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RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/16/2021 6:11:31 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 53 and the Soviet offensive continues to be moribund; in their main offensive areas they are banging their head against a solid wall, whereas in my more likely screened sectors- like the one pictured here at the junction of AGC and AGS- their forces are committed so piecemeal and with such poor supply that they can be easily defeated by the commitment of one or two mechanised divisions. My strength continues to grow as besides pestilence I take few losses and most of my units are resting.

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Post #: 91

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/17/2021 6:08:58 PM

golden delicious

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A largely unchanged situation on turn 54. AGC's mechanised divisions continue to take turns engaging and destroying Soviet forces piecemeal as they poke around the south flank of the Moscow line, which remains unbreakable despite the vast numbers of Soviet units attacking every turn. Any of these stacks which builds up to a density light is hit repeatedly with the substantial artillery reserves I have in the city.

The situation for AGN has recovered enough that I am now planning a counterattack against 2nd Shock Army and its supporting units northwest of Rybinsk reservoir. I hope to cut off and destroy the whole force.

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Post #: 92

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/18/2021 2:18:05 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 55 and AGN has carried out the planned encirclement of 2nd Shock Army (about 7 division-equivalents). I have 8. Panzer and SS Totenkopf on the flanks to support but I was actually able to complete an initial pocket just using the fresh infantry I had to hand. The +2 Computer bonus and 120% Soviet shock makes individual Soviet units formidable but it just doesn't make enough of a difference when the PO handles them so carelessly. Having said that, Soviet rail repair is so poor at this point in the scenario that no advance over any distance would be sustainable; the Soviets would have to rely on an Axis player stubbornly sticking to his furthest point of advance and letting himself be immolated on the spot.

As it is, the PO is either attacking impenetrable positions, or dribbling small units into the more open fronts a few at a time so I can destroy them as they arrive.

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Post #: 93

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/19/2021 8:46:27 AM

golden delicious

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Again things are breezing by so fast that I don't even have a save for turn 56. By turn 57 I'm starting to accumulate really quite significant reserves behind the line, especially in AGS. These will go over to the offensive as soon as the Soviet shock bonus expires.

AGN has eliminated 2nd Shock Army and continues to advance, trapping more Soviet troops. The objective is to achieve the original planned stopline which runs north-south along the Volga-Sheksna and then on to Lake Onega. I've already reaches this line along much of the front. North of Cherepovets, there is no rail line in this sector so it won't be a practical route of advance in the Spring, and the super river and lakes will serve to stop Soviet units infiltrating across it, so AGN can concentrate its strength in the southern half of the sector.

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< Message edited by golden delicious -- 12/19/2021 8:47:17 AM >

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Post #: 94

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/20/2021 6:02:40 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 58 and the Soviets continue to push units individually around the open south flank of AGC. My mechanised reserve is still in very good condition and these can easily be dealt with as they appear. Even the relatively potent Guards Rifle Division shown here (having just routed the Grossdeutschland Regiment which was screening the end of my line) will be destroyed by the end of the turn.

It's only 2-3 turns until the Soviet shock bonus ends and I'm planning now for a short offensive phase; it's twenty turns until the Spring mud which I expect to be debilitating, so I intend to spend about ten turns aggressively engaging, encircling and eliminating all major Soviet forces with which I'm in contact, then a further ten turns pulling back on my supply sources and resting ready for the mud phase. This should prevent the Soviets from building up a really significant force prior to my Summer 1942 offensive. The main target is the large Soviet presence in front of Moscow but there are smaller concentrations south of Rostov and along the Don south of Voronezh.

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Post #: 95

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/21/2021 8:41:49 AM

larryfulkerson

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Another winning strategy has worked out very well for you. Hurrah. I'm impressed. Good for you. I'm watching a master do his magic. Keep it up....I believe you can postpone the inevitable until late '43 or maybe early '44. That will win the game for you I do believe. How are you at defense? I've never seen the end game play of a D21 game. Not that I can recall. We've seen it done in FITE2 but that was with two human players. I'd better listen to myself and actually play D21 that long myself. I guess.

EDIT: I've discovered by personal experience that what you need to do is get a buzz on with your favorite intoxicant and then watch the shockwave wash over these two guys. It's really impressive.

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< Message edited by larryfulkerson -- 12/21/2021 8:44:12 AM >

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Post #: 96

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/21/2021 9:02:08 AM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Another winning strategy has worked out very well for you. Hurrah. I'm impressed. Good for you. I'm watching a master do his magic. Keep it up....I believe you can postpone the inevitable until late '43 or maybe early '44.

Thing is, if I keep on destroying Soviet troops at this rate I don't think they will ever build up to the point where they can push me back. I'll share a loss screenshot shortly; the reinforcements I've received since the start of the scenario mean that the Wehrmacht is more or less at the same strength it was at the start of the campaign, albeit now with that strength spread across more units. The Finns and Rumanians are a bit worse for wear but I can live with that.

Where I am in the scenario now (turn 65) I'm looking ahead to a Summer campaign and I'm simply not concerned about the Soviets any more, but only about supplies. Supply is a killer in this scenario. I'm planning to push Russia to the Urals but I need to fix a lot of rails to make that happen.

quote:

How are you at defense? I've never seen the end game play of a D21 game.

It might seem a bit of a strange comment but I was actually hoping for a bit more of a desperate struggle in Winter 41-42 as a fighting retreat is the most difficult form of warfare. As it is the balance of forces favours me too much for them to get anywhere, but even if it didn't the critically low Soviet rail repair rating makes a big Soviet offensive success impossible at this point in the scenario. All the Axis player has to do is fall back ten hexes or so and he can't be touched.

My general feeling on the scenario is that the player is only going to find the PO a challenge if he fights with one hand behind his back- like with your Red / Amber / Green rule. Even then, once the player knows the flow of the scenario he can exploit it to get an unfair advantage. No Axis player will be pushing his units to the limit in December knowing the shock penalty is coming; he'll turtle like I did.

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Post #: 97

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/21/2021 9:25:29 AM

larryfulkerson

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quote:

"...the critically low Soviet rail repair rating makes a big Soviet offensive success impossible at this point in the scenario. All the Axis player has to do is fall back ten hexes or so and he can't be touched.

My general feeling on the scenario is that the player is only going to find the PO a challenge if he fights with one hand behind his back- like with your Red / Amber / Green rule. Even then, once the player knows the flow of the scenario he can exploit it to get an unfair advantage. No Axis player will be pushing his units to the limit in December knowing the shock penalty is coming; he'll turtle like I did."

You are talking like the scenario is broken. It's easy to modify the events that set the rail repair numbers for the Soviet side. Here's the revelant events. Just increase the value of "VALUE" to the numbers you want and read in the modified GAM file in the editor and save your work.

<EVENT ID="68" TRIGGER="Turn" EFFECT="Rail repair 1" Y="42" VALUE="3"/>
<EVENT ID="746" TRIGGER="Turn" EFFECT="Rail repair 1" Y="11" VALUE="10" TURN="124"/>
<EVENT ID="747" TRIGGER="Turn" EFFECT="Rail repair 1" Y="11" VALUE="15" TURN="188"/>
<EVENT ID="748" TRIGGER="Turn" EFFECT="Rail repair 1" Y="11" VALUE="20" TURN="288"/>

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Post #: 98

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/21/2021 11:44:19 AM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

You are talking like the scenario is broken. It's easy to modify the events that set the rail repair numbers for the Soviet side. Here's the revelant events. Just increase the value of "VALUE" to the numbers you want and read in the modified GAM file in the editor and save your work.

<EVENT ID="68" TRIGGER="Turn" EFFECT="Rail repair 1" Y="42" VALUE="3"/>
<EVENT ID="746" TRIGGER="Turn" EFFECT="Rail repair 1" Y="11" VALUE="10" TURN="124"/>
<EVENT ID="747" TRIGGER="Turn" EFFECT="Rail repair 1" Y="11" VALUE="15" TURN="188"/>
<EVENT ID="748" TRIGGER="Turn" EFFECT="Rail repair 1" Y="11" VALUE="20" TURN="288"/>

Yes you can fix the rail repair. The other possibility I would look at would be to cut supply radius and (perhaps) boost force supply to compensate. This would mean that if the German player persistently pushes his units in the opening campaign they will routinely be overextended on a low unit supply and suffer desertion effects. At a minimum, this will incentivise the Axis to pull leading units back from time to time to receive replacements.

It would also be worth looking at the very high proficiencies across the board. Why does an MP battalion have 80% proficiency? The Germans aren't actually the master race; a rear area unit which is intended to disarm stragglers and line up Commissars in front of a pit for mass execution is not going to cope well if it gets attacked by armour and artillery. I'd question whether 80% is appropriate even for the reserve German infantry divisions (anything numbered over 100). Anyway, cutting proficiencies across the board would tend to exacerbate the differences between a well-supplied and a poorly-supplied unit, as well as lowering the threshold at which desertion losses begin to occur.

In general though I'm not entirely enamoured at the Barbarossa-at-10km/hex genre having had a serious go at it. There is simply too much map to easily retain a clear sense of overarching strategy, and TOAW doesn't really cope all that well with large fronts. For example, in 1942 I'm planning another general offensive: I can have superiority on every front so why not? In reality I don't think the Germans had the logistical capacity for such an affair. There were only so many trains and so many barrels of fuel.

< Message edited by golden delicious -- 12/21/2021 11:46:55 AM >

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Post #: 99

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/21/2021 6:33:10 PM

golden delicious

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As mentioned, here are losses as of turn 59. A couple of things come across right away;
1) I have loads of HRS. Units are understrength, but not by a huge amount.
2) The heavier equipment items have all started to drop down the list, because the losses from pestilence are starting to dominate. Vehicles and other heavy equipment don't suffer losses from pestilence, they only go back to the pool, and then promptly back to the units again. Even the heavy weapons which do make it onto this list are in good shape: I've lost 5,500 MMGs, but I've gained more than that in replacements. Some of these equipment types are starting to build up impressive stockpiles

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"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 100

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/21/2021 6:45:15 PM

golden delicious

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Scrolling a bit further down we can see some of the more exciting stuff. Some comments:
1) the Ju-87 is a bit of an outlier in that I have these to spare. I tend to save Ju-87 for when I'm attacking armour units so they actually rest more than the other bombers. The rest of my air types look more like the Me-110, in that losses exceed replacements, but not so much that my air strength is radically reduced. Frontline Luftwaffe strength is about 2,600 machines
2) here are the Italians! There are precious few of them on the board at this point and so they haven't taken many losses and have quite a lot of replacements on hand.
3) artillery losses are also pretty low, because the Soviets don't often get the chance to hit my passive defenders (normally happens when you have a lot of artillery of your own or you get a flank bonus), so this is piling up in inventory
4) armour replacements are pretty sad, and as such none of these types are keeping up with the loss rate. However net losses across all German types of 900 (about 1,400 lost minus 500 received) are quite acceptable, leaving me with a currently assigned strength of 3,700. In addition, the new Pz-IIIJ is now in production at 8 per turn, and the IVF2 (14 per turn) not too far off. That will help a lot to make up the numbers.

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< Message edited by golden delicious -- 12/21/2021 6:47:05 PM >

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"What did you read at university?"
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"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
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Post #: 101

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/22/2021 8:59:43 AM

golden delicious

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Turn 60 and Army Group North's operations to clear the north flank are largely complete. I'm still waiting for the Soviet shock bonus to subside, but unlike AGC and AGS I've already burned out most of my units in this sector and so the majority of the Army Group remains back at the railhead receiving a pathetic trickle of supply (Force Supply is 15). It's likely that AGN will only make local offensives over the winter, with fresh and tired units cycling back and forth out of the frontline, as there are no major concentrations of Soviet troops in this sector (those that were here have already been eliminated west of Cherepovets).

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"What did you read at university?"
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"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 102

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/23/2021 8:51:43 PM

larryfulkerson

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I really like how your game is going. Oddly enough it reminds me of something that happened back in 1968 when I was still in high school. My neighborhood had a family living near my house that had three teenage boys that I associated with constantly and we had a great deal of fun together. One of them, Val Polley, had purchased one of the higher priced motorcycles and to keep the neighborhood kids from "playing with it" had parked it in the living room of his house. One late evening we had just come back to their house after watching a movie and for some reason the electricity had quit briefly and so we had to enter the house when it was dark. Pitch black is more like it. So Bob Polley was walking slowly with his arms outstretched feeling his way forward when he collided with Val's motorcycle. His crotch had run into the rear stoplight and he yelled out: "there's something in here and it's got me by the balls."

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< Message edited by larryfulkerson -- 12/23/2021 8:53:52 PM >

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Post #: 103

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/28/2021 6:08:04 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 61 and the Soviet shock bonus flicks off, the trigger for my own Winter offensive. Army Group South pours over the Don and into the rear of the Soviet forces holding the east bank. My severe supply limitations mean this will be a strictly limited offensive: move into the enemy rear, trap and destroy what forces can be immediately identified, then consolidate to ensure the impact of the Spring mud phase is not too severe. In only two places- Voronezh and Moscow- is the rail line immediately behind the front, and here I'll aim to push it a little east before the snow thaws. Otherwise I am just getting further from my railheads which are already way too far back.

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"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
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Post #: 104

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/29/2021 5:54:51 PM

golden delicious

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I must have had a good run of game time as I have no save from turn 62. By turn 63, AGC's offensive against the Moscow Front is beginning to have some really clear results. Here, the Soviets have a lot of pieces and some of my early attacks were relatively costly, but as gaps emerge in the line, and with Panzer Group 2 now coming around the eastern flank via Ryazan, it looks like we are set to eliminate the whole Soviet force here. Had the PO built up its strength here rather than making assault after futile assault over the previous ten turns, this operation would have been much more difficult. As elsewhere, I don't intend to make a deep advance here; just push far enough to get behind and destroy the main Soviet body and then move back to a defensive posture.

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Post #: 105

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 12/30/2021 6:21:23 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 64 and the Finns have almost finished destroying the Soviet forces southeast of Belomorsk. All Soviet forces in Karelia and Murmansk have now been eliminated, with the final holdout regiment on the north coast just now destroyed, which frees up several German divisions which will come south. Supply at Belomorsk, like much of the front, is abysmal, with the railhead nearly 20 hexes to the north. Unless this improves I won't be able to significantly advance this front and will be content to hold the Soviets on this narrow isthmus and lake Vygozero to the south.

Elsewhere, AGS is already wrapping up much of its offensive action, having cleared the major Soviet concentrations on the east bank of the Don. However I intend to advance fully into the Don bend, provided my supplies hold out. I don't want troops on low supply overextended so far east when the Spring mud arrives.

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"What did you read at university?"
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"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
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Post #: 106

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/1/2022 4:54:31 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 65 and the Soviet forces south and east of Rostov have largely been eliminated or encircled. A further significant pocket is in progress around Tsimlyanska. The rest of AGS is winding down its offensive operations after an intensive two week period, with troops returning towards the supply sources, mainly the railhead at Voronezh but also the forward supply points at Kharkov and Rostov. The southernmost railhead is still ten hexes west of Stalino. This is the consequence of wasting time in the Autumn developing 20 hexes of rail from Nikolayev to Perekop which rapidly became redundant with the fall of Sevastopol.

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Post #: 107

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/3/2022 5:28:43 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 66 and the Moscow Front has largely been eliminated, with remaining significant forces mostly trapped in a number of pockets, allowing a number of units to pull back to the railhead to resupply. Although I've met my immediate objectives with these offensives, destroying the major enemy formations in my immediate reach and establishing myself on a better stop line, I think my execution of this offensive has been poor, as I've been too impatient to fight the Soviets after a long wait on the defensive since turn 32. I've wound up attacking in less favourable circumstances than if I'd taken more time over the operation, and the net result has been that my losses have been higher (although most losses are I think still from pestilence) and supply drain has probably been worse, too.

Supply remains my foremost consideration. The railhead is advancing a bit to the east here, taking me a bit closer to 1942 objectives such as Gorky in the upper Volga basin.

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Post #: 108

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/6/2022 5:27:41 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 67, and with AGN's winter stopline achieved (plus a salient over the Volga around Rybinsk itself), the vast majority of the Army Group is back on the railhead near Pestovo resupplying (although my force supply is a rather pathetic 15 so this is a slow process). Ideally, most of the Army Group will be fully supplied when the mud hits, so that when it dries in the late Spring I'll be ready to jump off towards Yaroslavl and Vologda, both of which are already not far behind Soviet lines.

This is one area, though, where the Soviets are quite active. Individually units are continuously being infiltrated across the frozen marshes here and this is interfering with my intention to keep the Army Group at rest- although not by much.

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"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
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Post #: 109

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/7/2022 6:35:21 PM

golden delicious

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OK, so my plan to occupy the Don Bend during the Winter might have been a tad optimistic. By turn 68, most of the forces I had here have been pulled off to the north and south, leaving just two mountain divisions in the centre. One of these actually occupied Kalach on turn 67- but the PO took a rather dim view of this and gave me a bloody nose, and is now pursuing those same two divisions back to the west. To the south, most of 11. Armee is tied up with a pocket of five Soviet divisions; once this is eliminated the whole southern sector will move over to the defensive, with most units pulled back to rest at Rostov or further west at the railhead (which is still well west of Stalino). There are almost no fresh troops in this whole sector, so I'm reliant on the Soviet pursuit petering out as we move west as I'm in no position to fight until my supplies rebuild and the dry weather returns around turn 95.

The only other place I'm still progressing serious operations is in AGC's sector where I'm trying to occupy the super river line running north from Tambov (the Tsna, I believe). This has been reached along most of its length but my supply situation is appalling and I need to pull most of my troops back to rest, with a few fresh mechanised divisions taking up the strain.

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"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 110

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/9/2022 4:51:26 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 69 and AGC is still struggling to clear Soviet forces from the west bank of the Tsna river (the North-South super river on the right hand side of this screenshot). My supply is close to zero in this area and my infantry is burned out and will have to be withdrawn. I have some fresh mechanised units coming into this sector which will continue the work but if I don't have this wrapped up by about turn 75 I'm going to have to pull back to my railheads- which are well off this screenshot to the northwest and south respectively- without achieving this objective. Otherwise, AGC has largely ceased operations and is dug in with relatively good supply north and northeast of Moscow.

AGN is doing better with its objectives, having reached the intended stopline along its length apart from a small area around Belozersk. AGS continues to fall back to its supply sources in anticipation of the Spring mud, with the Rumanian army already pulled into a ring around Rostov, and multiple German and Slovakian divisions on the railhead at Voronezh.

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"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

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Post #: 111

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/10/2022 5:12:48 PM

golden delicious

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As OKW ramps down its Winter operations, the turns begin to move by at a faster pace, and once again I have no save for turn 70. By turn 71 the Soviets are beginning to build up new positions facing AGN. After a period of operating in isolation the Finns have more or less converged with AGN near Belozersk but are operating here very much in a supply desert, which is why only a few divisions can be active at a time- the remainder are several turns' march away at the railhead.

I'm still in two minds about the decision to make this winter offensive. I've definitely destroyed some Soviet forces but the PO is being relatively aggressive and I can't help but wonder if standing on the defensive would have achieved the same results without costing so much in terms of supply and replacements. I have moved forward of course but now I'm facing the PO's admittedly fairly feeble offensive efforts in an even worse supply position, as my RR repair rate is absolutely abysmal. The one exception is outside Moscow where my early Winter positions were immediately backed by the rail and here I've advanced only a short distance so still have fairly good supply, with the railhead advanced 7 or 8 hexes in the direction of Gorky, which will be one of AGC's initial 1942 objectives.

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"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

(in reply to golden delicious)

Post #: 112

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/11/2022 5:17:21 PM

golden delicious

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Another jump ahead (no save for Turn 72) so we're right on to turn 73. I've been trying to develop my lodgement on the Taman Peninsula, for a few reasons:
1) the supply here is relatively good at the front thanks to the 75% supply point offshore, which compares well with the 50% supply point at Rostov I'm relying on for the whole southern part of the main line
2) it's a convenient jumping off point for a Summer offensive towards Maykop and the Caucasus more generally
3) sea lift from Odessa means it's a lot faster to ship troops here than to march them to the Donets from the railhead west of Stalino
Where possible, I'm diverting newly arrived German and Rumanian units here, and that now includes 22. Panzer which recently arrived in the scenario, conveniently located in the Crimea. The Soviets have some good units in this sector, as you can see from the Rifle Division which has shoved its way into my positions, but will be eaten this turn.

The bigger news this turn is that my force supply has recovered by 5 points as Winter comes to an end (the calendar date is 1st March), and it looks like my rail repair is ramping up, too. This makes a huge difference for me as it validates somewhat my Winter advances; already the Moscow railhead has reached the new frontline, and I hope by the time of my Summer offensive I'll have good rail supply at multiple points along the front. For now, the improved supply has empowered me to resume some limited offensive activity, principally in AGN's front where most of my forces were back at the rail line. However I will be keeping a very close eye on unit supply levels as I don't want a repeat of last Autumn, where hordes of German units were reduced to scrap when the mud caught them far from the railheads with no supply.

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< Message edited by golden delicious -- 1/11/2022 5:18:14 PM >

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Post #: 113

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/11/2022 6:37:00 PM

Lobster

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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

Turn 64 and the Finns have almost finished destroying the Soviet forces southeast of Belomorsk. All Soviet forces in Karelia and Murmansk have now been eliminated, with the final holdout regiment on the north coast just now destroyed, which frees up several German divisions which will come south. Supply at Belomorsk, like much of the front, is abysmal, with the railhead nearly 20 hexes to the north. Unless this improves I won't be able to significantly advance this front and will be content to hold the Soviets on this narrow isthmus and lake Vygozero to the south.

I wonder how things would evolve if the Finns were not presented with an arbitrary stop line? If they could advance as far as possible before politics caused them to stop in late November.

Okay I think arbitrary is the wrong word. Try historical instead.

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Post #: 114

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/12/2022 8:31:24 AM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lobster

I wonder how things would evolve if the Finns were not presented with an arbitrary stop line? If they could advance as far as possible before politics caused them to stop in late November.

Okay I think arbitrary is the wrong word. Try historical instead.

In D21 the Finnish stop line is lifted with the fall of Leningrad. To balance this somewhat, three divisions are placed into garrison status. This is actually more severe than it sounds, because these static units will tend to fatten up with replacements while the others wither. At the moment they're about twice the strength of the mobile ones.

Anyway, the position in this match at the moment is with the Finns moved well past their stopline and they will continue to cover the north flank of AGN in 1942. The poor terrain and communications along the White Sea coast make an approach to Archangel from this direction quite impractical.

As to history, I think the Finns made the right move here in fighting a somewhat limited war against the Soviet Union which, together with the difficulties the Soviets had re-invading Finland in 1944, paved the way for Finland to retain (most of) her independence after the war, unlike every other country which had contributed to the war against the USSR.

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Post #: 115

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/12/2022 6:00:57 PM

golden delicious

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With the improved supply situation, by turn 74 AGC is back in a position where it can resume limited offensive operations in front of Moscow. The Soviets have in the meantime rebuilt something of a defensive line, but it has a lot of weakspots and in the coming turns these will be probed, with a view to chopping up and destroying this line, just like the last two. Of course we need to be careful here as the supply situation is due to collapse again on turn 80 and so I need everyone to be in good shape by then- a number of units on the front now really are due for a rest, but they can be relieved by the units which are still recovering back at the railhead.

Unfortunately the improved supply situation isn't matched by the replacements, as my pestilence level remains at 2%. I'm hoping that this drops off a bit as we move into Spring, as otherwise my HRS strength is going to stay stuck close to it's current level of about 34k; I'm losing almost as many squads just from pestilence as I get from replacements. I wonder if the right move in this scenario would be for the Axis player to disband a lot of his infantry divisions repeatedly over the winter, in order to keep his HRS off the board? This could be rationalised as units dispersing to proper Winter quarters rather than being hunkered down in frozen trenches. Certainly I didn't need all these guys on the front. Doing so would probably have saved me thousands of squads.

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< Message edited by golden delicious -- 1/12/2022 6:01:15 PM >

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Post #: 116

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/13/2022 5:49:03 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 75 and the southernmost part of the front remains the least active. You can see with the broken rail up to Kalach the distance I've fallen back from my furthest probes earlier in the Winter, and now I'm turtled again while my supply position recovers. The line I was occupying about forty turns ago is visible as the row of entrenchments just a few hexes west of my current positions around Millerovo, in the top left of the screenshot. In general, the whole of AGS' front is 5-10 hexes forward of where it was. However, the rail line is building fast and should reach the frontline near Rostov in the next few turns- but I don't expect this front to advance again before the mud shuts it down.

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Post #: 117

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/15/2022 3:05:31 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 76, and with the railhead keeping up just behind the line of advance AGN continues its offensive operations. I'm cycling units out to rest them so it's a matter of slow and steady wins the race, but it would be good if everyone was nice and green when the mud arrives. I may or may not be able to enter Yaroslavl before the Summer campaigning season opens; once this is taken the AG will turn north again for Vologda and Archangel, while continuing to cover AGC's flank as it moves into the Volga basin.

I've been preparing carefully for the mud since the end of the Soviet winter counteroffensive fifteen turns ago, but across the map my railheads are much more advanced so the situation is markedly different than last Autumn. However there are still huge distances between the railheads as I only have four lines repaired south of Finland. I may have the luxury of building perpendicular routes during the mud phase, but they're not in place yet.

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Post #: 118

RE: Another Barbarossa AAR - 1/16/2022 3:39:10 PM

golden delicious

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Turn 77 and AGC has pretty much chewed through the Soviet line east of Moscow which was visible in the screenshot from three turns ago, but in this sector there's always more troops coming up behind. I continue to be careful with my supply here but it's good to keep pushing forward so as to get my railhead as far east as possible before the Spring mud; I may get it as far as Vladamir. That makes it just a hop, skip and a jump to AGC's first Summer 42 objective at Gorky. There are some strong Soviet positions on my right flank here, but once the Summer starts it should be easy enough to come around behind them from north and south.