Sixth Army Campaign AAR

[springer]

Thanks for the reply, tweber.

As you can see, this campaign has become a kind of meditation for me on game design, AT mechanics, and the idea of a good game design with AI.

It was the Ourq I couldn't find, but that may be because it was indeed buried in some rough terrain. The Marne is there for all to see and Chateau Thierry is well placed.

For the first three games, I liked the idea that there are multiple paths of advance available. For Belgium and Dunkirk, the choice is the player's. In the third game, the eastern flank and western flank have very different characteristics and different implications for the advance. Unlike the previous two games, however, the primary axis of advance will be determined by the casualties of the previous scenario.

With respect to H2H, I think a game that could carry over forces across multiple scenarios would be very cool. However, I think it would be very hard too. If one player gets his forces smashed in a scenario, it's all over for the rest of the campaign. One of the strengths of this game is that the allies aren't constrained by this. This means the game is one of offensive endurance.

I do think Bartheart nailed how this game should play out in H2H. I'd predict it would look like the Russian campaign scenarios being tried out by Balder. The initial offensives are loads of fun, but eventually the hordes just pile in. Even as it is, it could still be a fun game of endurance (i.e., how many scenarios can the Germans win before meeting their demise.)

[springer]

France: Casualties and Experience

Here is the total strength of the Army going into the France scenario (w/o replacements factored in since they were still in the Army HQ)
Total: (39 infantry regiments) 1072 INF at 61% strength; 46 XP

Below is a breakdown by of the % of effective INF (rifles and MGs combined) remaining in each Corps after the scenario. The weighted average rifle XP of the corps is also given each

IV Corps (12 infantry regiments): 239 INF at 44% strength; 60 XP
IX Corps (9 infantry regiments): 235 INF at 59% strength; 46 XP
XXVII Corps (9 infantry regiments): 212 INF at 54% strength; 55 XP
XI Corps (9 infantry regiments) 261 INF at 64% strength; 51 XP
Total: (39 infantry regiments) 947 INF at 54% strength; 53 XP

The final numbers reflect the infusion of badly needed replacements into IX Corps during the campaign.

[springer]

France: Postmortem Analysis

This scenario is really fun. Except for the French armored counterattack on the second turn, the campaign runs more like a race. The French seem entirely demoralized as they try to put on the pretense of a fight. The pursuit in this scenario is also interesting because of the different geography of the western flank and the eastern flank.

The western flank through Sentis is more open, but has fewer crossing and are less direct. Engineers are definite must, particularly if the French can organize any resistance. As could be seen in this scenario, the IV corps, which had the western flank tended to lag behind the XI corps.

On the other hand, the eastern flank through Chateau Thierry is moredirect, but it is full of potentially difficult terrain that seems perfect for defensive blocks. If the French had decided to just throw random blocking positions, I think they could have really messed up the German's timetable.
Fortunately, the rumor had spread that the Panzer IIs of the foot panzer regiment (which have wafer-thin 14mm of steel in the front) were immune to all caliber of anti-tank weapons: Only high-velocity silver-coated shells could stop one of these super-human machines. We believe that it was this fear that kept the French troops from going up against the Germans and making their life more miserable.



What is interesting is the destruction ratios in the campaign. Looking only at the rifles,
they go like this (ratios are Allied to German casualty ratios)

Belgium: 6 to 1
Dunkirk: 9 to 1
France: 11 to 1 (approximate, 10.5 to 1 is closer)

There seems to be two factors that drive the casualty rates:
1) Organization of the Allied forces. This one is the hardest to judge. For example, in the France scenario, the French forces feel disorganized because their frontline is overwhelmed on the first turn, but actually they have one of the strongest counterattack forces of the three: Their army has 4 medium tanks and 10 light tanks. And they do pack a punch.
2) The greatest determining difference beyond a shadow of a doubt is experience. It is clear that the increasing experience of the German forces reduces the costs they encounter.

The Sixth Army Training Center suggests that a third factor may also help out the casualty ratios: correct regimental size. The results in the training center suggest that full-strength infantry units (40 rifles) will suffer more casualties than units at 75% strength. As the game goes on, it may be a good idea not to find the right size of the infantry and not create over strength units. My idea is that the ideal infantry regiment with experience will be around 30 rifles strong.

If I'm right (which I may not be), I'm sure it does not hold for inexperienced infantry. I experimented with the Belgian scenario and reduced all the unit strengths to about 30 and played the first two turns. The Germans still managed to accomplish the same objectives, but at a higher cost and with a higher rate of individual battle failure.
Inexperienced units at 35 strength may be better, but I think that for the inexperienced units 40 gives a good ratio of casualties to combat success.

[springer]

End of the '40 Campaign

As the '40 campaign comes to an end, here's an analysis of how the various Corps have been impacted.

Below are charts that give the average rifles per regiment, average experience per regiment, and the average effectiveness per regiment for each corp.

I created the measure of effectiveness as follows (average # of rifles * average XP * Level)/100
For level. Level I infantry is worth 1; Level II infantry is worth 1.25; Level III is worth 1.50; Level IV is worth 1.75. This gives a whole number which can be compared. As can be seen, the spearhead corps, the XI and the IV have the highest effectiveness. IX Corps has less effectiveness because it's been filled with replacement. Nevertheless, effectiveness seems evenly distributed across units.

It is now time for a refit as the Germans prepare for the invasion of the Soviet Union.

[springer]

Refit: Choices, choices choices.

The refit phase is tough because we have to decide where to put our PP into the warchest.

I earned 547 PP. I should've earned more, but I played sloppy and twice forgot to turn a captured town into PP production[8|]. Even so, I'd be behind the standard set by tweber, which is 612. This alone bodes ill and I can feel a chlll wind blowing through Stalingrad.

One strategy that I won't be trying, but may be worthwhile is to create a horde of infantry regiments.
For example, I'm going into the game with 547 PP. A regiment of infantry (40 rifle, 5 MG, 5 Mortars, and an 88) cost 15 PP. I wonder what the impact of 36 fresh regiments would be. (It nearly triples the infantry army).

I tended to stay conservative, using the starting regimental configuration as my baseline, I tried to keep the army in as similar a form as possible. In my first run through, I tended to bring Fighters, infantry, and artillery up to level II.

Using the findings from the Sixth Army Training Center as a guide, I am going a different way this game. Instead, I concentrated only on infantry, getting them up to level III immediately. The reason for this is twofold: 1) infantry upgrades affects the most units per PP cost. The training center suggests that infantry upgrades are the best way to increase a unit's destructive power and it's staying power (i.e., ability to hang on to its troops.) The findings suggested to me that the cost to effect ratio of upgrading artillery (including infantry guns) adds only a little to a highly seasoned regiment with level III forces.

I'm going to listen to some advice I got elsewhere and not bother upgrading air power at all. The dive bombers don't really need it anyway. However, I personally feel more comfortable with Fighter IIs fighting for air supremacy. But, the argument that the PP to payoff cost is not worthwhile sounds worthwhile to me. So, I'll just dump the PP into making more planes.

So my sole investment in research will be infantry, but here's another tough choice: How to organize the new recruits. A) Just pour them into the wounded units. I don't like this because it reduces unit XP. The training center suggests that when high XP units and low XP units attack together it's no different in impact than having two average XP units attack. But keeping XP high seems to me reasonable because it adds tactical flexibility. If I choose to attack with a high ratio of high XP units I can.

Given that I'm going to maintain high XP units, what is the next choice? Well, I wonder if is better to create mixed experience corps (corps with high XP regiments or low XP regiments). Or would it be better to have elite Corps (all high XP regiments concentrated in one or two corps) and let the low XP Corps do flank work and mop ups to gain XP. (This is what occurred with the XXVII Corp in the last set of scenarios. One problem I see with the Elite Corp plan is that every casualty will be a greater loss of effectiveness (i.e., manpower * experience) than a mixed corp. A mixed corp also allows a bit more picking and choosing of battles.

I've already played the next scenario- Barbarossa- with the mixed corp set. But in my opinion, that scenario is not a good test of replacement doctrine. The pattern of the battle was nearly identical to my first time through. I'm tempted to try both paths (Mixed experience corps; or elite and green corps) and play them out through two scenarios to see what happens.

For the AAR, I think I will go with the mixed corp doctrine I've already chosen.

Anyway, the R&R "scenario" is challenging in its own right because the military reorganization will set tone for the next three scenarios.

[tweber]

What does the 'effectiveness' in the chart above mean? 
 
I think the gap of about 60 pp means that you would have 4 fewer fresh units starting the 1941 scenarios.  If you ratio holds, you would have 2 fewer units at the end of 1941 with 50% experience or 1 less 100% experience unit when the final battle rolls around.
 
It is interesting also that you got a 50% casualty rate after basically 2 months of fighting.  If you read Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers",  the casualty rates among the divisions at Normandy until the end of the war 10 months later were over 200%.  This is not too far off what you saw in your first three scenarios.
 
 

[springer]

Tweber,

It's interesting that you mentioned Ambrose's book, which I haven't read. I just read those similar figures in a chart just today. Right now I'm on the last chapter of a book by Peter Manoor: The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions in Europe. (He's arguing that American Infantry divisions were tactically effective organizations, though with flaws.) On page 232 he gives the OOB of the American divisions in the ETO and it is mind boggling: For example, the 4th Inf took 232% casualties and the 1st Inf took 206% casualties. I'm currently reading the last chapter. He cites Ambrose in that chapter. I'm reading his critique of Marshall's book Men Against Fire.

It's fascinating that this campaign reflects a similar level of high casualty rates.

Effectiveness is a rough number I created to track how well the Corps were doing. I wanted to have a number that measured the infantry strength of the Corps
By themselves, the two measures I have been using of progress- number of rifles/reg or XP/reg- are both misrepresentative. For example, A unit with 30 rifles can be more effective than a unit with 40 rifles if the 20 rifle unit has more XP. So I put together an approximate measure that combined both. I then divided by 100 as it scales the number down to something reasonable.

Then I realized level should have an effect, as the Training simulations clearly showed, so I factored it in as well.
I think the factoring of level is accurate (e.g., level II is 1.25 compared to level I) However, a more accurate measure of effectiveness would scale both rifles/reg and XP/reg so that they are equivalent in terms of damage dished out and damaged received.(e.g., If an increase of 10 rifles had the same effect as a gain of 5 XP, both increases would have the same value.)
I have no way to do this, so my numbers are skewed in favor of XP. However, the simulations suggest XP is more important than raw numbers so it probably isn't far off.


I was thinking further about my PP (which functions as a kind of score). I think I may not be doing so bad after all: I chose to purchase replacements on the fly on the theory that I may get a slightly better deal in the '40 scenarios. So I think I actually earned 120 PP more that I spent on reinforcements that weren't necessary so the total earned was actually 667 PP.

That makes me feel better as 667 PP exceeds the margin you allowed. (I'm assuming your total is a kind of "safety zone", so maybe there will be a warm winter in South Russia in '42 after all.

[tweber]

I also purchased the in scenario reinforcements so the 547 vs 612 is the right comparison.  I am not sure if I took more casualties or had more or less experience but this could be checked. 

[springer]

It could be fun to check your casualty rates. I suspect you probably did very well on both of those counts as well.

If 547 PP is the right comparison, the troops better start saving for extra winter gear now!

[springer]

The '41 Refit: Building an Army for the Soviet Union

During the refit, we rebuilt the army so that its infantry was at 81% of it's original strength before the France Campaign.

However, the army is much stronger: The average experience of the refitted force is 43% and it has more armor, artillery and aircraft.

Here are the stats.

Upgrades:
To implement the findings of from Sixth Army Training Center, the high command poured all their resources into troop training:
regular infantry is now level III. No other upgrades were purchased.

Air Power:
Another air squadron was added bringing the air support up to five squadrons (25 dive bombers and 25 fighters)

Artillery:
No artillery was brought in during the refit, but there was plenty of artillery available from the replacements:
IV Corps has four regiments with 8, 7, 5, and 4 guns.
XI Corps has three regiments with 7, 6, and 4 guns
IX Corps has three regiments with 4, 4, and 4 guns
XXVII Corps has three regiments with 4, 4, and 4 guns.

Armor:
Additional Armor was purchased.
XI Corps' foot panzer regiment as brought to full mobility.
IX Corps received a Panzer Division (i.e., two Panzer regiments).
Only XXVII Corps does not have an armored component. High command intends to add one on the campaign, if casualties allow.

Panzer Grenadiers:
Two infantry regiments in IV Corps were upgraded to motorized status. They're really no stronger than regular infantry regiments, but they are motorized.

Staff:
Staff losses were not replaced. This will be the Army's Achilles's heel. Only the IV Corps is operating with over 100% staff efficiency. The other three regiments are operating at slightly less than 100% efficiency. This situation should change as attrition takes its inevitable toll.

Infantry Regiments:
Because of casualties, IX Corps was reduced by an infantry regiment. Army HQ intends to replace this regiment during the campaign.

XI Corps gained a regiment.

Here is the total infantry strength of the Army going into the Barbarossa scenario. As before, it is broken down by of the % of effective INF (rifles and MGs combined). The weighted average rifle XP of the corps is also given each

IV Corps (12 infantry regiments): 404 INF at 75% strength; 44 XP
IX Corps (8 infantry regiments): 306 INF at 77% strength; 42 XP
XXVII Corps (9 infantry regiments): 322 INF at 82% strength; 42 XP
XI Corps (10 infantry regiments) 373 INF at 92% strength; 43 XP
Total: (39 infantry regiments) 1405 INF at 81% strength; 43 XP

Though it has less infantry than before, this force is clearly a tougher, more effective army than the one that entered Belgium.

[springer]

Barbarossa: Strategic Overview

High Command expects that this battle will be a replay of the Invasion of Belgium. The Soviets are not expecting an attack, so it should be relatively easy to pierce the Soviet line and breakthrough to the primary objective, Rovne.

The Germans have 10 turns to reach their objectives. The sooner they arrive, the higher the PP bonus.

Strategic choices in this scenario are somewhat limited.
There is only one route for the primary advance: Kovel-Lutsk-Rivne

The plan is similar to previous attacks:
IV Corps forms the schwerpunkt
IX Corps will flank, protect, and supplement the schwerpunkt force on the north. This should not be too difficult as the north is covered by the Pripyat Marshes.
XI Corps will keep the flank south of the schwerpunkt clear. If needed, it will also supplement the schwerpunkt
XXVII Corps will clean up stray units between the line of advance
and the First Army's boundary in the South.

[springer]

Barbarossa Turn 0: Crossing the Border the Hour before Dawn.

The Soviets have almost no forces deployed and what they do have is unprepared. There is one air unit deployed on an advanced field. The units outlined in black give a sampling of the Soviet deployment.

The forward airfield will be the first target of the German ground units. The air squadrons will be saved for targets of opportunity out of reach of the infantry.

There is really no other direction for the brunt of the German forces to go but forward (i.e., following the red arrow). There is only the sole road running from Chelm (the city buried in the middle of the German army) to Kovel. Traffic jams are expected and the MP units (they are transparent units with transparent lettering that have no detectable effect on the game [;)]) are with the lead elements to keep the traffic going.

[springer]

Barbarossa Turn 1: Most of the Planes Were Destroyed on the Ground where they Lay

Unless otherwise noted, turns include the Soviet response.
The Germans are moving forward. The airfield has been taken and is in active use by the Germans.

Corps structure is still a mess, but the initial concentration of troops will allow them to get sorted out quickly.

There's a massive traffic jam across the bug. The Germans have actually reached stacking limits and not all units can get across. (The MP units did not do their job!).

Soviet units are beginning to bounce out of 0 readiness. The artillery unit (already damaged by German air power) is already up to 12. The Germans will have to keep moving fast before the Soviets recover from the initial shock.

[springer]

Barbarossa Turn 2: Moving in Lines through the Day

The Sixth Army is still bound up along the Chelm-Kovel highway. XI Corps is beginning to sort itself out, as are elements of the XXVII Corps.

As can be seen, Soviet opposition has been negligible. So far, German casualties are 3 Rifles and 4 Scouts. It looks like the destruction of the Soviet Union will be easier than the demise of Belgium.

[springer]

Barbarossa turn 3: Kovel Falls, Soviets initiate flank attack

At first, it looked like the Soviets were already finished. But not yet. Though they are not putting up a defense against the Schwerpunkt, unidentified units are beginning to move into the southern flank within XXVII Corps area of operation. Given that the Soviets are probably still suffering from "shock and awe" (excuse the anachronism), the counterattack shouldn't be major. But it is ominous.

This the first sign of what can be expected from Soviet strategic style. Unlike the Allies, who would have folded by turn 4, the Soviets work on the principle of defense in depth. The days of puncturing a front line and watching the opponent's defense deflate may be over.

[Josh]

Man that word "foot-panzers" gives me the creeps. [:)]

[springer]

I'm buried in work right now, but I had to do this in honor of the Foot Panzers.

[Josh]

Blasphemy I say. [;)]

Come to think of it, if say an Art. unit loses its horses/halftracks it will still be able to move one hex. I wonder how they manage to do that with the heavy guns... foot-guns?

[springer]

I won't dig up a picture of foot-guns.... but I can certainly imagine![:'(]

[springer]

Barbarossa Turn 4: Approaching Lutsk and Lokachi

The Russian have set up a holding position at Lokachi. There is almost no resistance in the way of the main drive toward Lutsk. The Styr river is the main obstacle to progress. The game is beginning to feel a bit like Belgium and France, the main problem is speed. The main piece of resistance along the central axis of advance has been the blowing of the bridge across Lutsk. That must mean that the Lokachi defenders have to stand and be destroyed: There is no going back. As planned, XXVII Corps take the extreme flank while XI Corps strikes north. IX and IV Corp continue to maintain a strong center momentum.