Drama on the Danube (SI DLC) AAR (Beethoven Soviets vs Malyhin Axis)

[Beethoven1]

Introduction

This is an AAR for a game Malyhin and I are playing using a pre-release beta version of the upcoming Steel Inferno DLC for War in the East 2.

We are playing the Drama on the Danube scenario, which begins in August 1944 and goes until May 1945. I will be playing the Soviets, and Malyhin is playing the Axis.

Before we get started on the game, let's take a quick look at the scenario itself. I have played this scenario, but only up through turn 3, so it will be a learning experience for me almost as much as it is for you.



If you are looking for something a bit different from your typical War in the East 2 game, this scenario certainly qualifies in that respect. At the start of the scenario, it is August 20, 1944, and Malinovsky's 2nd Ukrainian front and Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian front are poised for a major offensive near the Romanian border. The Romanians are holding the flanks, while German troops hold a salient partly in Bessarabia and partly in Romania. As anyone who has ever heard of Stalingrad will immediately recognize, Romanians on the flanks is a less than promising setup for the Axis:



Historically, Romanian King Michael staged a coup on August 23 (3 days after the start of the scenario) and deposed Ion Antonescu's pro-German government. The new Romanian government after the coup recognized that the Axis was obviously going to lose the war and switched sides to the Soviets. To simulate this, all the Romanian troops should disappear from the map for the Axis on the first Axis turn and Romanian territory should flip to Soviet control, provided that Soviets can make a good advance into Romania on the first Soviet turn. And subsequently, I should start to get some Romanian troops of my own on the Soviet side.




However, that is not all that is new and different about this scenario. If we scroll over and look at Yugoslavia, we will see something interesting...



Partisans. Lots of partisans.

I am not quite sure how they are going to work, but it will be interesting to find out...

And in addition to that, you can see we also have the British Royal Air Force in Italy (as well as the Bulgarian air force).


There's also yet one other thing you may have noticed. In the first screenshot, some of the Carpathian mountain hexes are colored in black:



These hexes are impassable. The addition of impassable hexes makes combat in the mountains more realistic. No longer can you simply walk large numbers of troops across the mountains, and get through simply by having more counters than the enemy. Instead, there will be narrow choke-points in the mountains. There are also other scenarios in the expansion where impassable mountains have been added elsewhere (most importantly, the Caucasus).

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Plans and Strategic Considerations

The obvious thing for Soviets to do on turn 1 seems to be for Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian front (colored pink) to break through the Romanian defenses in the east, and advance more or less along the red line. Meanwhile, Malinovsk's 2nd Ukrainian front (colored beige) will break through the Romanians in the west and advance through the valley more or less along the blue lines:



This would ordinarily be a larger pocket than would be reasonable to attempt o hold, but in this case it is possible because the Romanians are about to disappear and then switch sides.



Secondly, in this screenshot I have colored in the Romanian border more darkly in black:



From this, a key strategic consideration becomes clear. When Romania switches sides, I should gain control of all the Romanian territory. This includes the red area, which is on the other side of the Carpathians. This area is very important, because if I can move into it quickly, before the German and Hungarian troops arrive to fill the mountain passes, that will make it a lot easier for me to subsequently push into Hungary. So I suspect we will have a race on our hands, where both Malyhin and I rush to seize as much of this important territory as we can get our hands on.



Thirdly, the area near Belgrade seems very important, for two reasons:



First, the red paths are the only paths available to me towards the Hungarian plains that don't go through the Carpathian (or other) mountains. So, especially if I can't quickly secure a good foothold on the western side of the Carpathians, this area will be very important as my pathway towards Hungary and ultimately Austria. Secondly, there are a good number of German troops in Greece, as well as Yugoslavia. Malyhin may wish to leave some of these behind to defend victory points, but it is pretty likely that he may try to escape with a lot of them. If so, the most obvious escape route through the sea of Yugoslavian partisans is this blue line north towards Belgrade and Hungary. So Malyhin may race to get out in this direction, while I may race to try to cut him off before he can do so.



Fourthly, a final important strategic consideration is Greece. Malyhin cannot simply totally abandon Greece. More precisely, he could, but doing so is not necessarily the best idea. The reason for that, if we look in the editor, is that there is are some events that fire when the Soviets take Katerini (depending on what turn it is taken), and if it is taken early, it prevents Axis from evacuating some units out of Greece:



So, although Katerini does not have a victory point, it is nonetheless quite important.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 1

We are playing with some new recommended house rules which are meant to limit how fast Soviets can advance into Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece. I can't send Bulgarian troops into Yugoslavia or Greece until turn 4, and I can't send Soviet troops into Bulgaria until turn 4. So I don't have as much reason to rush as I otherwise might.

According to plan, both Malinovsky and Tolbukhin broke through at the weak (Romanian) points.



When Romania flips to the Soviets, the pocket should be secure (or secure enough). At least I think so and hope so! The main thing you have to watch out for is Bessarabia. Because while Romania flips to Soviet control, only the Bessarabian territory that I actually take will be under Soviet control next turn.


One interesting point to note is how I did my attacks (for the two main breakthroughs). First of all, in general, most of my attacks for the breakthrough were actually hasty attacks. Why? Because with hasty attacks, you can avoid reserve activations. Here's an example, I hasty attacked here with 3 rifle corps to clear out the units on the side of the central breakthrough hex:



Secondly, I deliberate attacked the central breakthrough hex with purely artillery divisions and rocket brigades, before attacking with any troops. This resulted in disrupting a lot of the combat elements of the defending 4th Romanian mountain division:



The preparatory artillery bombardment (I actually did 2 of them) helped ensure that the Romanians would be weak when I subsequently attacked with real units.

So I then followed that up with a hasty attack with 3 Rifle Corps on the central breakthrough hex. The 3 Rifle Corps were almost surely more than I really needed, but I wanted to make absolutely sure that the attack would work. Because it was a hasty attack, with no other units bordering the defending unit (because I attacked the neighboring hexes first), and since I got more than 10:1 odds, this meant there was no combat delay. And so accordingly, my mechanized corps would be able to follow through the breach with 0 combat delay:



I did the same thing further to the in the east with Malinovsky's breakthrough.

If you are looking to make a deep breakthrough, you can try doing this to minimize your combat delay, so that your units can advance a bit further.


There is also one final interesting thing this turn. The Soviets have a fortified region near Odessa.

But...

It is not just any fortified region, oh no.

It is a GUARDS fortified region.



No wonder the Romanians are fleeing from our offensive and are about to switch sides. Soviets have not just Guards divisions and Guards corps in this scenario, but also have terrifyingly powerful Guards fortified regions.

I dare Malyhin to try to attack it!

[Stamb]

attacking and getting holds with arty divisions do not create combat delay?

[Beethoven1]

attacking and getting holds with arty divisions do not create combat delay?

Nope

[malyhin1517]

As a result of the breakthrough of the defense in Moldova and the transition to the side of the enemy of Romania and Bulgaria, as well as the uprising in Yugoslavia, Army Group South Ukraine, E and F found themselves in a difficult operational situation. So, almost all the troops of the 6th and 8th Army of the Army Group South Ukraine were surrounded in the Chisinau region. An attempt to withdraw troops from the encirclement in Moldova was unsuccessful, the encirclement ring was too dense. The encircled troops took up positions for defense and are preparing for a heroic death.


In connection with the transition of Romania to the side of the enemy, the Hungarian allied troops and some German units that did not get into the encirclement were advanced to Transylvania and the Southern Carpathians to prevent the enemy from quickly breaking through the mountain passes. The rapid advance of the 2nd Hungarian Panzer Division and the 4th German Mountain Infantry Division made it possible to take control of Transylvania again and block the possible routes of advance of Soviet troops through the Southern Carpathians. However, the communication lines in Transylvania were destroyed, and the repair of railways in this scenario is impossible due to the lack of repair units, so our troops have supply problems there. In this regard, the German player needs to prepare a line of defense along the border of Hungary and Romania closer to the supply depots.


The troops of Army Groups "E" and "F" were blocked by partisans on the territory of Yugoslavia and Greece. All supply routes to them were blocked. In Yugoslavia, a counter-guerrilla operation began with the aim of freeing the supply lines for the troops. As a result of this operation, partisan formations in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina were blocked. 16 partisan detachments were destroyed, several dozen more were defeated and retreated, as a result of which the task was partially completed.


In addition, hostilities began to disarm the Bulgarian army, for which the 1st mountain division captured Skopje and defeated the headquarters of the 5th Bulgarian army. Also in Greece, the 7th Bulgarian Infantry Division was surrounded.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 2

I got two interesting events at the start of the turn. First, Romania surrendered (and switched sides), as expected:



However, Banat, Crisana, and Oltenia were re-taken by the Axis, apparently due to presence of Axis troops there:



After getting this event, I checked in the editor to see if I could find similar events for other provinces flipping back to Axis control. I didn't see any, but this nevertheless reinforces my desire to advance quickly to secure the Romanian territory before the Axis can move into it, just in case I am missing something.



The Partisan War

In the Axis turn, as you can see from Malyhin's screenshots, he did quite a few counterattacks on my glorious Partisans. The partisan war features a mix of units on each side.

On the Axis side, there are some battalions of about 500 men, but also larger units (and any regular divisions/regiments that Malyhin uses here)

On my side, I have a lot of partisan battalions with about 500 men (the ones with the P icons). They can't move, but if they lose battles and are not isolated, will sometimes retreat rather than surrender. I also have partisan "divisions" with 4000-5000 men (with the mountaineer icons). These can move, and seem to be able to beat the Axis battalions, but not the larger Axis units.

The dynamic seems to be that the Axis can beat my partisan battalions (and possibly some of my partisan divisions), so he is trying to do that to clear away partisans and isolate some of them. Meanwhile, I am trying to use my partisan divisions to beat his battalions and to un-isolate my partisans so that they won't surrender, until Soviet troops arrive from Romania.

However, it is pretty tough to un-isolate my partisans without help from Soviet troops, and also without using the Bulgarians. There are also 2 different versions of the Drama on the Danbue scenario - a single player version and a multiplayer version. We are playing the multiplayer version, and one of the main differences between the versions is that in the single player version, many of the Axis units are locked in city forts, but in the multiplayer version, Malyhin can pull them out more easily to smash the partisans.

Part of the difficulty of un-isolating my partisans is that I have to be careful where I move the partisan divisions that are able to move (the ones that look like mountaineers). If I move them out into light forest or clear terrain without a fort, then hey are fairly likely to get attacked next turn and to surrender. Each one that surrenders is about 4000 men lost, so I want to avoid that to the degree possible. My best chance for the partisans to survive is to either stay in the level 2/3 forts, or at least to keep to mountain or rough terrain. Hopefully the Soviets can arrive before they are wiped out. Other than the partisans near Bulgaria, my partisans also have basically no supply. I can air supply them, but it is very inefficient to send air supply if I don't have an airfield, and the only airfield I have right now is in Fiume (only because it was undefended and so I was able to capture it this turn).

So at the end of this turn, most of my partisans are isolated:



In the area south of Belgrade, I am trying to link up to un-isolate my partisans (and also to cut off retreat paths for the Axis from Greece):



However, I don't have enough movement to link up. Hopefully the defensive CVs of my partisan divisions should be high enough that they can't be viably attacked, and maybe I can link up next turn.



The Conventional War

Meanwhile in Romania, I cleared out the pocketed troops to the degree that I could, but they don't seem to surrender very easily. A lot of units retreated rather than surrendering:



The only way to really ensure that units surrender seems to be cutting off their retreat paths. Here is a screenshot from halfway through the turn - I used the 2=1 rocket artillery to flip the hexes next to the highlighted units, so that they would have nowhere to retreat. This meant that then when I attacked them, they would actually surrender. The fact that Malyhin left his forts also made it easier to beat some of his units.



But I am trying to hold and reduce the pocket with relatively minimal forces (and mostly with units that are set to withdraw from the map in a few turns). Most of my units are pressing forward towards Hungary and Yugoslavia. Many of my tank and mech corps are already over the Carpathians, to establish a foothold in Transylvania - however, Malyhin seems to have rushed in some units to flip a lot of hexes there to his control, so my foothold is not very big.

I also have other tank and mech units headed towards Yugoslavia, to help out my partisans:



My favorite unit is selected in the screenshot below:



It is a Romania Motorized Cavalry division. I love motorized infantry units. And I also love cavalry units. So, as you can imagine, I am absolutely enraptured in an unshakeable trance of amorous adulation by this stunningly beautiful unit, with its 75 national morale! I literally cannot find enough adjectives to describe my love of this fabulous unit. It may only have 55 actual morale now... But just wait a bit, and it will get up there nicely



Anyway, there is also a lot of infantry that will be following behind, both through the Carpathians and also into Yugoslavia.

[malyhin1517]

During the second turn on the Eastern Front, the Axis managed to create a front line in Transylvania in the Southern Carpathians, preventing a rapid enemy breakthrough to the borders of Hungary. At the same time, the troops of the 6th German Army continued to fight encircled in the Chisinau region, holding down a significant grouping of Soviet troops.


In Yugoslavia, Axis forces continued to destroy partisan forces and provide transport links to Army Group E in Greece. In a week, 5 partisan divisions and 18 battalions were destroyed.


Army Group E continued to hold Greece and fought in Macedonia to secure a land corridor to Hungary. At the same time, active operations were carried out to block and destroy the Bulgarian troops.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 3

The Partisan War

In north/west Yugoslavia, Malyhin is methodically eating away at my partisans. There is not much I can do here, because I can't link together the different partisan groupings, and I can't link up towards eastern Yugoslavia because he has too many units in the way. Pretty much the only units I can attack attack are battalion sized (though it can be possible to attack slightly larger units if they are on poor defensive terrain and if I attack with multiple units).



However, further east it is viable to do a bit more. I was able to un-isolate the main partisan groupings in Bosnia to the west of Belgrade. The area of greatest opportunity is the highlighted area, because there is a chokepoint there through which the German units will need to pass to retreat from Greece. However, there is lots of rough/mountainous terrain there, so I can move my partisan divisions there and it should not be too easy for him to attack and force his way towards Belgrade (especially because I am double stacking and triple stacking). Further to the north, I was able to do a decent amount of counterattacks because a lot of the Axis units are weak battalions and in some cases regiments on clear terrain.



Meanwhile in the southern Balkans, Malyhin is trying to cut me off in Macedonia (but got cut off by partisans in the process), while I am trying to cut him off as well through the rough terrain along he Albanian border. Malyhin also has encircled one of my Bulgarian divisions along the Aegean coast, which sadly could not be un-isolated and appears doomed.





The Conventional War

However, the conventional war is starting to get close to merging with the partisan war... My leading mechanized and cavalry forces have pretty much cleared out Oltenia and are waiting to be allowed to move into Bulgaria, which is allowed by the suggested house rules starting on turn 4.



My hope is that these will be able to link up with my partisans near Belgrade and trap and destroy some part of the Axis troops there before they can escape from Greece.


Meanwhile, I pushed across the Carpathian mountain passes and into Translyvania, and in the process was able to isolate a good number of Hungarian and German units.



Clearly the mountain passes make for a good defensive position for the Axis, because they constrict movement possibilities and limit the front. However that actually seems to be something of a double edged sword, because that also seems to make it easier to trap the Axis units in the mountain passes.



Here is a screenshot from earlier in the turn to show how I did this:



First I moved my 7=4 cavalry and 4=6 tank units (broken down into divisions from corps) along the red lines, behind the enemy units. In the positions I moved them to, they have zones of control in all the surroundings hexes (faintly highlighted in yellow). When units retreat, they try to avoid retreating into an enemy zone of control. So that meant that his units (the 1=1 cavalry, 1=1 tank, and 2=10 mountaineer) would be fairly likely to retreat along the blue lines to he north-east.

I then moved my 7=10 cavalry out of the way so that it would not have a zone of control (the blue line below):



I attacked his 3 units, and they all retreated towards the north-east. Unfortunately, the I needed to attack the tank again to get it out of the way, and it routed to the west. But nevertheless, this created a nice big gap that the rest of my units could drive through, which allowed me to isolate a large number of units. The isolated units included the following in the main pocket:

2 Hungarian mountaineer border brigades
1 Hungarian border guard brigade
1 Hungarian infantry division
1 Hungarian field replacement division
1 Hungarian replacement cavalry brigade
2 German mountaineer regiments
2 German Corps HQs

The smaller pocket to the east had 1 German mountaineer regiment and 1 Hungarian field replacement division. I thought I had enough movement points to move 1 of the tank divisions into the heavy forest and seal the pocket on the western side, but sadly it didn't actually have enough movement points to go there:



So next turn Malyhin can just move 1 hex to he west to un-isolate himself. However, hopefully I will be able to reseal the pocket then.



Meanwhile I am starting to get close to done (but still not done) with clearing out the pocket. The 3 units in the south that surrendered probably mostly did so because their retreat paths were cut off by the 1=1 Katyusha division. The units further north were tougher and as you can see, a lot of them retreated multiple times without surrendering or before surrendering:



The German infantry divisions here seem to fight harder, even when isolated, than the weak Hungarian units do, even when the Hungarian units are un-isolated and defending rough terrain or mountain.

[Beethoven1]

At the end of turn 3, there is one other bit that I didn't show screenshots of. In general I am writing the AAR without a turn delay, but there was a top secret operation underway which was hidden from the Abwehr. However, now both of us have done turn 4, and the operation can be revealed (Malyhin will see it soon enough anyway!).

What's this I see?:



Could those be a bunch of units on trains, massed near the Bulgarian border, preparing to enter Bulgaria next turn, but with their trains delayed at the border crossing while their commanders make diplomatic arrangements with the Bulgarian border guards and fill in customs forms? Hmmm, could be. If so, I wonder where they could be going. No doubt the Axis troops will begin to discover where these troops have gone pretty soon.

Or maybe this is all Maskirovka? Maybe?

[malyhin1517]

It is necessary to add to the house rules a ban on Russian units from using the railway in Romania and Bulgaria! By the way, did they use them? As far as I know, the Soviet troops moved independently, and not along the railway.

[Jango32]

Why do the Romanians in August 1944 under Soviet command suddenly become as competent as the Germans in 1941 from a morale POV if they get a Guard promotion?

Why are Romanians in August 1944 under Soviet command suddenly as competent as the Germans in 1944 from a morale POV, period?

[malyhin1517]

Why do the Romanians in August 1944 under Soviet command suddenly become as competent as the Germans in 1941 from a morale POV if they get a Guard promotion?

Why are Romanians in August 1944 under Soviet command suddenly as competent as the Germans in 1944 from a morale POV, period?

Because Romanians and Bulgarians are considered Soviet troops and receive the National Morale of the USSR. In WITE1, Romanians and Bulgarians had their own nationality, but this was introduced after the development team split and did not make it into WITE2.

[Jango32]

Wouldn't it make more sense to treat units with those TOEs as having less national morale? Like for example how the Luftwaffe field divisions have a starting national morale of 65 that just goes lower as the German NM decreases?

[malyhin1517]

4 turn: The Axis forces are still trying to restore and hold the front lines in Hungary and Transylvania, as well as to clear the lines of communication through Yugoslavia with Greece. The destruction of partisan detachments in Yugoslavia is being actively carried out. The encircled Bulgarian infantry division in Greece was also disarmed. In total, 3 enemy infantry divisions were destroyed during the turn, including two Yugoslav partisan divisions and 39 partisan detachments.

[Beethoven1]

Wouldn't it make more sense to treat units with those TOEs as having less national morale? Like for example how the Luftwaffe field divisions have a starting national morale of 65 that just goes lower as the German NM decreases?

I agree, it is a good idea to maybe add something similar to the LW morale modification. That would be presumably more feasible to program in than changing the way the nationalities work.

[Beethoven1]

Soviet Turn 4

Bulgaria has switched sides, so now I can move Soviet units into Bulgaria, as well as start using the Bulgarian units:




The Partisan War

As you can see from Malyhin's AAR, my partisans across north/west Yugoslavia are being totally wiped out. There is really nothing I can do about that, they just surrender when attacked and I can't un-isolate them until Soviet troops can reach them (which will be too late for many of them).



Overall, I have 100k men captured, including 35k this past turn, which are mostly partisans who were isolated surrendering.



However, in western Yugoslavia, things are quite a bit different.



The Conventional War

Here, the conventional war has merged into the partisan war, as Soviet troops have reached the front.



Belgrade has been cut off (though I did not have movement points to seal it, so it will presumably be broken for a turn). In addition, a Hungarian armored division in the middle has been cut off and ZOC-locked, so it will hopefully surrender next turn.



And in the south of the screenshot, I have formed a thick wall of partisan divisions (now joined by Bulgarian infantry) in the hills north of Pristina, blocking any real prospect of escape for the Axis units to the south.

However, those units are not isolated yet, partly because there are still 2 thin corridors open highlighted here:



But in addition, another reason for those units not being isolated is that there are 2 Axis NSSes in Thessaloniki and katerini. However as you can see in the screenshot below, in the very north, Soviet troops have started to arrive here in the form of that Guards Rifle Corps in the north which I railed in from the Romanian border. The rest of the troops are Bulgarians, newly placed under Soviet command (but there are also some more Soviets lagging behind on their way:




Meanwhile in the Carpathians, I eliminated the large pocket and re-sealed the smaller pocket (but alas, 1 unit routed out from the smaller pocket). I also am forcing my way through the mountain passes, which hopefully adds to the places Axis needs to worry about defending. It is also more direct and faster for some units to push directly through the mountains rather than walking all the way around them, and it seems to be surprisingly easy to push them (just attack with some corps), so may as well.



Other units are resting or walking to the front. I am surprised by how many Axis units there are in the Carpathians, given how many I pocketed last turn. I am not sure if that is normal, or maybe Malyhin is over-committing here. At any rate, it is enough for me not to be able to easily make a breakthrough or another pocket this turn, so may as well rest some of my units.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Quality AAR by both of you. The enciclement of the Axis units in the mountain passes looks like a good success, the defence of the Hungarian plains behind looks thin.

[malyhin1517]

The Axis has very few troops on the map, mostly weak Hungarian divisions. Therefore, I tried to take up defense in the Carpathians. On the plain, a huge number of Soviet mechanized and tank corps will simply tear my defenses. If I took up defense on the border of Hungary and Transylvania, then I would not have enough troops even for one line of defense.

[malyhin1517]

At turn 5 of the game, the Axis forces in Moldavia were finally destroyed. However, the advance of Russian troops through the Southern Carpathians to Transylvania was still held back by German and Hungarian troops.


However, after the transition of Bulgaria to the side of the Allies, the Russian troops made a quick throw of their mobile troops through Bulgaria to Yugoslavia and Greece. It was impossible for the Axis forces to prevent the Soviet troops from breaking through to Belgrade, since their main forces were blocked in the Pristina region, and the remaining few troops were engaged in counter-guerrilla struggle in the Sarajevo and Zagreb regions. There was a direct threat of the exit of Soviet troops to Budapest and further to Vienna. The Axis had practically no reserve forces in the area and the situation had become critical.


Loss per turn summary: