Breakout and Pursuit, or Quagmire and Despair? A Normandy AAR.

[Grotius]

I just finished playing "Breakout and Pursuit", a 12-turn scenario that begins in late July 1944, with the Allies still mired in the "hedgerow hell" of Normandy. I played on "Normal", vs the AI.

Actually, I've played the scenario more than once. A couple times I played the Germans, just to get a feel for things -- and to see how the AI manages the breakout. (Answer: pretty well.) I also tried once as the Allies on Challenging. After success in "Operation Husky" and a stalemate in the 5-turn Air Training scenario, I thought I knew what I was doing.

I thought wrong! This was how things looked on Turn 6 -- August 29, 1944, a full two and a half months after D-Day:

[Grotius]

I had made the mistake of not committing my air force to big Air Interdiction missions at and behind German lines. Consequently, the enemy repeatedly committed reserves, foiling attacks that otherwise would have attained 2:1 odds or better. Lesson learned: high air interdiction is essential to break out.

So I tried again. This time on Normal. I know the devs recommend that experienced grognards play on Challenging, but I'd already had my keister tarnished once. So Normal it was. This time, from the get-go, I ordered a high density of Ground Attacks with emphasis on Interdiction. Here's the situation on Turn 2, August 1, 1944:

[Grotius]

Pretty instructive! With my new air strategy, I made more progress in one week than I did in my previous effort in two months. The difference wasn't the difficulty level; it was the interdiction. This time around, no German units were committed to the defense of my attacks. The initial, estimated odds ratio ended up being close to the final odds ratio. Also, this time I gave the Americans the highest supply priority (4), leaving the Brits and Canadians with a measly priority of 2. The best opportunities for breakout seemed to be in the western sector, so I went that-a-way.

All that air-striking had a price, though. My air crews were tired and demoralized. I don't remember whether it was raining on turn 1, but it certainly was wet on turn 2. Accordingly, I used the Commander's Report (hotkey C) to sort by morale and fatigue and to manually set tired/demoralized squadrons to Rest (RS*). This would mean a slow down in air ops in the coming week. Here's a look at air groups:

[Grotius]

Spoiler alert: if you plan to play this scenario as the Allies against the German AI, you might consider skipping to the very end so that you don't see what the AI does. It doesn't behave identically from one game to the next, as it makes generally sensible tactical decisions, but I imagine its broad strategy does not change radically. Anyway, if you don't mind spoilers, read on.

August 8, 1944 (Turn 3): I pushed forward, and the Germans smartly fell back, avoiding any Falaise Pocket. Great, but I was already running into the issue that confronted the Allies historically: it was hard for my supply trucks to keep up with my advancing forces. Still, I made progress.

[Grotius]

August 15, 1944 (Turn 4): We see that supply issue here, as my guys really outrun their supply lines. In this screenshot, my soft factor was set either to supply or ammo, I forget which. I did grab a couple of ports along the western coast of Normandy and northern coast of Brittany, and those come with depots, but I hadn't repaired enough rail lines to make any depots closer to the front lines than the original beaches. We're still moving forward, but too slowly, I fear.

[Grotius]

August 22, 1944 (Turn 5): At last I have some inland depots up and running, and I make my most spectacular gains yet, rushing through Brittany toward Brest, and pushing hard east toward the Seine. You can see my partially-repaired rail network here, and my new depots. I think I was too slow to get my Railroad Repair units across the Channel and onto the rail lines. In general, I had trouble figuring out the optimal way to ship stuff from Britain to France -- land at Cherbourg, land at the beaches? And once there, use precious rolling stock to rail forward, or march? I didn't rail my units much, which was probably a mistake.

Game question here: since the logistics phase takes place before the movement phase, can I safely use all the rail I want for units during the movement phase? Or will doing so impact logistics for the next turn? I assumed it would impact the coming logistics phase, so I made my units walk.

Anyway, I was happy at this point. The liberation of France is in full swing!

[Grotius]

August 29, 1944 (Turn 6): Paris is liberated! I am hailed as I walk down the Champs-Elysees, waving to the cheering French crowds, smiling for the newsreels! My troops make it to the Seine in the east and Brest in the west. But the Germans have regrouped and formed a coherent line east of the Seine.

Incidentally, this was the only moment where I thought the AI made a significant mistake. It backed up to the Seine, which is a reasonable decision, but it backed up a hex too far -- it left the victory hex of Paris wide open! Admittedly, the Germans don't have many high-value infantry to garrison a city. (Armor is not suited to the task in WITW.) Still, even token resistance would've slowed me down enough to cost me one more turn, I think. So maybe a tactical error.

But the AI's broader strategy seems quite sound. Harasss me, slow me down, but avoid being pocketed, fall back to defensible positions (bocage, rivers, etc). I made gains this turn, but not nearly as impressive as last week's.

Also, while I'm on the subject of mistakes, notice my empty airfields in France. I got lazy about rebasing aircraft from Britain and Normandy. And then I wondered why I had no escorts for missions in south-central France! And I wondered why my pilots were getting so tired. Duh!

[Grotius]

September 19, 1944 (Turn 9): I also got lazy about taking screenshots, possibly because my pace of advance slowed markedly. Once I got over the Seine, I thought I'd be home free. Instead, the German resistance stiffened considerably. I also suffered because of my failure to rebase aircraft; my interdiction was way too light, and German reserves kept committing to the defense of the front line. It took me a couple weeks to wake up and start rebasing my aircraft. In this shot, you can see that I finally have moved aircraft into airfields west of Paris.

You can see three lesser victory hexes in this shot, all too far away. The big prizes, like Antwerp, aren't even on the screen, they're so far east. I'm behind by about 2.2:1 in victory points. It's not just cities; I've also lost too many aircraft. Partly this was my failure to provide rebased escorts; partly it was flak. I didn't discover the Shift-O key until the end of the scenario!

[Grotius]

October 3, 1944 (Turn 11, last full turn): And then the fall rains came. Check out the four droplets per hex, indicating heavy rain. Check out the slight muddy tinge to many hexes, indicating light or heavy mud. Check out my forces' soft factors, indicating critically low supply (or was it ammo?) levels. It's tough to get all that broken rail repaired fast enough to make new depots. I made depots on every available newly-repaired rail junction.

Game question here: is there such a thing as too many depots? Does it cost me something to make a depot?

Also, I wasn't sure how to prioritize my Normandy depots at this point. I downgraded them to 1-3, leaving my front lines at 4, but troops still kept drawing from the beaches as well as the front-line depots.

I've been airlifting supplies from Britain every turn, but this time I didn't bother; the rain means more operational losses. (My ops losses are almost as bad as my flak losses. I forgot to take screenshots, but tomorrow I'll post some numbers at the end of the AAR.) In fact, I stood down almost all of my air force this turn, setting the "weather" parameter to "Poor". The weather was "Very Poor" almost all week. :\ I figured I had no nope of getting to the victory hexes, and I didn't want more weather-related air losses.

[Grotius]

Same date: I made a bit more progress in the south, but the AI defended Troyes well, and I fell one hex short. Supply lines were a problem here, as the map cuts off the rail network on the south edge, but the two rather distant depots did a decent job of resupplying. I had more trouble with ammo than with general supplies -- consistently, ammo was a problem, I'd say.

That's pretty much how the game ended -- with me mired in the mud just east of the Seine, far from the Belgian border. With the exception of Paris, I thought the AI did a commendable job of defending. This is really a great scenario for those of us still learning the game.

[Grotius]

This screen speaks for itself.

[Grotius]

If I'm not mistaken, I avoided a Major Axis Victory by just a handful of VPs! At 2:1 or more, it's a Major Axis Victory. Maybe standing down my aircraft in the rain saved me! Check out the VP graph:

[Grotius]

That's it for now. As I mentioned, I'll post some more numbers tomorrow -- ops losses, flak, etc. I can post more graphs and such if people are interested, too. Thanks for reading.

[Baelfiin]

nice aar grotius

[Grotius]

Thanks for reading, Baelfiin! Glad you enjoyed it.

[Aurelian]

Reading this made this game make the buy list

[warspite1]

Good work sir! Interesting reading. I am struggling to make progress so this sort of AAR really helps.

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

Reading this made this game make the buy list

Hearing about logistical problems in France makes the WITE experienced player quite happy, right? [:D]

[Remmes]

The AI does a good job defending France in this scenario. One way to make them skittish is to, unhistorically, drop some airborne divisions in their rear.

[comsolut]

+1 very helpful seeing the decisions needed.