TTG multi-player teaching game

[SparkleyTits]

Great stuff!

It's nice to see a fresh take with a middle party doing an AAR for both sides

[timmyab]

The Soviet forces "defending against a Kiev lunge" look vulnerable to encirclement.

[thedoctorking]

ORIGINAL: timmyab

The Soviet forces "defending against a Kiev lunge" look vulnerable to encirclement.

Funny how that works...

[Fanstar1]

AGN is behind pace but Ukraine is ripe for encirclement. Will be interesting to see how this will go.

[thedoctorking]

TTG Turn 2 Axis Neutral AAR

Turn two saw the Axis taking advantage of the good fuel status of their panzers to advance rapidly and attempt to pocket large numbers of Soviet units.

In the north, the turn began with German infantry still trying to cross the Nieman in places, while 4th Panzer Group’s tanks were well out in front and seemingly aiming at the Velikie Luki axis. Soviet forces withdrew almost completely from Latvia, apparently leaving a garrison around Riga for a last-ditch defense effort. The Soviet defense appears stronger in the Pskov region, while a line of divisions appears to screen the Velikie Luki – Polotsk axis. A mass of German air, consisting of most of the fighting power of the Luftwaffe, is based in central Lithuania, where three of the four German FBD’s are working.

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AGN continued a cautious advance. German 16th Army pressed due east, re-closing the Lithuania pocket, routing out a few units in order to clear the path for the advancing FBD’s. Fourth Panzer Group attempted a wide sweep into central Latvia rather than turning westward to capture Riga. Instead, 18th Army appears headed for Riga, but will not arrive until next turn. The failure to take Riga this turn could prove serious. Three good Soviet divisions in the city could hold against even two German corps next turn, delaying 18th Army’s arrival on the Pskov front until at least turn six.

[thedoctorking]

To the south, the advancing Army Group Center was faced with a classic “checkerboard defense” back from the Berezina to the land bridge region. The Soviets made no attempt to hold Minsk. The first turn pockets remained unbroken in this area.

[thedoctorking]

The Soviet forces along the Berezina proved vulnerable to a quick lunge by 2nd Panzer Group, leading to the isolation of 7-9 divisions. 3rd Panzer Group advanced to the land bridge, finding it defended by a screen of airborne brigades with little combat power.

Farther to the rear, the German infantry continued their quick advance to the east, not troubling to stop to wipe out the first turn pockets. Refraining from wiping out early pockets for several turns is a technique that some Axis players have used. Destroyed Soviet units reappear (as almost-empty cadres) ten or so turns later. By leaving isolated units alive, the Axis player delays their return. However, they will be coming back at some point, and most likely during the mud turns, so the gain is minimal. The risk is that the units left behind will be able to do some damage while wandering around – overrun and displace HQ’s or airbases, cut rail lines, or lengthen supply paths. The Axis has retained some regular infantry back in the rear around the Bialystok pocket, along with many security regiments, and did destroy several of the pocketed units this turn.

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Army Group South found itself facing a vast empty space. Soviet defenders in this sector apparently moved eastward as rapidly as they could. Fortunately for the Axis, this is not very fast as Soviet movement is nerfed by the system in June, 1941. Therefore, a dozen or more armor and motorized divisions – much of the pre-war mobile forces of the Red Army – stood tantalizingly close to 1st Panzer Group without any infantry to protect their flanks. Meanwhile, the Kovel pocket, re-opened last turn by Soviet counterattacks, still contained some very high quality units and could be easily re-established.

Of note is the dramatically weak German air force south of the swamps. There’s a total of about 300 bombers and 150 fighters down here, none of them based anywhere close to the armored spearheads. Of course, there doesn’t seem to be any Soviet air power either. The Germans made several ground attacks without any fighter cover whatsoever after running a bunch of recon missions that provoked no fighter interception.

[thedoctorking]

AGS took advantage of the big gap in the Soviet defenses to nearly pocket a half-dozen divisions along the Dnestr to the south while sweeping wide to the east of the main Soviet armored force east of Rovno while failing to pocket it. Both groups of units are probably doomed, though. Meanwhile, the Axis forces in Romania pushed forward into Moldova.

The German FBD in Army Group South has crossed the Prut near Chernovtsy and is apparently heading towards Vinnitsa, while the Romanian FBD is going down the Kishniev line towards Odessa. This is a fairly conventional rail repair strategy rather than the newly-discovered Odessa gambit. That would have required a significant commitment of armor to AGS to permit a turn 3 or 4 capture of Odessa. In this game, AGC has held on to almost all of its starting mobile forces and appears intent on a direct advance on Moscow.

[thedoctorking]

Total casualties as of the end of Axis 2 are 435,977 Soviet to 30,717 German. In the air, it’s 4,699 to 99. Deployed numbers are 3,269,206 German (3,205 aircraft) to 3,347,901 Soviet (1,903 aircraft).

[thedoctorking]

Army Group Center commander Herr General ST reports: "This turn at first I was not going to go so all in with my pocket but I felt it would coincide well to use up more Soviet rail, allocations, resources with AGS's moves to try and pocket as much as possible
Apart from that I just made sure my supply lines would be fine and accepted turn 3 would be a very limp one"

[thedoctorking]

And Herr General mrhuggles in AGS reports: "For the second turn I looked to stop the fleeing of the armored and motorized formations by beginning the formation of pockets in the north and south
This isnt a final picture and the panzer in the south got 1 hex away from sealing the pocket"

[thedoctorking]

TTG Neutral AAR, Soviet turn 2

The extremely aggressive advance of German armor in their turn 2 offered the Soviets many opportunities to isolate panzer spearheads. This is almost always a good idea because, even if the isolation is purely nominal and can be broken by an advancing Axis infantry unit the first thing the next turn, it cuts off German fuel deliveries in the logistics phase. Therefore, the isolated motorized/armor units will have much less than half their normal movement points for the coming turn. If, best case, the Axis had called for a headquarters buildup for those units, they will not get their extra supply deliveries and the precious AP will be wasted (though not, apparently, the extra trucks an HQBU normally uses up). Headquarters buildup, for those not familiar with the idea, is a method for accelerating supply deliveries that is especially useful for a force advancing rapidly beyond their supply lines like the Germans in summer, 1941. You open the HQ’s detail window by right-clicking on the unit in the right-hand window, then if the HQ is eligible for an HQBU, the choice will appear. Clicking on it will reveal the cost in AP. It can be more than you want to pay – 38 for this armored HQ, for example. Units that have moved more than ¼ of their movement allowance cannot benefit. Getting an HQBU costs the HQ and all subordinate units that benefit all their remaining movement. The following logistics phase, the HQ and all eligible units attached to it when the buildup was done get a super-sized delivery of fuel, ammo, and supplies – if they are not isolated at that time. The distance from railhead to unit determines how many extra vehicles are expended to deliver this bounty. It could be plenty, beware, as the Axis you will run short of vehicles by winter.

As the Soviets during Barbarossa (and Blue in summer 1942, and the Axis later on) you want to keep your eyes open for armored units that don’t appear to have moved very far in the preceding turn. They might be gassing up for a big lunge the following turn. A panzer corps with 50 movement points can go a long way towards isolating whole Soviet armies. Two or three such corps can destabilize an entire front. This is probably the most important offensive weapon on either side, but especially for the Germans early on and the Soviets in 1944-45.

[thedoctorking]

The northern front is not especially in peril thanks to the uncertain advance of Axis units in this region. The stack of headquarters and a couple of NKVD border guard regiments in the vicinity of Riga were able to successfully masquerade as a tough defensive force – even to me as I wrote last Axis turn’s AAR. This led the Axis to lunge to the east and await the arrival of the lagging 18th Army’s infantry to clear the defenders out. The few tough units holding the line north of Polotsk looked somewhat lonely, faced with a whole Panzer Group seemingly ready to move eastwards.

[thedoctorking]

The Soviet response in this region was to rail in three good divisions to actually put a solid defense into Riga, while using the rag-tag forces along the Dvina to isolate 4th Panzer Group. As suggested, this isolation is no threat and can be easily broken by advancing infantry next turn. However, it will impede supply to 4th Pz Grp, meaning that they will have 12-15 movement points instead of 25-30, preventing a lunge eastward towards Velikie Luki until at least next turn. More powerful units moved by rail into the critical zone, while some reshuffling in the Pskov region begins to bring order to the quite normal organizational chaos in that area. Ultimately, Northern Front will hold the Pskov region, retreating to the Plyussa and the Luga if necessary, while Northwestern will hold the rivers and swamps south from there to junction with Reserve/Western Front somewhere north of Vitebsk.

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On army organization: Coherent Front zones are important for air support. The Air Commands assigned to Soviet Fronts provide tactical ground support to units in their Fronts. Fighters can intercept enemy air missions anywhere on the map, and so might operate over hexes containing ground units that are not part of their front. Interdiction missions can similarly take place anywhere. But the way the Soviet Air Force is set up, ground units won’t get much air support in combat unless they are part of a Front and within range of an airbase that is assigned to their Front. Air units can fly via intermediate bases (called staging bases), but this can only lengthen their range by 50%. So, if you have (as the Soviets do in 1941) much of your fighter strength in the form of I-class fighters that only have a range of 10 or 11, the largest space your Front can occupy and still rely on air support is about 15 hexes.

Coherent organization is also important for ground combat. On defense, do your best to ensure that units stacked together are all part of one Army. Try to put units in reserve status behind front-line formations of their own Army. On the offensive, you generally try to have all attackers come from the same formation if possible (same Corps for Axis, Army for Soviets). Of course, for a big attack that won’t be possible, but try to have them from the same Army/Front. The reason is, the farther away in line of command terms units in a combat are, the less effective they will be. The combat results screen will show you the penalty you suffered for confused lines of command; it can go up to 30%.

And finally, you want to have units assigned to the lowest level of headquarters you can, if you are not overloading any headquarters. Units assigned directly to higher headquarters (Soviet units assigned directly to a Front or STAVKA, Axis units assigned to an Army, Army Group, or OKH) are penalized by 10% or more.

Units in an overloaded HQ are penalized by a reduction of their commanders’ chances to make leadership rolls; look at the “supply details” window from the unit detail window to see the chances a unit’s leaders have of making any of the leadership rolls it may encounter. You can mess around with overloading, assigning to higher HQ’s, distance from HQ, and so forth to get a better understanding of the impact of organization on combat effectiveness.

[thedoctorking]

In the land bridge region, the Soviet turn began with the discovery of a major pocket along the Berezina and German armor right up against the thin screen of defenders across the land bridge. There was an opportunity to pocket one panzer division and perhaps successfully flee with some of the pocketed forces, while the German ability to drive into the land bridge itself would only be limited by their fuel supplies. German 2nd Panzer Group, having crossed the Berezina at Brobriusk, was showing red fuel (meaning they had expended all or almost all their fuel reserve during the previous turn’s move) but still could be poised to cross the Dnepr in force south of Mogliev.

[thedoctorking]

Noteworthy in this area is the near-opening of the first-turn Belarus pockets by a mere security regiment. This is one problem with leaving those pockets unreduced on turn two – somebody might come by and rescue them. Opening a pocket is important because if an HQ is not isolated, it can send all its support units up to higher headquarters, meaning they are rescued. Many of these HQ’s in the first-turn front line positions have very high-quality support units. If they are overrun, the HQ’s will be displaced to friendly territory – many times more than once – and each displacement inflicts casualties on the support units. The units themselves will survive, but often without any of their experienced gun crews or engineer squads. If the Soviets can get them out, it makes their Army HQ’s much more powerful.

[thedoctorking]

To the south, 1st Panzer Group made a very enthusiastic advance through the giant hole that Southwestern Front’s precipitate retreat had left south of Proskurov. These are the Soviet mobile reserves that are often the target of the first-turn “super-Lvov” operation. We prevented super-Lvov with a house rule on turn one, but the Soviet failure to evacuate these units eastward or support their flanks in their turn one left them vulnerable to a turn two pocket, which the Germans executed with glee. The pocket is not sealed, but if the units are to retreat, they must do so through the swamps. They can’t even be railed out now, since the farthest forward German unit cut the last rail line into the kessel.