Operation Barbarossa - Alpha AAR

[elmo3]

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2,900 km (1,800 mile) front. It was the largest military offensive in history.

With permission from 2by3 I'll be showing you the opening moves of my test of the Soviet AI, set to Challenging, in the '41 campaign. Please remember we are still in alpha at this point. That means many improvements and bug fixes are still being implemented. How many turns this will cover depends on whether it is of value for testing purposes. If a significant build is released that changes things enough to warrant a restart then I'll stop the AAR.

In the meantime, enjoy. I'll post some screen shots of the starting positions and then my first turn moves over the next day or two. Fog of War is On for both sides so you will see what I see as the Axis side. Feel free to ask questions as the battle unfolds.

[elmo3]

Here is the starting situation up north.  Our goals will be to reach Riga so that any units west of Riga are cutoff.  We will also push out to the east to take Kaunas and Vilnius, hopefully overrunning some Soviet air bases and HQ's in the process.  No pocket will be formed here other than the one that traps units near the coast. Otherwise it will be just a straight ahead push.  In theory anyway.

Edit - I should add that the strategic goal of Army Group North is Leningrad but we'll take this one step at a time.

[elmo3]

Minsk is the prize for the first turn in the center.  If we can form a pocket or two we will as long as it does not interfere with reaching the goal. After that the longer term goals will be Smolensk and, of course, Moscow.

[elmo3]

The possibility of forming a huge pocket on the first turn in the south that would envelop Lvov and extend to Tarnopol and down to Chernovtsy is a bold move worth considering.  The pocket would only be lightly defended and could probably be broken if the AI is aggressive enough.  A more modest pocket around Lvov is another possibility that would not trap as many Soviets but those trapped would be much less likely to break out.  Decisions, decisions...

Edit - Kiev is the initial goal for Army Group South and we need to be careful to remember that and not get sidetracked.

[Captain B]

Hey, a suggestion, put some graphics showing what your plan is...and can you point out some of the units maybe...like the axis nations...maybe show a couple of corps boundaries....I think it would help in the overall understanding of what you are trying to do and how the AI is reacting...

The graphics could be very simple like

(first time to try to upload a graphic lets see how it goes!)

Thanks

[Captain B]

Could you also point out the all important rail building unit that I have read about?

[elmo3]

My graphics capability is limited by Paint and my lack of talent at drawing but I'll see what I can do.  The Axis player controls 5 FBD's plus the AI will allocate construction units from HQ's for additional rail conversion and repair.  I'll show rail construction with my screen shots after I move.

[Josh]

THx for the AAR, it's a great way of understanding the gameplay, much better than some screenshots and a video. Will be looking forward to a (small) scenario against a human opponent too [:)]

[DrewBlack]

Great a juicy AAR, im salivatiing about this game already......cant wait.

Drew

[elmo3]

Obviously different players will have different approaches to playing a turn in WitE.  Some of our testers start with switching out less than capable leaders and manually assigning support units to to those on-map units that will be the tip of the spear or in the thick of it on defense.  For purposed of this AAR I will play with hand I'm dealt regarding leaders.  My support units will stay with their starting HQ's and the AI handle them as needed.  Players will want to give some thought to their air doctrine as well before starting a game and during the game as the situation changes.  The Percent Required to Fly on the following screen represents the % of aircraft that must be Ready for that unit to fly a mission.  For Intercept missions it's the % of fighters you will use compared to the attacker (so if 50 aircraft are attacking and you are set to 60% Intercept then you will fly 30 fighters on Intercept).  For Escort missions it's the % of fighters that will fly with your bombers (so if 50 bombers fly a mission with Escort set to 60% then you will bring 30 fighters on Escort).  For bombing missions the program determines the base number of bombers to use and then that is modified by the % you set.  Again for purposes of this AAR we'll leave the %'s as they are.

Air Doctrine window:

[elmo3]

So let's get to it!  Another thing you want to think about very early in each turn is air recon and any strike missions you intend to fly.  You can fly each mission manually or you can be lazy and let the AI do it.  Some of our testers (Andy in particular) bristle at the thought of letting the AI have any control. The fun for them is in managing every detail of the battle. But being basically lazy I am happy to let the AI handle a number of tasks as you saw in my previous post.  Flying air recon and bombing air bases is also something I let the AI handle.  It does a good job and gives me time to go to the fridge for another beer while it's running.  I will follow that up with addition recon and manual bombing of enemy units and cities as needed.  Below are three screen shots of AI air recon and air base bombing from the first.  The aircraft icons with the holes in the tail are recon and the other aircraft icon represents air base bombing mission locations.

[elmo3]

Historically the Soviets lost over 1200 aircraft on the first day of Barbarossa and close to 4000 in the first few days depending on what sources you read.  So how did the AI do in it's first few days of bombing Soviet air bases?  See the results below.  Losses in the upper part of the screen are for German aircraft with Soviet losses in the lower part. It's certainly possible for players to do better manually but the AI did a good job IMHO.  Note that we will destroy more aircraft as our ground pounders overrun air bases on the first turn.

[Zort]

Question on the Axis allies. Are they held in place until they can attack, ie historical attack dates? On the Soviet side, are they forces in front of Romania able to move before they are attacked? Thanks for the AAR.

[elmo3]

Both Axis and Soviet units on the Rumanian front are frozen on turns 1 and 2.  However the forces of both sides will activate if an Axis unit controls a hex in the area of the Soviet side of the border eastward and from south of Tarnopol to north of Chernovtsy.  When I mentioned above that a deep thrust into that area can be helpful in pocketing may Soviet units I forgot to mention activating units from both sides in that area.

[HerzKaraya]

Sorry for being a little "picky" on what I think is the game I´ve anticipated most in my live,
those Bf-109K-4 losses had probably happened while doing test runs at the factory - or not?
The Soviet plane type losses on the Axis side - are probably from Finnish units?

Thanks for your AAR - wish I could be testing it too!!!

[elmo3]

One of our OOB experts would have to reply to your questions Bubi.

[elmo3]

OK, our OOB guys are looking at this now since there aren't any K-4's in the initial OOB.  Thanks for spotting that.  And not to belabor the point but everyone please remember this is Alpha so there are bound to be other anomalies cropping up.  And this AAR has already helped us spot an issue so it's worth the effort.

[elmo3]

Before posting the first turn ground operations results I thought it worth mentioning that there are some special first turn rules designed to help simulate the element of surprise achieved by German forces.  The attack cost in MP's for German units is halved (but not less than one) and the cost to enter an enemy controlled hex is reduced to one MP.  During the Soviet part of turn 1 their MP's are reduced based on the type of unit.

[elmo3]

Army Group North was commanded by Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb and consisted of 18th Army (purple), 4th Panzer Group (red) , 16th Army (pink), and Luftflotte 1 (Keller).  Opposing them was the Baltic Military District (F. Kuznetsov) consisting of the 8th Army (Sobennikov), 11th Army (Morozov), and Baltic Air Command (Ionov).

The main thrust to take Riga will be delivered by 4th Panzer Group led by Erich Hoepner.  To their left 18th Army, commanded by Georg von Kuchler, will round up any stragglers pinned along the coast so as to secure the left flank of 4th Pz Grp.  Ernst Busch's 16th Army is tasked with taking Kaunas and securing the right flank of 4th Pz Grp.  I had planned to use 4th Pz Grp units to take Vilnius as well but after further consideration it made more sense to leave that to AGC.  Here is a screen shot of how AGN did. As you can see they have pretty much blown away the 8th and 11th Soviet Armies.



Edit - Note that three divisions of 16th Army are just off the southern edge of this screen shot.

[elmo3]

Someone requested a shot of rail units in action so here it is.  Green dots represent fully functional rail hexes for the Axis.  The hexes in orange with 1 point of damage remaining have been converted by FBD units this turn and will be fully functional at the start of the next Axis logistics phase.  Red dot rail hexes are functional for the Soviet player.