8MP Team Game - The Axis team

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: tyronec

What I have decided to do is spend some AP's and build a fort line. I have discussed this extensively with Telemecus. The digging will be slow, and it is not for building up a fort level. It risks 2,000 men per fort that will surrender if the battle is lost. However, a fortress zone with artillery attached delivers registered fire at a great advantage. Attach that to the HQ of the units in the fort and more artillery joins the fray. Artillery that will disrupt attacking squads and devices.
The red line from Tula represents are "Alamo line". I have no intent to retreat this far.

Looks like a very bad idea to me. You can only really be sure not to lose the fort if it is in a city. If the Soviets can get to attack the forts in strength you are risking a lot for a moderate increase in combat value. If they don't attack them you have good SUs tied up doing nothing, and it will take APs to get into them action again for the Summer offensive.
The 'usual' way to use forts is for building fortifications, and disband before they get to be in the front line.

To be fair to Aces this was debated a lot. And as we have challenged a few old orthodoxies this was really to see if this paradigm needs to be challenged. So perhaps also an experiment. Until now I have also always disbanded forts if there is a risk of losing them as the boost to CV is less than you could get for the equivalent manpower in another unit.

However the point being examined is not whether forts are useful at boosting CV - they rarely are. But there is the point about the bonuses given to artillery in forts which would mean a lot more disruption. Disruption of course happens before the final cv calculation and, could, be more effective than a CV boost. My honest answer is I do not know if this would make it worthwhile. But I know Crackaces has been testing these things on battle message level 7 and thinks there is a case. I am not sure if we will have enough evidence to demonstrate whether this is right or wrong in this game. But I do feel we need a better measure on whether the bonus to fort artillery given in the manual is really significant or not as opposed to the CV of the fort itself.

BTW if you disband (1 point) the fort with SUs attached, the SUs automatically get reassigned to the HQ with zero extra points spend! :[:)]

Here are some thoughts

1) in the winter we are short of trucks .. is it better to store something heavy in a fort or in OKH? We certainly are not going to drag around at lot of SU’s in the winter. Storing them in a fort is not all that bad.

2) as Telemecus wrote .. this game is not about CV it is about adjusted CV after the shooting stops. Limited experience for sure but 210mm with an accuratcy boost does quite well. Some of the 105’s are in 25 tube units as I stated previously. The attacker has no fort level and is quite vulnerable to blast effects. The artillery accuracy even applies to hitting AFV’s which the 210 can damage or even destroy.

3) as this AAR rolls forward .. you will see that I am full of bad ideas .. like attacking in a blizzard <smile>

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: leverkuhn
Amazing AAR that points to an even more exciting 1942. If only it updated a bit faster [:'(]

ORIGINAL: SparkleyTits
Don't worry bud turn handover starts speeding up dramatically pretty soon [:D]

ORIGINAL: SparkleyTits
Wait that was dumb.......

[:D] [:D] [:D]

That is going to be quoted for a long time to come!

[Telemecus]

Turn 21 12-November-1941 North

Quiet turn but reorganisation continues. Finnish High Command's boundaries reach down almost to Vyshny Volochek. 18th army will be redeployed to the south of 16th.

[Telemecus]

Turn 21 12-November-1941 Air

Operation Defiant: The Second Air Battle of Gorky

The Red Air Force is back! Having left the party from turn 17 it seems they have realised they have been left out and forgotten, and they want back in! I guess they got fed up of the red army throwing rotten vegetables at them in the street? Having spent the last few turns evacuating interceptor factories East it appears they want to make a defiant stand on their remaining two factories making Lagg-3s at Gorky - and hence the name our Soviet opponents give this. And on their return they are displaying some new toys.



It seems their western allies are too scared to fight us there and are sending their equipment here. How long an alliance lasts where one side pays for the other to do all the fighting we shall see. Their P-40 factories are a bit too far to bomb at the moment - but our engineers are working on that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_Bomber

The radius of the P40-B makes it the interceptor with the second longest range on the map currently. Their new Hurricanes have a range equal to our Bf109F-4s, but interestingly have a shorter range than our Hurricanes and 3 other types of our interceptors. Why did the British give them shorter range Hurricanes than they gave us?



We first notice the P-40B during our regular reconnaisance of the airfields near Tambov. But our reconnaisance eventually establishes these P-40s are not flying from anywere near Tambov, but all the way from Gorky! Flying long range enables the Soviets to down 10 of our reconnaisance planes during our turn. But whether that was a good exchange for repeatedly flying 20+ hexes in mud in interception missions is open to debate.

The Second Air Battle of Gorky has begun! With no Soviet aircraft detected anywhere else it is clear they are making an all out stand to defend at least one place on the map. But making a defence of one fixed place also means we know where to find them. Like peeling back an onion we get to work on their longest ranged aircraft first. Pretty soon we find their P-40Bs are no longer flying to intercept our city bombing and so move on to targets for their next longest range hurricanes and so on. Finally we have to content ourselves with just night bombing one of their airfield hexes followed by their LaGG-3 factory at Gorky. We only get 2% damage to the factory to bring damage back to 40% in total- so we are falling behind the repair rate, but it will take nearly forty turns to fully repair at this rate. Our bombers find the night fighting capabilities of the Soviet air force to be soft. Our opponents tell us they call this Operation Defiant, we shall see how firm their defiance is.

To be fair downing several German bombers even for multiples of that number lost in good Soviet fighters would be a win in happier times for the Soviets. But we know, even with the influx of lend lease aircraft, the Soviet air forces still do not have enough aircraft to fill the airgroups that come with the scenaro in this game - let alone any others they might have created.*



Added to this with six or seven of their interceptor factories with high damage levels we estimate they will only be receiving 80 new interceptors this turn including their lend lease deliveries. Having lost close to a hundred in the this turn they are already losing ground. And that was with only the skeleton force we had left on the map. All our other fighter pilots on extended leave at home are being called back to the front for next turn! While the Soviet air force has some rested air groups and some new toys, they simpy do not have the pools of spare aircraft or the production to maintain a sustained air campaign. But will the weather save them in time?



*Chart figures are made using Soviet Aircraft Track v2.0 using expected production given factory damage levels - exact figures known to Soviet side may be displayed in their AAR

[Telemecus]

Turn 21 12-November-1941 Economic

Our shorter range Ju86 bombers, who will all be leaving soon, continue to bomb industry near the front at the centre. And our Heinkels continue to bomb Kuybyshev, although changes in our ground forces dispositions means we will probably no longer have an airbase in range from next turn. We nevertheless leave the Kuybyshev vehicle factory with 39% damage to repair over the winter. It is the longest distance one of the four vehicle factories we have been bombing.

[Telemecus]

Turn 21 Allocations
For information only - team allocations for turn 21.

[Telemecus]

Phase II Barbarossa: Tottenritt - the capture of Moscow Turn 11 28-August-1941 To Turn 21 12-November-1941 Retrospective on Strategy

The Plan

On the initiative of Stelteck we created a new plan for the second phase of Barbarossa Campaign for the capture of Moscow. We gave it the name Tottenritt.

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

Moscow offensive.

Hi. As the battle for Moscow will soon begin, let me share some view about it.

First, i will probably not be able to take moscow with only 2 panzer groups...

Panzer group north and south have to participate in the battle of moscow, with some infantry support, if we want to succeed.

On the other hand, giving me, as AGC commander, control other panzer group north and south would be quite boring for the north and south commander.

So a good idea would be to devise a plan in order that AGN and AGS participate in the battle for moscow, by sending panzer toward moscow on alternative route on their own, for example. Like a race [:'(]

Would be great fun.

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

I think it would be better if AGN and AGC commander keep control of their panzer group and forces and use them to rush to moscow on their own, with as many forces as they could.

It would be realistic and fun.

Maybe each commander could propose a plan how best to use their forces for this operation and propose an axe of progression ?

The last commander to reach moscow will be summoned by the furher for "explanation".... [8|]

At first there was some confusion over what exactly would be the axis of progression. Would our North commander for instance be commanding 4th panzer group but operating in front of AGC infantry armies? I believe that being a team game should not constrain us from doing anything we could do as a single player. So would axis of advance and areas of command overlap? But our final plan made it clear each would have their own area of operations. North would cross the Volkhov and sweep south while South would sweep north as far east as Voronezh.



Each commander continued to have a broad remit to pursue their objectives as they saw best and to organise their own internal allocations and chains of command. However the boundaries North and South had with centre was to move towards the centre allowing their infantry to concentreate on the battle for Moscow. And our centre commander got all his motorised corps back!

The air campaign was intensified and strategic bombing was given a higher priority, sometimes ahead of providing ground support. Meanwhile in the rear Supreme took charge of all rear area garrisoning.


The Results

Having agreed a plan did not mean every commander followed it to the letter

ORIGINAL: Stelteck
Rostov is lovely ... but it is not on the way to Moscow....

In the north the sweep was shallower as our opponents managed to escape a pocket in the making. So instead 4th Panzer group moved south on internal lines and took Kalinin and Torzhok. But the infantry from the north took over the front as far south as the same row as North Moscow. Eventually we could see Moscow was going to be captured by centre alone. The best help others could give was to encircle enemy formations anywhere which helps everywhere. Finally we looked to capture Voronezh as another priority - but were foiled by freak mud weather on turn 16.

Our rail plan had been for FBD4 to complete a small loop in the north up to Pskow and Dno before being railed south to start repairing a rail line from DTown towards the centre. With Leningrad gone we cut short the loop at Pskow and repaired southwards leaving out Dno. But with FBD4 already on rails in Poland heading south the changing situation meant it had to double back and repair another line towards Torzhok. A couple of turns of rail repair were lost as a result - but when the facts change the plan has to change. The knock on effect of our opening strategy in the south, which delayed the start of rail repair out of Rumania, and the prioritisation of rail repair for the North, with the success we had in the South reaching Rostov, meant...



We had broken into Crimea and actually had clear weather there. But with our supply coming from rails in the mud zone all our units were isolated while our opponents were in full supply. Meaning we had to quickly backtrack from our advances in the Crimea. This continues into a phoney war in the Crimea as we remained at the entrances to the Peninsula while our opponents stayed at their forts at Sevastopol and on the way to Kerch.

All three RHG HQs as well as a Rumanian and a Finnish HQ acted as pseudo rail repair FBDs by holding construction units as SUs and deployed near to desired extra areas of rail repair.

The Big Story though is WE GOT MOSCOW.

In the air war we had achieved total dominance with the enemy air force no longer contesting control of air space. This enabled us to provide unopposed ground support to our troops, as well as continue our strategic bombing campaign. Soviet fighter bomber factories were actually evacuated as a result. Our targeting has prioritised fighter bomber and tank factories followed by vehicle factories with heavy industry coming last. Resource factories have not been targeted and arms factories only occasionally bombed when no other priority target was available.

The following shows the relative states our OOB, manpower and formations.

[Telemecus]

Turn 22 19-November-1941 Team

timmyab joined the team and has now taken on the position of our Chief of Staff!

Our team is now
timmyab - Chief of Staff
Stelteck - North
Crackaces - Centre
thedude357 - South
Telemecus - Supreme
lowsugar - Head destroyer of SparkleyTits

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

Turn 22 19-November-1941 Team

Timmyab joined the team and has now taken on the position of our chief of staff!

Our team is now
timmyab - Chief of Staff
Stelteck - North
Crackaces - Centre
thedude357 - South
Telemecus - Supreme
lowsugar - Head destroyer of SparkleyTits

Who is the designated scapegoat (Adolf's whipping boy)?

[thedude357]

Army Group South Turn 22

Will be a bit quiet for a few months on the Eastern Front. Some snow fall and defensive preparations for the long winter ahead. 1st Panzer Group begins to pull back into garrisons away from the front line. "Nothing significant to report"

[Crackaces]

So the picture below shows the target this turn -> Kolomna . There is industry there and apparently it is worth driving our tanks to get to the objective. "I have my orders."
My plan is simple. The infantry will lead with the armor making the last hasty attack.

[Crackaces]

The battle and results below. Right now I have motorized flak bn embedded into my pz divisions. I have two main reasons. 1) They are effective vs IL2's to make them go away. 2) There are effective but not optimal vs infantry.
You see the causalities and we occupy the target

[Crackaces]

The strategic planning is that we can not stay this far forward for very long. They very strong infantry units and all the armoured will have to be birthed in safe places. Urban, cities, and towns. The key to town is that protection comes at a Die(4) compared to the town size for one unit. So a size 4 town guarantees no punishment from General winter. a size 3 town is 75% size 2 50% and size 1 25%. Obviously we seek out the size 4 towns. But size 4 towns for certain pz divisions so we can also take advantage of reserve activation. This will be the mantra the next couple of turns.
Meanwhile we have a strong position for now . until hell freezes over [8D]

[Telemecus]

Turn 22 19-November-1941 North

What had been a quiet North goes in to snow offensive. Vatutin's boys offer some resistance as we close in around Vyshny Volochek. But Zhukov's lads bow down to their inevitable surrender.

[Telemecus]

Turn 22 19-November-1941 Air

Operation Defiant...no more



The Soviet air forces are gone again - and so is another of Gorky's LaGG-3 factories!

Having called back all fighter groups out of reserve our fighter pilots are instead left twiddling their thumbs.



Interestingly all Soviet air losses took place not in out action or their action turn but in their logistics turn. The particular high number of Il-4 losses (greater than their production) does correspond to these turns when they are flying partisan supply missions

We have heard the sound of partisan supply flights since the end of turn 19. But at the end of this turn we do not.

[Telemecus]

Turn 22 19-November-1941 Economic

Eye catching along with the evacuation of the LaGG-3 factory at Gorky is the evacuation of the T-60 factory from South Stalingrad.



The factory should expand to produce 50 T-60s a week, but our bombing has kept it to two a week. The evacuation removes the option of continued bombing, but at the self-inflicted cost of an extra five turns of no expansion. We estimate the factory will produce 514 T-60s until it stops production at the end of October 1942 by which time it would have expanded to produce only 31 a week. If there had been no bombing or evacuation it would have reached a capacity of 50 a week and produced in total 1,425 T-60s. The bombing compounded with the evacuation has meant an expected loss of 911 T-60s from production, or almost two-thirds of what it could have produced. The south Stalingrad T-60 factory was only bombed four times - twice in turn 17 and twice in turn 18. The raids in turn 17 were full on using the maxiumum number of level bombers, but turn 18 consisted of raids using only 11 and 9 level bombers respectively just to top up the damage levels slightly. So calling it two raids would be more representative of what happened. This means each raid, when all the consequences are fully accounted for, led to the loss of 456 T-60s each. Even given this loss of tanks also means the Soviet side also saved on the supplies for making them, few ground support missions could claim that for a result!

On the other hand if the T-60 factory had not been evacuated and we had ceased all bombing, production would only have decreased by an expected 718, 193 less than will happen. So if the evacuation is solely to avoid further losses due to bombing, implicitly the Soviet team has said they would expect to lose 194 or more from future bombing by us of the factory.



At Gorky we decide to concentrate on incrementing the existing damage on the T34 factory - but continue to see damage being added to the T-60 factory we are not targetting.

The overruning of Kolomna this turn by ground forces meant the further loss of 2 arms and 2 heavy factories as well as the loss of a GAZ-MM factory. This brings total losses due to our ground forces to

-Arms 106
-Hvy 76
-Vehicle 40
-Su-2
-LaGG-3 "11 series"
-BA-10 Armd Car
-Li-2
-Li-2W
-U2-VSx3
-Pe2
-Il-4
-Il-10
-Pe-3
-GAZ-MM

[Telemecus]

Turn 22 Allocations
For information only - team allocations for turn 22.

[Telemecus]

Turn 23 26-November-1941 North

Our snow offensive in the north encircles Vyshny Volochek

[Crackaces]

So the map of center shows are positions starting the snow turn 23. It is the end of November and not enough cold weeks have accumulated to freeze the rivers -- so they are good defensive positions. Not for long although.

What do we have to worry about?

The blizzard will minimally reduce CV divided by 3, and If certain checks fail addiional divisions of 4 for CV.
The snow turns in Dec on will reduce minimal 1.5 CV.

Ground units will undergo damage from 5-20 % Morale will drop 1 per blizzard turn. To mitigate this units have to winter in urban, city, or twon (4) hexes. You see on the map below my armor finding convienent homes. Most interesting are the level 4 towns near enough to the front to maybe provide reserve activation but far enough from the line not to get involved in direct combat.

[Crackaces]

The Soviet attack near Tula pushes the 255th division back. A look at the situation and one can notice that the Germans are in trouble. We have to straighten this line now with reduced MP's from the snow. Telemecus is biting his nails ..
One thing of note in this Soviet attack -- I have not yet started stuffing near by HQ units with "tubes" (105mm to 210mm guns). Future battles do not go so easily.

NOTE: This picture is before my move so you can see from this picture the final positions in the picture above