Gott mit uns - 1941 campaign Jango32 (Axis) vs mind_messing (Soviets)

[Jango32]

Hello everybody and welcome to a 1941 sudden death rules campaign, played on the Matrix servers. I and mind_messing don't have a lot of house rules; no motorization and no merging in pockets to prevent miraculous escapes of men and equipment.

As of starting this thread, we are on Axis turn 3, and hopefully I'll become as quick as mind_messing to finish my turns to update the AAR regularly. There will be a two-turn delay between AAR updates and the actual game. I don't intend to give up until Sudden Death takes me out, and I believe mind_messing will do the same.

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: Jango32

no merging in pockets to prevent miraculous escapes of men and equipment.

Merging units does not mean that men or equipment escape. It simply forms a stronger unit from the two weaker ones. Damaged elements (men, gun and AFVs) are all retained in the pocket and dont move to the pool.

Other than that, good luck with the AAR!

[Jango32]

Turn 1 Axis air phase





Unfortunate Axis bomber losses, but acceptable for turn 1. I didn't hit the airbases too far away, like the ones in Kiev or Kirovograd in AGS. I did bomb bases in Estonia though, and a couple around the Land Bridge.

[Jango32]

Merging units does not mean that men or equipment escape. It simply forms a stronger unit from the two weaker ones. Damaged elements (men, gun and AFVs) are all retained in the pocket and dont move to the pool.

They actually do, as we found out in a few tests following Soviet turn 2 in the 4 vs 4 game For the Infallible GROFAZ. Men and equipment (not much, but if it happens with enough units it accumulates) do get sent into the pool.

[Jango32]

Turn 1 Army Group North




At the time of doing turn 1 I was thinking of maybe updating the AAR every turn, so these screenshots have invisible units. Unlike in For the Infallible Grofaz, this time I didn't accidentally close the pocket too early in Lithuania. A rifle division near Gulbene shattered, as well as two out of the three airborne brigades near Daugavpils and Rezekne.

[Jango32]

Turn 1 Army Group Center






Another fairly standard opening in the middle, but I decided to rush the Land Bridge at the possible expense of not receiving enough freight in the PzGr 3 spearheads. I've also tightly secured the Minsk-Byalistok pocket, with most units routing inside the pocket after carefully herding them and capturing named hexes ahead of time.

[Jango32]

Turn 1 Army Group South





In the south, however, I attempted to perfect Bread (RedJohn)'s opener by creating a pocket as tight as possible around Rovno. To this end I've moved down von Vietinghoff's corps into PzGr 1. For this I have made a screenshot which has units shown to sort of explain the way I've gone about it. I brought forward two divisions to breakdown into regiments to get rid of the immediate fortifications units with each regiment to pave the way for Grossdeutschland. GD then brushed aside the defenders near Lutsk, paving the way open for III Corps' motorized division. It brushed aside the units in the way to Rovno, at which point I broke it down into regiments to make sure I could cross the river with one of them. I also didn't want to rout the divisions near Rovno out of the future pocket, to that end I think I did a hasty attack to make one division near Rovno retreat downward.

To pave the way in the south for the other half of the Rovno pocket, I used the regiments of a light infantry division that I brought forward to once again remove the fortification units as efficiently as possible. I brushed aside units in the way to where the big stack with 3 PzGr 1 infantry divisions is. I decided to use that stack of three divisions to ensure that the cavalry division would rout and there were no combat delay. After which I had enough MPs for one or two deliberate attacks. Once this was secured, I moved 16th Panzer into position to hasty attack Tarnopol and replaced the corps leader with Hube.

Once Tarnopol was secured, the way to sealing the Rovno pocket and reaching the Romanian border was more or less achieved. I wanted to bring a full division one hex away from the border to prevent any railway evacuations or theater box transfers for units between Lvov and the Hungary-Romania borders.

EDIT: forgot to mention that for the first time ever I've had no reserve activation around Rovno and Lvov. Perhaps I was lucky with the number of damaged elements in this campaign around Lvov, but I think around Rovno turning on ground support for III Motorised may have been decisive in this regard.

[Jango32]

Turn 1 End Losses



Overall satisfied with the Luftwaffe-VVS exchange for turn 1, my air force is still intact for the subsequent turn to use as needed.




Comparing this to Hardradi's other turn 1 statistics for losses, it places me on the number 2 spot for the biggest number of Soviet losses. This is very good to say the least.

I must stress however that turn 1 was done with two patches, .06 and .08. Turn 2 and onward will be with .11. I am unsure if it is still possible to go for a Bread opener in the South with the artillery fixes of .11.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Jango32

Merging units does not mean that men or equipment escape. It simply forms a stronger unit from the two weaker ones. Damaged elements (men, gun and AFVs) are all retained in the pocket and dont move to the pool.

They actually do, as we found out in a few tests following Soviet turn 2 in the 4 vs 4 game For the Infallible GROFAZ. Men and equipment (not much, but if it happens with enough units it accumulates) do get sent into the pool.

Makes 100% sense Jango32 since I had a post where Joel Billings commented on isolated units will still have men escape when surrendering in an earlier post.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: Jango32

Merging units does not mean that men or equipment escape. It simply forms a stronger unit from the two weaker ones. Damaged elements (men, gun and AFVs) are all retained in the pocket and dont move to the pool.

They actually do, as we found out in a few tests following Soviet turn 2 in the 4 vs 4 game For the Infallible GROFAZ. Men and equipment (not much, but if it happens with enough units it accumulates) do get sent into the pool.

Makes 100% sense Jango32 since I had a post where Joel Billings commented on isolated units will still have men escape when surrendering in an earlier post.

You will see when isolated units are attacked and surrendered that not all of the elements are captured in every instance.

[xhoel]

The fact that some men and very few guns escape during pocket clearing is a feature of the game. It has nothing to do with units being merged. It is meant to represent breakout attempts by stragglers that make it through to friendly lines which always happens even in the best sealed pockets.

The numbers of such men escaping are very small and dont influence game balance or gameplay. I would suggest you to play with the merge option as it is more realistic and historically accurate, but it is up to you.

[Jango32]

In the Rovno pocket merge from that AAR, 150 T-26 tanks, 200 BT-7 tanks, 900 rifle squads, 300 MGs, 1800 support squads and about 150 guns went into the pool after merging. This was confirmed to us by the Russian team.

They estimated that about 45 000 manpower escaped from the pocket into the pool after merging.

[RedJohn]

ORIGINAL: xhoel

The fact that some men and very few guns escape during pocket clearing is a feature of the game. It has nothing to do with units being merged. It is meant to represent breakout attempts by stragglers that make it through to friendly lines which always happens even in the best sealed pockets.

The numbers of such men escaping are very small and dont influence game balance or gameplay. I would suggest you to play with the merge option as it is more realistic and historically accurate, but it is up to you.

To be clear, merging whilst the units are isolated does not shed any elements to the pool, I believe.

But if you reopen a tight pocket and merge the units inside, all excess elements will be shed to the pool. As Jango noted, the opposing team did so in our 4 v 4 game and it led to the above elements escaping from an otherwise tightly sealed pocket they wouldn't have escaped from otherwise.

Ultimately it's a very gamey way of getting men and equipment out that would have otherwise been lost, and there's no real way to stop it unless houserules are implemented.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: xhoel

The fact that some men and very few guns escape during pocket clearing is a feature of the game. It has nothing to do with units being merged. It is meant to represent breakout attempts by stragglers that make it through to friendly lines which always happens even in the best sealed pockets.

The numbers of such men escaping are very small and dont influence game balance or gameplay. I would suggest you to play with the merge option as it is more realistic and historically accurate, but it is up to you.

The end result, which I believe we are all after, is that men and material is escaping which is the crux that needs fixing. Maybe the merging is bringing on the "excape procedure" earlier than normal. Maybe the excess men are added to the pool when they should not. I sure the heck don't know but seems to be a runtime error in the program.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Jango32

In the Rovno pocket merge from that AAR, 150 T-26 tanks, 200 BT-7 tanks, 900 rifle squads, 300 MGs, 1800 support squads and about 150 guns went into the pool after merging. This was confirmed to us by the Russian team.

They estimated that about 45 000 manpower escaped from the pocket into the pool after merging.

O.O

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain


The end result, which I believe we are all after, is that men and material is escaping which is the crux that needs fixing. Maybe the merging is bringing on the "excape procedure" earlier than normal. Maybe the excess men are added to the pool when they should not. I sure the heck don't know but seems to be a runtime error in the program.

Yes, men and equipment escaping due to the game not accounting for stuff is a problem that needs to be fixed. I had never seen that happen before so thats why I pointed out that thats not what happens but I stand corrected. I think it would be worth to post a bug report about this.

ORIGINAL: Jango32

In the Rovno pocket merge from that AAR, 150 T-26 tanks, 200 BT-7 tanks, 900 rifle squads, 300 MGs, 1800 support squads and about 150 guns went into the pool after merging. This was confirmed to us by the Russian team.

They estimated that about 45 000 manpower escaped from the pocket into the pool after merging.

That is a lot of men and equipment indeed so I can understand why the house rule is in place. Thanks for pointing it out! Good luck with the AAR!

[Hardradi]

Looking good. I would be a little worried about those lonesome Panzer regiments on the southeastern side of the Rovno pocket.

That's a nice amount of air losses inflicted.

The bar rises again. Amazingly low Axis casualties. EDIT: Updated

[Jango32]

Hardradi brought to my attention that I had uploaded the wrong ground casualties image. That one was taken before deciding to attack 7th Mechanized division, which had two stacks of units routed on top of itself.


Here are the fixed ground losses.

[Jango32]

Turn 2 Army Group North







Objective recon
Recon indicates that there is no resistance along the Rezekne-Ostrov double rail line into Pskov. What is curious is that nothing is reported in the Velikie Luki area either. It seems that mind_messing abandoned the entire region. Soviet defenses of Pskov are situated in Latvia, in key swamp hexes annoyingly enough.







Pocket recon
I run recon inside the pockets to have better combat odds when clearing them. Looks like mind_messing moved his units to block fast crossing of the Daugava by the infantry, but it shouldn't be too much of a hurdle.







Pskov advance
I've used 36th Motorized to clear the way for the Panzer divisions. From memory the defenders in Gulbene didn't budge and needed another attack to rout away. Recon information along the Pskov double rail was confirmed as there was no resistance. 3rd Motorized mopped up defenses along the way for 8th Panzer to secure the city.



Pskov's light defenses easily fell to the attack carried by 8th Panzer.






Army Group North end of turn
Pockets in Lithuania have been reduced to a single division shown there that was too far away from the infantry to be taken out. I used the security units to look around in case recon had missed some units and it turned out to be a fruitful search. Based on turn 1's routed unit counters I had a feeling that recon was a few units short of expectations.

Totenkopf advanced into Parnu facing no opposition, while 1st Panzer flipped some hexes for next turn's advance beyond Pskov towards Leningrad to use administrative movement. Also secured the perimeter around the newly created pocket to eliminate it next turn.

[Jango32]

Turn 2 Army Group Center







Objective recon
Looks like a lot of routed units were moved into the Mogilev and Orsha areas. There is also a pair of counters near Smolensk, which can't be good news for us because it indicates that it may be either defense in depth or he's fallen back to a Smolensk line. Still, we need to secure the Land Bridge and take Vitebsk.







Pocket recon
No breakout attempts were made from what I can tell. I'll use 4th and 9th armies (and the security units) to clear the pocket while the Panzer group infantry divisions will head to the Land Bridge. Can't afford to keep those in the back.








3rd Panzer recon in force
Looks like there is no Soviet defense on the way down to the Pripet marshes. von Schweppenburg's corps should be able to cross the river this turn and envelop the routed units.








von Schweppenburg crosses
Moved up the Panzer divisions over the river, while the motorized division heads to Mogilev to flip hexes for infantry administrative movement on the next turns.








Capture of Vitebsk
Schmidt manages to inflict heavy losses on the Soviet defenders of Vitebsk while suffering little losses of his own. Now to head to Smolensk.








Defensive line identified
It seems that the units recon saw weren't defense in depth, but the Smolensk defensive line. Seems that they're positioned along the river near the city and woods. It's probably too tough of a nut to crack right now, so we will probe the defenses along the Sosh river past the Dnepr.









Pocket formed
Lemelsen's Panzer division moves to Orsha and the hex flips confirm that there isn't anything to speak of in terms of Land Bridge defenses. Assuming that all those units with 0?0 on the counter are routed forces, it's in my best interests to have them surrender on the next turn. This means that Hoth's group will help out Guderian's with the encirclement.









Army Group Center end of turn
I move up what I can of the infantry divisions and position forces to ensure the pockets remain isolated. What's missing from the screenshot is breaking down the Panzer division near Orsha into regiments and crossing one of them to the other side of the river to establish a zone of control in case the Rifle Division tries to link up Mogilev, and if something from Smolensk snakes its way to link up the pocket with the Rifle Division.

What's also not pictured is using a motorized infantry division's regiment to probe Velikie Luki, which I've found to be empty and took it with the said regiment. Moved some units into the rough hexes near Vitebsk to establish a future pocket.