Matrix Games Forums

As I promised on the thread where I presented my idea to link Ready/Unready status to supplies, here you have a mini AAR where I will try to expose clearly the reasons that lead me to propose that change.

Of course, without providing you with the right context, this would be useless.

Fortunately I've been doing an AAR in parallel here:

http://www.puntadelanza.net/Foro/phpBB3 ... 41&t=11574

Let's see what is the tale.

Both my opponent - sitito - and me started this GC having little knowledge about WiTE. Sitito knew quite well how to get the Wehrmacht to work and I started to figure out a few things about Soviet art of operational warfare (as modeled by WiTE). We both made a lot of mistakes. He used too extensively Hasty Attacks to keep a very high tempo of operations and I confided too much on the abilities of Soviet forces.

We also updated the game as new patches were coming out, so perhaps a few things in the game now look a bit strange. Nonetheless - and remarkably - our game hasn't turned out to be a complete mess, but a very intringuing what-if.

Path 1.03 beta 5 was applied on turn 18 - this is very relevant with respect the ability of the Axis of recovering from First Winter. So the issues that I think ruined the game for CarnageINC aren't here anymore. Nor the surprising ability of redmarkus' RKKA to sustain very long offensives because of how easy was to keep morale gained through combat.

On Turn 16 the Wehrmacht reached its high-water mark:



Frontline

sitito had the RKKA against the ropes. He had driven a huge hole on my lines and was threatening both Moscow and my Rzhev-Vyazma position. On Turn 15 I launched a massive counterattack on Bryansk salient right flank, with staggering losses and little material result.


T15_After_Action_Bryansk

However, the fact that I had been able to muster such forces, made my opponent to ditch his operation and prepare for digging.

More or less at this time in the CarnageINC vs. Redmarkus game the Wehrmacht reached its inflection point: the point where combat and blizzard losses put it on the verge of collapse. This fact - and all the attention it got - heavily influenced my opponent. He decided to stop all major offensives and "prepare" for winter.

This fact saved the Soviet Union of being decisively defeated on October and November. Edipo would not be able to push further the heavy losses I had suffered:


T16_Losses

which had led the OOB screen to look like this:


T17_OOB by miquelramirez

The Axis had a slight advantage in infantry and artillery over the RKKA. Another little push and the famous saying of "a little push and the whole house of cards will come down" would have come true.

I also started my winter preparations. These preparations included:

• Reorganizing RKKA C&C and deployment to concentrate 2/3 of our forces on the Moscow theater.
• Establishing two strike forces on the flanks of AGC position. Each strike force would have two echelons.
• Solve the obscene fact that the Axis had more artillery than the Soviet Union [:D] In order to do this, each of the Armies which would take part into the offensive would have an SU complement of not least than 5 x RVGK ary regts, 1 x BM Howitzer Bn, 3 x Sapper Rgt, 3 x Rocket Rgts.

While sitito digged, I moved and spent a lot of AP's. And I also came up with an operational plan for the First Winter, which was based on the Reinforcement schedule


T18_Reinforcements_Schedule

and the assumption that I wouldn't be able to sustain a whole front offensive successfully. Notice that I mistakenly placed Blizzard arrival two turns later than it happens with Historical Weather in WiTE [:'(] I'm still a NOOB.

And I came with this concept for my Winter Offensive on Turn 20:



The original plan was:

ORIGINAL: Bletchley Geek
The start date for the Winter Offensive will be Turn 26, Dec 11th 1941. The initial attack will take place in two sectors, well separated. In the Moscow sector, Kalinin & Western Fronts will start offensive operations, with the goal of pinning Axis forces deployed around Bryansk. The second attack will be executed by the Southern Front, and South Western Front 26th and 12th Armies (Dnepr Bend - Sea Of Azov).

On Turn 27, Dec 18th, North Western Front will start its offensive operations with the goal of reaching Toropets. Four of the five armies in this Front - 22nd, 31st, 11th and 30th - will take part in this attack. 30th and 11th Armies will abandon their positions on the shores of Lake Ilmen and relieved by the 27th and 28th Armies of the Northern Front (which were destroyed at Leningrad and now have been rebuilt). South of Bryansk, 50th, 54th and 4th Armies under Bryansk Front, will start their offensive along the Orel - Bryansk axis.

Finally, depending on how the offensive goes along, our second echelon will enter into action. On turns 29 or 30 (early January), the Volkhov Front - 16th, 24th and 52nd Armies - on the left flank, and a Special Operation Group directly attached to the STAVKA coposed by the 1st Shock Army and the 43rd Army, on the right flank, will enter into action. The goal of this second echelon is to reach Smolensk from both north and south.

This was a bold plan: especially regarding the second phase with the echelon. It, as we will see, greatly underestimated the resilience of the defense my opponent had setup on the Bryansk sector.

But before that, let's take a look at the strike forces I was able to muster during October and November.


T25_Deployment_North


T25_Master_Map_South

And the OOB:

North Western Front

Comandante: F. Kutznetsov
Inf: 688,234 Guns: 5,900 AFV: 242 Aircraft: 1,068

22 Armiya
Comandante: L. Dovator
Inf: 126,998 Guns: 1,202 AFV: 78 Aircraft:

11 Armiya
Comandante: K. Galitsky
Inf: 81,768 Guns: 731 AFV: 38 Aircraft:

30 Armiya
Comandante: D. Pavlov
Inf: 132,155 Guns: 1,270 AFV: Aircraft:

31 Armiya
Comandante: G. Zakharov
Inf: 122,636 Guns: 1,250 AFV: 81 Aircraft:

Operational Group #1 (Moscow Defense Zone)

Comandante: TBD
Inf: TBD Guns: TBD AFV: TBD Aircraft: TBD

1 Shock
Comandante: A. Vasilevsky
Inf: 110,531 Guns: 1,143 AFV: 190 Aircraft:

43 Armiya
Comandante: P. Kurochkin
Inf: 92,690 Guns: 908 AFV: 110 Aircraft:

Kalinin Front
Comandante: I. Konev
Inf: 565,221 Guns: 4,867 AFV: 224 Aircraft: 1,796

20 Armiya
Comandante: N. Gusev
Inf: 94,981 Guns: 1,104 AFV: 5 Aircraft:

29 Armiya
Comandante: I. Maslennikov
Inf: 128,050 Guns: 1,077 AFV: Aircraft:

32 Armiya
Comandante: L. Govorov
Inf: 120,426 Guns: 1,145 AFV: 203 Aircraft:

34 Armiya
Comandante: A. Eremenko
Inf: 128,778 Guns: 1,171 AFV: 16 Aircraft:

Western Front

Comandante: S. Timoshenko
Inf: 591,789 Guns: 5,320 AFV: 198 Aircraft: 1,414

3 Armiya
Comandante: P. Belov
Inf: 126,937 Guns: 1,159 AFV: 5

10 Armiya
Comandante: A. Beloborodov
Inf: 92,299 Guns: 862 AFV:

13 Armiya
Comandante: I. Galanin
Inf: 98,136 Guns: 882 AFV: 48

37 Armiya
Comandante: V. Gordov
Inf: 110,984 Guns: 1,052 AFV: 74

40 Armiya
Comandante: E. Zhuralev
Inf: 91,893 Guns: 943 AFV: 66

Operational Group #2 (Volkhov Front)

Comandante: G. Zhukov
Inf: 487,424 Guns: 4,579 AFV: 1,010 Aircraft: 915

16 Armiya
Comandante: K. Rokossovsky
Inf: 93,037 Guns: 1,094 AFV: 391

24 Armiya
Comandante: N. Vatutin
Inf: 115,408 Guns: 1,218 AFV: 203

52 Armiya
Comandante: I. Bagramyan
Inf: 134,770 Guns: 1,320 AFV: 384

61 Armiya
Comandante: D. Lelyushenko
Inf: 79,907 Guns: 745 AFV: 32

Bryansk Front

Comandante: F. Golikov
Inf: 696,765 Guns: 6,816 AFV: 359

5 Armiya
Comandante: M. Potapov
Inf: 91,187 Guns: 1,020 AFV: 5

4 Armiya
Comandante: G. Sokolov
Inf: 106,337 Guns: 1,059 AFV:

33 Armiya
Comandante: D. Onuprienko
Inf: 103,636 Guns: 1,044 AFV: 148

54 Armiya
Comandante: G. Kulik
Inf: 100,750 Guns: 1,031 AFV: 56

50 Armiya
Comandante: T. Shevaldin
Inf: 99,768 Guns: 1,063 AFV: 145

Southwestern Front

Comandante: M. Kirponos
Inf: 699,081 Guns: 6,189 AFV: 583

57 Armiya
Comandante: R. Malinovsky
Inf: 108,526 Guns: 1,003 AFV: 74

26 Armiya
Comandante: V. Popov
Inf: 120,035 Guns: 1,142 AFV: 75

Southern Front
Comandante: Y. Cherevichenko
Inf: 486,481 Guns: 4,193 AFV: 389 Aircraft: 705

19 Armiya
Comandante: V. Sokolovsky
Inf: 83,291 Guns: 736 AFV:

9 Armiya
Comandante: P. Rybalko
Inf: 75,197 Guns: 807 AFV: 159

Coastal Armiya
Comandante: A. Gorbatov
Inf: 99,473 Guns: 949 AFV: 57

38 Armiya
Comandante: V. Tsvetaev
Inf: 67,080 Guns: 638 AFV: 135

56 Armiya
Comandante: A. Grechko
Inf: 66,710 Guns: 692 AFV: 38

On turn 24 the stage was set for my dear tormentor to "get some":


T24_OOB

Over the course of the offensive, a lot of things have happened to my original plan (as expected).

First, I had to commit the second echelon much faster than I expected: Bryansk Front forces have performed well under my expectations and the "elite" 24th and 52nd Armies had to enter into action on Turn 28. On the other hand, the left flank of my Moscow counteroffensive has been surprisingly successful. I had to organize in a couple turns the 2nd Shock Army to team up with 1st Shock Army. 2nd Shock Army is an army consisting of Guards Rifle Divisions, Tank Brigades and Cavalry Corps.

My Dnepr Bend operations have also turned out to be a mixed up affair. South Western Front armies found north of Dnepropetrovsk both Gebirgsjäger divisions,



and only after suffering staggering losses we have managed to flank them. On the other hand, the weakest of my fronts, the Southern Front, has basically swept the floor



with the mix of Rumanians and Germans defending the Crimean isthmus. These - also unexpected - successes have led me to take there the just formed 3rd and 4th Shock Armies.

Let's take a look at what has been achieved and at what cost by now, Turn 29, January 1st, 1942:



and the cost:



We can compare the losses at the start of the offensive with losses on the current turn:



that is, the Axis has suffered the following losses in the last four turns:

Men KIA aprox. 55,000
Men POW aprox. 36,000
Men WIA aprox. 592,000
AFV 916
Guns aprox. 7,700

while the RKKA has lost:

Men KIA aprox. 356,000
Men POW aprox. 4,000
Men WIA aprox. 137,000
AFV 725
Guns aprox. 4,000

We can work a little more with these numbers. Let's list the losses at the start and end of each turn (turn 23 included for reference):



which can be broken down into losses happening on the Soviet Turn and the Axis Turn:



This table shows us the distribution of losses on each turn. I have observed that on average for each KIA one gets 5 WIA. This overestimating approximation allows me to get the numbers for the German soldiers put out of action by the Blizzard alone:



Blizzard doesn't kill anyone - or so I assume - so it's fair to say that weather is nearly as deadly as Soviet bullets.

Combat losses aren't independent from blizzard either: highly fatigued ground elements make easy targets, hence incurring in more losses both in the defence and the attack.

sitito has followed a very similar strategy as the one implemented by CarnageINC and Q-Ball. Dig deep and hold the line no matter what. I wonder how many of those Blizzard WIAs would be still with their units if he had used towns and cities to mitigate blizzard effects (he didn't at all, he was fearing me to roll over his defense lines, so he put the whole German Heer out in the snow).

Regarding to the RKKA, you can see what losses I'm getting. They're perhaps a bit lower than usual (I'm not sure, redmarkus4, what do you think?) but that's in part because I have been struggling to pull out the most 2:1 or higher assaults I could. Why? Because I didn't want to throw away thousands and thousands of soldiers with 1:1 attacks. Yes, I might get the germans to retreat. But at what cost? I wanted at all costs to keep control on my losses while maximizing my opponent's.

On the other hand, I have also found out about one major limiting factor of Soviet offensives. Space. What's the point of having a amassed a huge RKKA if you can't get it next to the enemy? Not much, to be honest. First, there is the 3-unit-per-stack rule: that matters much more than might be apparent at first sight. Second, and interacting perversely with the former, the awful mobility of Soviet forces. Soviet units move from three to six hexes - on average - on friendly territory. The two things together make very very difficult to get your second echelon into action. I must admit I haven't used offensive reserve mode extensively nor systematically, perhaps I should.

Anyways, the paragraph above is not relevant for my point and goal. To show you - at the inflection point of the offensive - what's the state of the RKKA and what state should it have.

Before going on to the RKKA, one more thing about the Wehrmacht.

I've sent part of this AAR - the one concerning to the losses analysis - to sitito, my opponent, who has been blazingly fast answering to me over the e-mail:

ORIGINAL: sitito
One question. Would it be correct to consider the final amount of my losses as just 91,000 (KIA+POW) since the other 600,000 will be eventually going back to the front? Or it is an overly optimistic way of looking at things?

I answered the following:

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Regarding the disabled issue, that works, if I can recall it correctly that each turn you get back as replacements 1% of the guys you have listed as disabled. So if you have 600,000 on your disabled list, you'll get back next turn 6,000. The question is indeed how to understand this. I think it's a bit like mortgage interests work

I'm unsure about considering them as "coming back for sure" is the best way. Maybe it'll better to consider the disabled list as a sort of "parallel" manpower pool, separate from the manpower you get from your population centers. If we start with the disabled you have this turn, and assuming 1) that blizzard effects will be causing much less losses as winter goes and 2) I don't attack you anymore, we would get a table like this one



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The column "Replacement" would be added to the number you get from the pop centers.

I don't really like this system. I think WIAs due to First Winter Rule should be handled separatedly from those due to combat. It's not really the same thing to get your legs blown off by a 152mm grenade as losing your left hand little finger because of frostbite. However, what will actually matter at the end of the day is whether the sum of manpower and WIAs coming back to duty adds up to whatever it's supposed to add up to.

I may be sure to avoid playing you, considering how organized you are with planning.

ORIGINAL: randallw
I may be sure to avoid playing you, considering how organized you are with planning.

It's fun, or at least that says sitito

Here I come with the data I promised.

Let's see what does look like the logistic situation of one of the armies which has been attacking during the last four turns, North Western Front 22nd Army:



This Army has been able to penetrate up to 4 hexes into German lines, having a fair deal of victories and defeats (2 out of every 3 attacks successful). My feeling was that this Army should be quite mashed up by now. What's the Army sub-units status?



For me, the most important parameter to assess the status of my units if to see if they're either Ready or Unready. On the table above, column Readiness shows the state of the unit according to current WiTE rules:

ORIGINAL: WiTE rules
If MOR + TOE >= 100 Then unit is Ready

where MOR is Morale and TOE is the TOE level.

There's just three Unready units.

If we changed the Ready/Unready definition to the following:

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek suggestion #1
If ( MOR + TOE ) * ( SUP / 100 ) >= 100 Then unit is Ready

we get the results we see on the column "Readiness(1)". The picture of this army changes quite a bit: we would have, instead of most of our army on Ready status, just the opposite, most of it in Unready status.

A more nuanced variation on the suggestion above would be:

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek suggestion #2
If ( MOR + TOE ) * ( ((SUP+FUE)/2) / 100 ) >= 100 Then unit is Ready

where FUE stands for Fuel level, which takes into account Fuel into the equation. The results are shown on the column "Readiness(2)". The effect is moderate now: rathern than 11 ready units we would have just 8.

A natural question would be to ask ourselves if the situation above is common all along RKKA line. Let's take a look at the 32nd Army, attached to the neighboring Kalinin Front. This Army has made a supreme effort to open up the rail line Rzhev - Smolensk, advancing up to 4 hexes:





Both the 22A and the 32A have advancing along a rail line. That's not random at all [;)] So, what is the state of Armies which have not been advancing along a easily repaired rail line? ("Easily repaired" = Front has 3 RR Bdes attached). Let's take a look at Southern Front's 19th Army, which routed the rumanians last turn



19th Army units are about 3 to 4 hexes from the railhead - see the spawned NKPS unit position. Let's look at its health:



Not bad at all. But note how important would be the impact of a change on the definition of Readiness in this situation. We can now move and launch hasty attacks on those 1=1 puny Axis units, throwing into disarray what looks like an orderly fighting withdrawal. However, with any of the two changes above, 19th Army frontoviki would have to conform with chasing them... no shooting this week lads

I hope people finds this mini-AAR informative and to shed some light on Axis concerns exposed on the forums during the last weeks. I'd love to hear the opinion of other Soviet players to see if they're seeing the same thing on their games and how do they feel about it.

Devoted Soviet players are also concerned about First Winter!!

Excellent ARR analysis. Thank you.

I am of the opinion now that linear tactics for the German during 1st blizzard is a big mistake. The first winter is about protecting the German army. Being in contact with the Soviets is not the way to save them.

ORIGINAL: GFelz
Excellent ARR analysis. Thank you.

I am of the opinion now that linear tactics for the German during 1st blizzard is a big mistake. The first winter is about protecting the German army. Being in contact with the Soviets is not the way to save them.

You welcome [:)]

About strategy, I don't think there's a simple answer to that. Every game is different: the game I have shown you departs in quite in a few ways from the norm. Q-Ball had a stronger position than sitito: I'm pretty sure VonBeanie hasn't a RKKA as big and powerful as the one I have on this game. And Carnage had a more or less equivalent position (he had invested the approaches to Leningrad and conquered the Donbass, just the opposite sitito achieved): which means some less manpower for redmarkus.

I haven't gone over the numbers but I think that the Donbass (Stalino, Rostov, perhaps Voroshilovgrad) and the Kharkov area is far more strategically important for the Soviets than Leningrad (regarding resources, manpower and industrial infrastructure). Finns are a big boost but they're not a force with much depth: consider that Finland had only 3.5M population on 1941. Using them on an intensive offensive will destroy their long-term fighting ability.

During the short snow period after mud season, Q-Ball got it completely right. Execute a ruthless pre-emptive strike on Soviet concentrations.

After that, what nobody has figured out how to do in practice yet - although there are quite a few ideas - is to take advantage of the blizzard preserving properties of towns and cities to help you - as you very well put - to keep the German Heer on good health. Intensive front line units rotation, intelligent use of rail transport, checkerboarding in selected sectors and spoiling counterattacks - the specialty of Germans - are the necessary ingredients for a - relatively speaking - successful Axis First Winter.

Great info but how would your formulas effect the axis?  concern would be a panzer div that is low on gas and supply.  Would they become unready therefor easier to rout?

One thing to note about the fuel and infantry units that is pretty apparent (at least for Axis units) is that infantry don't use much but have a decent bit of it hanging around in dumps. Makes me think it might be artificially boosting readiness using a factor that doesn't matter much to readiness in reality.

Fuel for armor...absolutely.

Thank you for doing this, very interesting!

The principals you mentioned, particularly using cities and railroads effectively, are much easier in theory than in practice. The reality is that unless you simply surrender ground, the vast bulk of the Wehrmacht has to tough it out in the open.

Depending on your end-line, you probably have at most 10 cities within a reasonable distance of the front. In this example, he has the following:

-D-Town, Z-Town, Potava, Sumy, Bryansk, Smolensk, V-L, Novgorod. Those are the only ones close-enough to the front to rotate without easy rail access. That's probably only enough to hold some local Mobile Reserves.
-RAILROADS are critical, it's nearly impossible to have much of a railnet along the front, if you made decent progress in the Summer. In my case, I only had spurs to the front, and Beltway along the Dnepr; most areas of the front were 1-2 turns of walking from a rail line.

It's tough to rotate when you don't have cities nearby that have room, and when it takes so long to get to a rail line.

Not many towns are much help, particularly up north. Size 1 and 2 towns predominate.

ORIGINAL: Zort
Great info but how would your formulas effect the axis?  concern would be a panzer div that is low on gas and supply.  Would they become unready therefor easier to rout?

The effect on the Axis - in my opinion, which is not that much worth when it refers to the Axis, so take this with a grain of salt - would mainly be that in order to keep spearheads marching east one would have to either stop and stockpile supply or keep them going on using intensively air resupply and HQ building up.

Routing depends on TOE, morale and experience, not on the units being labelled as "Unready" or "Ready".

ORIGINAL: Mynok
One thing to note about the fuel and infantry units that is pretty apparent (at least for Axis units) is that infantry don't use much but have a decent bit of it hanging around in dumps. Makes me think it might be artificially boosting readiness using a factor that doesn't matter much to readiness in reality.

Fuel for armor...absolutely.

Yes, I agree with you - I just wanted to take a look at the picture taking the model to different points. Indeed, having fuel factored into the readiness equation for motorized units only makes more sense than having it for both motor and leg units.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Thank you for doing this, very interesting!

The principals you mentioned, particularly using cities and railroads effectively, are much easier in theory than in practice. The reality is that unless you simply surrender ground, the vast bulk of the Wehrmacht has to tough it out in the open.

Depending on your end-line, you probably have at most 10 cities within a reasonable distance of the front. In this example, he has the following:

-D-Town, Z-Town, Potava, Sumy, Bryansk, Smolensk, V-L, Novgorod. Those are the only ones close-enough to the front to rotate without easy rail access. That's probably only enough to hold some local Mobile Reserves.
-RAILROADS are critical, it's nearly impossible to have much of a railnet along the front, if you made decent progress in the Summer. In my case, I only had spurs to the front, and Beltway along the Dnepr; most areas of the front were 1-2 turns of walking from a rail line.

It's tough to rotate when you don't have cities nearby that have room, and when it takes so long to get to a rail line.

Not many towns are much help, particularly up north. Size 1 and 2 towns predominate.

You welcome Q-Ball.

Yes you're right: the Spanish Axis think tank is struggling hard on the issues you mention. There are areas where population is very scarce - what we ignorant Westerners would call "steppe". The chances of the Axis holding there well are very low, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. On the other hand there's the point made by GFelz: you should care more for the Army than the land. Having the Axis army in good health is a guarantee for recovering ground and inflicting heavy losses on the Soviets as soon as weather conditions improve.