StB Beethoven (Soviet) vs cameron88 (Axis)

[Beethoven1]

This AAR is for the Stalingrad to Berlin scenario. I'm playing as Soviets against cameron88 (Axis).

This is a server game, so it is more of a pain to do an in depth AAR (because I can't load the save when it is not my turn to take screenshots and to look at the various statistics etc). But also, I have less desire to do an in-depth AAR than for the 1941 scenario, since this is more of a "set piece" scenario where you start off with a pre-built army. There is less of an aspect of "build your own Red Army from the ground up" LARP, and so I should end up being less distracted looking at all the graphs.

So I plan to just be doing a little bit of AAR to show generally what is happening, rather than every play by play detail.

I don't yet have a particular grand over-arching strategic narrative plan at this point, or at least not one well defined enough to explain. Initially I will be just trying to make sure that my own defenses are strong enough where they need to be, and start looking for opportunities to attack and wear down the Wehrmacht, given the initial deployments of units.



TURN 1

Around the Demyansk pocket, I tried two attacks. Both failed [:(] This was the least successful part of the front. Part of that is probably because there are bad leaders, and no assault front. Plus the German defensive positions are strong. We will see if Germany stays in Demyansk or pulls out to free up some more troops.



I had a lot better initial success in Operation Mars. Velikie Luki has fallen and I took a good number of hexes pushing into the Rzhev salient. This destroyed a lot of Axis forts, so hopefully will provide some distraction from Stalingrad, since they will need units to re-establish strong defenses (unless they pull back, which I don't really expect at this point). I have also been playing the Red God of War scenario against Hardradi, which helped teach me some good places to attack in this area initially.



Around Stalingrad I am doing things differently and sub-optimally. I only attacked with Soviet infantry and cavalry against the Romanian troops (no attacks with mech/tanks yet and no encirclement of Stalingrad). I am going to give the Germans a turn to react and let them form up their defenses. They have the option to withdraw from Stalingrad if they want, or to react to the initial attack and try to keep fighting there.

Why do this? Because it seems like conventional wisdom amongst experienced players is that the late game is too much biased towards the Soviets, and that once the Red Army gets too large and starts attacking, there is nothing that Germany can really do to slow them down. If that is correct, then perhaps giving Germany a break on turn 1 will lead to a more fun and balanced 1943. Or alternatively, maybe that is wrong and now Germany is going to wipe out the Red Army due to this foolishness. [X(]

It may be interesting to compare this game to other StB scenario games where the Soviets encircle Stalingrad and wipe out the 6th Army immediately to see how it plays out differently.



Although I didn't encircle Stalingrad, I did at least encircle these two motorized regiments. Hopefully it will hold, but may not if the Panzers near Stalingrad get diverted to deal with this.

[Rosencrantus]

From my experience so far in StB (only on turn 9, so early 1943, but the balance of power is clear), Germany is still very capable to defend against the Soviets and even launch strong counteroffensives once they get those SS divisions from Western Europe. I would not have given him the 6th Army handicap unless you believe there is a vast experience difference between you and him. If he withdraws from Stalingrad he saves 200,000+ experienced troops instead of having to build them up again once they get destroyed.

In fact if you go to Tyronec's AAR (I can't go there but I'm playing against him so I would know) you can see the resistance the Germans are still able to put up and I'll for sure have plenty in store for Tyronec while I can still dish it out.

Edit: This is also different from all the GCs that started in 1941 as this one starts in late 1942, meaning all the major defeats the Soviets suffered like at Kiev and the initial opening of Typhoon actually occurred and the red army size reflects it. around 5.8m in November 42, compared to M60s Red army which reached 6.5m in june 42 [X(]. But even then that game isn't the best representation of a GC between equally experienced players as smokingdave was still learning the ropes.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: Rosencrantus

From my experience so far in StB (only on turn 9, so early 1943, but the balance of power is clear), Germany is still very capable to defend against the Soviets and even launch strong counteroffensives once they get those SS divisions from Western Europe. I would not have given him the 6th Army handicap unless you believe there is a vast experience difference between you and him. If he withdraws from Stalingrad he saves 200,000+ experienced troops instead of having to build them up again once they get destroyed.

In fact if you go to Tyronec's AAR (I can't go there) you can see the resistance the Germans are still able to put up and I'll for sure have plenty in store for Tyronec while I can still dish it out.

Edit: This is also different from all the GCs that started in 1941 as this one starts in late 1942, meaning all the major defeats the Soviets suffered like at Kiev and the initial opening of Typhoon actually occurred and the red army size reflects it. around 5.8m in November 42, compared to M60s Red army which reached 6.5m in june 42 [X(]. But even then that game isn't the best representation of a GC between equally experienced players as smokingdave was still learning the ropes.

Yeah, I do agree, when other players have been saying the Soviets are too strong that seems to have been in the context of the 1941 scenario mostly so far. The two main things that make Soviets potentially too strong in the 1941 scenario once it gets to the mid-late game are:

1) Ability to avoid some of the historical early war losses that Soviets took by avoiding big pockets.
2) Taking advantage of the ability to build up your own Red Army and getting extra guard units etc earlier than perhaps should be the case.

It is true regarding reason #1 that those losses are effectively locked in in this scenario. However, with sufficient time, in the StB scenario the Soviet player should still be able to get some advantage from reason #2, building up the Red Army to have lots of powerful guards corps etc. But that won't happen right away, under the best of circumstances it will take time and won't really be evident for the first 10-20 turns or so. However, after a certain point there should start to be some advantage for the Soviet player from re-organizing the commanders and units. Plus, the Soviets will obviously have an easier time replacing losses than the Axis. So although perhaps Soviets may not win as quickly, without the Stalingrad pocket, things should still end up sooner or later tipping in favor of the Soviets. But perhaps before then we may end up with a bit more successful 1943 "Battle of Kursk" style German summer offensive as well. If going slower means I don't get as many VP, I am not really fussed by that if it makes the game more interesting and dynamic, and if I have to be wary of what the Axis has in store.

[Rosencrantus]

You're right, it is inevitable for the Soviets to get many strong Guards units(perhaps too many as Xhoel's thread suggests). We would have to have multiple StB games actually progress to 44+ to see how the balance is. Fortunately the Axis have the entire western Soviet Union as a playground to stall the Soviet advance and now have their chance to use historical hindsight to avoid disasters like Little Saturn, Bagration and perhaps prepare better operations than Kursk.

[Hardradi]

ORIGINAL: Beethoven1

Very nice Mars offensive, this will give your opponent something to worry about.

Leaving the 6th Army off the hook is an interesting choice. Look forward to seeing the results.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: Hardradi

Very nice Mars offensive, this will give your opponent something to worry about.

I think I learned some stuff from you. Although obviously most of the attacks are on the western side of the Rzhev salient (Kalinin front), I think the 2 Western Front attacks are pretty important as a jumping off point. In particular the heavy woods hex in the corner is taken (the one where I have the 42 defensive CV in the screenshot). That is one of the key defensive hexes in that area because of the terrain. After that it is all clear hexes with one or two light woods, so it will take more good German troops to set up a strong defense on that clear terrain, and if they don't then the rail line between Vyazma and Rzhev could end up being threatened.

There is also some potential for some follow up attacks from the Kalinin Front's attacks to the east, but it is harder to supply there and that is not an assault front. On the other hand, there is a string of front 13 hexes long where there are only 3 German hexes with forts left. So if they want to hold those hexes sustainably, it should require more than an infantry regiment or two.

In the Velikie Luki area I learned from tyronec's AAR that you can take V.L. and that it is probably a good idea to do so.

One thing I am not doing, at least not yet, is evacuating a bunch of the troops from this area and sending them to the south. Maybe I will do that later, but at the minimum it seems to make sense to do the pretty easy set-up attacks that the scenario allows for on turn 1.

[Beethoven1]

Axis Turn 2

The cowardly Germans abandoned Stalingrad!



After the Soviet attack on the 6th Armies flanks outside of Stalingrad began and it became quickly clear that the Romanians could not hold, German high command sent an urgent message back to the Führer's headquarters requesting authorization to withdraw the 6th Army behind the Don. Naturally, Hitler refused this absurd request and ordered that Paulus hold fast in the Stalingrad festung.

What happened next shocked the world.

According to the first initial confused reports, a bomb had gone off in Führerhauptquartier Werwolf in Vinnytsia. Then reports emerged that elements of the Wehrmacht had taken over Berlin. By the next day, it had been confirmed that Hitler had been assassinated and replaced as a figurehead by cameron88, a young German staff officer who had been serving at OKH. The strength of this new leader's position was initially unclear, but it gradually became evident that he planned to continue the war. German manpower and industry was mobilized under a new plan of Totaler Krieg (Total War), and cameron88 pledged a grand 1943 offensive that would finally win the War in the East...

...


One effect of this is that I will capture Stalingrad earlier than historical, and therefore get the 6 extra VPs for early capture. You heard it here first, folks, the way to "win" in terms of VPs as Soviets is to NOT encircle Stalingrad, so that Germany will withdraw and give it to you without a fight on Turn 2. [:D]

Stalin was pleased to retake his namesake city, but Zhukov - and especially Vasilevsky - grumbled about the missed opportunity for a major victory.



In the center, Germany mostly ignored the Operation Mars offensive and instead went on their own counteroffensive southwest of Kaluga, where they cut off a Soviet salient. I will easily be able to restore the connection this turn, but a lot of units are ZOC locked and it is hard to say about subsequent turns because of that.



The really annoying thing about this is that all of those units start off in the scenario frozen. There are only a handful of units in the area which are not frozen (3-4, ALL of which I moved to try to secure the flanks there more), and I also sent down a STAVKA mech division from near Moscow and stuck it on reserve. And what is even MORE annoying is now most of the units that are nearby and ought to be able to respond to this are ALSO frozen. All of these tank corps etc (and the other stacks nearby) are all frozen and can't move! I object to the scenario being set up this way, it is totally unrealistic that the Soviets would just sit back and allow a German counterattack here without being able to use these units to respond and quash the counterattack.



In the north, Germany bombed the Osinovets port to supply Leningrad, causing 47% damage to the port. I am not sure if I should use priority repairs or what is the best thing to do here, because I haven't dealt with this before.



There were also VERY high air losses in the Axis ground phase. I had left air support on, not sure if that was a mistake, but these losses seem very high and pretty lopsided.



I had these settings for my ground support, flying at 15k feet with less bombers (50 mission AC pct) and more fighters (300 escort AC Pct):

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 2



Some minor action in Demyansk. I am fine with doing some fighting here just to slowly attrition down the German units. It is slightly annoying to deal with, but all in all it seems like a good thing to have a lot of German units tied up in bad terrain where they can't do too much other than burn trucks. Germany not only hasn't pulled out of Demyansk, but also made some attempts to advance to the east here. If they start succeeding, that wouldn't actually be that bad tbh.

I stupidly attacked the clear hex on the right without moving a unit into the other clear hex (which had no unit at the start of the turn in it), and then the German unit retreated into the clear hex on the left. So then I had to attack it AGAIN to kick it out of that hex as well.



Meanwhile Velikie Luki and a few more surrounding hexes are secured. Germany seems very thin on units here, although they do have at least 2 Panzer divisions lurking back there. Of course, I can only have so many units here because of the supply limitations, so it is difficult to take full advantage of the thin German lines.

I do a few more attacks on the Rzhev salient and knock down some more forts and attrition a few more German units. In particular I took back the heavy forest hex in the far north-west corner of the Rzhev salient, which means there is a lack of good defensive terrain there now and if I keep pushing, unless Germany reinforces, I can start threatening to envelop Rzhev.



The attack shown is a failed attempt to break out the two units encircled on the eastern side of the salient. I was really surprised that this attack failed, because I had a good leader, the German infantry division only had 13 defensive CV, and I had about 3 to 1 odds. I was really surprised that this failed, in general it is one of fairly few failed attacks I have been having, and it was a bad one to fail. Zakharov shit the bed on me, after I had spent AP to put him in charge. I could have attacked with the 2 units that were surrounded as well, but I didn't include them in the attack since I was hoping to move them out. After this failed, I tried again with some other units, which narrowly failed as well.

The REALLY annoying thing about this is that I should have been able to break out those two encircled infantry divisions easily (and without having to divert as many troops from further north, where I would have liked to continue attacking more around Rzhev). The only reason I could not break these units out is that those 3 big stacks of powerful tank units in the rear towards Moscow are frozen. The scenario design is killing me [:@] It may cost me 2 units just because the scenario assumes that Germany is not going to attack and the Soviets don't need to be able to respond there.


I counter-attacked Germany's Panzer division that they had left out when trying to encircle my salient in the south of the screenshot. That is 65 dead Panzers, including basically all of the Panzer IIIs and IVs I think (the survivors were mostly Stugs in the support units). Due to the frozen units, the only way I could counter-attack here (and shore up my defenses to hopefully avoid a large encirclement next turn) was by moving lots of units south from Rzhev rather than being able to continue the Operation Mars offensive.



Please, scenario designers, if you are reading this, if it is possible to change the frozen unit set up somehow, please consider doing so! One of the keys to playing well in this scenario in the first few turns seems to be knowing which enemy units are frozen and figuring out how best to take advantage of the fact that the enemy can't react, which is not how it should be!


In the Stalingrad area I basically ignored the Germans and continued to beat up on the Romanians. I also started beating up on the Italians and gave them a thorough thrashing. The Italians fought probably even worse than the Romanians. In this one battle, a Romanian division surrendered without even being encircled or isolated (using the 1.07 beta). cameron88 said that he merged some of the Romanian units to try to make them fight better... didn't really seem to work that well. He also said he tried to assign support units to the Italians to help them not lose so badly, but he couldn't because they were frozen.

There is a pretty massive part of the front on the western side of Stalingrad where I have knocked down basically all the forts. Even without having encircled the 6th Army, I am not sure what Axis can really do here without more Germans on such a long front. And due to the abandonment of Stalingrad, I will start getting more supply more quickly when the railyard is repaired. So maybe skipping the turn 1 Operation Uranus won't work out too badly in the end.



The Romanians did get one hold with their tank division against a hasty attack:



So I followed that with a deliberate attack that beat the shit out of it.


Germany is slowly starting to withdraw from the Caucasus it looks like, and we are slowly advancing. I figure supply will be bad down here, so I put Vasilevsky in charge of the purple front (the North Caucasus one I think? might be Transcaucasus, whichever is the purple one).




As a general note, so far I have used almost all my AP on leader changes. It is tempting to make more corps, but seems better in general to get better leaders first. There are also some advantages to having more units rather than corps. It allows for more depth and to man larger fronts where Axis doesn't have enough units and put some pressure simply by walking into empty terrain.

[Beethoven1]

Start of Turn 3



The only real thing of significance is that the two isolated infantry divisions surrendered, and the Axis managed to re-close the pocket in the Kaluga area salient. My attempt to save the salient may have even made things worse, as currently trapped are 5 rifle divisions, 1 guards rifle division, 1 mech corp, and 1 tank corp:



I don't know if I can break them out and rescue them, but if I can't I am definitely gonna be pissed. Credit to cameron88 though for figuring out that Germany can doing this and taking advantage with good execution. I didn't realize they could partly because I played the Red God of War scenario but not StB before, and in the Red God of War scenario that salient is off the map. I guess the set up is supposed to be similar in this scenario because of units in that area being frozen, but it doesn't work out the same. Unless this is changed somehow, the only viable turn 1 opening the Soviets can do in this scenario I think is to not do a historical Operation Mars attack and instead to immediately shift the Operation Mars troops that are nearby Rzhev south to protect this salient. Soviets can't afford to wait a single turn to move troops to defend against this, because of the other troops being locked, if you wait a single turn it is probably too late. Note this also has nothing to do with me not encircling Stalingrad, it is a far away part of the front with not enough time for troops to reach there from Stalingrad, this is a turn 1 issue.

If I do end up losing all these units, it is not going to cost me the war in the long run, but it will definitely be a big setback, and along with letting 6th Army go will put me on much more of a defensive or neutral posture in Spring/Summer 1943 than otherwise.

Here are the key battles that closed the salient. Germany lost a pretty significant # of AFVs, but so did I. Overall 116 Axis AFV and 357 Soviet AFV lost in the Axis action phase. I did have air support on, but nothing flew (probably too much was massacred on turn 1):






In the Stalingrad area (also the Caucasus) more German withdrawal:

[Beethoven1]

Combat ready Soviet tank corps just sitting there locked, doing nothing and sitting around yawning while their Comrades get isolated and potentially destroyed. These and other similar divisions are all just 5-6 hexes away from where that is happening.

[8|]



[8|]

[Hardradi]

Regarding frozen units, yes they can also be a pain in the a$$ for command and control as well. An AP cost to unfreeze them might be a useful addition for some of the positions. This and the RGoW scenario are more fluid from an attacker/defender perspective which can lead to some odd situations. Similar quirky situations arise in Destruction of SW Front. Some of them frozen units might be better off coming in as reinforcements. In WitE1 I am sure frozen garrison units used to unfreeze when approached.

ORIGINAL: Beethoven1

The only real thing of significance is that the two isolated infantry divisions surrendered, and the Axis managed to re-close the pocket in the Kaluga area salient. My attempt to save the salient may have even made things worse, as currently trapped are 5 rifle divisions, 1 guards rifle division, 1 mech corp, and 1 tank corp:

This plus no pocket at Stalingrad.

I can see you have more Arty Divisions along the Don. I haven't seen any AARs where these feature heavily. Are you finding these effective or to early to tell?

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: Hardradi

I can see you have more Arty Divisions along the Don. I haven't seen any AARs where these feature heavily. Are you finding these effective or to early to tell?

I can't look at earlier battles unfortunately because it is a server game, but here is my big attack (sneak preview) for the ongoing turn, where I was trying to break out the pocket (successful)! The attack included 2 artillery divisions, as well as lot of other units. The 122 and 152 mm guns seem to have had the most hits per element of anything other than 120mm mortars, which sounds like they had a significant effect in general:



The good thing about them is that they can fight from 2 hexes away, so even if they didn't do that much it is still at least a bit of extra firepower you can get in a battle. But judging from at least this particular battle result, it does seem like artillery is relatively good.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 3

The main event was this attack to re-open the pocket (same one as in the screenshot above responding to Hardradi). I wanted to make damn well sure that this attack succeeded, so since there were 3 full German divisions defending, including a motorized and Panzer division, I made sure to attack with overwhelming force. I also formed some new infantry corps in order to be able to attack with greater numbers of troops, so that I could attack with close to 4 to 1 CV superiority and 5 to 1 numerical superiority. Unfortunately, getting the troops in place to do this and generally respond to the German attack in this area meant that Operation Mars could not continue as originally/historically planned. But at least we won the battle and opened the pocket.



Despite Operation Mars being stunted, I could continue some attacks. I very nearly isolated two infantry divisions near Vyazma, but only had enough MP to do a hasty attack on the one failed attack. Germany seems very thin on units around Velikie Luki, but supply limits how aggressive I can get how quickly.



Salient area (had it clicked on the wrong battle, the German attack rather than the Soviet attack, but can't re-load the save to take the right screenshot):



To my surprise, Italian troops held in 3 out of 4 attacks. It really surprised me that 3 Italian divisions held against 2 Tank corps + a mech corps. cameron88 said that he merged some Italian units and gave them support units. Apparently this might have made a pretty big difference. I will have to be careful to attack Italians with sufficient force in the future. I am trying to ZOC lock a couple of German divisions to make it difficult for them to retreat and set up a stable line. They don't really have enough troops to just stay where they are without changing anything. Despite me not destroying the 6th Army at Stalingrad, Germany seems pretty thin on troops here and in a lot of places. Part of that is a result of not pulling back in either Leningrad, Demyansk, or the Rzhev salient.



Caucasus pursuit:

[Beethoven1]

Axis Turn 4

Bombing in Leningrad. I am not sure if it is really worth it for Axis to take the operational losses (bad weather), but they are doing it anyway:



Axis is still doing some attacking around Demyansk. If he wants to push into the wilderness into a bunch of heavy forest/swamp, at least for now that is ok with me. Probably better for me than if he is pushing somewhere else.



Axis counterattacks near Velikie Luki:



Axis re-pocketed 6 divisions. Note I have some more good troops railing in (and railed in others the previous turn also). So hopefully this gives me sufficient forces to re-open the pocket and get more units out:



Germany does some counterattacks around the Don to try to stabilize the line. They win some, but here I get two holds (and destroy a decent amount of Panzers). Another of the battles also had 2 holds destroying some more Panzers:



In the Caucasus, I had a cavalry division surrender when not isolated. It seems like this is part of some new combat mechanics or something that this can happen now. Also in the far south, it seems like they have more mountaineer divisions than I thought they would/could have. I didn't look closely at the scenario there. It seemed like they were running, so I started chasing earlier, but now they seem to have a lot of units in the mountains. It seems like a strange situation there:

[Beethoven1]

Sneak preview of my upcoming turn... the pocket will be opened again, with an attack against the 3 Panzer divisions. The attack will succeed. We both lose a lot of AFVs, but pretty much even amounts, which definitely hurts Germany more. So for me, this seems like a pretty great battle. More like this please. Axis putting those 3 Panzer divisions sitting on unfortified clear terrain trying to hold closed the pocket seems to have actually worked pretty well for me.



Both of us are really burning through AFVs pretty rapidly. Maybe there won't be that many left on either side by the time summer starts.

Sadly, not all attacks will be this successful. I tried some other attacks on neighboring hexes that I wasn't particularly sure would actually succeed to widen the path to the pocket, and they didn't succeed. But it felt like I sort of had to/should try, somewhat against my better judgment.

[Rosencrantus]

Damnnnn, thats a lot of german AFVs lost. Getting a 1:1 ratio is really good for you and really bad for him.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: Rosencrantus

Damnnnn, thats a lot of german AFVs lost. Getting a 1:1 ratio is really good for you and really bad for him.

Yeah, the AFV losses are really pretty insane. The current turn alone (not done) is sitting at 432 Axis AFV destroyed and 980 Soviet. Other turns:



If you have it handy, I would be curious to know how the losses in your StB game compare.

Overall I think even though I am also taking high losses, this is probably a good thing for me, because it should make it harder for Axis to do major offensive action when winter is over, even if it also makes it harder for me to do a major summer offensive too quickly.

[AlbertN]

I could be wrong but AFV losses seem insane - at least from German end.

In some cases it seems the AFV Axis has are AA Halftracks, as if they're used as frontline tanks.

In another battle a migthy attack pratically obliterates the armoured force of -3- Panzer divisions stacked together? (66% AFV loss in a single fight).

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

I could be wrong but AFV losses seem insane - at least from German end.

In some cases it seems the AFV Axis has are AA Halftracks, as if they're used as frontline tanks.

In another battle a migthy attack pratically obliterates the armoured force of -3- Panzer divisions stacked together? (66% AFV loss in a single fight).

It is like every battle is the Battle of Kursk

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 4


The most important battle in the Rzhev salient area was probably this one, taking control of a swamp hex that is key for German defense of the Rzhev area.



3 more divisions are hopefully going to avoid being isolated and destroyed, with the pocket re-opened:



I didn't attack much around the Don river, other than against Italians. I mostly kept moving units forward a bit, regaining some CPP. Ultimately, if Germany chooses to stay in this area, that just makes their line longer, without enough troops to really cover it on the southern flank. So they may well end up retreating in a turn or two anyway. Note that some of the units from the Caucasus (notably Wiking division) have showed up here. If not for that I might have advanced a bit more here.



Here is the thin southern flank. A couple low quality screening units were attacked, including a motorized regiment which was routed. If it would have retreated instead, I had the retreat path set up so it could only retreat to the east, and I would have isolated it and probably destroyed it the next turn. But sadly, it routed out instead.



In the Caucasus, Germany didn't retreat that much, with some 'interesting' results. Some weak infantry units were beaten up on, and I ALMOST isolated a Panzer division (the Panzer division, with 5 CV, is below the surrender battle flag). 1 hex away from isolating that division and also from cutting off the rail line. Given this precarious situation, Germany will have to withdraw, and possibly might regret the previous turn's counter-attacks where the Panzer was nearly encircled.