pocketed was due to AI stupidity in ordering pointless counter-attacks instead of moving to a better position (an AI flaw that results in an historically accurate touch, so I wouldn't like to see it changed/fixed). A few scattered airborne divisions would seriously disrupt supply lines, but should not be a reason to have dozens of divisions abandon strong defensive positions. I also do honestly think that right now it's far too easy for a German division to break off combat, relocate several hundred kilometers despite heavy aerial interdiction and then securely and deeply entrench itself in a single week's time with seemingly little consequences on readiness, supplies and combat capability.

If I tried to pull the same move against a somewhat competent human opponent I would fully expect to see my airborne units annihilated the turn after they land, and by the end of the game the German defenses would probably still be on the banks of the Seine. AI counterattacks on the airborne landings were fouled by heavy aerial interdiction, but the AI never even used its airforce. I'm pretty certain the German AI in my game could still have achieved local aerial superiority for a turn or two, despite its battered airforce, had it made the attempt. Plenty of time to isolate and destroy those airborne units.

[Bamilus]

Thank you for the beautiful and informative AAR. Will definitely re-read this a few times when I try this scenario next.

[Grotius]

Glad you enjoyed it, Bamilus! And thanks to Nemo, Erik and Nico for your comments as well. I think I fell victim to victory disease -- I advanced so fast on Paris that I figured Metz and Antwerp would go just as quickly. Not so! I will work on learning to use paratroopers.

[jhdeerslayer]

I wonder if the Allied AI will use Para's in this scenario?

[Szilard]

Really encouraging to see the German AI playing a reasonable & historically plausible hand.

Is it possible for the Allies to attempt a new landing somewhere behind the German lines? I guess that would have been a concern for the
Germans through August or however long the Allied deception plan held up.

Maybe for scenario purposes you could handle this by giving the Allies a small chance of being able to call on the additional resources
required for this at the start of the scenario, forcing the German player to worry about the possibility for some time.
Game-balance by giving the Germans VP's if the Allied player does call on the resources, or whatever.

[carlkay58]

The Allies can definitely attempt a new landing behind the German lines. This is ALMOST mandatory in this scenario to have a good chance for the Allies to take Antwerp and Amsterdam.

[jhdeerslayer]

Yea this scenario doesn't seem to play out well historically with the chaotic German retreat to their border. The set up a line not too far from Paris and becomes kind of slug fest then. My experience anyway.

[Great_Ajax]

Its like that because the German AI and players arent going to mount a suicide counteroffensive with their entire panzer force and allow themselves to be surrounded.

Trey

ORIGINAL: Deerslayer

Yea this scenario doesn't seem to play out well historically with the chaotic German retreat to their border. The set up a line not too far from Paris and becomes kind of slug fest then. My experience anyway.

[jhdeerslayer]

ORIGINAL: el hefe

Its like that because the German AI and players arent going to mount a suicide counteroffensive with their entire panzer force and allow themselves to be surrounded.

Trey

ORIGINAL: Deerslayer

Yea this scenario doesn't seem to play out well historically with the chaotic German retreat to their border. The set up a line not too far from Paris and becomes kind of slug fest then. My experience anyway.

Yep understand and too much of their force remains after the breakout. Anyway a fun scenario and game.

[LiquidSky]

Here is the end of my turn 2. I am thinking that if I can pull of a paradrop at the beginning of turn 2 (probably not enough planning time) I could isolate most of the German forces.

I am mostly trying to figure out the air game and was messing around with different AD's. Game is on Normal.

[Stele]

I had similar results, but you got much closer to Troyes than I did. Wasn't sure if I could really manage a swing around to the south. This is a great scenario. I had such high hopes breaking out and then taking Paris, but then it turned into a bit of a slugfest pushing forward. The offensive line thinned out too much for me, but I did make some gains in weak spots. However, the Germans just plugged those lines up quickly. Axis Minor Victory.

I think what I could do differently next time is use the paradrops, and really focus on air management.