Fatherland - Deutschland über alles

[Kanitatlan]

July 12th 1940

05:00 July 12th 1940

With the deep eastern flank coming together my troops begin a close flanking operation to the east of Moscow. There are stronger Russian forces here but they cannot realistically deal with large panzer groups (33 divisions attack). Ryazan provides a proper baseline for the assault on Moscow so we are nearly ready now.

07:00 July 12th 1940

In the north I have launched a holding attack to clear out Segezha to provide a little bit of rear security during the advance south. In truth the main defence is to advance south faster than the Russian northern armies can follow.

07:00 July 12th 1940 b

Russian supplies are still getting through but clearly run out before the end of the morning. If my estimate of 60 a day is still correct then we are looking at a drain of about 6.5 supplies per hour or the equivalent of about 80 infantry divisions. This seems not too unreasonable.

10:00 July 12th 1940

Air combat patrols over Moscow still encounter Russian fighters. I need full air superiority for the forthcoming attack so I hope 12:4 is going to keep these guys out of it for a few days. The real issue with interception from low org fighters is the disruption of possibly critical air missions. With the high Russian ground strength interdiction support will make a big difference.

15:00 July 12th 1940

The first troops to arrive at Toropets are unfortunately unable to hold their position against a Russian counter-attack. They have tried to hold on because support is mere hours away.

21:00 July 12th 1940

The defence of Ryazan is subject to the usual piecemeal reinforcement by the Russians resulting in heavy casualties and burnt out divisions. Once the real battle starts they may have a significant number of low org divisions mixed in to reduce their effectiveness.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 13th 1940

02:00 July 13th 1940

The proper force arrives at Toropets and is clearly fully capable of holding of the Russian counter-attack. They quickly secure their defensive positions along the upper Volga (oh yes, that’s the top end of the Volga, Moscow is just down river). I believe I now have the required position for the Moscow offensive so all troops go on standby.

05:00 July 13th 1940

More air combat taking place. My fighters have full air superiority but the Russians still keep flying. I hope there is no disruption during the assault. The CAS remain busy reducing enemy numbers in their own way.

Stukas

Still the mainstay of the German tactical air force, this formation of Stukas heads over to Ryazan for more target practice.

07:00 July 13th 1940

The Russian navy appears to be still fully able to operate and not out of supply. Obviously they aren’t achieving anything but I feel obliged to keep them confined.

15:00 July 13th 1940

Before attacking here is a full intelligence report. Over the past few days they seem to have suffered a massive drop in IC. I had a recent post that, if memory serves, had them about 100 IC higher. The overall strength is way down on the start of the war but still quite massive. I don’t know where all those infantry divisions are since I recon I can only account for about 300 facing me.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 14th 1940

00:00 July 14th 1940

Out in the Atlantic a small reinforcement squadron encounters a small British transport fleet but is unable to achieve any kills. The main u-boat fleets they are rendezvousing with are unable to make contact. A more interesting question is where is this fleet going and what is it carrying.

03:00 July 14th 1940

Now this is just too much and has left me speechless. Exactly what could the Russians be fielding that would make a carrier task force with 6 air groups consider a convoy too well protected. This is just unbelievable but then, on the other hand, may be the designers never considered that I would go convoy hunting with a carrier task force.

05:00 July 14th 1940

Dawn comes early in the North and the northern force launches the first attack of the Moscow offensive. The defenders have a small advantage in numbers but this will do them no good. We all know my panzer groups are worth three times as many enemy divisions. The enemy has lots of tank destroyers, heavy tanks and anti-tank guns. You would think this would make a difference but due to the way the game works it will do them little good as long as they are attached to infantry divisions.

07:00 July 14th 1940

Further south the main attack begins with massive assaults on the Russian frontlines. Most of the forces are infantry but a single panzer group is allocated to strike past Moscow to meet the northern attack and split the Moscow zone in two.

ToMoscow

Motorised forces stream towards Moscow against densely packed but inadequate opposition.

Advance

Whilst the infantry plod forward on foot.

07:00 July 14th 1940 b

The Russian tactical bomber group has appeared again over Moscow but is being overwhelmed this time. Fighting remains outside Moscow so this air battle does no harm but we do not want any more of this.

The attack on Noginsk has picked up a combat event but the attack on Mozhaisk simply hasn’t lasted long enough. Things are now moving towards Moscow at a fair pace.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 15th 1940

03:00 July 15th 1940

By next morning Ryazan has fallen and the advance is well underway. The Russians deploy their usual piecemeal defences which are easily defeated by my troops.

04:00 July 15th 1940

This is not good. A huge Russian force has turned up immediately in the rear of the northern attack. This force could cause major disruption and I see no good way to prevent them from breaking out as well. A –20% no supply penalty is hardly going to affect them at all. The combination of these two stacks should be catastrophic for the northern wing but we must wait and see what they do. If they merely wait long enough for my units to advance then they will have failed and the Moscow attack will be completed without interference.

08:00 July 15th 1940

More piecemeal defence shows the Russians have little left in terms of capability and that may offensive is a success. It may seem a bit premature but I feel that this is fully successful. The only significant undefeated forces are those in Moscow and Yaroslavl.

11:00 July 15th 1940

With Noginsk taken the panzer group is striking onwards into Rybinsk against minimal opposition. By Russian standards that is a nice high quality unit but I believe I have a technology step ahead in both armour and SP Artillery, not to mention odds of 9:1.

18:00 July 15th 1940

The advance continues but apparently quite slowly. Moscow remains the capital (see later)

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 16th 1940

00:00 July 16th 1940

All indications are that the attack cost me 6 manpower of which slightly over half will be returning wounded. Probably almost bang on 3 manpower. Over the past few days manpower has been building up a bit anyway so I am still above the earlier low point. TC has of course been completely clobbered with loads of units on attack supply and everything busy.

02:00 July 16th 1940

Moscow is no longer the capital. It has been transferred to Gorkij for safety (???). Doesn’t seem all that safe to me but that’s Russian thinking for you. All those lovely stockpiles are in there so I’m going in to get them.

06:00 July 16th 1940

The Stukas have found another poor wee victim to take down. They are now browsing on the plethora of retreating Russian divisions and levying there usual price.

13:00 July 16th 1940

Rybinsk has been reinforced but this is unlikely to help. The full panzer group is passing through now and I don’t think light tanks is a good choice against a panzer group.

16:00 July 16th 1940

The main fleet has left Europe and gone to help in the central Atlantic. There has been no realistic use for naval support for some time so I have tasked them with some serious convoy clean up work. One assumes that 16+3 is the entire strength of this convoy as there is no obvious way any would escape.

 

[Kanitatlan]

01:00 July 17th 1940

The Caucasus has now been well cleaned up and the Black Sea fleets naval base has now been captured. They will have to retreat out to sea and the nearby vultures will be able to get some exercise.

03:00 July 17th 1940

With the infantry brought forward I have launched an assault on Moscow. The odds are not really adequate and despite the use of Lord E (urban fighter) and a variety of fortress busters the modifiers look horrible. By rights despite my higher org and better underlying unit quality I should not win this combat but …

08:00 July 17th 1940

A seriously big stack of air support will tend to do the trick.

11:00 July 17th 1940

“That” tactical bomber group has come out again and encountered a confluence of several different missions for one almighty great dogfight. They are just too late to disrupt the interdiction support in the battle of Moscow which is quite lucky. I am impressed by their already very badly beaten up state given just how recently they were encountered as apparently brand new units.

13:00 July 17th 1940

Here come the vultures. Time to sink a few Russian ships before they escape. This will be useful experience for these air units and, in practice, little more than a trip to a training school.

14:00 July 17th 1940

It looks like the high seas fleet is quite effective at convoy hunting.

15:00 July 17th 1940

A quick paradrop on Moscow secures the final Bitter peace target. Under the circumstances I felt it would be useful to seize it before enemy reinforcements arrived. Anything to try and reduce the chances of Moscow turning into a huge slugfest battle.

The completion of BP conditions has taken 69 days and 10 hours. There will be some delay until it triggers but I might as well destroy more Russians now as I will soon be fighting them again anyway.

16:00 July 17th 1940

I needn’t have worried, there is only a single Russian division heading for Moscow and they aren’t going to do to well against our highly trained if poorly armed paratroops.

21:00 July 17th 1940

Now that I feel like I’ve won it seems like a good time to check up on the Italians. They seem to have done a nice job of taking northern Egypt and Palestine but they are still not really bothering with the rest of the Middle East and Africa. They haven’t taken Malta and Cyprus so this might be relevant. Both islands are out of supply and have been for some time so they shouldn’t be too hard to take.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 18th 1940

04:00 July 18th 1940

The Moscow offensive stage one is complete with a pocket formed to the west. Most of the retreating troops are either going nowhere or into the pocket so this will create a massive reduction in available Russian forces. The huge army moving down from Karelia has missed the boat and will now have no chance of catching up with the offensive.

04:00 July 18th 1940 b

I have already begun attacks into the pocket to reduce it. There is no point hanging around waiting. The “rain affects play” symbol is a little disconcerting though. You don’t expect that in mid-July.

04:00 July 18th 1940 c

Indeed. The weather does not look good, we have a large patch of mud encroaching from the west. My offensive is mostly just east of the mud and hence OK but this is extremely disconcerting.

Digging Out

Mud in mid July is not nice forcing this unusually named German to do some hard work.

08:00 July 18th 1940

Gorkij has been reinforced but will still be no challenge. Unfortunately the biggest issue is the huge travel time into the swampy quagmire. There is little I can do but (rather strangely) hope I get there before the Bitter peace triggers. I would really quite like to have those stockpiles as they would actually make me secure for the rest of the game (as opposed to just not worried about it). It is also nice to strip the Russians of their reserves.

Manpower levels remain stable with current numbers at 35. This leaves the real spare manpower at similar levels to before.

TC is still just as bad as at the start of the offensive. Can’t be helped.

14:00 July 18th 1940

Yummy

15:00 July 18th 1940

A paradrop on Rzhev to stop units retreating there or kill those that already are looks like it is in trouble but those 4 attacking divisions appear to be making no impact at all. This fight could go on for days. There are lots of retreating Russians around and it is quite beneficial to cause them to simply “die” rather than let them complete their retreats and fight a bit more. Hence the paradrop (amongst others).

16:00 July 18th 1940

I’m wondering if this is the remnant of the 4 unit group shot up a few times earlier. If so then well done Luftwaffe, you have done well.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 19th 1940

11:00 July 19th 1940

With sufficient forces now in position attacks are launched on all remaining Russians in the pocket. Only Demyansk is better than barely defended and they don’t look like they will win.

11:00 July 19th 1940 b

The weather is keeping just clear of where the fighting is and has yet to affect any of my mobile groups. I just hope it stays where it is and fades away. If it engulfs other parts of the front it might actually give the Russians a chance for some sort of recovery. Not that the AI would actually use such a chance.

14:00 July 19th 1940

Vultures again, the Russian fleet is getting smaller. This bombing carries on until the end later receiving additional support from several groups of interceptors. This does not improve the loss rate but it does give them some experience.

 

[Kanitatlan]

08:00 July 20th 1940

Convoy losses continue.

10:00 July 20th 1940

The muddy conditions are quite pervasive but remain west off the true operations.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 21st-22nd 1940

00:00 July 21st 1940

Additional fighter doctrines help a little but I’m not sure whether these are really necessary now. With the winding down of operations in Russia we may need to look at some adjustments to research priorities.

07:00 July 21st 1940

With the Demyansk pocket secure the main panzer groups strike east. Those south of the Volga strike first but will sooner or later be joined by the one north of the Volga. The Russian defences are strong but not strength enough to resist the overwhelming force of the mighty German panzer armies.

01:00 July 22nd 1940

In the Atlantic the u-boats deal a blow to the remnants of the Portuguese fleet. I can’t tell if this is the last of them but it could easily be so. Intelligence reviews will come after the bitter peace.

23:00 July 22nd 1940

Two more paradrops (Demyansk and Kalinin) make sure there will be no more fighting in the Demyansk pocket. All the Russian forces here are as good as destroyed. So far the Moscow campaign has accounted for around 120 Russian divisions overrun or destroyed (dying) in the Demyansk pocket. This is the final deathblow to Russian military power and it makes perfect sense that VILenin would surrender now. (How about a speech).

 

[Kanitatlan]

03:00 July 23rd 1940

With the Demyansk pocket dealt with Rocketman’s panzer group begins moving east north of the Volga. This move east will meet up with the deep encirclement and destroy all remaining Russian units within European Russia. Whilst I have eachieved all that as required to defeat them I will have to fight all these units again one day so I might as well have a go at killing them now.

03:00 July 23rd 1940 b

I have full Luftflotte of tactical bombers transferred to Baku to investigate the situation in Persia. They aren’t really intended to cause any actual damage, they are simply intended to show what is there. The British sector seems to contain a significant Persian army all be it fairly obsolete.

19:00 July 23rd 1940

I was going to stop showing these images but this is the record convoy attack so far. Another 40 of these will do for the British merchant marine. Well perhaps not quite as impressive as it first seems.

19:00 July 23rd 1940 b

Closing in on Gorkij. Unfortunately Gorkij is a swamp province and takes as long to enter as the rest of the area takes occupy.

 

[Kanitatlan]

July 24th-30th 1940

14:00 July 24th 1940

More convoy action (someone please add it all up for me).

14:00 July 29th 1940

Gorkij is now formed into a pocket which is nice but the great northern army has managed to breakout. Defence by space doesn’t work when there is only the one empty province for them to take. This is not important now as the campaign goes into the end game. I can’t destroy them before the bitter peace so it is better to simply try to ignore them.

00:00 July 30th 1940

Closing in on the end-game.

12:00 July 30th 1940

The final state of the Black sea fleet with only 11 vessels left.

 

[Kanitatlan]

The last gasp

06:00 August 2nd 1940

At this late stage a brand new tactical bomber force turns up only to be clobbered by my supposedly pointless fighter cover.

01:00 August 3rd 1940

More Russians have reached Gorkij but my advance continues with further support.

05:00 August 4th 1940

The combat event helps and 24 hours later Gorkij is captured. The lower set of resource figures is the before and the higher set is the after. I have acquired huge stockpiles of everything essentially giving me something like 10 years reserve resources.

00:00 August 5th 1940

With the fall of Gorkij the Russians immediately surrender. I’m not sure if this is because I took Gorkij since it became the official capital but I am glad I was able to take it first. The resources may not be all that important but they are nice to have.

So ends the First Russian War. I will follow up with a losses report and a situation report for further activities. The AAR is now wide open for comments and suggestions on future strategy.

 

[unmerged(55467)]

Holy crap... well done!

 

[unmerged(60386)]

O_O... is that lenin as head of state? Zombie Lenin?

 

[Kanitatlan]

Losses Report

The following report has been obtained by reloading both before and after the Russian War as Russia and looking at some very specific things (only). I have checked their forces on the statistics page (hence no information on brigades or technology). I have checked manpower levels and deleted everything in the production queue to find how much manpower was there.

		Inf	Cav	Mot	Larm	arm	Mtn	Gar	HQ	Mil	
08-May-40	810	5	50	17	31	11	31	15	50	
05-Aug-40	278	2	4	0	3	6	9	7	19	
Losses		532	3	46	17	28	5	22	8	31	
MP losses	5320	27	460	119	196	75	176	40	155	6568

Ftr	Int	CAS	TAC
30	60	37	28
13	26	6	15

BB	CA	CL	DD	SS	Tra
5	3	8	23	44	12
4		4	21	38	12

Manpower before was 1278 with 1919 in the production queue. Manpower income was 4.07 per day.
At the end they had 604 manpower with 2923 in the production queue. This is all rather telling as this massive boost must have come from wounded men. I would estimate their income over the whole period as no more than 300 manpower.

This means that they must have received at least 630 manpower from wounded men plus the manpower for all units created during the campaign. I would estimate based on some IC spot checks that they expended approximately 60,000-70,000 IC days during this campaign. This includes spending on secondary needs such as supplies, reinforcements and upgrades. Whatever else this must represent significant further units. Lets estimate another 100 divisions.

This makes their total losses some 800 odd divisions, 100+ air units and a relative handful of ships. This cannot be considered anything other than a massive and overwhelming success. Congratulations to all my leaders and gold and silver stars all round.

Onto a more serious subject, what about German losses. I have tried to estimate the IC cost of reinforcement but this is extremely difficult so the best I can manage is somewhere between 800 and 2,000 IC days total. Manpower losses, on the other hand, can be estimated quite accurately. Using the formula I announced earlier the total permanent manpower losses comes to a grand total of …

67.5 or using the standard 1000 measure, 67,500 men dead, missing or permanently disqualified from military service.

I have no idea whose guess was the closest but this is very very satisfyingly low. This is a side effect of my strategies and one reason why I use them. I do not like any of my soldiers to die.

 

[unmerged(40779)]

Congratulations to all of us! Especially our Führer, naturally.

I'd like to hear about medals and awards, if those are still about to be given, and a report telling us the complete list of military units - naval, air and land forces - for the number of divisions of different types is quite unclear to me at the present. Also the locations, experience levels and units under the command of each of the generals/admirals that are from these forums would be nice to hear, if it's not too much of a work.

About the future - I suggest we move the bulk of our forces to Urals, for if we're about to declare war to absolutely everyone quite soon, Soviet Siberia should be our first target, and it's easy to continue to China and Japan after taking it. Another, perhaps more mobile task force should be assigned the task of conquering Iran and Iraq, and making its way to west, to meet the Italians. The threat of British troops in India is not that great, and it can be left for later conquest, but there are quite a few units in Iraq that should be dealt with before they move to threathen Baku.


EDIT: Forgot about Europe... nevermind the above, Vichy France and Italy Proper are more important than Iraq and Siberia!

 

[Kanitatlan]

What next ?

Aftermath

I have made a few national colour changes to make this map clearer. This is the immediate aftermath of the surrender. As I have declared before the next phase of the campaign will follow the rule

At war with every country in the world by the end of the year

This creates a bit of a problem for me as I need to tidy up my European frontiers and then be ready for the all round war. There is a fair amount of time left but lots of strategic options

Discuss

I will monitor the AAR and can provide any requested information. I shall also be commenting but first of all the floor is open.

One extra key question. The bitter peace has given territory to Finland. It seems to me this is quite unrelaistic as I would never have agreed this for a country that took no part in the war. I am proposing to edit those territories over to me. Do you all agree?

 

[Kanitatlan]

O_O... is that lenin as head of state? Zombie Lenin?

Its VILenin one of the people on this forum, possibly keeping his head down now that he has been deposed.

Kasakka Nice to see a quick response before I even posed the question. I am cocerned about the exposure in Europe as I will be at war with everyone including Vichy France and Italy. The time left this year for tidying up may be considered quite limited.


Medals will have to wait a while as it will take me some time to post them. If everyone who is reading and wants to see their combat record and get medal awards posts asking then I will give them priority.

 

[unmerged(55467)]

I'd say take out the Eastern European minors left over while are your armies are close, then Vichy... Italy can be taken any time, cause only one of its provinces become frozen during winter.