For the Infallible Koba GAME #1 (Soviet team game GC)

[Beethoven1]

This AAR is for a team game, with 4 or 5 players on each side.

After this game, we started a new game - AAR for game #2 is here - https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 2&t=392426

The teams are:

Beethoven - High Commander Red Army
IDGBIA/IGBAlt - Commander North-Western Direction
Bread/RedJohn - Commander of the Western Direction
fracas - Commander of the Southern Direction
tm1 - Stalin role playing

ADB_Iceman/Crackaces - Wehrmacht High Command
Shaggy - High Command of the Luftwaffe (later replaced by HLYA)
XRAM - Army Group North (later replaced by Butcherbiird)
Panzer_Freak - Army Group Center
Интеллигент (Intelligent) - Army Group South






Axis Turn 1

Axis forces are rumored to have advanced deep into Soviet territory. These rumors are little more than transparently false fabrications by Goebbels' propaganda machine. In reality, German troops have run into fierce resistance and will soon be defeated, and in some places risk getting imminently pocketed themselves:








According to rumors, 3 Soviet generals have been killed:



And supposedly more than 5000 planes of the VVS have been destroyed:



with 381k losses:



And supposedly a further 426k Red Army soldiers isolated:




The Red Army has 12 non-isolated, non-cavalry divisions with 55 or higher morale on the map. Of those, 6 have 60 or higher morale:



Confident in our victory, these spirited troops are already inspiring the rest of the Red Army with their heroic deeds and raising their morale by example. Soon the entire Red Army will have 60+ morale also.

[Beethoven1]

The Commanders of each of the primary directions of the Red Army have been issued the following orders:

LARP ORDERS

Northern Direction - Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to launch an immediate counterattack and drive back the German units which have crossed the Dvina to the other side of the river. You will take back Daugavpils and Riga. Plan to spend the subsequent week or two marshaling reinforcements near Riga and Daugavpils, which are on their way from STAVKA, until we are ready to cross the Dvina and begin pushing our way back towards East Prussia. The crossing of the Dvina is to occur no later than August 1.


Western Direction - Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to launch an immediate counteroffensive to relieve the Western Front's beleaguered troops near Minsk which are NOT in fact surrounded. Move 19th Army up to the banks of the Berezina river, near Lepel and Borisov, which you will use as springboards for your assault. 28th and 20th armies, along with additional reinforcements, should follow behind and exploit 19th Armies initial success. Pavlov's troops near Minsk and Bialystok must hold firm for the next week or two until they are relieved. As for Pavlov himself, he has been recalled to Moscow for consultations. Pavlov's deputy, General Ivan Boldin, also leading the 19th Army, has assumed effective control of the Western Front in Pavlov's absence.


Southern Direction - Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to launch an immediate counteroffensive on the massively overextended German Panzer group which has advanced to Proskurov. They have not secured their flanks, are advancing like careless children, and are ripe for a backhand blow which will destroy the entire Panzer Group. Once their mobile units are surrounded and destroyed, begin preparations for a broader counteroffensive to first re-take Lvov and then begin pushing into Poland.

[FortTell]

Mmm, the sweet sound of propaganda. Good luck to all of the players.

The South seems to be the least dangerous opening, with potential to cut off some Germans from supply (not that they care on t1), otherwise looks solid.

[tm1]

Despite Communist propaganda by outspoken Soviet Foreign Minister Boris Beethoven1, Reichsminister Goebbels declares The Ostheer ( The German Army of the East )has been victorious and is driving back the Red Army.

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Seen here at the Reichstag the Minster announces the great news.

Riga.jpg (153.89 KiB) Viewed 2638 times

As the victorious Ostheer are greeted as liberators of The Latvian Capital.

[Beethoven1]

tm1 will be joining the game and playing as Stalin. This is just for role playing, his job will be to pretend to send the various Soviet players to the Gulags etc and will be just in the spirit of fun

Also, Soviets have finished turn 1

[tm1]

tm1 will be joining the game and playing as Stalin. This is just for role playing, his job will be to pretend to send the various Soviet players to the Gulags etc and will be just in the spirit of fun

Also, Soviets have finished turn 1

Report from Comrade Stalin

Stalin 1.jpg (56.94 KiB) Viewed 2547 times

30th June 1941

After a careful review of the military situation and while the loss of Riga was a big blow the failure of the Armoured Forces in the Southern Theatre is even a bigger catastrophe, I charge you Comrade General @fracas with dereliction of duty.

You are hereby stripped of your Command and sent for re training and re educating to The Tuvan People's Republic.

Tuva.jpg (133.59 KiB) Viewed 2547 times

There you will be given Command of a fighting unit befitting of your disgrace and failure of duty.

far east cav.jpg (59.91 KiB) Viewed 2547 times

A Cavalry Unit of Tuvan People's Revolutionary Army as your dereliction of Command of our Armoured Forces has allowed the enemy to capture Tarnopol and beyond.

[FortTell]

You are hereby stripped of your Command and sent for re training and re educating to The Tuvan People's Republic.

Funny thing, the Tuvan People's Republic does not join the USSR until August 1944, until then it is an independent allied state. Though it (will join/had already joined, curse the 1 turn/week timescale) the war on the 25th of June 1941 on the side of the USSR and will send horses, cattle, food, winter clothing, and last but not least, its gold reserve and gold mining rights to the Union.

[Beethoven1]

On the Soviet side, as we await the Axis turn 2 assault, we have set our supply priorities according to the philosophy bigger is better.

[Beethoven1]

Soviets received turn 3 from the Axis and as it turns out, Stalin decided to have General Pavlov of the western front arrested and executed. The AAR will be updated with more details later after sufficient delay, but I figured this news was important for everyone to know immediately.

The game is progressing at a good speed at the moment, which is nice and hopefully means we should be able to get a good ways into the game relatively quickly for a 4v4 game.

[ShaggyHiK]

I would like to know in more detail about the results of the actions of the German aviation, for me this is the first attempt at writing in which I specifically do a lot of unjustified things in order to understand what is worth doing and what is not worth doing.

[Beethoven1]

I would like to know in more detail about the results of the actions of the German aviation, for me this is the first attempt at writing in which I specifically do a lot of unjustified things in order to understand what is worth doing and what is not worth doing.

OK, I will try to mention that when we get to it.

[Beethoven1]

At the start of the game, STAVKA issued the following STANDING ORDERS. The standing orders apply in 1941 and/or until they are altered/rescinded, which could occur at any moment given the fickle nature of Soviet command.

Some orders have been redacted for purposes known only to those who ordered redaction. The orders also may or may not contain disinformation.

Soviet Standing Orders for 1941 (until winter, basically).
In Soviet Russia, orders follow YOU

POCKETS -

Order #0) - On turn 1, you are ordered not to break pockets in the north or center. Your pocketed men are ordered to fight and die in their pockets, and if they survive, to become partisans. However, you may break any ahistorical pockets in the south, and you are also encouraged (rather than forbidden) from breaking pockets in subsequent turns.


ATTACKING -

Order #1) Any time that you are pretty confident that you can do an attack and win, other things equal you should do the attack. Attacks need necessarily not have any particular strategic or even tactical value. Just get wins. Ideally routs are nice, but really we just want wins for as many units as possible. If you are not sure that other things are equal, then they are probably equal, which means you should do the attack.

Order #2) If you can attack with more units, that is generally better than attacking with less, unless some units would be doomed or in very serious danger as a result during the next turn due to lack of MP to retreat to a reasonably safe area.

Order #3) When making attacks, you should always try to attack with good generals, and if possible an assault front. Never do an attack with a bad general, because you could attack with a good general instead. Before doing any attack, re-assign units to different generals if necessary in order to be sure that good generals are doing the attack. It is fine (and even good), to attack with units controlled by different generals, as long as they are from the same front because more artillery/support units can join that way, but whichever general is in charge of units with the most manpower will lead the attack, so add up the manpower of your attacking units to make sure a good general will be leading the attack and will be the one who gets used in the leader rolls.


REDACTED -

Order #4) REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED

Order #5) REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED

Order #6) REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED


TANKS -

Order #7) Check the CPP, experience, and morale of your tank divisions (and also any mech divisions with ~50+ AFVs) before committing them to battle, or before putting them in a location where they are likely to be attacked. Ideally, you should not attack with tanks that are below the national morale level of morale/experience, or at least no more than ~-5 below, and with at least 50 CPP and preferably 100. If you keep tanks ~10 hexes behind the front and on refit in the early turns, they gain morale/experience faster (while also gaining cpp).

Order #8) Do not randomly drive tanks around, and avoid driving into heavy terrain where possible. After turn 3-4 or so, when supply has cleared up, you can rail some tanks around without worrying much about it.


HEX FLIPPING -

Order #9) Flip hexes back to Soviet control wherever you have units that can do it, even if it costs a unit a bit of movement/fatigue, in particular in any areas where we are retreating (not that we would do such a thing, but hypothetically if we did). A German infantry division moves 3-4 hexes into our territory per turn, so if you do this 3-4 turns in a row, they will be 1 turn behind in their advance.


PRESERVING LEADERS -

Order #10) Our good leaders are our only really irreplaceable asset, and must be protected accordingly. Roughly, any leader that is higher than ~4.5 rating is a "good" leader, in the sense that he is someone we would end up using later in the game for the long haul, but this applies especially to our top 5-10 leaders, who are the truly irreplaceable ones. Our good leaders should never be less than 5 hexes away from their units (max range), unless possibly they are safer that way due to being stacked with a strong unit. For example, don't put HQs with good leaders on a depot that is closer and in more danger just because it is a depot. If reasonably expecting a deep Panzer attack that could plausibly put one of our best leaders in danger, it is better to be out of the 5 hex range for support unit commitment (within 15 hexes is fine for other checks for army commanders anyway).


CAVALRY -

Order #11) Suicide your cavalry with reckless abandon, like the madman that you are. Cavalry should be ordered to go into battle with their sabres drawn at all times.


COMMISSARS -

Order #12) Always listen to your Commissar. He is your friend and mentor. If a commissar is captured by the Germans, you must mount a rescue operation to save him before he is executed by the Fascists.


RETREATING -

Order #270) If you retreat without authorization, you may find that you run into some NKVD friends from your friendly local neighborhood blocking detachment. Don't do it.

So far, compliance with these orders has been lackluster at best on the part of Soviet ground commanders. Accordingly, invitations to wonderful Siberian resorts are being drafted, to remind all Red Army officers of their duty.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet ground commanders were issued the following orders from STAVKA on turn 1:

TURN 1 ACTUAL ORDERS

Northern Direction - You are expressly forbidden from simply retreating back to the Luga line, or even just entirely back to the Velikiya/Sorot line. There must be at least some sort of delaying action in front of that. We want to mess up their REDACTED as much as we can manage REDACTED. Keep in mind you will have first priority for reinforcements over the next few turns. Do not simply defend the Velikiya itself, but have ZOC behind it - the extra MP cost will hopefully delay their crossing. Make sure that, in particular, REDACTED gets a chance to refit and gain some CPP before it sees combat. It will be valuable if we preserve it.

Commander IGB, in his wisdom, downplayed the bit about defending in front of the Velikaya/Sorot line, and put only a single division there to delay. Which technically, i suppose, is "at least some sort of delaying action"

Western Direction - Your primary objective is to hold Smolensk for as long as possible. The decision of how much to defend the land bridge in order to best do that is left to your discretion. Try to hold the Dnieper for at least the next turn or 2 (can largely be done with ZOC probably). Gomel is a lot less important; feel free to move many/most units up from there. However, we do want to prevent a quick/easy river crossing down there to the degree practicable.

In response to these confused orders, Commander Bread set up scattered defenses around Smolensk and the Dnieper, with a handful of scattered units on the land bridge:

Southern Direction - For now, you are to delay as best as you can manage with what you have on hand. Try to avoid large encirclements and getting low-ish morale/experience tanks/mech into combat before their morale has been raised at least a bit. Don't expect REDACTED. I plan to REDACTED. Later on south will get REDACTED. Put the 34th tank division in hex 185, 187 (south-east of Lvov). They will need to attack it to avoid ZOC-ZOC for the rail repair. Put it directly under STAVKA so that hopefully if we are lucky it will rout to safety in the swamps.

Commander fracas responded to these orders by not putting the 34th tank division in hex 185, 187, and instead putting it in a useless location from which it would subsequently be doomed (circled in blue).



The orders were unclear and due to German bombing raids on Soviet telegraph lines and a general state of confusion and disorganization, they did not reach commanders at the front.

However, several of the lead German Panzergruppe units were cut off near Proskurov, because they had advanced on a very narrow front which made it possible to cut them off. Since a good number of hexes were flipped back to Soviet control along the route to Proskurov, this would also mean in the next turn that follow-on German units would not have admin movement. Honestly, that may even be a bad thing for Soviets, because it made it less likely that Germany would advance as far ahead of its logistics as otherwise.

[Stamb]

it is such a joy to read your AARs, Beethoven
great sense of humor

[Beethoven1]

it is such a joy to read your AARs, Beethoven
great sense of humor

Glad you are an enjoyer

[Beethoven1]

START OF SOVIET TURN 2


In the north, Axis Commander XRAM advanced fairly cautiously towards the north.

However, notice that Germany did some bombing raids on Velikie Luki (circled in blue). Honestly, this is the reason I am posting now rather than waiting, since Shaggy was wondering about it.



In a series of fearsome raids, 32 JU-88 bombers appeared 3 times in the skies over our beautiful town and bombed it. In total, 22 bombers were lost, mostly from flak, but also with some operational losses.



These caused the railyard at Velikie Luki to sustain 42% damage, causing Soviet North Commander IGB to shed a small tear which descended approximately two milometers under his left eye before it evaporated into the mist which had already begun to blanket the perilous swamps east of Pskov:



Nevertheless, Soviets received 8219 freight at Velikie Luki, as our trains fearlessly and skillfully dodged the falling bombs. Incidentally, it is nice that trains can never be permanently destroyed by this bombing. Because if they could, then Soviets would surely be doing it to Axis.




In the center, Axis commander Panzer_Freak advanced cautiously onto the land bridge and towards the Dnieper:




In the south, Axis commander Intelligent advanced more cautiously than the previous turn, and encircled a decent number of units, including the 34th tank division.



Additional units of the southern front were encircled or ZOC locked/trapped and doomed.



The Luftwaffe also did some bombing raids on Tiraspol (visible in the above screenshot). Unlike the raids on Velikie Luki, these bombed our airfields. Over 3 raids, 31 Soviet fighters were destroyed on the ground, but 7 fighters and 34 bombers were lost on the Axis side (which appear to be German planes, not Romanian). Given the losses, it seems questionable whether these raids were really worthwhile.




Overall, 701k Soviet losses had been sustained by the start of turn 2:



There were an additional 203k isolated (mostly turn 1 pocket remnants), as well as a few divisions ZOC locked/doomed:




Overall, it seemed on turn 2 that Axis had begun advancing more cautiously and generally on a broader front, having seen the damage that was done by Soviet moves in the south on turn 1. However, would the Axis remain cautious and mindful of CPP, with a measured and steady rate of advance, or would they boldly dart into Soviet territory the next turn and expose themselves to counterattack? We will have to see in subsequent episodes of For the Infallible Koba.


At this point, there will need to be a bit more of a pause before further updates for information security reasons, because it would start to show where we had sent reinforcements etc. Although come to think of it, I could use copy/paste or clone tool in a paint program to make doctored screenshots showing false reinforcements Perhaps I should do that

You will have to guess as to whether or not I do that, but things will become clearer with time.

[RedJohn]

All is well on the Eastern Front. Woe to the Germans.

[Beethoven1]

The game continues to progress at a good pace - we have sent back turn 5 to the Soviets. I think we are sufficiently far past turn 2 to be able to show the next bit. Since then we have had a lot of reinforcements and units moving around to various places.

END OF SOVIET TURN 2

In the north, IGB concentrated his defense near Smolensk. There was a more scattered defense of the Baltics and of the Velikie Luki region. IGB flipped back some hexes in front of Pskov with a tank, including a few double rail hexes. Hopefully that stopped some of the free baltic rail repair there. However, he left a large gap around the eastern side of Pskov. Would Germany spot the gap, and if so would the Panzers drive into it around the side of Pskov?




In the center, Bread lined up infantry to defend the Dnieper and Smolensk. To the rear, he kept some strong tank and mechanized units in reserve, for, shall we say... special occasions...



An infantry division was accidentally left alone from the Bialystok pocket, which managed to cut the double rail line near Brest-Litovsk. Also notice that remaining units in the pocket were placed under the Northwestern front. We did this to free up command capacity for the Western Front, which we made an assault front. No doubt the Axis team will be shocked to discover that Western Front is an assault front.




In the south, Fracas set up a spread out checkerboardish defense designed to slow down the Axis advance without giving them obvious big pockets to go for. There are a couple high morale tank divisions refitting near Kiev on the depot, for subsequent use in counterattacks:

[Beethoven1]

HMMM THE FORESHADOWING MAY HAVE BEEN TOO SUBTLE



OH NO I HOPE THE AXIS DONT TRY TO OUTFLANK PSKOV TO THE EAST

[Beethoven1]

START OF SOVIET TURN 3

In the air phase, Axis did a lot of bombing missions against our railyards. These did damage the railyards, but I am not sure that really had any particular effect on reducing Soviet supply - a least not yet. None of the bombing raids were intercepted by Soviet fighters.



For example, Velikie Luki was bombed - quite a lot...:



And also the rail hexes next to it were bombed with Railwar Air Interdiction missions:



That one for example apparently increased rail usage by 122. Which is not very much of the 12k-ish capacity of a single line rail (or the 30k-ish of a double line).

Did the bombing of Pskov have a discernible effect? It is hard to tell, but possibly. We did only receive 2578 freight at VL. However, it is hard to ttell how much of that is because we did not have a huge # of units there, so demand for freight was fairly low, and how much was because of the bombing.



Even if the freight to VL were limited, it probably would not much have mattered, because we got 7720 freight (which was not even sent out to units) at the nearby Toropets depot:



The Idritsa depot also sent out nearly 6000 freight to units near Velikie Luki.

Total air losses were 168 Axis (mostly Flak and operational from bombing the railyards), and 278 Soviet (entirely from defensive ground support).



There was also bombing of all the ports in Crimea, which damaged them. It is hard to tell if that had any effect because we did not have the Crimea depots on priority 4 this turn (we wanted them to send their freight to the front at this point in the game).

Overall, our supply seemed to be ok in general:




Now, on to the land!...

Palvov was executed, and replaced by Voroshilov as commander of the Western Front:





In the north, we found out the answer to our question... The Axis commander XRAM did indeed spot the gap to the east of Velikie Luki. And it appears that he drove his Panzergruppe straight through the gap:



One can understand why this was tempting to do, since after all it was totally undefended. On the plus side for the Axis, this means they advanced pretty far, and threatened the flanks of Pskov. But on the negative side, the advance was very narrow, just a few hexes wide, making it comparatively easy to cut off. In addition, it appeared that Germany had broken down partly into regiments as well (that 3=3 Panzer at the base south of Pskov is a regiment, for example), and regiments are very vulnerable to counterattack.

As soon as we began the land phase, we noticed that the entire Panzergruppe could be cut off just by this one single Anti-tank brigade, all by itself:



The AT brigade also only had 24 movement points... AT brigades can have up to 35, so this was only just using a fraction of the AT brigade's true power.

So right from he very start of the turn, IGB knew that he would cut off the entire Panzergruppe. The only question was how much additional damage could be done.



In the center, Panzer_Freak advanced more cautiously with AGC in comparison to AGN, just flipping a few hexes on the land bridge but otherwise resting:




Meanwhile in the south, Intelligent advanced boldly directly to the east, in a style similar to the north - directly forward a long way, but on a very thin and narrow front, vulnerable to counterattack and/or being cut off. The German Panzer and motorized units were also broken down into nice juicy regiments, making them tempting targets:



But as we all know, fracas is a gentle and peaceful player (hence the name, "fracas"), and he would never dream of doing anything like that. However, there was also another question... If fracas were to counterattack, who would be fooling who? Would fracas merely doom his own troops by counterattacking, if he were to do so?

...

Stay tuned to find out in upcoming episodes of For the Infallible Koba

...