Permanently Operating Factors - A Soviet LAN AAR

[coz1]

Just caught up fellas and the fighting is furious. But of course it is. Interesting to hear the Japs have entered the fray as well. That might take some heat of the Soviets, especially as it appears German numbers and tactical superiority are finding some success.

Better keep drinking, Myth.

[Myth]

Tigey: As Discomb states, the British player isn't exactly the best player of HoI2. And yes, it's great that the main showpiece of the AAR is finally coming about, after such a long build-up

Discomb:

coz1: Haha, drinking will impair my abilities to defend myself! And the Japanese most probably won't do anything particularly much in the way of invading Europe, except perhaps keeping my Baltic Sea coast safe

First comment day!

[General Jac]

With friends like the UK player who needs enemies? Where is the Kriegsmarine and the RN btw? Shouldn't they be in the baltic sea to give fire support and evacuate troops about to be encircled?

[4th Dimension]

One of my bigger problem is stupid computer automatically assigning promising Skill4 panzer leaders to garrison duty.

[trekaddict]

One of my bigger problem is stupid computer automatically assigning promising Skill4 panzer leaders to garrison duty.

You know that you can turn that off?

[Discomb]

To be perfectly honest, at this point we had gamed every single day for 2 weeks, from midday 'til dawn of the next day. We were all so incredibly tired that even micromanaging the extremely busy front was very very very very difficult. No surprise that we entirely forgot about the navies.

[Myth]

General Jac: They're too afraid of the Japanese navies

4th Dimension: Aye, that's why I don't play with auto-assign, though that does make larger countries a real pain right in the beginning of the game, finding the leaders you want to assign to them

trekaddict: Yep

Discomb: I didn't

Second comment day!

[Myth]

12 kilometers west of Grodno
April 10, 1942

Timoshenko held his head in his hands, his mind throbbing with information. It was not, however, a headache—not an unpleasant one, at least, for it seemed that the Soviet forces were slowly gaining the advantage over their Anglo-German opponents in the north, though there were worrisome reports emanating from the southern fronts. He resolved, however, to let those Fronts down there worry about their predicaments themselves for he had his own Front, his own theater to oversee without getting tangled up in ones that he could not affect with his own forces at all. Not to mention, Vasilevskij was coordinating the overall defenses of the southern half of the front and did not take kindly to others telling him how to manage the war he had been looking forward to for over half a decade. Timoshenko wondered how that was working out, given that his First Tank Army was in eastern Belarus, on the road to Moscow. Timoshenko shook his head violently; there he was delving into other peoples’ problems again. He focused back on the situation at hand.

The demolition of the Anglo-German position in Lithuania was proceeding apace, he noticed with satisfaction. Half the region was already under Soviet control and another quarter of it was under attack. Specifically, Timoshenko had ordered both the recently promoted Field Marshal Antonov’s 2nd Baltic Front and recently promoted Field Marshal Malinovskij’s 3rd Baltic Front to attack Siauliau from two directions. The 2nd Baltic Front was advancing from Jekabpils in the northeast as the 3rd Baltic Front pushed from Kaunas in the east. Together they fielded thirty-three divisions, to which the enemy could only respond with six: one German corps and one British corps. They came under the overall command of the highly skilled Colonel General von Leeb, a man who was just as comfortable on the attack as on the defense, and to whom fortresses meant little.


The first phase of the attack on Siauliau.

Von Leeb, whether acting on his own initiative or orders from above, did not stay to fight, however skillful he might have conducted a defense. The Germans, at least, did not want to decimate their armies fighting for already lost land in an extremity of their empire, even if it was quite close to East Prussia, and immediately abandoned their lines of defense to withdraw toward Konigsberg. The British, on the other hand, seemed to have an inflexible operational doctrine. Though they had a good tactical leader in Lieutenant General O’Connor, he did not seem to have the same set of orders or personal initiative as von Leeb and stood to fight even though his troops were outnumbered eleven to one. O’Connor’s forces were swiftly defeated.


The second phase of the attack on Siauliau, after von Leeb’s corps had withdrawn; also, someone made a mistake and miscounted the three British divisions as six.

Meanwhile, Timoshenko had taken his own Front out of the fighting to act as a reserve, after the German armored threat had been defeated around Suwalki and forced to withdraw toward Torun. Fedorenko’s 2nd Belarussian Front, which had taken a beating during the German counterattack toward Bialystok, however, was ordered to push forward into Suwalki again despite the frozen terrain. It was while pushing forward that the third battle for Suwalki began. Or was it the fourth battle? Timoshenko had already lost count of how many battles had taken place at Suwalki. He felt that it would be a great point of contention in the months to come. Nevertheless, the British had moved into the area with a single corps under Lieutenant General Wavell, a solid but uninspiring general. His three divisions were no match for the eighteen that were moving toward Suwalki, however, and the renewed battle was quickly ended.


Yet another battle for Suwalki, and apparently one of the staff members of Timoshenko’s headquarters had failed basic arithmetic in school.

Timoshenko shook his head, unable to look into the future to see how it would all end. The Germans had yet to dedicate their reserves, unless the troubling news out of Ukraine was such a manifestation, which it certainly could be, he knew. Timoshenko stood up and stretched his hands above his head, his back cracking. Sighing with surprise and relief, he dropped his arms to his sides and turned around, suddenly hungry. He wondered what the officer’s mess was serving for lunch, before looking at his timepiece and mentally amending his previous thought to wonder about dinner. Time really flew when one was immersed in problems of operations and strategy.

[Delex]

If this so smoothly on you should be in Berlin in 3 months or less (This may seem too long, but its normally quite hard to come from Koenigsberg to Dancing).

[BritishImperial]

can we see the southern front?

[General Jac]

I certainly hope the German panzers near the southern front are giving you some headaches Myth or this will be a walk in the park for sure.

[Myth]

Delex: We shall see how it goes

BritishImperial: That's the next update

General Jac: Haha, maybe. We'll see

First comment day! Also, perhaps only comment day. I won't be around tomorrow morning since I'll be in Manchester Airport to fly back to the States for the summer. I almost assuredly won't have an update ready for Friday, so it'll probably just get bumped to Sunday, given that Saturday is LtHbB day

[Myth]

Ughh. I am finally home. Though I do have a full day to write an update, I probably won't, to be completely honest. Instead, what I'll likely do is write a cop-out mini-AAR of my voyages to return home. Expect something along those lines for tomorrow

[Myth]

Princeton, New Jersey
May 31, 2008

I feel weary, honestly exhausted. I did a lot today, particularly in the morning. In the morning my father and I moved what he estimated to be at least a ton of rubble in three separate trips from our house to the town dump. That’s a lot of rubble, and it’s all very heavy. It didn’t help that it was about 25 degrees Celsius, sunny and humid either. The afternoon was spent playing some Europa Universalis 3: In Nomine, which I had bought at about 6:30 this morning, and chatting with a couple mates in Britain. Not quite two hours ago, I walked to the public library with my mother to rent a movie, we got the extended cut of Blade Runner. That walk exhausted me completely, I’m sitting here typing, quite hot and with a sweaty brow for no really apparent reason, too weary to actually finish dinner. I have almost no energy despite the can of cherry coke only a few inches from my hand; I’m enjoying the cool breeze flowing in from the two windows and wish that it was stronger and more constant. I’m honestly surprised that I’m actually writing this mini-AAR given how tired I am but I suppose it needs to be done. This, more than most of my writing, is simply a stream of consciousness. This mini-AAR is, however, not about what I did today but how I got to today. And that is quite a story, one that isn’t actually over. I suppose I should start from the beginning, as the beginning is where one usually starts. This all takes place on Wednesday. The longest Wednesday I have ever experienced.

Wednesday started at 0700 as usual for a weekday, with a shower as usual for a Wednesday. Nothing particular happens until my exam on Sea Power at 1330 which was all right and which was my last exam of the year. I was then officially done with my second year at university, whoo. Blah blah blah let’s get to the good bits; at 1944 my train from Cottingham leaves, with me aboard of course, and I start my trek home. I change trains at Sheffield and continue on to Manchester Airport, arriving there at about 2345. This is when boredom sets in, since there’s nothing to do at an airport at night—you can’t even sleep. So I don’t, I keep myself awake with half-hourly sips of rather sugary juice and read some Clausewitz, three parts from On War, totaling about a hundred and fifty pages. Finally, at about 7:20 the check-in process for US Airways flight 735 to Philadelphia begins, after which I go through customs and get to wait another more than two hours until we start boarding. Boarding finishes and we begin taxiing down the runway, setting up for our attack run—err, take-off. We’re about to get off the ground when suddenly, however, the pilot hits the brakes.

His excuse was that he was getting a bad indicator from one engine. Prudent enough I suppose, I’d hate for the plane to go down somewhere over the mid-Atlantic. That would be bad. Fair enough, I suppose. He starts taxiing off the runway, also a good thing since it’s still active. I didn’t want to get smashed by another plane either. Getting away, the captain mentions that it seems like one of the tires has deflated due to high temperatures (as the tires are designed to do that, and temperatures can seemingly get pretty high when a plane which is about to take off suddenly tries to stop). Fire trucks come, which is apparently routine for stuff like this, and we’re eventually taken off the plane and back to the terminal. Okay, fair enough. We wait, without much news, in the terminal for an hour or so (having spent a half hour already in the plane after braking), when we learn the flight is cancelled. Oh bollocks.

We learn that we’ll get our luggage in a bit, and that we’ll be brought to a hotel, complete with dinner and breakfast. Hmm, that doesn’t sound good. Dinner and breakfast; obviously we’re not meant to be leaving the country Thursday then. Of course, however, we had already left it; we had gone through customs, through the gate. We were officially not in the UK any more. First, we had to go back through customs, the other way. That completed, we went to the hotel by bus. It was a nice hotel, though dinner was a bit on the paltry side. Admittedly, it was a buffet style dinner and I didn’t take much, my stomach could barely handle the food as it was. Not having eaten in 23 hours tends to do that, I guess, and maybe the food was a bit too rich for me. After dinner, which was at 17:00, I went back to my room and collapsed. I simply passed out on my bed. By that point I had been awake for about 34 or 35 hours, so that’s understandable.

We had to wake up at 4:40 the next morning as breakfast was at 5:00 and we left the hotel at 6:30 by bus back to the airport. I was dropped off at Terminal 3, which now allows me to say I’ve been to the entirety of Manchester Airport—all three terminals. I don’t know whether that distinction is a good thing or not. At the airport, I manage to get my new tickets. Yes, tickets: plural. I was lucky, as others didn’t get tickets at all, not while I saw them at least, for US Airways had rebooked people for flights but there were more people to go to each new flight than there were spaces on the flights. That’s pretty bad. But anyway, I was lucky and got my tickets—a BMI (British Midlands?) ticket from Manchester to London Heathrow and then a US Airways ticket from Heathrow to Philadelphia. I hung around in Terminal 3 for a while before my flight to Heathrow, and from the Terminal I saw the plane from the day before was still smack out in the middle of the tarmac. It was impounded by whoever it is who investigates technical problems, impounded along with all of our luggage. US Airways can’t even get close enough to the damn plane to even mention releasing the luggage, much less actually doing so. Anyway, the first flight was at 10:30, and went well enough. I think I might have slept a part of it since it seemed a bit fast, but I’m not sure.

At Heathrow I make it to the new gate, and the people there know about the Manchester incident. We’re allowed through a bit early to talk to customer service and I manage to get my seat changed from a middle seat to an aisle seat. A good thing too, since I’m a lanky bastard. We board the plane, get ready and are about to take off when the captain slams the brakes. WHAT.

NOT again. No no no no no. Well, not quite. There was a cargo issue. The cargo loaders somehow not only managed to throw in some baggage bound for Harrisburg, but they put so much of it in that it brought the cargo total to 1100 pounds over the legal limit that any one airplane is allowed to take out of the country. Hello? Mind-boggling incompetence has just rung. So we taxi off the runway (it’s an active runway, remember) and the cargo loaders get to the task of unloading all the cargo so they can get the Harrisburg stuff out of there while we all sit and wait. So an hour and a half goes by and, as you can imagine, me (and some others from the Manchester flight who also happened to be on that flight) were a bit worried that this one would end up being cancelled too. Fortunately not, it was only late. But we got off the ground, finally, and seven and a half hours later (and one and a half hours late) we go to Philadelphia. My parents were there to meet me and we drove home. The pizza we ordered for dinner was the best food I’ve had in five months. That’s the end of the story.

So let’s review, shall we? That was all Wednesday. Oh sure, I got home Friday evening at about 19:30 or so local time, but it was still Wednesday for me. Transit time for me even if the flight had worked out would have been twenty-four hours, this time it was more than double that—about 50. I was shattered at the hotel and when I finally arrived home I was shattered. I fell asleep immediately, though I kind of woke up at 4:30 local time here.

Thus that is the end of my sage of the longest Wednesday I have ever experienced: an exam and a 50 hour travel time to get home involving two trains, three train stations, three airplanes, three airports, a car, two buses and a hotel. That's a bit much.

[ColossusCrusher]

AWESOME!!
Do it again!

[Discomb]

You are weak! My flights to china get scheduled or delayed routinely, and I always get tikets for a flight scheduled BEFORE the one I had tickets for!

[General Jac]

Ouch, I've experienced similar airport incidents and it sucks.

[TheExecuter]

Been there...done that...feel your pain...

Has your luggage arrived yet? If not, I'll pray that wonderful things happen and it arrives...and the appropriate justice is served out on those incompetent buffoons!

Nice to see you've made it to a friendly destination!
TheExecuter

[Myth]

ColossusCrusher: I'll pass, thanks

Discomb: Yeah but you're stupid

General Jac: Yes

TheExecuter: Nope, no luggage yet. Hopefully it'll come soon, though...

Anyway, with that out of the way, this is the first comment day and the next update will be back to our regularly scheduled slaughterhouse between the Soviet Union and Germany!

[BritishImperial]

ah, the bad service of british airports. hah. the thing to do is get wasted and pass out to pass the time.