8MP Team Game - The Axis team

[Telemecus]

Another loss from nothing air result

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: Rokko

Long time reader/lurker here, would you mind uploading the final savegame? I would like to look a the final dispositions.

Do you mean maps? or the psv?

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

ORIGINAL: Rokko

Long time reader/lurker here, would you mind uploading the final savegame? I would like to look a the final dispositions.

Do you mean maps? or the psv?

And factories.

[Rokko]

I was thinking about the save game file (the one you can load ingame).

By the way, thanks to everybody involved for the great show. I don't actively play the game myself, but enjoy reading the AARs immensly.

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: Rokko

I was thinking about the save game file (the one you can load ingame).

By the way, thanks to everybody involved for the great show. I don't actively play the game myself, but enjoy reading the AARs immensly.

+1

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
Turn 65 at STAVKA
OK - whodunit?

Turn 65 at BERLIN
On hearing of Stalin's demise there is a big party at the Chancellery. But the Fuhrer awakes the next morning to find something missing.
What a night that was!

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
Turn 65 at STAVKA
OK - whodunit?

Turn 65 at BERLIN
On hearing of Stalin's demise there is a big party at the Chancellery. But the Fuhrer awakes the next morning to find something missing.
What a night that was!

Ask this man about it.

[Telemecus]

There was some industry not evacuated from the Kessel too. There are too many rail hexes to repair now to have any chance of their evacuation even if you could hold the Kessel open.

[Telemecus]

And I see it is not just the 8th Italian army after Torzhok. The 4th Rumanian army is also taking charge of Germans on the Oka! [:D]

[Telemecus]

South of the Oka a stitched together a picture of how the end of turn 65 looked from the Axis viewpoint.

[Telemecus]

And I see using three of the FBDs to make a rail connection across the Caucasus mountains. That is a big commitment of rail repair capacity?

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

And I see using three of the FBDs to make a rail connection across the Caucasus mountains. That is a big commitment of rail repair capacity?

Turns 61 - 65 the front did not moving very much. In fact near Stalingrad, M60 decided to push the front back .. But .. it became quite clear that Baku could become quite vulnerable with the only Soviet supply point being Baku. It then became quite lucrative to commit the RR units to build rail to support this effort. It is very clear that the Soviet's have been cut off from reinforcing Baku or even Grozny due to the rail lines from Stalingrad now being cut off. Worse, the Soviets are about to lose 6 units and possibly more before the mud starts. This situation is well worth investing in rail ...

[Telemecus]

Got this screenshot of the start of turn 65 from the Soviet side in the Caucasus.

Normally players repair along the north of the Caucasus mountains and get stuck in Dagestan between the Terek river and Makhachkala. There was no way to outflank the positions going through the mountains as the supply was so bad.

Just counting the hexes having crossed the mountains with the FBDs and even if you carry on with just one or two you would be south of Dagestan by early winter. That part of the world is in the European weather zone so you will have a couple of months of weather to campaign with while the rest of the war is shut down in blizzard.

If they continue to have so few units in the area then they will not be able to defend the mountains and the Terek river. An obstacle undefended is not an obstacle. So it might be possible just to walk to the gates of Baku without much of a fight then?

[Crackaces]

If they continue to have so few units in the area then they will not be able to defend the mountains and the Terek river. An obstacle undefended is not an obstacle. So it might be possible just to walk to the gates of Baku without much of a fight then?

I calculate just enough units to defend the Terek at turn 65 without any more units being surrounded. Unfortunately, as you point out -- I think more German Allied mountain units are headed down here and thus the flank in the mountains could very likely be turned. Made very possible by excellent supply lines.

A look at the German map shows a lot of German Calvary that will cut its way toward the rail lines on turn 66. Clearly, armor would move down here once the blizzard started and the Soviets have no means to shift forces into the Caucasus. A pretty bleak picture indeed ...

[Telemecus]

Counted the hexes you could repair with the two other FBDs, but assumed you would rail other FBDs up once across the mountains in the Caucasus.

Until mud I am assuming the main contraint on advances will be supply and not the enemy.

[Telemecus]

Some final thoughts on next steps. If the game had gone on at least there would be a few turns before mud to press home the advantage. A lot of the good units are at Penza and the central front. But the backdoor through Saransk is open. And I noticed the good Soviet units that used to be at the Oka have gone and some very low CVs there. Perhaps some motorised could have been swung round to attempt another pocket?

This screeenshot is from the end of turn 64 to show how I might have moved units then but could still be adapted to start of turn 66.

[Telemecus]

Apart from a few troops on the lower Volga there is no Soviet presence east of the Volga pocket. So it would take as little as one motorised unit to get to the east edge of the map and cut off South Russia from the North. Their only permanent supply source the south would then have would be Baku. If you could cut off the land route and bomb the two ports on the north Caspian coast until they were damaged enough you could then flip control of the whole of Southern Russia. Admittedly it is all desert with no industry and almost no manpower. But it would leave the enclave around Baku many many hexes away from the main forces in the North.

I have painted this on to a screenshot of the end of Axis turn 64

[Telemecus]

And finally looked at strategic bombing of the fighter bomber factories in the Urals. By my counting of hexes you have airbases in range but need a staging base in enemy territory. The one I marked in this screenshot would do it in an area where you have three panzer armies nearby and virtually no enemy. So I think it would have been possible in a turn or two?

[Telemecus]

I see on turn 65 the evacuated Il-2 factories were already in range!

[Telemecus]

I know I posted from 1147 in this AAR (see tm.asp?m=4250683&mpage=39 ) how the team planned to conduct the 1942 offensive. I am very curious to see how others think it compared to what actually happened. Some of the big points of difference

i) Instead of NOT going into the Caucasus the game did
ii) There was indeed the planned pocket around Saratov. But the southern hook did not travel up both sides of the Volga as planned. And far from having to meet the armies west of Saratov, in the end there was an even bigger pocket formed by closing up to the east of Saratov.
iii) There was no bombing of the Urals - but it still could have happened.

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
Getting to bomb the fighter factories in the Urals in effect meant a victory in the true historic sense - and not just a slow withdrawal to Berlin ....

Unlike in 1941 there would be nowhere to evacuate them to out of range of Axis strategic bombing. But I think this time fighter cover and flak would have been concentrated around the fighter bomber factories. The most damage that could have been hoped for would have been a couple of turns when it was still a surprise and before the Soviet side had reacted. So no true historic victory.

My guess from above would have been a storming success in 1942. A small enclave would have been left around Baku. But the bulk of the red army would end 1942 near Kazan as was predicted in the best case of the Operation Treppenwitz plan.

Nevertheless all the industry that is needed will still be safe in the Urals. With the bad weather the Red Army would be able to recover. And by 1943 the tide would turn. But not soon enough to leave the Soviet side any where near Berlin by turn 225.

@Crackaces - what did you see as the differences/similarities with the plan and was it useful? How would you have seen the next few turns in particular and the course of the campaign afterwards?