Directive 21 ( mod of FITE )

[larryfulkerson]

Steve Sill sent me the latest and greatest version of Directive 21.sce ( dated 13Nov09 ) and I decided to do an AAR of my experience so you guys can tell whether or not you might want to play a Barbarosa scenario that has a Soviet PO to play against.

I don't know what you guys do but I use the order of battle to move my units and the first unit to move is OKH the German High Headquarters unit. I embarked it in Berlin and moved it by rail to Warsaw to get it closer to the front so I might use it in the future. It's going to move again and soon but I don't know the best destination for it yet so for now I'm going to leave it temp. in Warsaw. Then I came to the first of the Brandenbergers units. These are special forces units ( 5 of them ) that can do airborne operations. They are stationed just behind the front lines on the northern part of the front lines so I'm thinking they should be deployed in the northern half of the theater to expedite movement of the battle units across the rivers between the Axis and Leningrad and or other eastern destinations.

They are only 10 recon rifle squads each so they can't stand toe-to-toe fighting against the regular Soviet divisional units and they would be destroyed unless help arrives soon....which implies that they not be sent very far ahead of the fighting units. They could be used to capture the crossing points at the river(s) for one thing.

I have uploaded the image showing the situation I'm talking about so you can understand the ramifications of available options. I have lined the rivers in a deep blue so they stand out better. Wherever I drop the airborne units they have to have clear missions that contribute to the overall goal. So we have to decide what the overall goal is first. There are at least two choices here: (1) the complete destruction of Soviet units and (2) the capture of Soviet objective cities. Some of you guys are going to want to do both simultaneously, I know I do. So whenever there is a way to do both it should be followed but whenever there is a question about what to do next...that's when the overall goal should be consulted. I've decided I want to destroy the Soviet units as the main goal and leave the capture of cities as a by-product of operations.

I usually have enough Panzer recon units to complete the surround on adjacient Soviet units during combat so I'm thinking I don't need to use the airborne units to complete the surround(s) that will occur but rather use them to grab and hold the bridges across the rivers. Or maybe to keep the Soviet from moving forces into the combat area. Either way would be nice.

I don't like to use airborne troops to complete the surround on enemy units by flying them into the required hexes after all the ground troops have moved. That seems unrealistic. So I move the airborne troops first and THEN the ground troops.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's where I decided to drop the airborne troops ( see map below ). The 5th Brandenburger unit was evaporated upon landing. That happens when you drop "blind" without knowing what's in the hex you're moving to.

I'm hoping to stop the Soviets from retreating from the combat area and or introducing more troops into the area. The idea is to use the airborne troops, move them to an airport after they complete their mission and then use them again as soon as possible.

[larryfulkerson]

And now for an update: So um.........I moved all the units and did the attacks for round one. Here's the air war results:

I wouldn't want to be a member of one of the DO-17 squadrons....they lost about 1 out of 7 dudes. Most of the tactical bombers are beat up since I had them set to ignore losses. So about 2/3 of the fleet is moved to the rear resting. I'm thinking that most of the Soviet aircraft will not exist after round 2 or 3 so that I can put the fighters on interdiction missions, or at least a lot of them.

I don't know how much information Steve wants in this playtest but I used to playtest TOAW and the more information you gather the better most of the time, so I'm reporting the important stuff that happens as it happens and you'll probably see more game mechanics than you're used to in a usual AAR.

My first impressions are these
(1) the units don't seem to move as far as I remember from FITE. Maybe it's because of the different map
or something
(2) There's a chronic shortage of airports. When I try to make an unbroken chain of air superiority coverage over the front lines I run into the gap or two that happens because of the lack of facilities. Wouldn't it be cool if we had a sort-of, Construction Batallion kind of unit that could build airfields over some agreed upon period of game time. Just a thought.
(3) I like the mix of ground troops/ arty / engineers in the order of battle. In the order they are in the order of battle I mean to say. At first I gripped about having to look through the OOB to find the engineers and that sort of thing. But now that I've been using it for several days straight I find that I'm getting used to it. A person sort of learns where everything is even though it's a monster scenario in terms of units and size etc.
EDIT: (4) Also, I think there are too few ports, especially around the Riga area. Maybe it's designed that way for a reason but without a port the Axis dude can't easily move units to forward areas.

I was thinking of detaching those units that can be spared from other sectors and moving them to the middle of the map along the Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow axis. That way I could maximize the combat power in the drive on Moscow and then swing north or south depending on the number of defenders and the difficulty in the terrain held by the defenders. But then the thought occured to me that that sort of strategy calls for, in effect, two separate front lines. That would antagonize a problem that Germany already has....it's out-manned by the largest army in the world. So that kind of thing might not work so well. I kind of like the analogy of a flood of water rushing into the path of least resistance but the attacker would have to have an overwhelming ratio of German men to Soviet men to pull that off.

Maybe I should forget about Leningrad and just try to capture everything from Moscow south. Most of the objective hexes are in the south unless I'm mistaken. Think I'll do that.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Soviet Turn 1 Round 1 Air Losses. None of the losses of any of the aircraft types is crippling in any way since the Soviets have more than enough to replace their losses from the on-hand inventory. Plus, even though most of the losses were fighters the Soviets produce more planes than the Axis does so these losses in turn 1 will probably be made up by turn 10 or so for the Soviet player and then he's well on his way to starting to gain air superiority by turn 20 or so. I'm guessing all of this based on my experiences playing FITE and yes, I know it's not the same game and things may happen earlier or later in D21 but I think the principle is the same and it does apply in D21 as well.

[sPzAbt653]

(1) the units don't seem to move as far as I remember from FITE.

Some of the motorized units were actually adjusted up, but most of the rest were adjusted down, based on a chart supplied to us by vahauser. Also, in FiTE there are a lot of Axis controlled hexes at start in the Soviet rear, which makes the initial assault more realistic when compared to the rate of Axis advance. But this made it a mess for Elmer to try to cope with, so those were removed. Overall, the initial advance is a little slower, but for the other 350 turns the Axis actually have more movement than historical (because of terrain, roads, weather, supply, trucks, etc.).

(2) There's a chronic shortage of airports.

Yes. We have made airfields strategic locations by eliminating a lot of the minor ones. Now it is important to capture them, and this seemed a good feature to add. You don't have to worry about coverage too much, as we proved in some other thread that there is no actual coverage. If anyone has info on a 'major' airfield that is not on the map, please let us know.

(4) Also, I think there are too few ports ...

I took them all out, thank Rick for squeezing some onto the map. I have a personal grudge on anchorages, but in order to provide a reasonable explanation: if there are ports all over, Elmer will use them to shuttle units all over, and it's not realistic.


Thanks for the points Mr. Fulkerson. I add some of this stuff to scenario document so others can find it somewhere (not that anybody ever reads those things[>:]).

[larryfulkerson]

Okie dokie....turn 1 is finished. According to my careful calculations there were 91 Soviet units destroyed in turn 1. I'm not sure how many of what kind were destroyed however. Note to self: take more careful notes about what gets destroyed during the turns. I thought I'd show you the turn 1 Axis moves not because it's cool to have moving pictures in an AAR but it might give you some idea what the front lines look like now.

[larryfulkerson]

Okay, so the minimap moves movie isn't all that revealing. I took some before and after pictures of the map so that we could get a better view of all the units moving. I'll post some 4 images starting at the north end of the front lines going south. There's some background information you might need to know about these pictures before they make more sense. I took a screen-grab picture of the map before I moved anything in turn one and then did my moves / attacks etc. THEN I let the Soviet PO do his thing and then in the beginning of turn 2 before I move anything I take another picture of the map. So the images show the moves of the Axis and indirectly the Soviet player. I couldn't think of a better way to do it.

Also, the picture may look like it's 'off-center' but it's that way because I wanted to use the same focal point ( hex on the map ) for all the moves movies I might make of this area so over the passage of turns the front lines will appear to pass from the left to the right in the picture.

Here's the north end of the front lines.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the next sector to the south:

I caught a break by capturing a couple of bridges over the river ( in the middle of the map area ) so I've got a good start on the way to Minsk.

[larryfulkerson]

And here is the next sector to the south:

[larryfulkerson]

And here's the southernmost sector:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the losses to both sides together in one picture to make it easier to compare the numbers and types of both sides.

[desert]

Is it me or are some of the forest hexes....well, it looks like the trees are moving or disappearing.

[larryfulkerson]

I want some of whatever you're smoking.  LOL

[larryfulkerson]

I've been playing steady for a couple of days now and I'm already on turn 2 round 2. This is the north half of the front lines so far

[larryfulkerson]

This is the south half of the front lines. There aren't many Soviet units still left in their original positions since most of them pulled back toward Kiev to the East.

[larryfulkerson]

Turn 2 is finished. Here's a comparison of the losses of both sides.

Careful calculation has shown that 122 Soviet units were destroyed in turns 1 and 2.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the moves mini-movie from turns 1 and 2

[larryfulkerson]

And now a series of 4 movies showing a close-up of the Axis moves during turn 2. First the northmost sector

[larryfulkerson]

And the next sector going south

[larryfulkerson]

And the next sector going south