Case White AAR (After action report)

[Extraneous]

If your using Option 20…

ZOCs don’t extend: Option 20: (Surprised ZoCs) from a surprised unit.


Choose the German land unit(s) to march into Warsaw.

You can use the XLIX Mountain Corps (and/or what ever is under it) Southwest of Danzig; or Von Rundstedt and/or the XLVII Panzer Corps 1 hex East of the XLIX Mountain Corps.

Then capture Lodz where the Rydz Army and the disorganized Pozan Corps are.

Mop up the Polish frount line.

Poland is conquered at the end of turn stage.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: Taxman66

I think the Air force committed to Poland was on the light side, particularly considering the better bombers (sans the Stuka) were over in the west.

I (at least) prefer to play a little more cautiously and have extra bombers available in the later impulse(s). As it stands Germany is now looking at 2 unflipped (i.e. not disorganized) units in Warsaw.

Germany in this AAR report only got one stuka and it was on the Polish front. Overall the German bomber draw was bad. On the west front are only 2 LND3 with 3 in tactical factors, not what I call a heavy commitment with bombers on the west front either.

[Taxman66]

The Bf110 is basically a bomber itself and counts as another 3 TAC bomber. Admitidly the GE draw wasn't that good, but still... Maybe I'm just more of a cautious player. [;)] I also don't terribly favor attacking the low lands in '39 the chit values are much higher before being diluted with the '40 chits... But if you are one of those players that bypasses the Netherlands I can see the reason for it.

Also by using the one good GE FTR as a bomber vs. the POLs GE is left facing without A2A advantage should the CW elect to fight with the Polish air force instead of fleeing. An option I would now seriously consider as the CW. If you had the Bf110 (or one of the other bombers) on the Polish front you could have used it instead of the Me109. If the Pols fly against you have the +3/-3 table. If the CW interns the Polish Air force you then can use the 2 TAC Me109 on impulse 3 (if needed) or rebase him west.

---
As for the surpised ZOC rule, I'm not sure how many people play with that regularly. The group I used to play with never did. We considered it way too powerful & a *hugely* pro-GE optional. Though it does mean that GE almost has to allow RU's border claims.

[peskpesk]

Case White AAR (After action report)

Early in the morning of the 1st September is an emergency staff meeting held in 2nd Army Headquarters between Fedor von Bock (Army Group West) and Gerd von Rundstedt (Army Group North). The Field Marshals are studying the big table map of Poland where wooden pieces representing German and Polish forces are cluttered around. The atmosphere is tense and none of the dozen of mixed offers and aids that lines the walls dares to speak.
A firm knock on the door breaks the silence and a young lieutenant wearing the wearing a muddy weapon coat and with motorcycle glasses enters the room and salutes and hands over a briefcase to a general’s aid. The aid quickly opens the bag and hangs the content on the wall, aerial photos. The group of mixed officers discreetly review the result.

Von Bock looked up from the map “Are that the photos from the second plane?”
An Unknown captain stepped forward “Yes, sir! And I'm afraid they confirm the result.”
“So you are saying that that a direct assault on Lodz is no longer possible?”
“That is not for me to say sir, but Polish positions are not as disrupted as we would like...”
“Thank you captain,” interrupted von Rundstedt, “I'm confident that my army group will take the city eventually, but the assault will wear down our panzer armies and leave our forces depleted. The defensive lines are in too good order, recognises aircraft photos even shows that the Headquarters of Rydz-Smigly is in fighting condition.”
“And the way to Warsaw?” asked von Bock and turned back to the map.
Von Rundstedt pointed to a forest north east of the capital. “The defenders are dug in here, but that will not help them, they will be cursed, but I fear not in time to reach the capitals before the elite Polish reserves reach it.”
Troubled Von Bock scratched his face, “So we need a new plan then?”
“Correct, any suggestions?”
"Lets ignore the factory line for now, that is the last thing the Poles will expect.” the Field Marshals pushed a wooden shovel like stick with his wooden pieces down towards Krakow, “ We swing down to fast to the south and hit Krakow hard with my panzer armies and takes it before they are ready for us. The Poles will be feeling overconfident and safe when no of our armies are near. Also we soon take the important iron and cool mines outside the town, this will make Minster of industries very happy.”
Von Rundstedt nodded intrigued. Von Bock continued and moves two armies to the forest near Breslau. “Our spies report that the defenders in it are only a division and these are is enough to annihilate them.” With a final swoop of the stick he half encircled Poznan with the last units of his army group. “I will personally command the forces attacking Poznan, it will be tough but we will make it!”
"This not a too drastic plan, a little risky but it will suite our needs very well, all the Polish defenders will need to concentrate here to save Warsaw and leave the rest of the country to us. We can build up a choke hold on the capital and Lodz.”
Von Bock agreed and swung his stick toward the polish costal cites, “Gdynia and Danzig, will you take them?”
“Yes, I like to see Edward Rydz-Smigly faces when he learns that direct help from the Western Allies is not coming!”, a little tic in the corner of the mouth almost made the field marshal smile before he controlled himself and continued by pushing his elite MTN army, position close to Warsaw, over to Poznan. “With these to assist you I'm sure the assault on the town will go smoothly.”
“That will suffice, consider Poznan in our hands.”
Von Rundstedt nodded and shuffled anther unit, but this one odd looking piece, toward Lodz and Warsaw, "Soon I will bring the 150mm Artillery down on the defenders of the factory line, and they will succeed in doing what Luftwaffe failed to-do!”
Von Bock fails to hide an evil grin.


Land Movement/Land combat declaration

Notable events:
• The 1-4 ENG overruns Gdynia and Danzig thereby stepping on the Polish navy, but he Poles are luck both the CA and CP survives and Escapes to England.
• The 1-4 ENG moves to the north of Capital, ready to assist breaking the river line the next axis impulse.
• The 4-2 ART is position to bear down on both Lodz and Warsaw.
• Both the 6-4 MTN and 7-4 INF from East Prussia, helps with the assault on Poznan.
• The south armoured spearhead makes a quick redeployment to Krakow, but still there is a small risk the attack might stall there…
• The north armoured spearhead makes a blitz attack on the forest and also faces a small risk the attack might stall there…
• No GE HQ support.
• No GE ground support.



Situation during axis first impulse and before Land combat resolution.

[peskpesk]

Case White AAR (After action report)

Germany rolled: 9,8,8,14 on the land attacks and suffered no effects, but all the polish units was destroyed.


Situation after axis first impulse. Now the Western Allies may have a crack on Germany with at least some planes.

[sajbalk]

Thanks for the AAR, PeskPesk. Did you consider leaving the Polish ships alone so that the CW would either have to use its naval moves in the combined to evacuate them before you took Copenhagen or left them to die. The CW will have to take a combined to reinforce Warsaw.

[Kwik E Mart]

Any feedback on this question? Thanks

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

ORIGINAL: peskpesk

Case White AAR (After action report)

German Air Force High Command (OKL)

Situation during axis first impulse and the after German ground strikes.


A black Porsche stops outside German Air Force High Command (OKL) and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring is for the first time of the war summoned to Berlin to answer for the failures.

The ground strike on Brest-litovsk have a little more than 50% success and in Lodz the was 74% success on each target! But only one unit is disorganized, the 5-3 INF in Lodz.

Great AAR, guys! I seem to remember a discussion on the forum regarding including the necessary successful die roll in the results area...eg, HS 123 needs 2 or less to disorganize Rydz, rolls 10, fails to disorganize Rydz...even if it wasn't discussed, it would be a welcome addition, IMO - if only for newbies or rusty players.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

Any feedback on this question? Thanks

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

ORIGINAL: peskpesk

Case White AAR (After action report)

German Air Force High Command (OKL)

Situation during axis first impulse and the after German ground strikes.


A black Porsche stops outside German Air Force High Command (OKL) and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring is for the first time of the war summoned to Berlin to answer for the failures.

The ground strike on Brest-litovsk have a little more than 50% success and in Lodz the was 74% success on each target! But only one unit is disorganized, the 5-3 INF in Lodz.

Great AAR, guys! I seem to remember a discussion on the forum regarding including the necessary successful die roll in the results area...eg, HS 123 needs 2 or less to disorganize Rydz, rolls 10, fails to disorganize Rydz...even if it wasn't discussed, it would be a welcome addition, IMO - if only for newbies or rusty players.

Maybe.

Inserting the necessary die roll into each line would take room and I am not sure that there will be enough (e.g., HQ Eisenhower & friends with similarly long names). The reason the map is so small is because I had that concern earlier.

And if we are also talking about strategic bombing, then there are two break points: for lost production points and factory destruction.

In general, the player will learn these rules pretty fast - or refer to the tables to reacquire the information when this comes up. Indeed, I would expect him to have done so before making the attack.[;)]

[Tonqeen]

And those tables will be easy accesseble?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Tonqeen

And those tables will be easy accesseble?

Yes. The terrain effects chart is accessible with a double click on the "current terrain" panel of the main form (e.g., Forest). The WIF FE tables can be viewed as a PDF from a drop down of the main menu bar.

[Joseignacio]

ORIGINAL: peskpesk

Case White AAR (After action report)

German Air Force High Command (OKL)

Situation during axis first impulse and the after German ground strikes.


A black Porsche stops outside German Air Force High Command (OKL) and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring is for the first time of the war summoned to Berlin to answer for the failures.

The ground strike on Brest-litovsk have a little more than 50% success and in Lodz the was 74% success on each target! But only one unit is disorganized, the 5-3 INF in Lodz.

There is somethin wrong here. The fighter-bombers (or whatever the name is) like this BF 109 can only fly half of the distance when they are used like bombers (unless this rule is optional), having a range of 2 it's impossible it arrived from the german lines to the target.

[Gurggulk]

Joseignacio,

The BF-109 E2, was flying from the hex with the Mountain korp, in East Prussia. It started as a 5 air to air factor, but became a 4 air to air when used as a Fighter bomber.
Just check the previous screen shots to see the Fighter deployed.

I was also perplexed about that fighter bomber, until looking back in the thread.

[peskpesk]

ORIGINAL: sajbalk

Thanks for the AAR, PeskPesk. Did you consider leaving the Polish ships alone so that the CW would either have to use its naval moves in the combined to evacuate them before you took Copenhagen or left them to die. The CW will have to take a combined to reinforce Warsaw.

Not so much. I figured Commonwealth only badly needs one naval move anyway, to get some fleet into North Sea in order to be able to intercept any German fleet. And since CW has two naval moves in a combined they could have saved either of the Polish CA or CP, with the last naval move.
For each naval unit you overrun it’s no so bad odds of something happening to it.

1D10
1: Germany takes control of the naval unit.
2-4: Destroyed.
5+: Commonwealth keeps takes control of the naval unit.

So for each unit you have 40% of capturing it or destroying it.

But you are correct it, should probably been considered more, just to mess with Commonwealth anyway. [:)]

[peskpesk]

Case White AAR (After action report)

The Anglo French Supreme War Council, sometimes known as the Supreme War Council (SWC) had its first meeting was at Abbeville on 12 September 1939,but when the composition of the SWC was decided, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), Lord Gort was not a member; yet his French counterpart, General Maurice Gamelin was! And it end with a minor debacle. It was decided that all offensive actions were to be halted immediately!
This ended the Saar Offensive which started on 7 September, four days after France declared war on Germany, when, the Wehrmacht was occupied in the attack on Poland, and the French soldiers enjoyed a decisive numerical advantage along the border with Germany. Eleven French divisions advanced along a 32 km line near Saarbrücken against weak German opposition. The French Army had advanced to a depth of 8 km, captured about 20 villages evacuated by the German army, without any resistance.

Notable events:
• One Us entry chits is lost when the Wester allies declare war on Germany.
• France takes a Naval.
• Commonwealt takes a Combined.
• Germany, Commonwealt and France calles out the reserves. Germany deployes heavily on the Border to Belgium and Netherlands. France filles the Maginotline and Lille.
• Wester Allies can’t agree how to spend the air force during the surprise. France wants to strike german HQs and bomb factories but Commonwealt wants to bomb the german navy.

Port Strike
After som debate the Commonwealt uses it excelent range of the Blenheim bomber to reach a fine Germany navy stack.



Situation during allies first impulse and before Port strike, spending surprise points.

[Joseignacio]

True. Although that was not what I was objecting (the air combat factor), it enlightened me anyway. So, it seems that the statistics of the plane are modified in the bombing screen, that's why a plane with movement factor 5 appears like MF 2, which was what was driving me mad.

[sajbalk]

Regarding the Map: should it not be "Moravia", instead of "Morovia" for the region in Czech.?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

True. Although that was not what I was objecting (the air combat factor), it enlightened me anyway. So, it seems that the statistics of the plane are modified in the bombing screen, that's why a plane with movement factor 5 appears like MF 2, which was what was driving me mad.

I made the change in the range number to a grey background primarily for using carrier air units - to identify which are fighters and which are bombers. In this case it is a fighter-bomber that has chosen to fly as a bomber.

Perhaps changing the number within the grey is a bad idea. I could just change the color of the range for fighter-bombers when they fly as bombers.

The purpose behind all this is to let the defender know whether the fighter-bomber is a fighter or a bomber when he is deciding about interceptors.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I made the change in the range number to a grey background primarily for using carrier air units - to identify which are fighters and which are bombers. In this case it is a fighter-bomber that has chosen to fly as a bomber.

Perhaps changing the number within the grey is a bad idea. I could just change the color of the range for fighter-bombers when they fly as bombers.

The purpose behind all this is to let the defender know whether the fighter-bomber is a fighter or a bomber when he is deciding about interceptors.

I hope you don't mean that in MWIF a CVP flying as a bomber is half-range? Their range doesn't change in either role.

[BallyJ]

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

True. Although that was not what I was objecting (the air combat factor), it enlightened me anyway. So, it seems that the statistics of the plane are modified in the bombing screen, that's why a plane with movement factor 5 appears like MF 2, which was what was driving me mad.

I always thought that MF5 halfed to 2and a 1/2, which rounded up to 3.????? which is right when rounding ranges?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: BallyJ

ORIGINAL: Joseignacio

True. Although that was not what I was objecting (the air combat factor), it enlightened me anyway. So, it seems that the statistics of the plane are modified in the bombing screen, that's why a plane with movement factor 5 appears like MF 2, which was what was driving me mad.

I always thought that MF5 halfed to 2and a 1/2, which rounded up to 3.????? which is right when rounding ranges?

The original range was 3, which halved to 1.5, rounded to 2.
Joseignacio confused the starting A2A factor and the starting range. THe starting A2A factor was 5, which went down to 4 for being a bomber.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Perhaps changing the number within the grey is a bad idea. I could just change the color of the range for fighter-bombers when they fly as bombers.

The purpose behind all this is to let the defender know whether the fighter-bomber is a fighter or a bomber when he is deciding about interceptors.

No, this is a good idea, please keep that as it is.
A ftighter flying as a bomber have its range halved, both for the raid and for the fly back to base, so it is better if only the reduced range is shown. Better for all sides.