Alpha AAR - A year at the front with Field Marshal Noob

[karonagames]

Losses:

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OOB:

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Start of Turn 29: 1942 begins with AGN getting smacked around again. Note that units with higher defensive CVs do not get attacked.

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Start of turn 29: The regimental defence in depth line thins out as units have to take their turn on front line duty.

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Start of turn 29: Tula falls - regimental reserves all gone.

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Start of turn 29. 6th Army takes a hard punch. In this test the rout threshold was about 9k men, The 2 divisions shown here should not really go into the line but I don't have much choice.

[karonagames]

Start of turn 29: The problem for 6th and 2nd Army is that the rail net makes it harder to get fresh troops in, and I have to send them further back to rest and refit. I really messed up my rail conversion in this test.

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Start of turn 29: 4 panzer and motorised divisions had to hold the line in 17th Army's sector. Less reserves available.

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Start of turn 29: I am still managing a better than 50/50 hold/retreat ratio. This will get harder and harder as reserves get sucked into the front line.

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Retreats:

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Start of Turn 30: The attacks are unrelenting. The wooded terrain continues to help AGN hold the line.

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Start of turn 30: Now 40 Miles from Moscow.

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Start of turn 30: Some of 2nd Army get a much needed rest.

[karonagames]

Start of turn 30. The * next to the refit button means that 212th Division is "Unready" and not fit for front line duty. This is a recovering routed unit. Front line units can be forced into unready mode from combat, so you have to check each unit.

[karonagames]

There is a shortcut for this via the Commander's report. The testers have lobbied Pavel to enable players to change other settings via this report.

[Pipewrench]

wonderful play by play. keep it up![:)]

[Endsieg]

very readable AAR. good narrative style, less is more. most instructive so far.

[ComradeP]

It's not heartening for future Axis players to see that a whopping 900.000 men are temporarily disabled.

By the way, wouldn't it have strengthened AGN's front if German units garrisoned Leningrad and the Fins had been placed in the line (perhaps with divisions broken into regiments, to cover more hexes with a unit that doesn't get a first winter penalty), considering that they don't get a serious winter penalty?

[karonagames]

@ Endsieg and Pipewrench. Thanks for your comments, I am operating on the basis of "A picture speaks a thousand words", and trying to illustrate a broad range of the mechanics within the game.

@ComradeP. Trying to simulate the effects of the First Winter using the structural mechanics of the game is pretty tricky. Currently a combination of morale (Very buggy in this test) and the damaged unit mechanic are used. The number of temporarily "disabled" men is more a reflection of the weapons the men are carrying not working in -40C temperatures, rather than the men themselves being disabled - as you no doubt know there were "only" 110,000 casualties from frostbite, I don't have the figures for those suffering various degrees of frostbite who subsequently returned to active duty.

When the fine tuning is done, I am fairly happy the Wehrmacht will emerge into the spring/summer sufficiently weakened. At the moment I think we need to find a way to put a brake on the Soviets when playing the Challenging level. As you saw in Lee's AAR, his army was wrecked in 4 turns of Blizzard. At the moment I can only get half way through (6 turns), before my reserves are swallowed up and the Army disintegrates - not a pretty sight.

With regard to the Finns, in my alternate reality, it had been agreed that the Finns would take over occupation duties for Leningrad. Yes I could have used the better blizzard fighting abilities of the Finns better than I did - I'm still Field Marshal Noob. The Finns do suffer a morale penalty for every hex they are away from the "no cross" line that exists until Leningrad is captured - apparently they get very homesick.

[Flaviusx]

Looks like the blizzard is a bit overpowered even on normal settings.

I'll reiterate my suggestion that the blizzard penalties vary in accordance to distance from primary supply sources or major ports. As the Germans fall back to those the logistical breakdown caused by the blizzard should diminish. As things presently stand the effect is too binary and will cripple the Germans regardless of their actual position on the map. It shouldn't be nearly as devastating as they retreat, say, towards Smolensk and Kiev as opposed to points further east.

This gives the Germans a real strategic choice: they can fall back preemptively and dig in on a line that can be supplied reasonably well. (Their actual logistics functioned well enough up to about the Dnepr in 1941.) Of course, that comes at a price: they'll have to capture more real estate in 1942 and fight against a stronger Red Army.

For more thoughts along these lines, I suggest reading van Creveld's Supplying War.

I find it especially doubtful that Army Group North should be so easily pushed back in this game when it has Leningrad nearby as a major port to draw supply from. This, indeed, is a very good reason for taking Leningrad in the first place. Aren't Helsinki and Leningrad ice free during winter?