The Iron Dream : An Impossible AAR

[horza66]

[center]The Iron Dream[/center]

Moscow
26th June 1941

I awake from one nightmare to another. Superhuman giants bestride both my dream and waking worlds. How can this be? Our armies are broken and running, where they have not been utterly destroyed.

In the South Rovno and Lvov are in enemy hands in the first days. The fortress of Brest Litovsk fell in a matter of hours.

In the North Riga, Kaunas, Vilnius and even Minsk are gone.

[horza66]

We cannot stop them. Anything in their way is destroyed. We pull back our armies hoping to preserve them. We evacuate our tank factories first, knowing we cannot hope to hold even the Donbas.

Our final defence line will be the Urals.

We make an attempt to slow the juggernaut at Smolensk and Kiev, knowing it to be hopeless.

[horza66]

The defenders of Pskov and Velikie Luki are smashed back as if they weren't there.

[Tarhunnas]

Have you read the book "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad?

[horza66]

Our trains are full of factories evacuating East. So much so it is almost impossible to get troops forward to the front. We try to make a virtue of this disgrace. There is no force we possess at this moment that can survive in front of his panzers and infantry together, and so our reserves are best kept in the rear.

These supermen ignore their own tacticicans. Instead of a blitzkrieg, penetrating our lines and pocketing our troops, they simply hammer at our divisions frontally until they shatter. Such is their strength it costs them little, and they can shatter multiple armies on a front in a single week.

The pace of their advance is terrifying. The Smolensk defences fall before the Ryzeh-Vyazma defence line is properly begun.

[horza66]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

Have you read the book "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad?

First prize to Tarhunnas. I wasn't sure how well known it would be as it's been out of print for some time. It seemed an appropriate title for fighting some true Ubermensch.

[horza66]

Our only hope is the slow advance of their railroad teams. If they outstrip their railheads by too great a margin even supermen are vulnerable. They cannot fight without ammunition.

However this means we must accept that Leningrad, and eventually Moscow, are doomed. The fast advance of their regauging across the Baltic states gives us no time to defend our greatest cities. Everything of value must be moved.

[horza66]

We've learnt to evade direct resistance to the fascist invaders wherever we can. A defence line of two or more armies can survive contact with advanced panzers, but as soon as the enemy infantry reaches the line we lose everything.

Kiev lasted far longer than expected, and placed the defenders of the Dnepr defence line in jeopardy. We try to pull back to the Sula before we are cut off.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: horza66

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

Have you read the book "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad?

First prize to Tarhunnas. I wasn't sure how well known it would be as it's been out of print for some time. It seemed an appropriate title for fighting some true Ubermensch.

It's a cool book, and a very funny idea with Hitler as an SF writer. Spinrad is, I understand, a communist, though I can't really figure out what he wanted to say with the book, I must say it feels a bit politically incorrect. Was 20 years since I read it, I have it somewhere in the attic.

[horza66]

Some of them make it. But simply being in contact with the enemy infantry as well as panzers guarantees heavy casualties.

[randallw]

What difficulty setting is this on?

[horza66]

In the first appearance of classic blitzkrieg, our entire defence Rzhev-Vyazma line is cut off as the panzers reach the outskirts of Moscow. We desperately evacuate as much industry as we can but it is hopeless. We preserve our tank and aircraft factories, but we are steadily lose heavy industry and armament factories that will not be replaced or rebuilt.

[horza66]

ORIGINAL: randallw

What difficulty setting is this on?

The Iron Dream: An Impossible AAR

[;)]

[Klydon]

As a guess, I would say "impossible".

[Q-Ball]

Moscow on Turn 7??

On "Standard", I don't know if you can even DRIVE that far without resistance; seriously. Can you? I think it's 3 turns to Smolensk, if there is NOTHING in your way. I suppose you can drive it in 5.

On "Impossible", the AI probably get bottomless fuel tanks on the Panzers.....

[PeeDeeAitch]

Try playing the Germans on easy, my first AI campaign when I was learning was that - I seem to recall very few fuel problems...

[horza66]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Moscow on Turn 7??

On "Standard", I don't know if you can even DRIVE that far without resistance; seriously. Can you? I think it's 3 turns to Smolensk, if there is NOTHING in your way. I suppose you can drive it in 5.

On "Impossible", the AI probably get bottomless fuel tanks on the Panzers.....

Indeed, I was quite shocked. I was prepared to have to give up Moscow, let alone Leningrad, but not this early. As it is it's so early I cannot even muster a defence that won't disintegrate to no effect. As you might guess, I played ahead to make sure this game wasn't going to end abruptly early. (As my first attempt certainly did).

Edit, to clarify: The MPs on the panzers seem limitless, on the receiving end, and with every hasty attack being successful, any defence available (checkerboard, line, thin carpet) just has the entire contents repeatedly hit until shattered. Until you have the troops for a defence in depth the only strategy comes from Sir Robin. The panzers will sometimes redirect or hesitate in front of a 2+ army defence, but with infantry those 2+ armies just disappear.

[horza66]

A relatively conservative crossing of the Moscow-Volga Canal by the panzers, but the arrival of fascist infantry adjacent to Western Moscow spells doom for our defences.

We are preparing rear positions along the line Cheropevets-Volga-Oka-Don. This is our only realistic prospect for a defence that does not end in total destruction of the forces involved.

[horza66]

Western Moscow falls. Two divisions of our troops flee at the mere sight of these supermen, these ubermensch as they call themselves.

[horza66]

The defence of Moscow does not just fail, but collapses completely. Ivanovo is threatened, Ryazan has already fallen.