Turning Point: STALINGRAD - a 1942 campaign

**Commander-DK** · 04-11-2007 21:01

November 1942. World War II has entered its fourth year with armed conflict now spanning the entire globe. Masters of Europe, the seemingly unstopable panzer armies of Germany are on the brink of decisive victory in Russia while their Axis partner the empire of Japan has captured almost the entire Southwest Pacific in a stunning lightning campaign following the attack on Pearl Harbor and now threaten the coast of Australia.

But the Axis war machine is being driven to its breaking point. The entrance of the United States into the war is tipping the war production in favour of the Allies with thousands of new guns, trucks, tanks, planes and ships produced every month. The Soviet Union has recovered from the massive defeats of 1941 and is ready to sacrifice millions of men to turn the tide of battle against the Germans and their Axis allies.

On the Eastern Front, the Sixth Army is cut off on the Volga by Soviet armies pressing from the north and the south. In North Africa, the British Eight Army has finally broken the Afrika Korps into a full retreat and in Morocco and Algeria U.S. armies have landed to bring the war to Europe. In the Pacific, Japan has suffered her first setbacks with the loss of her carriers in the battle of Midway and the failure of her armies to capture Port Moresby. And after months of savage battles the U.S. marines have now secured the island of Guadalcanal.

Now, for the first time since the outbreak of the war, the outcome is suddenly unclear and final victory hangs in the balance.

This is

Turning Point: STALINGRAD

Game description: 1942 Campaign based on the scenario developed by Duck1987 and adjusted by Hytzon for use in Doomsday
Game settings: DD:A version 1.1, Normal/Aggressive but with special bonuses to the Allies and Comintern plus minor adjustments to techs and brigades.
Objectives: To prevent a collapse of the Axis powers and eventually win the war on all fronts - or die trying.
AAR style: Gameplay. I do not plan on any narrative descriptions but may change my mind later

**Commander-DK** · 04-11-2007 21:02

**Commander-DK** · 04-11-2007 21:03

Hello and welcome to my new AAR!

As I have already stated, this is intended to be strictly a gameplay AAR, but if I feel in the creative mood I might spice up some of the updates with short stories but not a coherent campaign story. We’ll see how it turns out.

The scenario is Duck1987’s “1942”, which Hytzon later adapted to Doomsday. The scenario is quite impressive but alas, not perfect. I started making some adjustments for historical details but finally realised that it would take too long and what I really wanted was to start playing.

So, I have made very few changes to Hytzon’s setup and decided that whatever flaws the scenario has in its present form, I am just going to have to cope with them – make them part of the challenge. In the next updates I will go into greater detail about the scenario itself, when I give a status of the situation as the game begins. But for now I will just list the adjustments I have made to the game itself.

Difficulty setting
I play on Normal/Aggressive but with the following modifications:
• Allies get +40 % IC, +20 % resources
• Comintern get +30 % IC, +20 % resources
• Neutrals get +20 % IC, +10 % resources

I know from my first AAR that this setting makes Rare Materials extremely hard to come by and really adds a new complexity to the game that I like.

I have turned off IC Takeover and Tech Team Takeover.

Adjustments to the game
I have also made some adjustments to the game itself and included various modifications. These are as follows:
• Hallsten’s Retire Old Guards event for Germany
• Design und Grafik Mod for sprites
• Various leader portraits, flags and shields from SMEP Mod
• Infantry sprites by Halibutt
• Naval, air force, armour and mech sprites by BeBro
• Paratroopers increase speed from Improved Paratroopers model and onwards
• Paratroopers, mountaineers, marines and cavalry can attach more brigade types
• Anti-tank brigades increase SA and HA and suffer no speed penalty from improved model and onwards
• Light armour brigade is a 1941 tech
• Change of terrain type in different provinces

Modifications to the scenario
I have tried to keep the scenario intact, but I felt it necessary to implement the following modifications to the initial setup:
• I have upgraded the four initial German heavy armour brigades on the Eastern Front from the 1938 variant to the 1941 variant (Tigers)
• I have changed the brigade on the 10. Panzer Division in Tunis from sp-art to heavy armour because historically Tunis was the first place Tigers were used in action AFAIK.
• I have changed the brigade on the 5. Lei. Infanterie-Division in Mechili from armoured car to AT-guns to capture the Afrika Korp’s deadly use of these guns in the desert.
• I have added the Fallschirmjäger Brigade Ramcke (str 40) to the troops in North Africa – basically because I have a soft spot for paratroopers and historically they were there.

In the first couple of updates before the game really gets going, I will be looking at:

1) The strategic situation around the globe - what are the major fronts?
2) The situation in Germany – politically, economically, research and production
3) The Axis Partners
4) The Comintern
5) The Allies
6) Theatres of war - local strategic situations
7) My strategy for 1943 and 1944
8) Immediate operational orders
9) Let the game begin!

I will be playing with full military control of my Axis allies for two reasons; firstly because I think it is the only way to fight a coherent war in Europe and second because I want as much fun and challenge as possible trying to cope with world-wide conflicts without loosing sight of any details.

I hope that you will enjoy this and please write comments, ideas or even criticism as the game comes along!

:-) Jesper

**Edzako** · 04-11-2007 21:45

Great, good luck.

**Nikolai** · 04-11-2007 22:09

I like gameplay aars.

Eagerly awaiting the first chapter.

**XHR** · 04-11-2007 22:13

Dang you beat me with the idea

Just looked at the scenario this will definately be interesting!

/subscribed

**El Pip** · 04-11-2007 22:24

Could be interesting, certainly you've given yourself a challenge. Having said that the number of people who seem able to turn around 1944 into a German world conquest I'm not sure how big a challenge it is, particularly as I doubt the AI's ability to mount a decent D-Day. I'll still be watching though.

**Commander-DK** · 05-11-2007 00:26

Well, I have updated the Notes and Introduction in the third post. Tomorrow I will begin posting on the strategic situation. Now, some feedback for those of you who have already kindly responded to the AAR:

Edzako: Thank you and welcome aboard!

Nikolai: It is my first, but I enjoy reading them as well, so I hope this will be an interesting one. And certainly a different challenge from writing a narrative AAR, which was much harder than I thought.

XHR: You should still do it! I would love to compare results, because I have only tested this scenario for three in-game days and so have absolutely no idea what I am getting myself into!

You could also do it and just play one of the other countries. I would imagine that Japan and Italy are just as difficult as the Reich - if not more so.

El Pip: Welcom aboard Pip, glad to have you with us. And don't sweat. I have always failed terribly when playing the 1944 scenario and I have never played Doomsday beyond the fall of the Balkans and Greece (no Barbarossa!!) so there is a good chance that I will fail in this endavor as well.

Up next: The Strategic Situation in Western Europe and the Atlantic.

:-) Jesper

**Inner Circle** · 05-11-2007 06:08

This sounds interesting! I´ll follow this!

btw: where is this scenario mod? I would like to test it...

**KLorberau** · 05-11-2007 06:42

Definately sounds like a great game....will look forward to it.....I always like the Eastern Front battles....Kursk is my favorite (so much potential thrown away) and Stalingrad is probably the next one....so tragic and brutal......a true "Rattenkriegen".....

Good Luck..

KLorberau

**Hardraade** · 05-11-2007 09:52

The scenario sounds like a fun challenge. Good luck!

**oddman** · 05-11-2007 10:48

Consider me watching.

**Crazy viking** · 05-11-2007 11:21

Sounds great! Good luck in destroying the enemy

**rcduggan** · 05-11-2007 13:40

I've always wanted to try this mod... GOOD LUCK!

**likk9922** · 05-11-2007 13:46

Looks good. Push them back to the Urals!

**Miihkali** · 05-11-2007 14:40

Good luck!

**Commander-DK** · 05-11-2007 23:51

The Strategic Situation - Western Europe and the Atlantic

Map of Europe, November 1942

Friends and foes

The fall of France in June 1940 greatly changed Britain’s strategic situation. She lost her greatest ally and with it the French navy, which was the fourth largest in the world at the time. The Royal Navy had suffered heavy losses of destroyers during the fight for Norway and the evacuation at Dunkirk. Furthermore, German U-boats had succeeded in sinking the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous and the battleship HMS Royal Oak in the first few months of the war.

German access to the French ports of Brest, Lorient and La Rochelle nearly doubles the operational range and capacity of Admiral Dönitz’s U-boat wolf packs, who engage the convoys mercilessly, sinking more than 270 Allies ships in just five months know as the “Happy Time”.

Desperate to protect her lifeline, the convoys, the United Kingdom in September 1940 signs the Destroyers for Bases deal with the United States of America, getting 50 old destroyers in return for leases on bases in e.g. the West Indies.

Royal Navy sailors on the lookout for German submarines

As the war dragged on in 1941, the United Kingdom slowly developed an improved convoy escorting system with more escorts and the adoption of ASDIC. Grand Admiral Raeder then unleashed his next weapon; large surface warships acting as commerce raiders in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. For a time, the devastating raids by heavy cruisers and pocket battleships such as KMS Gneisenau, KMS Scharnhorst, Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper forces the Royal Navy to provide battleship escorts to the convoys in the Atlantic.

In May 1941, the pride of the Kriegsmarine, the battleship KMS Bismarck, along with KMS Prinz Eugen sets out for a raid in the Atlantic. The Royal Navy finally manages to sink Bismarck on May 27th but only after loosing their flagship, the prestigious battlecruiser HMS Hood.

KMS Bismarck seen sinking from a Royal Navy warship

That same spring the improved coastal air patrols of the RAF combined with intensified anti-submarine patrols by the Royal Navy results in the loss of several German submarines including the three U-boat aces Kretschmer, Prien and Schepke. As a result, Dönitz orders the wolf packs to operate further out in the Atlantic away from Allied air cover.

In the last half of 1941, the Canadian Royal Navy took on a greater responsibility for the protection of convoys from Newfoundland to Iceland, where the British Royal Navy anti-submarine escorts took over. This system was intended to shorten the gap in the mid-Atlantic where the convoys were vulnerable to attacks.

With the United States entering the war in December 1941, Dönitz orders his most modern Type IX long-range U-boats to intercept the convoys off the American seaboard. The operation is called Drumbeat and begins in January 1942.

The poor relationship between the U.S. Admiral King, Commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Fleet, and his British counterparts meant that no black-out order was given for the American coastal cities and the German sea wolves could easily see the convoys against the illuminated horizon as they left port. This catastrophic lack of precautionary measures resulted in the sinking of almost 157,000 tonnes of shipping in less than a month, rising quickly to more than 2 million tonnes! This periode is nicknamed "The Second Happy Times".

American tanker sinking from a torpedo hit

In May 1942, Admiral King finally adopts a system of convoy protection and the loss of Allied shipping drops, so Admiral Dönitz calls off Operation Drumbeat and orders his U-boats back out into the central North Atlantic Ocean.

Meanwhile, the fortification of Europe against invasion is slowly proceeding. The German High Command suspects that the Allies will ultimately try to land an army somewhere on the coast of Western Europe and prepare for it by beginning construction of a massive Atlantic Wall stretching from Denmark to Spain – Hitler’s Fortress Europe.

The construction is far from complete, when the Allies launch Operation Jubilee in August 1942 – a massive raid on the port city of Dieppe on the northern coast of France. The operation, which was supposed to be of limited scope, is a complete failure. 6,000 infantrymen, primarily Canadian, were to seize and hold the port of Dieppe for a short period of time. The operation was a brainchild of the Chief of Combined Operations, Louis Mountbatten and was supposed to feature airborne landings, naval barrages and aerial bombardments. None of the major objectives were achieved and more than 3,600 Allied soldiers were killed, wounded or captured.

Canadians and Americans lie dead on the beaches of Dieppe

With the failure of the Allied test invasion, the German High Command felt secure that Europe was safe from invasion. But the lessons learned at such a costly price at Dieppe would later prove invaluable to the Allied Supreme Command in the planning of Operation Torch – the landing in North Africa.

During the autumn of 1942, the Battle of the Atlantic rages on. The struggling German U-boat force continues to suffer high casualties as the Allies improve their convoy protection systems and make use of new inventions such as sonar, high-frequency direction finding, long-range ocean reconnaissance flights and Hedgehog 24-barreled anti-submarine mortars.

Will the wolf packs succeed in starving Britain into submission? Or will the assembly-line manufacture of American escorts and armed merchantmen seal the fate of Germany?

Up next: The strategic situation in Eastern Europe

**Ksim3000** · 06-11-2007 00:34

Interesting that you are taking on such a huge behemoth of nations! Be weary of the AI refusing your orders and just stopping midway several times.

Japan should be interesting though and I do look forward to seeing how you perform at Stalingrad yourself.

**SEG-CISR** · 06-11-2007 01:19

This AAR seems quite interesting. I'll follow it for now.

**Timmymack** · 06-11-2007 01:38

Looks good, FREE THE ARMY TRAPPED AT STALINGRAD!!!!

Thread: Turning Point: STALINGRAD - a 1942 campaign

Thread Tools

Turning Point: STALINGRAD - a 1942 campaign

Turning Point: STALINGRAD - chapters and episodes

Turning Point: STALINGRAD - Notes and introduction

Posting Permissions