Panic inducing situations

[Gnorf]

Have you had any situations where something unexpected happened and you had to scramble everything you got and completely change your plan in order to get the situation under control again?

In a recent game as Nationalist China I had garrisoned the coast and was struggling to hold the north. I was playing axis so I hadn't yet annexed any warlord states since I wanted to keep threat levels low, so I wasn't as strong as I'd liked yet. I had one reserve army of well equiped infantry near Nanjing in case the Japanese tried a landing in Shanghai, but the landing came in near Qingdao instead! I thought the militia I had would be enough to hold the port while I redeployed my reserves but they didn't assault Qingdao, instead they landed on the two neighbouring provinces and attacked Qingdao from land instead. I redeployed my reserve army from central China and tried to position my HQs in the way of their advance to give them an attack delay and buy me some time, but after seizing the two ports on the peninsula they landed like 20 more divisions. I had just managed to push into former Shaanxi land and encircled a few divisions so I redeployed one army from the north as well. Before they could arive they had already destroyed my few militia and pushed all the way up to the airfield and city to the east of the peninsula, I can't remember the name of the city right now. I used my lone tactical bomber to try to bomb the ports, but it was not very effective. Only after holding the line with back and forths for about three months while I bombed the ports they started lacking supply and I could start pushing back. After the final battle I encircled and destroyed the around 280 thousand troops they had managed to land. I got so worried when they landed, I was almost considering retreating to the Yellow river in the north to avoid them getting encircled from the south. My ring muscle was so tight I could've cracked a walnut.

Have you had any similar, butt-clenching moments?

 

[ZenTex]

Not really, apart from the Americans invading me in wilhelmshaven right after they joined the allies. Landed some 40 divisions there, most of them mechanised or armoured and somehow able to supply them all through that single port despite it being bombed to pieces. Last time I played on very hard.

What I've learned from your story however, is that I'd better decline if you'd ever offer me walnuts.

 

[Didz]

Have you had any situations where something unexpected happened and you had to scramble everything you got and completely change your plan in order to get the situation under control again?

Not yet.

I've played through a full USA campaign using 'Stars an Stripes' mod, and had the odd experience of Roosevelt losing the election and getting kicked out of the White House. That seems to completely change the deck as far as the political situation is concerned and the USA never joined he Allies and ended up fighting its own private war with Japan alone. But that wasn't so much a panic as a complete strategic reshuffle. e.g. No war in Europe for the USA.

I'm currently playing a very slow Soviet campaign with an AAR, which has just reached January 1941, and again no panic situations yet, but I know Barbarrossa is looming and I can't make up my mind whether the Soviets are ready or not. So, at the moment I'm going through a rollercoaster ride of emotions frm being confident one minute to pessimistic the next depending on what stats I'm looking at. As far as I can tell the Germans have taken a bit of a beating elsewhere in Europe and I may have the strenght to hold them or even counter=attack, but then I look at my leadership and research tabs and realize that I just have farm boys and tractors up against elite stormtroopers riding tigers. The panic will probably come later when they burst through my carefully prepared defences.

 

[Count Blue]

I'm currently playing a very slow Soviet campaign with an AAR, which has just reached January 1941, and again no panic situations yet, but I know Barbarrossa is looming and I can't make up my mind whether the Soviets are ready or not.

I am with you. This point in history is maybe the most tense point in the game isnt it?
No other player but the USSSR has such a challenge ahead I think.

 

[ZenTex]

Soviets a challenge? Getting the OOB fixed takes some time, but apart from that it's a cakewalk,at least the one time I played. (on hard)
And all I did was fix the OOB, tech infantry and armour, produce masses of inf and armour divisions an when war broke out ride out the initial attacks then pushed forward along the whole front. Germany ran out of manpower soon enough. Only their bombing campaigns hurt a bit and I had some troubles crossing the rivers and mountains.
That's with an air Germany that did most things right, without any significant problems upto barbarossa.

 

[Count Blue]

Well then you are a better player than me.
But who isnt.

 

[ZenTex]

Probably not, but I've learnt to not underestimate the Soviets when playing against them. They just keep spamming divisions and never have to worry about manpower as I found out in my first games as Germany. Even experienced players need to watch out in the opening phase of barbarossa, encirclement is the key here. If Germany fails to achieve to encircle and capture ungodly amounts of Russian divisions disaster looms even against the mediocre AI.
They also have the luxury of being able to disregard any techs other than infantry and armour, supply, industry and land doctrines. Interceptors and bombers come in handy but are not strictly necessary and a fleet is not needed at all.

I'll look up your AAR though, I love reading those.

 

[Didz]

Soviets a challenge? Getting the OOB fixed takes some time, but apart from that it's a cakewalk,at least the one time I played. (on hard).

Well thats re-assuring to know, and to a certain extent thats the factor that gives me moments of confidence when I'm thinking about the coming storm. Also when doing my periodic force comparisons between the Axis, Allies and Comintern it does look as though the Soviets have a huge army compared to the Axis powers, and I just think surely with that number of divisions I must be able to win.

Then I read posts describing how German divisions just brush the Soviets aside, and I look at my abysmal officer ratio, lack of doctrines and poor quality equipment. Not to mention that a lot of my armies are understrength (many are little more than Corps) and I begin to doubt what will happen again.

Add to that the fact that officially for the purposes of my AAR I'm not supposed to be aware that the Germans are going to attack or when, and so can't explicitly plan to prepare for it and it becomes a bit nerve racking.

One consequence being, that as in real life, the Stalin in my game has been focused on a policy of industrial development, diplomatic influence and intelligence gathering rather than military expansion.

In fact, the Red Army has been largely given second priority when it comes to leadership and development as the number of army commanders has been lacking and the officer ratio is so low.

So, my guess is that my army is in a worse state than it would be in most games where the player has started planning specifically for Barbarossa from 1936. I don't for example have T34 tanks yet, although they are expected by March 41, and I still have all my original cavalry regiments.

The movement of German heavy tanks up to the Soviet border a couple of months ago, did give me the excuse for Stalin to re-initiate Soviet armour research with a view to completing the design of the T34 medium tank, but at the moment thats the only research being conducted, as most leadership effort is being directed elsewhere. The only real military effort at the moment is the formation of seventy-six low quality static divisions of NKVD troops to defend the Stalin; Molotov and Voroshilov defence lines, which are still under construction to protect the Soviet borders mostly in the Far East, where the Japanese seem to be doing well against the Allies.

So, I'm still uncertain what will happen when the storm finally breaks. Stalin (in game) is still convinced that Hitler would never be stupid enough to open a second front by attacking the Soviet Union, and is still more concerned about the growth of US industrial capacity which is outstripping the Soviets despite it being the cornerstone of his policy to make the Soviet Union the greatest industrial power in the world.

The appearance of the German heavy tanks on the border did cause a ripple of concern that resulted in the reinstatement of the Soviet armor research. Although he as since convinced himself that this was just a show of force by Germany to dissuade the Soviets from westward expansion into Poland. (Germany took the entire of Poland in my game, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact never happened.)

 

[Count Blue]

What happend to your MR Pact? The AI usually takes it 100% of the time and since you play the soviets I am thinking you refused it yourself?
BTW
Talking about you office rate.
This is probably the single most infuential thing gamewise where you are handicapped if its not 140%.
This could really lead to trouble I think.

 

[Didz]

What happend to your MR Pact? The AI usually takes it 100% of the time and since you play the soviets I am thinking you refused it yourself?

I have no idea in terms of the game mechanic's. Germany just didn't make the offer.

If you want to read my AAR (Dec 1937) you will see that I was roleplaying the process and building up to trying to justify Stalin's acceptance of the Molotov-Ribentrop Pact once it was received. But in fact it never happened, which by pure chance happens to fit in quite nicely with the way I was roleplaying the process. Within my AAR it comes across as Stalin and Molotov getting too greedy and demanding the entire of Poland, after which the Germans abandoned the negotiations.