The Great War 1914-????

[Karri]

Started a scenario against Larry Fulkerson, we're playing The Great War 1914-1918 by Piero Falotti. I am playing the Central Powers.

Here's what's happened so far:

Turn 1:
As the war began I immediatly marched towards Liege and Namur. The defences in Liege were easily destroyed, but Namur was out of the reach of my troops. My goal was to defeat all enemy troops in the area as fast as possible, because that would give me free hands to maneuver my units. As of now, the area is quite crowded.


The enemy reacted(as in house rules) by attacking along the French-German border.

Turn 2:
The German forces kept pushing forwards, as ordered, and captured Namur, however not completely. The outskirts of Bruxelles and Antwerpen were also reached.

The left flank is heading towards Sedan, but the enemy forces seem to be quite strong here, thus I am moving quite a deal of the forces towards the English Channel in hope of 'outrunning' the enemy.


In the East a few lone Russian divisions marched near the German border, but no forces were to be moved there. The austrians moved a few divisions to preapre for a strike in the Balkans.

The combat itself has been quite heavy this turn, with my casualties mounting up to several thousand squads.

The enemy reacted by trying to form some sort of line in the French-belgian border.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the minimap view of the first four turns:
 

[Karri]

A picture of the belgian front on turn 2:

[Karri]

Turn 3:

It's still pretty quiet on all other fronts except the western one. My casualties start to mount for good, and are over 11 000 rifle sqauds for now. However, progress is made as the force push towards the English Channel. We are experiencing quite heavy resistance in Antwerpen, but our forces are determined to destroy the enemy there. Also Bruxelles has fallen to our troops.

Currently my forces are trying to outflank the French line, and thus win the war with as little casualties as possible, and are moving towards Lille and Cambrai.

For the first time we also encountered British forces in Belgium, they are offering quite a tough fight, but with superior tactics and forces we shall defeat them too.

[Karri]

Turn 4:
We paid a heavy price for our advance this turn. Our casualties skyrocketed to 27 000 rifle squads, and on top of that we've lost about 6000 other squads. But the french, belgians and british are suffereing heavy losses as well, and more importantly they are losing ground at an alarming rate.

The british forces fought bravely, but they were beaten to pieces by the mighty German divisions, the belgian army faced the same fate.

In the West our forces have almost reached Lille, the fortifications in Antwerpen have been breached and the french line near Cambrai has been hit heavily and there are huge gaps in it. A little east from there however, the front is pretty stagnant; attack and counter-attacks keep it so. Our force are however 15 kilometres from Sedan.
The french seem to be throwing all they have into the frontline...


In the East the Russians are starting to move, and the German high command reacted to this by moving several reserve units to hold the line there. We shall see what the ruskies are upto in the future.

The Serbia-Montenegro area is pretty quiet...and in africa there's nothing worth reporting. Well, the allies did manage to sunk a certain cruiser.

[Karri]

Turn 5:
The war is starting to spread. There's now 'some' action going on on the eastern front, as small russian and german/austrian units skirmish in the area. The german high command decided to create a defensive line in East Prussia, and it is almost complete. Thanks to the swamps and lakes in the area, less units are needed than I though...perhaps these units can be used for an offensive in the near future?

The austrian are moving their forces against Serbia, and minor action is going on in that front. However, the vast majority of austrian forces are being moved to Galicia to face the russians.

The fighting in the Western Front continues to be fierce. The casualties are now about 40 000 rifle squads and plenty of other squads as well. Whole regiments are being destoryed in these battles...some divisions have lost about 75% of their strenght. But still, the forces are pushing onwards. The french are reinforcing their line, and few more british untis have been spotted as well. Belgians are still resisting in Antwerpen, where tens of thousands of germans are dying trying to take the fortresses.

Sedan is ours but the french line in the area seems quite strong and thus the point of attack has been shifted a bit more west. Now the forces are aiming towards ST. Quentin, Cambrai and Arras. Also certain army groups are moving towards the English channel.

Turn 6:
The british entered the war for good, and the advance towards the English channel has been put on a hold for the moment, at least 10 divisions are spotted in Belgium.

Antwerpen still refuses to fall, but that doesn't matter, we keep on pushing onwards. It is now more and more obvious that the only route to Paris is through Cambrai and St. Quentin.


The french force in this area are weak and beaten. No doubt there are reserves nearby, but with swift attacks and fast advance these can be ebaten piecemeal...the only problem is I got only 1 combat round this turn. Oh well.

The russians are also starting to move, several divisions have been spotted moving towards East-Prussia.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the minimap view of the moves for turns 1 thru 8:



Excerpt from "Spectre Gunners":

"I'd kinda like to fly one of those bad boys myself."

"You might not after you hear where we work."

"Really? Where?"

"Up and down the Ho Chi Minh trail. Laos."

"Laos? In a C-130? No way. That's the most intense triple A environment except for Hanoi. How the hell does it survive?"

"We always fly at night. Flare launchers for IR threats, chafe for radar weapons. Did lose a plane, I heard. Maybe two, I donno."

"Hell, I thought I was crazy to fly Sandy's. You're crazier than I am."

[Karri]

Turn 7:
We push on in Belgium and Northern France, and the situation still seems somewhat good. Also Antwerpen fell this turn, it claimed a lot of casualties. Perhaps I concentrated too much units there. Anyways, there's still a gap between the BEF and French troops.

On the Eastern Front an offensive was launched. For now the offensive aims to the capture of Warsaw. For this we use three 'columns'. The germans, who are moving south of Thorn(while maintaining a defensive line north of Thorn all along East Prussia) and the Austrians East of Breslau and the third column with limited force a little more east from there. In addition to this reinforcements are being sent, or planned to be sent, to different spots where the offensive is to continue from. So far the Russians have been beaten and are showing only limited resistance.

Casualties are again rising, by now over 60 000 rifle squads have been lost, although some of those have been recoverable casualties(this turn alone I started with ~1000 rifle squads in the pool and ended up with 8000 rifle squads in the pool).

[larryfulkerson]

Here's some Allied losses so far ( before combat in turn 11 ) :
 

 
And here's the minimap view of the moves for turns 1 throu Allied 11:
 

[Karri]

Turn 8:
Fighting on the Western Front came to an end this turn. The French managed to build new line out of nowhere, and while there's still a few 10km gaps in it, it's not possible to continue the offensive with current forces. Quite a few of the German divisions here are down to 25-50% of their original strenght, and thus without major reinforcements it's impossible to push forwards.

Meanwhile, in the sea most of the German navy has been sunk. As if anyone cares.

On the Eastern Front things look good as more German and Ausrtrian forces join the fighting. As of now, nothing seems to stand in our way towards Warsaw, and the few lone Russian divisions that are there, can be easily beaten.

[Karri]

Strategic thoughts, Western Front:

The Western Front is naturally the most important one, that's where the French and British are. This is the place where the winner will be determined. However in order to win here, I must be able to concentrate the vast majority of my forces for the attack, something I canno't do right now.

In the meantime, I must have significant reserves here to stop any offensive the british or french might be planning. As my attack that ran for the 8 turns showed, casualties here are heavy. That is why the spot of attack needs both lot's of forces and artillery, also lot's of reserves to continue the attack. When a breakthrough is made it must be exploited immediatly, before the enemy can react and throw forces to block the way.

Defence here has only one priority: to bleed the enemy dry. This is done by 1) applying defence in depth, the first and second line should consists of infantry divisions, third line of cavalry, engineer, MG and Jager battalions and whatever other units we can find to hold the ground. All this should be heavily supported by artillery.
2)trade ground for blood. Absolutely no counter-attacks. Only if it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, like a lone enemy cavalry brigade or something holding the ground. By attacking Belgium and France we traded the blood of our soldiers for ground. Now we trade this ground for time, time to concentrate on the Eastern Front.

[larryfulkerson]

The Allies, the Russians specifically, are loosing badly to the Axis Powers.  Here is the minimap view of turns 10 through 16:
 

[Karri]

Turn 9:
More German ships are sunk, who cares.

In serbia the situation is slowly developing as Austria forces cross the river some miles north of Beograd. We're encircling them, but very slowly.

In Poland the russia forces are also facing encirclement, as of now 8 enemy infantry divisions, 1 cavalry division and 2 headquarter units are being mauled pretty badly. While the souther pincer aims for Warsaw, another attack was started from the north, and it immediatly broke through the Russian frontline. More forces are however needed here.

[Karri]

Turn 10-11:
The offensives continue on the same course. The Serbians are being slowly encircled and the russians are hammered by Austrians and Germans. Warsaw was captured on turn 11 by the southern pincer. However, the enemy seems to have concentrated most of his forces north of Warsaw, where we are facing heavy resistance. Casualties there have not been light, but we keep pushing on. At the very least, the enemy will be bled dry there, and he has to concentrate his forces on that area.

The supply situation in now occupied Poland is starting to worry me. I will have to use quite a few turns to rebuild the rail network there, as well as regrouping and resupplying my worn out troops.

About 70 000 rifle squads and 25 000 other squads have been lost. If we count at average of 10 men per squad, that abot 1 million men KIA/WIA/MIA. Plus a few thousand artillery pieces, ten thousand or so horse teams and a few dozen ships.

The loss penalties are 45 for me and 62 for the enemy, so I guess I am still winning...

[Karri]

Turn 12-15
Spies tell us that the Russian morale is wavering due the loss of Warsaw, however it seems to have no effect on the frontline.

On the western front the allies are making attacks against Cambrai, but due to the large troops concentrations there, I doubt they will ever have succes in capturing the city. Also worth mentioning is the fact that Canadian troops are entering the theater. Are the British and French massing for one big offensive? Who knows.

Right now, the biggest concern is Russia. The troops there have managed to cause massive losses to the enemy(with about 2-4 thousand rifle squads per divisions, the russians lost about 20-40 thousand encircled in Poland alone). But while doing so, they have also suffered themself, my losses now being in about 90 000 rifle squads. The drive through Belgium therefore cost as much as the offensive against russians...I am just hoping that the hammer blows caused much more devastating destruction in the ranks of the enemy, and I do know for a fact that multiple divisions, among them several guards divisions, were destroyed.
My forces are however in quite 'depleted' status, with some as low as 10% in strenght, and most in very low supply levels. Thus the 'big push' ends here, and now we concentrate on capturing whatever land can be captured with low costs...also securing bridgeheads for future offensives.

Now, in Serbia things are going quite good, with half of the Serbian army encircled. I have tried making head-on attacks here, but due to the low quality of the Austro-Hungarian troops, I ahve lost entire divisions in single attacks. Not good. Thanks to the reinforcements however, I have been able to simply extend my line further and walk into the enemy's flanks. Also capturing their supply points(thank's to some luck), makes the situation for the enemy somwaht bad.

The Ottomans also joined the war, but they really aren't worth much.

There's some action going on in Africa, but it really serves no purpose for the actual warfare.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the minimap view of the moves from turns 16 thru 27:
 

[Veers]

Dear Lord, those poor Serbians...What happened that Karri was able to surround and destroy, what looks like from the mini-map, almost the entire Serb army? It looks like on turn 18 your left flank (south) was destroyed and at that stage you began a strategic withdrawal, but the speed of his forces that had destroyed your left flank was too much and they managed to cut you off from Greece, and your supply?
 
Oh, and, by the way, thouroughly enjoying this AAR, as I'm on turn 7 as the Allies and seeing things happen here first can be helpful to my planning. [:D]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Veers
Dear Lord, those poor Serbians...What happened that Karri was able to surround and destroy, what looks like from the mini-map, almost the entire Serb army? It looks like on turn 18 your left flank (south) was destroyed and at that stage you began a strategic withdrawal, but the speed of his forces that had destroyed your left flank was too much and they managed to cut you off from Greece, and your supply?

They were moved way too far forward without any recon and got outflanked and surrounded. I debated moving them back/south and for a reason I can't remember now didn't. The same thing happened to the Italians in north africa it seems. Greece is looking like it's going to be written off as well, since I can't move any of the Greek forces yet ( they are in reserve or something).

[Veers]

Larry:
They were moved way too far forward without any recon and got outflanked and surrounded. I debated moving them back/south and for a reason I can't remember now didn't. The same thing happened to the Italians in north africa it seems.

Bummer. Well, at least you be happy about your marvelous defence of France/Belgium; much better than historically.

Larry:
Greece is looking like it's going to be written off as well, since I can't move any of the Greek forces yet ( they are in reserve or something).

Yes. Greece, this early in the war had not yet joined the Entenete (although them 'joining the Entente is somewhat debatable.) I can't remember off-hand, but perhaps there is, and I think there could be the need for, a house-rule taking away the option of attacking Greece until later in the war...

EDIT: It also looks like the Ottomans got the best fo you in Egypt. Is that the case, or am I just reading the mini-map incorrectly? [:D]

[SMK-at-work]

I think you're reading the map incorrectly - looks to me like the Ottomans are getting surrounded and wiped out in the Sinai