Matrix Games Forums

6-30-44

With Bukarest, Romania has fallen. Some German stragglers try to make it back to Hungary. But chances are that they will be caught up in a flood of red units that also poor into Hungary from the east. Key junctions in Hungary are already controlled by advanced Russian units.

7-14-44

The German East Front looks almost orderly. The aim is holding out for as long as they can. But we know that the German lines are not unimpregnable.

7-14-44

If the Allies have an internal competition on who is first in Berlin then the western Allies are a very close second at this time. But the Axis west front has gaping holes in the north and especially in the south where a single division is assigned the whole Vosges front. Luckily the Allies are not quite there yet to challenge it.

We have a strong tank corps near Luxembourg - but that won't be enough to re-enact a Battle of the Bulge this time around.

7-14-44

The Allies have by now made their way across most of the Austrian Alps and Canadian units are at the gates of an undefended Vienna. Here at the Danube they meet the Russians. Budapest and Sofia still have an Axis garrison - they were bypassed for now.

7-28-44

Budapest and Sofia have been taken by the Allies. The good and bad news is that all of the Axis remaining territory fits now on a just two screen shots (given the upload size limit).

The British have crossed the Rhine river and taken Cologne. A new Allied landing in Brunsbüttel (close to the Danish border) has been met with a scratch Axis defense combat team and the Americans approach Munich.

7-28-44

The Canadians have already occupied Vienna. All goes now very rapidly.

The Soviets breached our lines again and the remaining Axis forces fall back onto Berlin in a concentric fashion as best as they can manage.

8-11-44

There are very few German units remaining that fight outside of Germany proper. Just a few stragglers in Poland, some cut-off and lost units in the Carpathian mountains and our intrepid division holding all of the Vosges front by itself in south-eastern France. Essen and the Ruhr is lost as well as Munich while the Soviets marched into undefended Breslau.

However, in one of the last remaining German attacks in the war all Allied units in Denmark were destroyed and thrown back into the sea. The units of the successful German combat team were immediately redistributed to other sectors.

8-25-44

It is getting crowded in Germany. The Soviets are at the river Oder, the German division in the Vosges unsurprisingly turned out to be insufficient to hold the Allies back and in Nuremberg even HQ units have to do defensive duty.

A very forward American unit got caught and surrounded in Hannover. But I am sure the Allies will try to free their comrades again.

9-8-44

The noose was tightened further.

9-22-44

The last pictures (below) that German war correspondents could take from the conflict. Afterwards all order broke down.

10-6-44

The Allies were 2 hexes from Berlin - only some fanatics defended Berlin

10-20-44

The Axis was vanquished.

I would like to congratulate my opponent to his well deserved victory and thank him for the great game and his always present fair play. I am sure this was not the last game we have played together but it is the last game of WP for the moment.

Thanks guys. A game, and AAR, that show the professional touch.

Chuck

Terrific AAR and grats to both of you.

Superb AAR. And thanks for the play. The AXIS held out around Berlin till the beginning of bad weather in October. The Allies, weary of war, assured of victory, sued for peace so as to avoid a sitzkrieg through the winter of '44. High losses fighting in bad weather was simply out of the question on the home front.

Great game, Warplan. The best operational level European Theater game in my estimation, even better than the bugged Time of Fury.

In a future play, I have to explore what the developer has done in the later revisions, to avoid the Soviet player using the retreat retreat retreat strategy in Barbarossa. I wonder if a simple mod, giving the AXIS an extra action point or two, with '41 tech levels, would solve that problem.

Hopefully the Battle of the Atlantic, sub/ASW war, can be made more important also.

Yes very nice AAR.

I agree the subs seems a bit too weak for me which makes it easier for the British to buildup and start going on the offensive a bit too early I think.

Also do you have the feeling that the Germans are a little bit like a paper tiger. They feel really strong but once they start to fold they fold really fast? Thats how I feel anyway from a number of PBEMs now.

/MM

I'm not sure why everyone thinks a Soviet runaway is such a problem. I had to deal with this myself and my solution was to beat the Red Army to a pulp in 1942 when they no longer had space to trade and had vital objectives to defend. The Red Army was never really able to find its footing and I was deep into Russia almost all the way into 1945.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I'm not sure why everyone thinks a Soviet runaway is such a problem. I had to deal with this myself and my solution was to beat the Red Army to a pulp in 1942 when they no longer had space to trade and had vital objectives to defend. The Red Army was never really able to find its footing and I was deep into Russia almost all the way into 1945.

Good to hear that. And it points out how there are so many possibilities in the game, based upon how each player plays, that it's a superb simulation.

Thanks for the great AAR. As I recall from SPI's original War in the East they solved the Soviets run away strategy by instituting an automatic victory rule. It was something along the lines of if the Germans took one personnel center on turn one, 2 on turn two and up to 4 by turn for they won the game based on a soviet collapse, otherwise, things went normally.

Thanks for all your kind comments and for reading along - it was a long game (started back in December) - but very enjoyable.

Great AAR indeed, congratulations to both of you.