Fall Grau 2.28 Jeremy (Axis) vs. Ben (Allies)

[golden delicious]

Turn 90:
Nothing much from Jeremy, and I still hold Los Angeles, putting my victory level at 413. I could just hit "end turn" now as Significant Victory is all I wanted, but in theory the game can run for additional turns, so I'd better solidify my position and take what opportunities I can on the assumption that it will. I start out with my big counterpush at Los Angeles, where Jeremy did actually attack the city, shoving back one of the three reserve divisions. Despite my reinforcements, I'm still fighting against a whole lot of Japanese divisions and so this might not make huge progress.

Up in the north mountains, I definitively fail to take Denver, but as a consolation prize an engineer brigade walks into undefended Cheyenne, WY, which is a 3 VP location. Otherwise here Jeremy is doing something weird where he's left his HQs in the first line and pulled the infantry back. I don't quite understand what this is meant to achieve but I'm happy to kill the HQs anyway. Something similar is going in south of Charlotte, where I get a series of RBCs and Jeremy's line starts to look like Swiss cheese. I have a lot of power here after pumping reinforcements in for several turns running, and I might be able to pull off some pockets this turn.

The Axis army falls apart. I get Albany and Quebec City- and also Hartford, as the German forces simple melt away under the sustained pressure. I'm tearing up the Axis across the map and if the scenario had another five turns to run I would be looking for "overwhelming victory". That's not the case, but I'm happy with the result and a final victory level of 480 out of 1000.

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[golden delicious]

Have been thoroughly enjoying this AAR and glad to see that you are taking it to a conclusion. Thank you both for sharing.

Best Regards, RhinoBones

Thankyou (both). It's good to know we're not just talking to ourselves.

I expect a wrap up post from Jeremy and then I'll add mine.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Have been thoroughly enjoying this AAR and glad to see that you are taking it to a conclusion. Thank you both for sharing.

Best Regards, RhinoBones

+1

Thanks guys.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Turn 91 - Finis
Technically we go into overtime but Ben’s turn 90 was pretty darn brutal with him taking all of Quebec City, Albany, and Hartford. He moves clearly into significant victory territory plus it is quite clear at this point that the Axis army is finally into full collapse. At this point Ben and I agree to simply call the game rather then go through the motions for another turn or two.

End Game Situation

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[Jeremy Mac Donald]

So Why Did I lose?
I have had to much time to write with Ben having Twins and all so I broke my end game thoughts down after rereading the AAR and will present them in a number of posts covering the whole scenario.

Turns 1-20
In my mind the scenario has never been so tilted in favour of the Axis as it was in this match. It says something that most of the changes we are going to make at the end of the match are pro-Allied. If we had been playing with the same rules as the last match I would probably have suffered a crushing defeat much, much, earlier though it is possible that Ben’s high losses from such an active defense early in the game would have actually led to an Axis victory. Under the old system the Axis player could trade losses 1 for 1 and so long as the total losses where high enough the Allied army would fall apart simply because such a large percentage of the Allied army shows up later in the Scenario and the Axis player has a huge advantage by turn 30. A big part of the redesign of the scenario is actually to address the issue of the Axis player just attritioning his way to victory… even so I suspect I would have still lost and lost more dramatically when I did not quite manage to beat Ben before turn 40 and huge Allied reinforcements shifted the odds.

Fall Grau has a strong cascading effect in the sense that events early in the scenario tend to be magnified over the whole course of the scenario. So, looking over my situation from turns 1-20 and there is nothing truly awful going on here but I am also failing to really lay the ground work for any kind of a victory later on. I’ll occasionally catch Ben out and kill some units but if one reads the AAR one finds that pretty much just as often Ben manages to catch me out. I lose a Brigade or Division on a pretty regular basis and I am generally being held up everywhere. The Axis player has a huge continent to conquer and it is going to get harder and harder the deeper the Axis player is pushing into the heart of North America, however the Axis, especially near the start of the scenario, have a huge qualitative edge over the Allies. If the Axis player can’t get anywhere and can’t punish the Allies for staying and fighting then the situation is already turning against him.

Of more particular note during this period of the match I am not certain I love the Quebec invasion at all, though I am very much of two minds about it. It is going to mean I have a difficult time finding strong concentrations of forces during the rest of the match. I will never have the ability to go everywhere I want in the south. On the other hand, I certainly managed to pick up a fair number of Industrial Cities here.

Even if one grants that this line of attack was perfectly acceptable how I went about it was clearly deeply flawed. Eventually, later in the scenario, I’ll look up terrain effects and realize that Light Woods are not that big of an issue to fight through. Given that I should have focused my forces for a hard push down the east side of the St. Lawrence. Instead I try and move mechanized forces through the evergreen forests west of the St. Lawrence and this takes forever, when I finally get into position I have no artillery and Ben is backed by reserves that aggressively counter attack with lots of artillery. Its basically a high cost stalemate for almost 20 turns. I also should never have landed Panzergrenadiers here. The difficult terrain makes this area of the front the worst place for them since they fight worse than a regular Infantry Division and they can’t really use their speed in any meaningful way out here.

The other interesting operation in the first 20 turns is my landing at Gulfport to outflank Ben’s defences in the deep south. Here however I am just very unsure if this was a good move, a bad move (my forces where cut from supply for at least 3 turns) or a wash. I won’t manage to catch anything with this move and Ben is already talking about a general withdrawal in his AAR but on the other hand he might have held me up in front of Birmingham for an extended period if I had not outflanked him.

One thing that I think really sticks out is I am far too enamored with flanking. I generally think that my best option in a lot of these operations was to mass my forces with a lot of artillery and just proceeded to pulverize the Allies but instead, more or less, anytime I encounter resistance I start trying to work around the flank and throughout this period I’ll find that when I get to the flank there is an Allied unit that has set up shop so I am not really getting anywhere and I am spreading out my strength.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Otherwise here Jeremy is doing something weird where he's left his HQs in the first line and pulled the infantry back. I don't quite understand what this is meant to achieve but I'm happy to kill the HQs anyway.

Not sure the exact situation you are talking about but I presume that I am using the HQs to cover a retreat.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Turns 20-30
It is not until I reread the AAR between turns 20-30 that I realized just how much they are basically the same story as turns 1-20. I advance, get into heavy fighting with Ben and mostly don’t really get all that far. I kill some of his units and he kills some of mine, but I am really just not accomplishing much throughout the whole period. This is really born out by the fact that on turn 20 the spread (for our loss rates) was 44. That is not that terrible for turn 20. If it had continued to climb at the same rate then we are at least closing on the 100 point spread that I am looking for by turn 40. The problem is it really does not do that and by turn 30 Ben has closed the gap to 32 on turn 30. It will fall to 22 on turn 31 which is less then the spread was on turn 9.

Really Ben has massively outfought me for the entire period and the fact that I am taking more losses instead of inflicting more losses during this period of the match is critical. The Axis army by this point is a phenomenal fighting force and a very large percentage of it has landed.

Two things that really stand out in terms of my play here are; One – on the turn that Ben tried but failed to blow the key bridge near Galveston I should have thanked my lucky stars – flown half the Luftwaffe into the area and immediately moved an Engineer onto the rail line to get back into the area ASAP. Instead, I assume that because Ben failed he will just keep failing even without me doing anything – I then pay a huge price when he takes the bridge down the next turn and I don’t manage to fix it for four turns.

The other element that sticks out here is that the Finns (and later the Swedes) are very much in the wrong place. They are terrible on the attack because of their crappy support equipment. They are really pretty good on the defence where their huge compliment of infantry is very effective – especially when well dug in. I should have landed them in the south and freed up a ton of German Infantry Divisions with plans to eventually release them later in the scenario with burnt out German Infantry Divisions. When I get to the midpoint of the scenario they would make a spectacular reserve because they are very light and the whole mass of them could be railed to any threatened sector in one turn. Instead I am going to persist in having them die in heaps for very little gain until well into the second half of the scenario (when they will take up defencive positions and do a pretty good job).

Another thought is that, if I had been a better player, even with all the issues that have cropped up so far, I think I had a real shot at victory during the next period of the scenario. Ben’s extremely aggressive defence has in fact done very significant damage to his Allies. Yes, he has made the Axis bleed just as bad but we have already established that if the Axis and the Allies trade 1 for 1 and obliterate each other in the first half of the scenario then, eventually, the Allies have no army and the Axis still have one. Ben's on the verge of that here. He has pushed his army almost to the limit. My problem is going to be that my extremely powerful army in the West is now in such bad shape (after being cut from supplies for four turns) that it essentially won’t be in a position to really launch a full on offensive for a significant amount of time. If Ben had cut the rail line and I had repaired it the next turn I would have been in a much better position in the West. Further I screw up the drive into Illinois as well despite the fact that Ben’s defences are actually pretty inadequate (more on this later). These are the two key offencives during the period and I have dropped the ball on both of them right at the moment when the Allies are beginning to approach a real crisis in manpower.

[golden delicious]

[unlike Jeremy's posts most of this was written at the time and I don't have a lot of time to revisit it]

End:
Well, the game did generate a turn 91 but Jeremy expressed a lack of interest in playing it, which is entirely understandable, so the scenario ends here. There's two things to explore here: how do I feel about the match as a player and (as the designer) how did the new version, with the big change to Allied squad replacements, work out?

First, well, obviously I enjoy winning. In this case, I think Jeremy played a good game and I was a victim of my own overconfidence in several cases, particularly in the first five turns, then again during my stand and fight phase roughly turns 15-20, and finally when I decided that I was going to walk all over the Axis from turns 65-75, during which I lost about 25 divisions in a series of disasters in the northwest. However, in the middle part of the match I feel like I did a good job of balancing my priorities while Jeremy was perhaps a little too keen to get everyone in tip-top shape before following up after a big battle. There were several occasions where I suffered a big defeat and then was more or less left to recover afterwards. The most notable ones in my mind were after being forced out of Memphis and then again after having my bubble burst when Jeremy crossed the Mississippi at Omaha: at that point, my nightmare was for him to put heavy pressure on Illinois from West and South simultaneously, but this simply never happened, and I was able to keep the Axis from ever threatening the good tank country between the Ohio and the Great Lakes.

Often in this part of the match I was building new lines with units which were frankly just shells. But Jeremy never tested these positions until they'd had a chance to fortify and fill out with new equipment. Critically, with Jeremy having chosen a penalty to supplies at the start of the scenario, my resupply rate was always higher than his even if his rail line was caught up- which it often wasn't. This meant that a pause invariably benefited me more than it did him, except perhaps when there was an industrial city taken with its bonus supplies. Finally, in Jeremy's defence it did seem like his early turn endings (which are an unavoidable and necessary part of the player experience in Fall Grau) always seemed to happen just as he was about to close his hands around my throat. Most particularly, on turn 32 I was exposed all across the map and could have faced decisive losses on multiple fronts- but instead I got a breathing space and regrouped.

As to the changes to the scenario, these obviously had a dramatic impact on the match. Playing like I did for the first twenty turns in v2.27 I would have not had a force left to defend the map, so while I was perhaps too gung-ho here, these changes naturally meant I was able to hold the Axis more at arms length than I would otherwise have done, and all the cities of the southeast plus Oklahoma City fell much later than they would have done as a result. Then in the later part of the match, I was always short of infantry, with units seldom getting above half strength without a very prolonged rest on the line, and a piece shortage generally which limited my strategic options, especially after my losses in the northwest. I think this feels right, as this kind of manpower shortage is a universal experience for nations fighting a total war for any length of time, and it means the outcome of the scenario remains in contention for longer.

While a longer scenario isn't in itself a good thing, for me Fall Grau is all about variety and variability, and shifts in initiative. The new dynamic creates scope for more alternatives to be played out and gives the Axis more of a chance of keeping up offensives later in the scenario- though as Jeremy demonstrated an attempt to keep up a full-blooded attacking posture turns 45-60 is probably a mistake. Overall I'm pleased with these changes and will be keeping them for the future of the scenario (v2.29 is already available in the design forum)

Loss spread analysis highlights some of the key events of the match - I did this a while back, might extend it to turn 90 another time but not today

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[Curtis Lemay]

The question I have pertains to the air war. Near the end I seem to recall Jeremy claiming he had air superiority - probably due to the jets. Meanwhile, during this phase, Ben was shifting forces by rail extensively (it seemed). Costly to do against air superiority. Was Jeremy making good use of Interdiction?

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

The question I have pertains to the air war. Near the end I seem to recall Jeremy claiming he had air superiority - probably due to the jets. Meanwhile, during this phase, Ben was shifting forces by rail extensively (it seemed). Costly to do against air superiority. Was Jeremy making good use of Interdiction?

Interdiction in Fall Grau is generally just not that effective. A big part of that is North America is huge even compared to the fighting on the Eastern Front. All of Ukraine is probably only a little larger then a Western US state. In practice what this means is a bf-109 has a range of around 10 hexs and Axis bombers around 30. With airfield space at a premium having the Axis fighters on the closer airfields is pretty important and the Axis bombers probably average around 12 spaces back. That means that, at most I can reach 18 hexs into Ben's backfield. Notable but most of Ben's rail movement would be beyond that. Worse yet almost all of that would be beyond Axis fighter cover but not outside of Allied air cover. The Axis might have air superiority but the Allied Airforce is never out of the picture. That backfield is swarming with Allied Fighters.

On a strategic scale its really the Allies who have opportunities with their strategic bombers that have ranges of more then 100 hexs and (after around turn 30) Mustangs with ranges of more then 40 hexs. That allows the Allies to reach out into the Axis backfield as was seen here with the bombing of a key bridge near Galveston. Though even here it required Ben to coordinate with the Mexican Army to capture the key airfields in range of Allied Fighters.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Turns 30-40
In a match of Fall Grau if the period from around turn 30 until the something like turn 43 are really extremely key because the Axis advantage is now acute and it just keeps climbing until something like turn 43 when an absolute stream of Allied units starts to pour onto the map… right about the point when the Axis player needs to start withdrawing Panzer Corps if he wants to get them back in time to really be able to make use of them in the second half of the scenario. I’ll retrieve the ball as it where during this period but it just not as decisive as it needed to be.

Specifically, I get carried away with Kentucky and Tennessee. I make a big point of outflanking Ben here (forcing him to pull back into the deep wilderness of Kentucky and Tennessee) which really is not where the main drive should have been heading and then I follow him up with significant numbers of good infantry – meanwhile I do nothing but complain about my lack of forces in the main drive into Illinois. I seem to, on some level, even recognize that I am screwing up here because I make excuses for why I must broaden the base of my attack into Illinois. Now to be clear I probably did have to do that. I have this key rail line heading north via Paducah, but Ben would likely have been leveraged out of position if I began to break out in Illinois. I could have followed up with the worn-out forces I am releasing from the Norfolk operation and occupied the area with them. I managed to get myself into a great position for a really hard drive into Illinois and then decide to send half my forces off to the wilderness of Kentucky and Tennessee to do nothing.

I manage to fail to catch the Canadians after getting in behind them and cutting them off twice. For the first time in the game it seems like I go for the flank and am surprised when there is no defence. I’ve literally been moving valuable pieces into harms way to keep Ben more focused on the centre (here is where Ben talks about me repeatedly falling into a ‘trap’ he has on the St. Lawrence) and when that works I am not actually really prepared to take advantage of it. It is everything I can do to get some units out onto that flank and the result is the line is just too weak to hold Ben's Canadians in the pocket created. That said a 1 rounder on the critical turn sure as heck did not help.

Finally, the failure to catch any meaningful number of Ben’s forces after the wildly successful crossing of the Missouri is very unfortunate. After loosely enveloping Bens forces in the attack Ben managed a counterattack that destroyed one of my Panzer Divisions, but he did not manage to escape. I went back to the beginning of that turn and played around with it and I kind of understand how I came to the decision I made. I found, while playing around, that I could press forward hard with the mobile elements of my forces and once again cut the pocket off but not fully encase it. Further that would mean exhausting almost all the movement of my mechanized forces so they would not be able to attack. The Infantry and artillery could have carried out assaults on the western part of the envelopment. Nonetheless Ben would likely have been able to slip away with at least some of these forces if I had taken this option so I can see how it is I ended up thinking that a massive assault meant to break the units up and allow me to get in among them and destroy them was at least arguably the option that might have paid the highest dividends. Given that I know that it did not work maybe the alternative to try and drive the mechanized forces around both wings would have worked out better – it probably would, knowing that the initial option really failed, but this does not lead to a clear cut success either after Ben responds with all the reinforcements he brought in on his turn.

In the end, during this key period, I am going to grab a huge laundry list of Industrial Cities I desperately needed to keep the game going but fail to substantially either wreck Ben’s Armies or grab the actual critical real estate in upper Illinois. It is the most successful period of the match for me and for a moment it even throws a scare into Ben but it is just not good enough.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Turns 40-50

Loss Rate

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This chart shows the spread of the Loss Rate throughout the Scenario. I reach the peak of the spread on turn 39 with it reaching 51. Not actually all that good for the Axis but after this period it enters a massive decline which is only recovered on turn 65 where the situation remains roughly stable until The Axis Army starts to completely collapse from turn 83.

The period between turns 40-50 are pretty much the last dying days of the Axis offencive in the first half of the game. I start the period off on a high note with my creative attack on San Fransisco. I am still fairly proud of that move and the bombing campaign that slowed Ben’s response with all his forces in Washington State. Though the massive losses the Japanese take on Golden Gate Bridge are something I am still salty about as I did not know that was a thing.

Excessive losses by the Axis are really a theme for this part of the match and it will continue into the next period as well as I just can’t figure out how to keep from losing all these Divisions on the line. This even though I am, mostly doing exactly that successfully in Illinois where I have a double line set up. It really takes forever for me to figure out that if my line is coming under heavy attack, I need a double line. No matter how good an Infantry Division is it simply won’t hold against a heavy attack with artillery and if there are no forces in the rear then the line is going to get cut up and consumed. I lose a plethora of good Divisions on the western flank near Minneapolis because I can't seem to figure out how to stop Ben from chopping up the line and killing my good Infantry Divisions due to this mistake in style of defence.

I end the period about to finally take Mexico City. Really this took far, far to long with Ben always managing to just slip away in front of my flanking move and managing to kill a fair number of my very weak and over extended formations.

Ben’s defence was perfect and the only way I think I might have done better would have been to have pulled my forces back from the far western flank – which was where my rail repair units were operating during this period. The idea being to focus them in Mexico to extend the rail line south. I’m not even certain that would have worked out because the rail line south is vulnerable to Mexican irregulars and I sort of doubt the line could be defended from them. With hindsight maybe I should have accepted that it was going to take longer to conquer Mexico and advanced more cautiously south keeping my units at least at the edge of the supply line south and thus more fully up to strength.

Another area I was taking constant attrition was the wide open far western flank. Ben was constantly gobbling up units. My problem here is simply a misunderstanding of how to fight on these wide open flanks where I keep trying to make long lose lines of units meant to cover all possible infiltration points. What I should have been doing was keeping a reasonably strong force of 6 or so Divisions pulled far back and kept together and maybe taken a couple of Cavalry Divisions or Axis Minors, broken them down into regiments and moved them around to scout out any deeper incursion Ben might be attempting and then reacting with a strong centralized force.

This also seems like a good place to consider Central America and the Panama Canal. Despite a very successful landing the Japanese are going to woefully underperform during this scenario. I am going to lose most of Central America during this period of the game though I hold onto Puerto Barrios and am even fighting in Central America again during the last stages of the game. If it is true that its become extremely difficult to win a knockout blow with the Axis in the opening stages of the game due to the high Allied on hand pool then I think it might really make sense for the Axis player to make it something of a priority to conquer Central America with the ultimate goal of securing the Panama Canal. Certainly, in this game the ability to ‘lend’ the Japanese some rail repair units and maybe a couple of German Panzer Divisions to help with breaking through the Allied Armour would have drastically increased their impact on the match. Obviously, a drive via the southwest to link up would accomplish the same thing but that requires a major commitment of Axis forces whereas the Allies can’t easily do anything about the Axis sending some more significant forces into central America – well except maybe counter attack out of Southern Mexico but I suspect the Axis could put a stop to that with even second line forces dug in with good defensive terrain.

[golden delicious]

The period between turns 40-50 are pretty much the last dying days of the Axis offencive in the first half of the game. I start the period off on a high note with my creative attack on San Fransisco. I am still fairly proud of that move and the bombing campaign that slowed Ben’s response with all his forces in Washington State.

This whole operation really shook me up as I felt like I was just getting things under control and then the whole of California blows up at once. I suddenly needed at least a dozen good divisions out here and I simply didn't have anything like that number on hand.

I end the period about to finally take Mexico City. Really this took far, far to long with Ben always managing to just slip away in front of my flanking move and managing to kill a fair number of my very weak and over extended formations.

I was pretty proud of this. I don't think I sent a single US or Canadian unit to Mexico and most of the units which reconstituted at Mexico City were railed straight out. At the same time I was shipping Mexican infantry off to the Pacific Coast to release US troops for the meat grinder. Yet the Mexican army was able to handle itself for a prolonged period, even if I ultimately lost the battle it was too costly for the Axis.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Turns 50-60
The Nadir of the Axis though that really starts more like on turn 49 and ends in and about turn 64. What I describe here is more about the long Axis Nadir even though I split these posts up into 10 turn posts.

Reading back through the AAR both Ben and I actually seem to far overestimate the impact of the trends during this period of the match. I am outlining ways in which I might keep up the offencive and then despairing as it becomes ever more clear that (outside of Boston and even that cost me much more than it should) there is no offencive and that I am being clearly forced onto the backfoot. Ben also indicates that I really need to manage to do something, or I am doomed and also seems to become increasingly confident that the grand Allied counter offencive is about to start as he comes to the end of this period. The scenario, as it currently stands is such that the Allies just don’t rapidly build back out even if around 100% replacements.

The result is I misplay this entire period of the match and I lose huge numbers of units in the process. Ben is talking about destroying something like 2-5 Divisions of mine a turn during the whole of the period and I am killing maybe an average of one Allied Division a turn. Even with this hugely lopsided loss rate I am going to return to the offencive later in the match. I wonder what I might have accomplished if I had not squandered 40 Divisions. Even at this late stage a Draw or maybe even a minor Axis Victory could potentially have been mine if I had not so thoroughly and constantly let myself be on the receiving end of such a lopsided contest.

The reality was I needed to simply accept that until the Axis Panzer corps returned in large numbers, I was going to be substantially on the defencive. I also needed to figure out (as I will finally do roughly at the end of this period) that being on the defencive means a double line against wherever the Allies are persecuting their own offencive. I should have been digging in and holding the Panzers back in reserve for sharp counter attacks pretty much for this whole period and husbanding my strength for the offencives yet to come once I was prepared and a substantial amount of forces had returned. Possibly, as Axis strength was rebuilt, I could have picked some front to restart a significant offencive. This is most definitely the period where Swedes and Finns as a reserve to react to the Allied Offencives would have been particularly useful.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Turns 60-70
In many ways this period is just a continuation of the last period of the match with my Axis reacting to continued offensives by Ben’s Allies. However, here we do, finally begin to see me transitioning slowly from a defencive posture to an offencive one. If I had not been so crippled by earlier mistakes and the large wastage of my army I probably could have shifted much earlier. As it was it was not until turn 70 itself that I manage a major victory in the North West that finally got my Axis moving toward the objective of Salt Lake City. It is no longer reasonable that I could have connected with the Japanese in time to get rail repair to the Japanese but there was still hope of cutting the final rail link and possibly taking Los Angeles and San Diago.

This is also a good place to talk about the Air War in the Scenario. I was convinced that eventually, due to the high replacement rate of the Allies, the Allies would start to see air superiority. That used to happen in this scenario but it appears it just never does in the scenario as it currently stands. The high replacement rate can make the sky somewhat comfortable for Allied Bombers but the match ends with the Axis still substantially having an edge in the air superiority rating. When Ben delved into this after the match was over the conclusion was that while the Allies will outproduce the Axis with a higher replacement rate the Axis maintain a qualitative edge both in the kinds of planes that are being flown and more especially in the proficiency. The result is the Axis just kill more planes every turn and do so by a large enough margin that the Allies just never actually come out on top even if their replacement rate is generally high throughout the scenario. In older versions of the scenario the Allies would get better planes later in the scenario but here the scenario has been brought down to things that were actually built during the war which benefits the Axis as they deployed some very advanced planes by late in the period while Allied equivalents did not come online until after the war had already ended.

[StuccoFresco]

I love the commentary on the AAR, they reveal so much about the scenario and the commanders' thinking.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Turns 70-90
During the final 20 turns of the match I make some mistakes but in my mind I had lost the match prior to this point and my play here is mostly not too terrible. During this period both Ben and I are on the offencive in different parts of the map. I very much think that if I had simply reacted better and more appropriately during the period of Axis weakness between turns 49-64 I would have been in a vastly improved situation here – as I note above I think I lost something to the tune of 40 Divisions during that period and I did not need to lose nearly that many. If I had, say another 25 Divisions of various stripes this alone would probably have essentially shut down pretty much any counter attack the Allies could have launched and made it extremely difficult for the Allies to hold on against the Axis attacks that where taking place, especially out in the West where Ben was in fact pretty stretched.

I note that I finally got with the program in terms of double lines which keeps the assault against Minneapolis and beyond somewhat in check. After the second encirclement of the Allies in the North West I attack along every axis of advance diluting my assault. This was a gamble that no longer worked because here, finally, Ben was really able to find enough units to block all of them and I will suffer when the Allies counter attack as the dreaded ‘retreat in the wrong direction’ will keep sending my units into pockets even though I manage to set up a double line.

I do mess up the defence of the Carolina’s and Virginia because I keep sending units into the threatened northern part of the front and losing them. Here I needed to keep them in the southern part of the front where I still had a line. It will ultimately make my offencive out of the south significantly weaker then it could have been though I don’t know if it really changed things.

Finally, the rather desperate drive by the PanzerGrenadiers in the final turns of the game falls apart on far to few pieces even though the ones I have are pretty powerful. Here again if I had not, necessarily lost a bunch of Divisions in the mid point of the game I might have seen better results.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

I love the commentary on the AAR, they reveal so much about the scenario and the commanders' thinking.

Glad you enjoy.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Conclusion
I had a lot to learn during the course of this scenario and it took the whole scenario to learn the lessons. The net result was that I would take very high losses over the entire course of the match and the fact that I was still launching successful offencives even into the 70’s is testament to just how powerful the Axis army is in this game. The reality is the force proficiency levels are such that the Axis player should be getting an average of 5-6 combat rounds a turn to the Allies 3-4. That Ben managed to, in the early part of the match, inflict about as much damage on me as I did on him speaks to a flaw in my play. One I think I now have a better understanding of.

I would really compound this in the middle part of the match where the wastage and kill ratio was dramatically pro-Allied and again I believe that should not have happened if I had recognized some basic truths in terms of just accepting that I needed to mainly go over to the defence, create a reserve and utilize my mechanized divisions to counter attack Allied offencives.

Recognizing this most of the changes to the scenario after this playtest have been pro-Allied despite the fact that Ben won a Significant Victory. I am not 100% sure it is enough but think that other playtests will be needed to determine if that is so or not. I will say that I am generally happy with the change to the scenario in the sense that we have moved away from Axis knock out blows by attrition in the first half of the scenario.

[golden delicious]

Phew yeah turns out its pretty difficult to find time to get on my computer now

After the second encirclement of the Allies in the North West I attack along every axis of advance diluting my assault. This was a gamble that no longer worked because here, finally, Ben was really able to find enough units to block all of them

I don't think I had materially more units than in previous engagements, the difference was that;
1) I fell back quite a distance here, rather than trying to keep your advance to a minimum as I did after the first debacle
2) The terrain I fell back on was quite ferocious, so that it was difficult or impossible for your different drives to support one another and
3) I concentrated my own strength, defeating these drives in detail rather than trying to maintain a continuous strong line

I think 2) is really the critical one here. In fact the question is why, once you reach Cheyenne from where the Wyoming plain opens up in all directions, did I attempt to defend so far forward? I put this down to inertia but most of all hubris. Once I had that first successful offensive into Nebraska, I kept thinking that the Axis were on their last legs and were about to collapse, whereas actually you were just getting your second wind.