War in Russia

[DRommel]

RufusTFirefly and I started a game called War in Russia.
It is a, by me, adapted scenario called "GPW Revised (ATGOLD)" by bwheatley.
why adepted? Because in my opinion there were some mistakes made in the unit set up.
expl



This should be an air group, but it contains infantry.
A mistake in my opinion. I changed the infantry to fighters. There were lot of these.
Also Germany had no cargo ships and so cannot send anything to Finland. Again in my view not correct. And both sides can not build any ships. So I added 3 cargo ships for Germany.
For the Russian side I had to fix some units who did not had sub-formations at all.

the AAR will be an number of turns behind the actual game.
Hopefully you all will enjoy reading this AAR.

[DRommel]

The beginning.

The picture shows the starting set up, initial planning (grey zones are places where I hoop to circle Russian units), end of my first turn an the beginning of my second turn. All of the Northern true the central part of the front

[DRommel]

And here the same of the southern part.



It was not easy to break through the Russian lines. There were a lot of units standing in my way.

You can see in the screen shots from the different regions that the Russian units are trying to escape at all cost.

[DRommel]

Kills vs losses end T1 (Germ and Rus)



In my opinion not bad for the first turn and there are still a lot of enemy units trap.
also my movement and battle power is this turn and the next at 200% in average.
so there will (hopefully) many kills follow.


At the beginning of my second turn I noticed that the OKW did not had any transport capability.
This is a handicap, because now someone has to check very turn each head HQ if they have enough supply or to much.
A central store annex OKW is better and increases game play imo.
So the next turns I will try to enforce this.

[Josh]

Always nice to see a new ATG AAR [:)]
Almost a thousand enemy kills... not bad. [&o]
 
Hmm I see you lost many Mg's too... not happy with how the game handles this... Mg's should be, or are supposed to stay, in the background giving covering fire, they die way too fast IMHO.

[Twotribes]

ORIGINAL: Josh

Always nice to see a new ATG AAR [:)]
Almost a thousand enemy kills... not bad. [&o]

Hmm I see you lost many Mg's too... not happy with how the game handles this... Mg's should be, or are supposed to stay, in the background giving covering fire, they die way too fast IMHO.

In ATG Machine guns are front line units.

[RufusTFirefly]

ORIGINAL: DRommel

In my opinion not bad for the first turn and there are still a lot of enemy units trap.
also my movement and battle power is this turn and the next at 200% in average.
so there will (hopefully) many kills follow.

Clever gentlemen as you are you will have noticed there is a lot of propaganda in these words.

Situation of SU is not that bad. The retretas are part of a glorious plan covering a long time span and will surely end up in a great trap for the German fores. They move like we want them to do, although they think it is their success on the battlefield that enables them to advance so quickly. Dont underestimate the courage, the strength and the good training of the Sovjet soldier!

[Jeffrey H.]

All the AAR's I read of the base GPW said it was hopelessly unbalanced against the Soviets. Lets hope this doesn't turn out to be the case.

One problem I tend to see in mods is German morale is often so high that the units are essentially invinceable.

[DRommel]

Turn 2 ::::::::: .
for all pictures
grey figures= surrounded units
Purple= next turn surrounded
green= planning on capturing the units who are there

An image from the Nothern front beginning and end of turn 2 German side

[DRommel]

And this for the central front

[DRommel]

The Southern front

[DRommel]

Stats end turn 2 Germany

[Josh]

Enquiring minds want to know how the AAR is going?  [;)]

[RufusTFirefly]

Had been on holidays. Game was paused.

Brief report to keep you updated:
We are at turn 17, end of Sep. 41.

Kiev has fallen this turn. But attackers have not yet managed to cross the Dnjepr and take the factories east of the river. A bit south the river has already been crossed and German forces move eastwards. Defenders of Kiev are now in danger of being outflanked.

At Perekop, at the northern gate of the Crimea the Sovjet forces managed twice to throw back the attackers.

North of Crimea at Dnjepropetrowsk the Axis forces have reached the Dnjepr and try to cross it. SU defence line is fortified and might hold til weather turns bad and mud season begins.

Minsk, Vitebsk, and Smolensk have fallen. Attackers are not far from Moscow. But a fortified line will stop their advance.

Baltic area is in hands of German forces. But way to Leningrad is blocked. At Pleskau strong armies of Axis and SU forces are concentrated. Few small battles so far, but furious fighting is expected.
Finland has joined the war and driven defenders back to Leningrad.

German forces are fighting too good to risk any counterattacks. But SU air force has attacked successfully at some places.

Will post screenshots next time.

[Josh]

Thank you. [:)]

[RufusTFirefly]

Hope we will be able to continue. We started using different versions, as my version of WiR was not updated. DRommel got problems to open my saves, thats how we noticed.

In addition to the brief report given above, here are screenshots of October 41. It is first turn of mud season now.

First the area west of Moscow, to show how close to Moscow the enemy has come.

[RufusTFirefly]

The situation in the north. The enemy tries to open the way to Leningrad. Red Army has formed a close defence line.

[RufusTFirefly]

At Kiev the Axis managed to break through. The city and the factories are lost, although defenders will fight to the bitter end.

[DRommel]

Report OKW. , September 41

From June till September the German forces still move at great pas this despite no move- or combat bonuses after turn 4.
But the major setback was that we got out of oil. Historical or not I only could us a part of my panzers to push thru. For the rest I had to really on my non oil needed units (inf). But they al were on foot and had only horses for towing their artillery pieces. That gave the Russians the chance to get back and create defensive positions.

To address the problem of oil I decided on two things.
1) Oil saving by striping all units from their trucks. I replaced them over time by horses. Now I use trucks only to send reinforcements or supply.
2) Selective use of units such as minimal movement of my ships or airplanes. This was possible due to the fact that the Russians navy and air force at this time were no tread. Also leaving some units behind and/or move them with no oil (slow).
This gave me some extra oil for my fighting armored units.

Thus after about turn 5 I changed my production to mainly horses. I could because my losses were not too high at the time. I distributed them to my forwards inf and art units first. But this took time as my infantry units got behind. They needed more movement fast. This delay gave the Russians chance to build defensive lines.

Meanwhile I upgraded my inf to inf II and art to art II this will give an extra punch to push thru the lines.

[DRommel]

Above: my movement as can be seen many units are staying behind due to no oil or lack of horses.
Under: So by September the armies begin to encounter the first real defends lines by Pskov in the North (left), just south of Smolensk (middle) and around Kiev (right). I had to wait on the rest of my units. Especially my inf, as panzers are vulnerable in attacking defensive positions and in river crossing under fire. And art to soften up hard positions and dig in units.
My most forwards units north of Smolensk are too weak in numbers to risk going on to Moscow and in the south the Axis units are trying to get to their objectives but also here the lake of movement (horses) is seen.
End report.