Helio's Axis AAR (v Cannonfodder Soviet)

[heliodorus04]

If you go by the name Cannonfodder, you should not be reading this.
I’m paranoid about putting up an AAR, because my first GC’41 opponent was reading my AAR back when I was a rank newbie (he told me after he resigned), and our acquaintanceship got strained thereafter, and it was not a good experience. This is why I won’t play PBEM games – some people will cheat just because they can.

Cannonfodder (probably abbreviated CF hereafter) and I played a GC’41 to about Turn 13 when I resigned (as Axis). We had suffered the air war bug where Soviet planes were using German leadership values in air combat, and my Leningrad air campaign felt as though we were flying in formation into the sides of mountains.

My attitude toward the game right now is that it’s very stressful to play the Axis – you have to do X number of casualties and Y number of armament factories, and perhaps Z number of manpower points removed from the Soviet. I’m not sure what those variables are, but regarding armaments, you only have 17 turns, and then that aspect of the game is untouchable, for all practical purposes.

I’ve determined that I’m really not good yet as an Axis player (I’m not sure I’m good as Soviet either, under 1.05). Last game against CF, I did well on encirclements for the first few turns (because it was his first GC, and he didn’t have the nuance of defensive positioning down yet) but I blew it in a few ways that I’m not going to get into here. I don’t cover terrain as quickly as I should, despite generally understanding mechanics pretty well.

This game, I’m going to try to be faster, but I’m setting goals as follows, for 1941:
1) Leningrad
2) 3.5 Million casualties

I’m not going to prioritize armament factories for 2 reasons: First, it’s relatively easy for the Soviet to move armaments, simply because Soviet players have done the math: Other factories can afford to be lost. This is insanely bad for the game, regardless of how historically realistic it may be. Certain aspects of hindsight create too much leverage for the gameplay to mediate. Lvov pocket is one example, and the factory movement routine is another. I’m not really smart enough to know how to balance those, and I’m not going to dwell on them too much.

My feeling is if I get caught up into the armaments target goals, I’ll be very unhappy with my performance (because I’m not that quick) and because I’ll end up ceding my goals to the designs of the Soviet evacuation. I also feel strongly that the factory raiding is very bad for the flavor of the game, so let this be a test case of not worrying about it and seeing how my outcome differs from others’.

I started Turn 1 fairly standard. Riga, toehold across the Daugava. I wonder if the port west of Riga can be re-taken, but I doubt it.

In the center, my sole goal was to ensure all of my Turn 1 encirclements hold, and I think I’ve accomplished that.
In the South, I studied very very carefully Bwheatley’s incredible “Expanded Lvov Pocket” but I decided that I could not accomplish it. However, I saw the benefit of adding more mobile elements in the south, and I brought down the customary corps from Panzer Group 2, pluse an additional motorized division. I might have actually screwed up the Lvov pocket in the very far south, but I’m not sure. Certainly the center will hold, and so if he manages to get that opened, I can still close it on Turn 2.

Not much to talk about on Turn 1, really. So here’s a whole-front screen shot, and I’ll address things more directly starting on Turn 2, once CF has had his chance to upend my plans. I’ve just opened Turn 2, and so while I get ready to do stuff with it, here’s how the end of Turn 1 looked.

Thanks for reading.
Helio (aka Dane)

[heliodorus04]

So Turn 2 has arrived. I’m debating whether I want to throw screen shots up, but leaning against it. None of my pockets were opened by CF, so that’s good news. I come from the school of German reconnaissance that you simply fly tons of missions. The way I see it is like this: The first 17 turns are a separate game for Germany, and you need all the information you can get. You’re gifted with more recon planes than you can use, so there’s no reason NOT to get all the information you can. So I assessed the front, and nothing looked particularly unusual to me.

I think I’ll show screen shots of the end of the turn unless something occurs to me.

“I rode a tank in the General’s Rank, when the blitzkrieg raged, and the fighting stank” - The adventures of 46 Panzer Corps.

Look, I’ve played the Axis opening a dozen times basically the same way with the Lvov pocket. It’s the cornerstone of the surprise attack, and it’s the most important move in the game. I’m not a “fan” of this opening per se – I don’t think mechanical, unthinking moves are good for the game, but it is what it is. The Axis has to fix Lvov’s forces so it can advance into the Ukraine without paying ridiculous costs for every hex.

This game, I’ve done it differently in a minor sense. I brought an extra motorized division from 2 Panzer Group. In addition, I stacked 46 Panzer with 2 or 3 divisions, and I hammered the tank divisions in my way on Turn 1. That was a good idea (stacked hasty attacks are, I am told, an under-appreciated art that I intend to use in my game for the first time).

This turn, I decided that I was going to stick with my goals of Leningrad and casualties, and I decided that 46 Panzer is eventually headed back north to the Land Bridge (probably starting on Turn 3). I use AP poorly, I know, so I’m not going to roll 46 Panzer into AGS. The way I see it, I robbed AGC of many mobile elements (more on that later when we review AGN and 3 Panzer Group), and I’ve seen a lot of players struggle across the upper Dnepr because of that. Moving 46 Panzer back north will save APs, and it will enable the divisions to do a little more recovery from damage as they make that move back around the Pripyet (on refit, presumably).

So with this decision, I decided that Turn 2, 46 Panzer corps would do the lion’s share of clearing the northeastern edge of the Lvov pocket (where, coincidentally, the strongest units, including mechanized corps, are located). I cannot say whether long-term this will be a good idea or a bad idea. In the short term, it appears to have been a very good idea.

Let’s look at the screenshots:




46 Panzer Corps ran roughshod over the Seret river. Between turn 1 and end of turn 2, Commander von Vietinghoff proved himself a bada$$ (again, using stacks of 1 panzer and 1 motorized division, although sometimes I substituted in the Grossdeutschland Motorized Regiment (look at that morale!). This spared 6 Army and 17 Army from hard fighting.
\
As a result, and this will be less easy to see, I have elements of 17 Army 3 hexes from the Romanian border. Again, long term, we’ll see what this gets me, but the infantry just flew this turn like I’ve never seen it move before. This cannot help but be good for the short term. The trick will be taking efficiency improvements (in movement of infantry) and capitalizing it, or at least not losing those gains foolishly.

[heliodorus04]

I’ll start with my Army Group South end-of-turn situation, so you can see what my infantry gained in movement distance:



You can see at the “Romanian Bend” I have a division from 17 Army. That’s very exciting to me (maybe it should not be, I don’t know). And 6 Army is positioned tightly near Proskurov to drive itself into the wedge next turn.
This position isn’t going to win me the war, but I’m pleased with it.

So many times I’ve gotten 6 Army bogged down trying to fight isolated T-34-equipped divisions with infantry, and having a really narrow supply corridor that is constricted for movement and attack west of Proskurov. I failed to break out through the last tank divisions northwest of Vinnitsa – we were out of MPs and couldn’t do a 3-division stack. The 2-division hasty failed. But I take some comfort in seeing how little is east of there – I think that was really the last stop for the turn. That means the best case scenario for Cannonfodder is panicking about how he’ll fill the gap next turn. Of course a lot of units come unfrozen, and next turn will be a new deal, BUT, next turn both 3 Panzer and 48 Panzer corps will be eligible for HQ buildup (I think; certainly one of them is).

Next, I’ll jump to Army Group North because that was interesting (AGC was dull), and since my emphasis on AGN and AGS in terms of mobile forces, AGC just didn’t have the ability to accomplish much.

[Q-Ball]

Good Turn 1 opening; actually it looks like everyone now is pretty much doing the same thing, but you hit all the highlights. Looks like you received some good routs too, with a bunch of units routing into the Pripet marshes, where they may get stranded later.

Shifting 46 Panzer Corps back up top has merit, but I wouldn't have used them for pocket clearing. I try and NEVER use Panzers for pocket clearing. The Lvov pocket can wait, those guys aren't going anywhere. I tend to hold them with successive waves of Germans marching east, as 17th Army goes around them, and eventually leave the fighting to Slovaks and Hungarians, once they are active. And the Romanian Mountain Corps.

[heliodorus04]

Upon recon, I noted all the airfields in Estonia (or is it Latvia, who the hell knows?). I know this to be true of CF: he’s very good at the air war. Even before the 1.05.28 bug (or whichever version of .05 it was), he was chewing up my air force with reasonable competence, and his interdictions were effectively harassing me and costing me hexes. CF plays War in the Pacific, and having played 2 people that played WitP prior to WitE, I have come to appreciate that they are extremely effective administrators. I guess sailing all that toilet paper to Peleliu prepares you well for the air war in WitE. Be careful to pay attention to how WitP players organize, and emulate it.

So knowing I was in for a grim air war, my recon showed all those airfields in the north, and a gap large enough that elements of 4 Panzer Group could get in there and destroy frames and steal gasoline. Which we did. In the pull-out (or my attempt at one in PaInt), you’ll see where my airfield attacks were, from a screenshot taken after 1 Panzer Division ran them over.

[heliodorus04]

Before I get to the rest of my AGN decisions, my tactics in the air war deserve some consideration:

Step 1 for me was to turn ground support OFF for the entire turn. Never flew ground attack missions. On turn 1, I flew every possible sortie I could until NOTHING in the Luftwaffe or Romanian Air Force could bomb Soviet bases. So I started turn 2 tired.

Step 2 was to transfer aircraft off of one airbase (selected because it had the fewest number of air groups stationed at the base). It didn’t matter where I transferred them to, I just wanted an empty airbase.

Step 3 was to move the empty airbase forward so that I could support airfield attacks with fighters from this base. The furthest north airbase was the one I moved (then later, at end of turn after all missions are done, I moved other bases forward).

Step 4 was to move 7 air groups of fighters to this new base (7 was an arbitrary number – I wanted about 250 aircraft there for support purposes).
Step 5, we flew bomber missions using the smallest Level Bombers available (schwarms) and settings of 100% for airbase attack and 150% for escort. The fighter sweeps/cap destroyed 20 to 30% of Soviet interceptors in each raid. The bombing did very little, as expected, and a number of Bf-109s were shot down by flak, but it wasn’t horrible in ratios.

As I conducted missions, the red Air Force at first intercepted with about 100% of my fighter numbers. Then after four or five missions, Soviet interceptor percentage dropped by about half, and I figured we’d hit the fatigue/miles/damage sweet spot. At that point I expanded the bombers flying bombing missions. Instead of small Schwarm-sized groups, I was sending “all available”. That actually didn’t do much airframe damage in the bombing segments, but the damage I did to support squads was quite tasty. Manpower lost ran from 120 to 300 for larger missions.

Then, after damaging as much as I could, I drove in 1 Panzer Division. I’m not going to show statistics just yet but my aircraft performance figures were as follows:

Soviet losses: 628 aircraft (80% fighters, roughly)
Axis losses: 84 aircraft

For a ratio of 7.4-to-1, which I’ll take any single turn that I can…
Regarding the rest of AGN, I stuck to my plan. My plan is Leningrad, and so I brought north, to the extreme end of it’s range to 3 Panzer Group HQ (without going over) 39 Panzer Corps. I started this game knowing AGC was going to struggle out of the gate, for the benefit of AGS and AGN. I find that on Turn 2 especially, 4 Panzer Group is easily blunted and/or cut off by the units around Pskov. 39 Panzer will hold the right flank so that the Velikaya can be crossed. I’ll have 1 panzer division surrounded, more than likely, but a stack of air-refueled panzers will make a mess of the eastern banks of the Velikaya next turn. I’m not sure when 39 Panzer will return south, but it’s not going to be Turn 3. Ideally, as 46 Panzer arrives back around Gomel, 39 Panzer will be liberating Vellikie Luki?

On to Army Group Center and the slow crawl.

[heliodorus04]

Not much to look at in AGC. I’m not going to ask the hollowed out husk of 2 & 3 Panzer Groups to act as though they are full strength (we’ll save that for 1944 when our delusions of victory are at their peak!).

Instead, the goal is to move infantry forward as fast as possible, and I think the locations where you see infantry from 4 and 9 Armies, plus the infantry of the panzer groups, is quite heartening. I’m about 3-to-5 hexes east with my infantry of what I consider customary (for me).

I focused 1 corps from 9 Army and 1 Corps from 4 Army to clear out the Western Minsk pocket(s), I’m staying the HELL OUT of the Pripyet (but blocking him into it). Last game, I got caught up in the stupidity of trying to race Turn 1’s Soviet Rejects across the Pripyet, and it cost me a ton of efficiency. This game, I’ll perhaps send the cav division into the Pripyet to cut off rail, but maybe not. I feel it’s better to block the Pripyet, keep the Soviet from messing with you (using low-morale divisions broken into regiments and attached to AGC/OKH). The plan is to close the Pripyet on the eastern side before I go IN to the Pripyet. If he wants to rail stuff out, fine.

So along with that goal of trying to close off the Pripyet efficiently, I kept 2 Panzer Group moving due east along the main rail line. We crossed the Berezina (again, using a stack of 3 divisions to hasty attack across the narrow part of the river) and we burned a good pathway of converted hexes such that hopefully we can get infantry to fight on the Dnepr by Turn 4.

Right now, I’m not concerning myself with the Land Bridge. I’m going to concentrate force and if I CAN (big if) I will try to force a breach of the Dnepr away from the land bridge. More on that in future turns, right now it’s just theory-craft.

[heliodorus04]

One other thing of note: As I mentioned before, CF is very good at organizing his air force.  His use of interdiction in our last game (the one I resigned after the air war bug, and man am I glad that I did resign it then) was a shock to me.

So I’ve had to get better, and you get better by measuring stuff. This turn, I tracked all Soviet interdiction, and broke it down into interdiction of airbase counters (i.e., airfield units) and interdiction on anything that was not an airbase.  Here is how it breaks down:

On Turn 2 there were 12 Soviet interdictions of non-airbase Axis forces (all but 1 German).  Of these interdictions, 8 caused no damage to ground elements (cumulative loss of 15 men from all 12 interdictions).  3 hexes of possible movement were lost by the attacked units (acceptable).  Axis lost aircraft in only 1 of these interdictions (1 total) while Soviet lost aircraft in only 4 of these interdictions (total lost aircraft of 7).

Interesting to compare the airfield interdiction issues: There were only 6 interdictions of airbase units (high, considering how many more non-airbase units I move compared to airbase moves).  In these, ground elements were only damaged once (31 dead).  Axis air losses occurred only once (1 aircraft), however Soviet aircraft losses occurred in EACH airbase interdiction (total Soviet aircraft lost were 15).  No hexes were lost to airbase interdiction (because we weren’t moving full anyway).

Preliminary data shows that the Axis should empty out a couple of air bases and should move them around to bait Soviet aircraft to interdict… I shared these interdiction data with CF.

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Good Turn 1 opening; actually it looks like everyone now is pretty much doing the same thing, but you hit all the highlights. Looks like you received some good routs too, with a bunch of units routing into the Pripet marshes, where they may get stranded later.

Shifting 46 Panzer Corps back up top has merit, but I wouldn't have used them for pocket clearing. I try and NEVER use Panzers for pocket clearing. The Lvov pocket can wait, those guys aren't going anywhere. I tend to hold them with successive waves of Germans marching east, as 17th Army goes around them, and eventually leave the fighting to Slovaks and Hungarians, once they are active. And the Romanian Mountain Corps.

I think for a good player, you're probably right that avoiding the use of the panzers is a more optimal use of tools. I'm slowly coming to appreciate that I'm not that good!

I'm experimenting with an outlook at the tradeoffs. I've never seen anyone do it the way I've done (I'm not saying I have a bright idea here, just a different one than I've seen). I got to thinking how many times I would have to do a hasty attack by at least 1 division, sometimes 2 divisions when trying to hit the T-34 tank divisions. For every 2 hasty attacks I do with motorized units, I'm doing 3 with infantry. While my memory is certainly biased by the recency effect, I would argue that over the course of 4 or 5 turns, I fail at about 20% of my hasty attacks in there.

My assessment of my own shortfalls as a player in terms of speed lead me to believe that I could gain something more if I used 46 Panzer Corps as I have this turn. It's ground down the tank strength of 1 panzer division, but it freed 4 entire corps from the sticking spot that I normally end up with them in. For me, on the basis of 1 turn's movement, it looks highly worth it given my weaknesses as a player.

[Ketza]

Very strong opening. I will be reading this one daily.

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Ketza

Very strong opening. I will be reading this one daily.

That's encouraging to hear; CF said he thought I was better with this Turn 1 than last game, and I agree. But turn 1 and turn 2 are so much simpler because Germany is in complete control. Once you have Lvov and Minsk down such that those units are lost, then you start working on Turn 2 efficiency. This game is absolutely the high water mark of my turn 2 efficiency.

But last game, I'd have to look at the turn, but I recall having 1.8 million casualties early, and then I struggled to get to 2.1 for ages. I had committed like 9 divisions in and around the edges of the Pripyet.

One thing I'm going to try to emphasize in setting my goals is that only 2 of 3 Army Groups can get enough resources (motorized elements and engineers primarily, and aircraft assets). I've noted a pattern in my play that emerging opportunities blur my long-term vision and I try to do too much, achieving less of everything.

1) Leningrad
2) Dead Russians

So starting on Turn 1 I unlocked all my corps HQs to filter SUs up toward OKH. By now, I know what corps are going to need the pioneers for Leningrad, and since those need to be INSIDE divisions rather than in HQs, I can start dropping them in (spending APs) any time between now and the edge of town (I picture it as a forgotten episode of The Walking Dead).

As Heavy artillery gets to OKH, it goes into 18 and 16 Armies, plus some will have to go into 11th Army (ODESSA DIES!). But I can do that for free due to the gamey Magic-OKH-Candy-Train!






1 Panzer division lost half a turn to bag some aircraft. Good trade? On turn 2, yes, under these conditions. My big concern is what Turn 3 will look like around Zhitomir without those 46 panzer corps elements.

I also moved my FBDs on Turn 2 such that both of Army Group South's FBDs will be building from about hex 60, 95 (northern Romania). Pelton suggested this to me earlier, only he suggested doing it on Turn 1. I, being an unthinking creature of habit far too often, forgot and did the usual on Turn 1.

/edit
I forgot to mention:
Albert Kesselring died somewhere between the end of Turn 1 and the start of Turn 2. How the war will be different without him. No idea how he died.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

Preliminary data shows that the Axis should empty out a couple of air bases and should move them around to bait Soviet aircraft to interdict… I shared these interdiction data with CF.

That makes sense. Interdiction chances are dominated by DL, and enemy airbases tend to be easily detected. Army airbases should be "ideal" for this role.

[Peltonx]

Opening was good.

Turn 2

AGN: I personally would have sent everything towards Pskov with one mech unit flipping hexes along northern flank. Reds can not go more then 2 or 3 deep early on.
You should be planning this turn what hex you need to be in with one of your PZ corps to HQ up on turn 4.
I beleive just gueesing you know how bad I am with HQ build-ups, heheh I beleive you can HQ up 1 corps 2 hexes west of Pskov. I do the first turn towards north with 2 rail units on one line then split off. If hes just retreating towards Leningrad and evacing production, on turn 5 you should easlyy be able to cut off Leningrads rail, if not turn 5 then turn 6 for sure. Does not look like hes putting up a fight. Generally now most reds are evacing production an handing Leningrad to Germans, so if you can cut it on turn 5 or 6 you can move all the armor towards Moscow by turn 7 or 8 and Infantry can finish job. Best plase to bag units nowadays is in center.

AGC: I generally do same as you are doing, but spread advance more, remember reds can only flip a few hexes. So use one mech unit to flip hexes to north and south and the infantry can move forward quickly. They cant cut off a spearhead 15 hexes wide with infantry following behind.

AGS: what Q-ball said. I would be looking to HQ up one PZ corps turn 3, but thats just me.

Nice job over all and I guess you pocketed 1,000,000 men

Pelton

[heliodorus04]

Turn 3 has arrived, and I’m relatively happy with the start of turn outlook. I’m going to show pre-movement, post-recon photos. This is going to be a difficult turn to optimize my movement in AGN and AGC. In the South, I’m really happy with the fuel amounts that I have right now.

I’m posting my screenshots per post; for a readability standpoint, I might post some screenshots with little text, and talk about them in a second post (so no one has to scroll side to side).

Starting with Leningrad, here’s my evidence that I fly a lot of recon…

[heliodorus04]

Here’s the same picture, more or less, without the recon locations.

[heliodorus04]

I would argue that I think he might be abandoning Leningrad early, knowing that I know how to take it. As we look over the AGC defense, it’s arguable that he’s prioritizing the Dnepr positions much more strongly than last game. Last game he took a serious stab at defending Leningrad, and I proved the point with preparation in the form of SUs; I never lost a battle for a level 3 fort except at the Neva.

But why does he have half the Soviet air bases up there? Look at all those air bases! And they’re not empty (a few are, but not most).

My general plan here is to consolidate and position for an HQ buildup next turn (or two!) up here. 41 Panzer corps is going to move east toward Pskov. I feel it is foolish to try to go around the north of lake Peipus – the swamps between the Narva and Luga are traps for the Wehrmacht. I also believe that even if you put 2 panzer corps there to sweep those rivers, you end up fighting across more hexes than if you come from the south.

My rail network is across the river from Riga, and the other is at 61, 42 (4 hexes from the corner of the Daugava), so next turn, I need to determine how to position panzers for an HQ buildup turn. As I ponder that positioning, I’m always trying to think about what the divisions will do ON the turn that their HQ builds up: you’re free to attack as long as you finish the turn within 5 of the HQ… I’m not sure any Soviets will be within 5 hexes at the start of Turn 4, so should I bother to do HQ buildup? I’ll ponder it.

[heliodorus04]

On to Minsk, and what looks to be quite a developing quagmire!

[heliodorus04]

So you can see the land bridge defenses going up. I’m in no position to thwart any of his defensive plans. In fact my panzers can barely reach the defenses in front of them this turn. The plan right now is for 2 Panzer Group elements to move toward Mogilev, while 57 panzer moves more north than northeast. I haven’t converted much territory in the gap between 57 Panzer and 39 Panzer (the PzGp 3 corps working further north). I just want to convert that for infantry purposes.

My plan for crossing the Dnepr is loose right now, but my focus for now is on Mogilev and the hex 2 north of the city. I want to cross there and use the corner of the Dnepr to hold Soviets north while I maneuver east in a very focused mass. But 4.Army isn’t going to be there until Turn 5, it looks like.
I am not expecting any combats in AGC except those targeting isolated units.

[heliodorus04]

Army Group South

[heliodorus04]

Here we have a nearly ideal situation. Hell it might even BE ideal. Great movement factors all around, and all 3 panzer corps are eligible for HQ buildup. Now, not all of them can make use of it, nor should they. I need to figure out where my supply lines will need to be for Turn 4 buildups.

What I would like to do is drive east towards Kiev. I like this wedge I have, and I don’t feel the need to expand it north-south. I feel the need to keep it as wide as it is so that 6.Army can move into it and I can apply hard-core pressure to Kiev. But if I drive eastward, will I lose my HQ buildup distance if I don’t hollow out the hills to the south? My rail line will be coming from the NE corner of Romania into the hills toward Vinnitsa.

This is a tough call. Fortunately I have a lot to do today, and maybe some of you can give me some advice before I make permanent decisions about the turn.