Case Blue

[Grymme]

I will start a small, not very ambithious, AAR of my scenario Case Blue.

I am playing Germany and Bill Wheatly is playing the Soviet Union.

From north to South are the following HQs.

17th Pz Corps (1st Pz Gruppe) light green
11th Corps (6th Army) Pink
55th Corps (6th Army) Scarlett
52nd Corps (6th Army) Clear Blue
44th Corps (6th Army) Dark Blue/Scarlett
14th Pz Corps (1st Pz Gruppe) Brown
35th C.S.I.R Italian Expiditionary Corps (17th Army) Green
3rd Pz Corps (17th Army) Dark Blue
2nd Hungarian Army (17th Army) Green
Romanian Mountain Corps (17th Army) Light Blue on pink counters
49th Mountain Corps (11th Army) Slime Green
30th Corps (11th Army) Grey
54th Corps (11th Army) Dark Brown.

Colours may not be so visible, but i will hopefully post closeups later.

First round i just attack everwhere. Around Dnepropretovsk which is well defended i try to phlank from the south using the Romanian Mountain Corps & from the north using the 14th Pz Corps.

As for building i try to build some infantry, PP and Staff so that i can create a couple of Security Corps that can handle future partisans.

[Grymme]

Here is a closeup of the Dnepropretovsk area.

HQs are written out on the map and the planned encirclement is marked with red arrows.

[RufusTFirefly]

Have had the pleasure to play it. Very good scenario. Will be intersting to see how you proceed [:)]

[Jeffrey H.]

I like the map artwork, it looks very much like the old SPI games I used to play. Looking forward to this AAR.

[bwheatley]

Some of our bombers in the ukraine try to hit a vulnerable german HQ.


With the germans a turn away from kharkov we've decided to move our ukraine factories to the urals


We had a russian division that was trapped in the bend of a river but we noticed the german units holding the city had no infantry support so we attacked so we could break out of the trap.

[abulbulian]

Was it just bad luck that 8 German flak didn't get one causality against the Russian bombers? Or is flak vs air power just that low? Seen problems with other WWII type scenarios where flak is almost worthless. [X(]

Something to think about.

Thanks!

BTW: Grymme, I think you still owe me $20 [:'(]

Also, what nato symbol set are you using? The colors look so 'vibrant', is it the ALL-TEMA-CHEER set. [;)] Like it more than mine.

[Grymme]

12, oct 1941

Bad weather strikes and mud cloggs up the roads in Ukraine. Also some partisans appear and start to disturb the german supply lines.

The soviet troops seem to be on a general retreat and because of the mud there is not much i can do to catch up with them. A well placed defensive unit in Dnepropretovsk delays the advance there for an entire army corps.

A new Armycorps arrives as reinforcements near Poltava. The 51st Corps with 2 infantry divisions and a security division.

Thanks all for the encouragment. The scenario is specificly made to look like a boardgame.

Albulian: I dont know about the Flak thing. But i do notice that there are very small losses for that air attack. The Flak also prevents the airforce from killing enemy forces.
The NATO set i created myself by cutting out pictures from the original boardgame and altering them a little. You can download the NATO set i used from my homepage somewhere.
Why would i owe you money? I honestly dont understand.

[Grymme]

Crimea Drenched in mud.

54th Corps is breaking out of the Perekop bottleneck to spread out along the Crimean peninsula.

Here is an rough OOB over the 54th Corps with attached allied units.

54th Corps HQ
50th Infantry Division
73rd Infantry Division
46th Infantry Division

2* Artillery Regiments
4th Werfer Regiment

1st Infantry Division (Romanian)
1st Zstvcia Cav Regiment (Slovakian)
101st Zstvcia Police Regiment (Slovakian)
102nd Zstvcia Police Regiment (Slovakian)

190th Assault Gun Battalion
610th AA Battalion

All OOB material is collected from the boardgame Case Blue made by Multimanpublishing. In fact this entire scenario is inspired by that boardgame.

[Grymme]

Also i will upload some old unit pictures i have posted somewhere before.

The SFT list is based on the old Captain Crüft Ostfront masterfile (heavily modified though).

[bwheatley]

The general retreat continues. The mud has helped us keep away from the germans but we're still taking plenty of losses i'm trying to figure out a way that i can delay the capture of sevastopol but its production is so small i probably can't.

This division gave its life to let the army escape.


This rearguard unit holds up a big chunk of the german military


The russian navy finds and destroyed the german/romanian squadron

[Grymme]

Here is a map of (almost) the entire map.

Round three is fair weather again. The victourious axis forces kill of some soviet stragglers in minor skirmishes, but generally there are few battles.

The Security Corps Süd is formed with 1 police division. More will follow.

I use one Operational point to call for a unit of Railway artillery that is sent towards Crimea.

Production is shifted slightly towards heavy infantry and trucks & wagons.

With a little luck i will have 3 more rounds of good weather before november strikes and with that bad weather.

The red line show my planned winter line. the black arrows planned lines of attack.

[bwheatley]

This turn found us looking at several greedy german spearheads that were exposed.

This one by sevastopol was eliminated


North we find 2 panzer regiments that broke through our lines but we were able to wipe those regiments out. 8 Pz Iv destroyed 8 PZ III destroyed etc.


The first battle


Second attack


And finally a art unit was left exposed and we smacked it around a bit


They are small victories but any chance i get to kill some precious german panzer iv's i must take.

[Grymme]

17th of October 1941.

A horrible turn for the axis forces. The USSR forces have struck back destroying the entire 2nd Panzer Regiment of the 14th Panzer Division (among other things).

Mud prevents movement and bad weather airsupport.

In the north units from Pz Gruppe 1 and the 6th Army reaches the outskirts of Kharkov. It seems thinly held.The River Donets is reached but unfordable.

Around Liewaja units of the CSIR, 14th & 3rd Pz Corps make contact with strong USSR forces. Unless they retreat there will be a fullblown battle in a couple of days.

Along the coast of the Gulf of Taganror advance the 49th Mtn Corps and the 30th Corps.

In Crimea my thinly stretched forces are more or less unable to advance because of a blown bridge and a lack of auxilliary forces to protect our flanks. To make matters worse our own Eisenbahnkanone battalion blows a second bridge further hindering our advancements.

All over the front the axis forces lack pioneer units to fix bridges blown by the germans.

In the rear area i am reorganizing setting up a couple of Security Regiments and Garrison units from Romanian and Italian Forces, a new I/2nd Pz Reg/14th Pz Division is organized.

Picture shows situation around Liewaja

[rjh1971]

Nice AAR.
Bty is Case Blue available for download?
Thanks.

[Grymme]

Thanks,

No its only available through donation. Some of my other scenarios are directly downloadable on my website though.

[bwheatley]

I'd recommend donating I got a whole heap of nice scens to play some of my favs were vietnam, and afghanistan (soviet invasion) those were super fun pbem.

Grymme i'm going to try to get you the turn tonight. Sorry for the delay had a busy few days.

[Grymme]

22 october 1941

While the last round was a disaster this was a really good round. Losses are negible (5 infantry)

Weather is clear, but with storms. So that ground units operate on 100 % but with no airsupport.

In the North i Capture Kharkov and reach Donets on several places but still no crossing of it.

The russians facing C.S.I.R and the 14th Pz Corps elect to stay and get severly mauled by the approaching axis forces. Two tank brigades and two infantry divisions get routed with little or no losses for my forces.

On the coast of the Sea of Azov my weak forces come up against a solid defensive line and might have to halt soon.

Production is shifted towards heavy infantry, artillery, pioneers and some tanks.

[Grymme]

In Crimea the 54th Corps captures a russian rifle division on the run north of Oktabyrskaya and after a heavy artillery bombardment it is routed.

As can be seen the bridges are still not repaired.

It is truly a tribute to this great game (AT) that it takes something like 30 minutes to play a round of a massive scenario like this.

[Grymme]

27 of october 1941

The last round of guaranteed nice weather for the axis forces. Next round will be november and all mud and winter.

In the north the 17th Pz Corps establishes a bridgehead after Bjelgorod. Losses are medium.

Parts of the 6th Army establishes a second bridgehead south of Chuguyev.

The rest of the front advances with few encounters with the soviet forces. A well placed army in the mountains around Kramatorskaya means that i will have to gather focus to destroy the soviet defence.

In Crimea nothing much happens except the destruction of another soviet infantry division.

A Battalion of pioneers arrive in Crimea and a second battalion of Railwayartillery

[Grymme]

Here is a list of the losses this round and a partial list of losses for the game so far.

Also a production list.