SailAAR, FlyAAR and PanzAAR- A German DiDay RP Campagne.

[Surt]

wait until the summer comes...

I must have totally mistaken what is called summer there, so its only from May on or even June?

 

[Surt]

I have made a bug report on the supply matter, don't know if it leads to anything here in the middle of the vacation period or at all, but if you see something like it in your games please comment there

 

[Baltasar]

Well, all you can do is redeploy forces strategically in preparation for the next campaign season and hopefully encircle and destroy enough Russian formations to make further advancements possible across the front.

 

[Surt]

Well, all you can do is redeploy forces strategically in preparation for the next campaign season and hopefully encircle and destroy enough Russian formations to make further advancements possible across the front.

I've moved a couple of divisions over, but it looks like they will be OOS before any supplies gets through sadly.

 

[shepherd352]

In my experience (ICE with 1.4 and SF), supply will continue to cause headaches until the Soviet Union is defeated. You need to limit panzer and motorised troops that are deployed in Russia, using them only on the critical thrust line. Capturing and manually setting up supply to ports is good. You might even deploy additional ports with airfields, so you can create some air delivery that does not take from what you have got.

The weather does not improve until May/June, so don't expect the supply situation to get any better until then. Once it does improve, vengance will be at hand!

I look forward to the upcoming battle reports.

 

[Surt]

In my experience (ICE with 1.4 and SF), supply will continue to cause headaches until the Soviet Union is defeated. You need to limit panzer and motorised troops that are deployed in Russia, using them only on the critical thrust line. Capturing and manually setting up supply to ports is good. You might even deploy additional ports with airfields, so you can create some air delivery that does not take from what you have got.

The weather does not improve until May/June, so don't expect the supply situation to get any better until then. Once it does improve, vengance will be at hand!

I look forward to the upcoming battle reports.

Thanks, the 100's of battles fought the last months is so depressing and one sided that I really!!! want to have a go

2-3 Soviet div attacks 5-10 axis and defeat them within a day!!! x 100's

 

[Surt]

SailAAR, FlyAAR and PanzAAR
Spring time for X-AAR

[size=+1]The long wait[/size]


Better late than never

Abdul gets a crash course in battle techniques by Petersen


We hear rumours of Japanese doings

Apparently they have decided the east pacific is more important than India.


Week 41, we will soon be back

At our starting position with this "progress".


That was bloody

For us, the troops complain of low ammo constantly, not good for the moral.


Another for the new reef

Isn't that nice for the fish and octopus.


Philippines

Japan sends more troops, the volcanoes must remind them of home.


Week 44, 10th month

HG Nord's bridgehead nearly destroyed.




Stalin tastes blood

And starts a few attacks.


Crimea tatar

The Stalin offensive cuts off the Axis liberation forces on Crim


Nice support

The Georgians are especially welcome as they bring 2 divisions with them.​

Geyer is more so so as the age of cavalry is really over, not to mention they have a slow artillery.
The 4 armoured trains is another case, they are rather expensive to build at 7.5 IC each for half a year, they wont be finished soon.

Shouldn't that be 3000

The head clerk of the department of administrative matters is confused, none of the numbers on the agreement matches.


More bandits

Some Mexican bandits join the war, inspiring more Indian bandits in Alexandria.
The Soviets call off General Winter, the is really nice!!!


More counter insurgents

50.000 volunteers is nice, the 20 IC cost of the LSSAH is more impressive than nice.


US help

To Canada and China, this only confuses the poor Chinese who their real friends are.


Refuses to Surrender

The Saudies likes being Commintern so much they ignore 100% of their important cities are occupied.​

This will delay Operation Bacon even more as It look like we have to kill all Saudies to be sure there are no commies left.

French bandits.

French bandits tries to raid London, heroic German garrison is the only troops between them and the paniced masses of the Metropole.​

The Philippines surrender after the Japanese reinforcements arrive.

Defenders of Sevastopol

General Busch and his heroic men in the Axis peacekeeping force.​

German, Italian, Hungarian and Spanish troops fights as one.

Aren't they annexed?

The Japanese are strange.



Iron for Germany

And divisions for China.​

So winter is over but are the supply woes of the Axis, more about this next time.

 

[Enewald]

Maybe a small tactical retreat in Russia, to make a new frontline from which you could launch some pocketing attacks?

 

[Timmie0307]

Kill the Soviets, with the help of nice Saudi Oil...hopefully you can eradicate the Soviets once and for all...are you also manually building troops or purely by event?

Tim

 

[Surt]

Maybe a small tactical retreat in Russia, to make a new frontline from which you could launch some pocketing attacks?

The retreat is coming of its own still, but I might try to retreat as it doesn't seem like I can get supplies anyway.

Kill the Soviets, with the help of nice Saudi Oil...hopefully you can eradicate the Soviets once and for all...are you also manually building troops or purely by event?

Tim

Hi Tim,

There is not nearly enough oil in the middle east to feed my warmachine, even if I took Persia, I would need Venezuela too and maybe Texas, but then it would be the conversion that limited it!!! I might have to scrap all my str to limit it as there is no option to park them and thereby stop their fuel usage, these guys use 5+ fuel each and I got 5.*
As to the destruction of the Soviets I would need my army in supply and with Org, which is slowly comming up for some as they get some supplies.


*hmm, this gives me an idea, if I get access to some none allied maybe I could park them there as they wont get any supplies/fuel there???

 

[shepherd352]

In every game before my most recent game, countries surrendered at midnight after reaching 100% surrender status. In my most recent game, I have seen two countries reach 100% and not surrender until about three months later! Your update is the only other report I have seen on this. Lets hope it is a one-off event as you will not want a delay in Russia surrendering, once you have crushed them in the summer.

The supply mechanics make the value of allied forces doubtful. They will be using your supplies but will not be as strong as your forces, nor will they follow our strategy. If they can get orders to allies working much better (not just objectives) it would be OK. As it is, I would rather they gave me expeditionary forces, that I could use or park as I wanted.

Can you get a ship or sub into the Black Sea? If you can and if the Soviet Black Seaq Fleet has been destroyed, you can block his access through Kerch, removing supply and allowing for destruction of his Crimean forces. Of course you would need supply for this to work....

So many people write about how easy it is to destroy Russia but they game a quick victory. This AAR shows how desparate things are, surviving a Russian winter. All that keeps you going is the hope that things will improve with the weather. I would love to see those "gurus" do any better than you have these last few months. This story is epic and deservesthe coverage you are giving.

 

[Surt]

I found what caused the Saudies to not surrender, a line was missing in the common\on_action.txt

#country, from = occupier.
on_surrender = 
{
	10	= 503		#Italy
	10	= 519		#Italy, Germany is not at war
	10	= 530		#Vichy France
	10	= 505		#Spanish Civil War
	10	= 513		#Spanish Civil War
	10	= 506		#Finnish Winter War
	10	= 532		#Bitter Peace
	10	= 533		#Bitter Peace, v.2
	10	= 508		#Germany
	10	= 520		#Germany, v2
	10	= 509		#Poland
	10	= 512		#Poland, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
	10 	= 537		#generic surrender event if in Cominter *** NEW *** Surt
	10 	= 500		#generic surrender event if in faction
	10 	= 502		#generic surrender event if not in faction
}

I will puppet them for max. usefulness later as I would have to garrison it now and still only get 8.4 oil, where if I puppet them I potentially get 12 oil/fuel on some future date.
80.5 days they produce 1000 oil but some is converted to fuel and some energy is converted to oil, it will take around 100 days before I see the first oil and much longer to I see the fuel.

 

[Surt]

In every game before my most recent game, countries surrendered at midnight after reaching 100% surrender status. In my most recent game, I have seen two countries reach 100% and not surrender until about three months later! Your update is the only other report I have seen on this. Lets hope it is a one-off event as you will not want a delay in Russia surrendering, once you have crushed them in the summer.

If they were comintern I found a solution I think, se previous post, the Soviets have their own surrender event so that shouldn't worry me, if the event doesn't fire I would try to go for the rest of the comintern members so only the Soviets are left, which then might fire the generic event.

The supply mechanics make the value of allied forces doubtful. They will be using your supplies but will not be as strong as your forces, nor will they follow our strategy. If they can get orders to allies working much better (not just objectives) it would be OK. As it is, I would rather they gave me expeditionary forces, that I could use or park as I wanted.

They should reinburse me for the upfront supplies they use. f.ex.
I import 189 supply but only got trades for 57 and I export for 119 but trade for none.
But I don't think they cover the transport cost which is atrocious here.

The axis minions are much more likely to give exp. forces when they are cut off from their home country, f.ex. nearly all units in the Sevastopol pocket are now exp.

Also minor troops are not willing to retreat so they lose a lot of units to pockets, only way to control it is leaving them alone in the exposed provinces and fighting for their supply line until they are attacked and retreat.

Can you get a ship or sub into the Black Sea? If you can and if the Soviet Black Seaq Fleet has been destroyed, you can block his access through Kerch, removing supply and allowing for destruction of his Crimean forces. Of course you would need supply for this to work....

The Soviet Blacksea fleet is long gone, but a blockage is only effective is they have no overland connection, which they have now this would be my first target if I get supplies again.

So many people write about how easy it is to destroy Russia but they game a quick victory. This AAR shows how desparate things are, surviving a Russian winter. All that keeps you going is the hope that things will improve with the weather. I would love to see those "gurus" do any better than you have these last few months. This story is epic and deservesthe coverage you are giving.

I had thought it would be over with the Soviets until I meet my Stalingrad surprise but that makes it more of a challenge.
Its very hard on my personal moral to bring it through! and I really feel the same as Adolf in not wanting to give up anything, except I would rather lose land than get my units surrounded.

 

[Surt]

SailAAR, FlyAAR and PanzAAR
Spring time for X-AAR

[size=+1]Stopping the USSAAR[/size]


French Bandits

Are defeated, do they not know that London is the Capital of the British Union?


Supply line threathened

The Soviets overrun the strategic important city of Velikie Luki.​

Diels: ... and so the City is lost our prepared position did not help.
Jodl: They are going for our rail link to HG Karelia and HG Nord!!!
Brauchitsch: Our armies are exhausted and they are low on ammo, they can only slow the Soviets down not stop them.
Göring: Send reinforcements from the west, take a corps from operation Bacon.
Goebbels: Last word from Wüstensturm is that the Saudies finally relented and accepted defeat, we installed a prince who is friendly to us as King. We lessen the garrison burden and hopefully they will send all their surplus oil our way soon.
Brauchitsch: The troops will take a long time to leave Saudiarabia, so Bacon is at least 2 month away.
Jodl: Bacon can't be done without a simultaneous invasion of Greenland and Iceland when we go for Denmark else the British or USA might occupy them.
Keitel: Wont matter if we lost HG Karelia.
Jodl: I'll prepare the orders.

The Luftwaffe strikes back

Göring sends a box of medals.


And again

Göring send a box of medal with swords.​

The Soviet troops fights on with horrendous losses.

Operation Crimson death

The Georgians lead the attack.​

Brauchitsch: First I'd like to thank Dr. Goebbels for the fancy name of the operation.
Goebbels: Yeah I like the double interpretation of the name.
Brauchitsch: The attack aims at cutting of the Crimean peninsula from the main land, then the 3rd SS Panzer corps will strike from Sevastopol through the centre of the enemy line at Simferopol.
Jodl: I dislike having to send the 3rd to defend Sevastopol, they should have landed at Kerch and attack from behind.
Keitel: Then there would have been no Sevastopol to help and we would have had to take the fortress and this time by storm, remember atm. only the 3rd and a allied division defends the fortress all others have been beaten and retreated to the rear zone.
Brauchitsch: Luftwaffe is merciless hammering the attackers on Sevastopol and one air group is assigned to help the attack from Kherson. Raeder please.
Raeder: On the request of the OKH we have detailed some destroyers to cut of any retreat from Crimea through Kerch, after we last year destroyed the Black sea fleet and Luftwaffe provide cover from enemy planes we feel confident we can sink any barges trying to cross.
Brauchitsch: I'd like to thank the Kriegsmarine for their other 2 important tasks in this operation, the supply of the troops and the evacuation of wounded and none-essential personnel from Sevastopol area.

First real victory

A minor battle but very good for moral.


Victory in Kherson offensive

And a real nice loss ratio too.


Soviet panic

Our victory at the neck of the Crimean causes panic in the Stavka.​

Brauchitsch: Their attack is cancel on Sevastopol and troops tries to retreat from the death trap of Operation Crimson Death.
Goebbels: Why do you call it Kherson attack and neck of Crimean, the places themselves have names?
Brauchitsch: Yes, but nobody can spell them!
Koller: The loss ration is very misleading as the Luftwaffe caused at least 20000 casualties to the Soviets.

Tries another lines of attack

But it is doomed from the start.


HG Karelia under pressure

A major offensive directed at crushing HG Karelia is launched in the north​

Brauchitsch: All units here are very tired and only the ones in Karelia are in reasonable supply.
Jodl: If we are pressed back behind the lakes we will have a much longer front to defend, that is not good.

Next attack on HG Karelia

Note the sorry state of the Finnish divisions, the 12th and 22nd.


Rail to Leningrad is nearly cut.

Only Pskov still let supplies through.​

Jodl: I've analysed the supply flow to HG Karelia, the throughput in Pskov and Narva is simply not enough, we will have to improve the rails through Riga and Narva, Pskov is too uncertain that we will hold that long enough.
Brauchitsch: Why is the part of HG Nord south of Pskov then low on ammo most of the time.
Jodl: Apparently the supply officers prefer the roads instead of our nice rails. (This is so frustrating)
Brauchitsch: We will need to upgrade the secondary rails too then.
Keitel: I'll send the Balkan rail unit to the north when its finished in the next weeks.

Week 47, 11th month

Notice, the south is nearly entirely in supply and the German controlled north is not.​

Brauchitsch: The supply situation in the south has much improved over the last few weeks in the south. The situation in the north doesn't seem to improve.
Dr. Ley: We have increased the production of supplies by up to 11% of our total production by taking from upgrades, reinforcements and production of rail material, also the destroyer and uboot production has been paused.
Raeder: This will give problems later.
Dr. Ley: Some of the supplies from the west have been released to us too when we increased the supply production, apparently the bureaucrats in the west only released them when they saw we produced enough. (more on this later.)
Brauchitsch: Also we still hold the Orel bridgehead surprisingly enough, it points like a dagger to the heart of the Soviet menace and offer great opportunities and risk.

Short line lost

Von Kluge and Ringel had hoped to stop the Soviets here where the lake line is the shortest.


Bandits in Alexandria AGAIN!

The uprising in Alexandria succeed again, we send reinforcements.


Slightly outnumbered

Does not look good for the newly renamed Karelian Army.​

OKW Report on the state of KG Karelia and other matters by Feltmarshall Keitel, chief of OKW to Nazi Great Council:

I've reorganised the setup in the north after they no longer have a continuous front.
HG Karelia now consists of 3 armies, Karelian Heer, Ladoga Heer and Leningrad Heer.
Ideally each Heer should consist of 4 corps with 4 divisions each and a reserve division, but all are a little understrength and in very poor organisational state. Especially the Ladoga Heer is understrength so a few reinforcements are sent that way.

HG Karelia now consist of 30 division of which 10 are of doubtful quality, 3 Finnish division with only brigade strength support us as well as 4 other allied divisions.

Some 13 of the 30 division are also expeditionary units which we are upgrading to German standard hence the bloated upgrade budget.

A decision to our advantage is not possible here in light of the problems of being outnumbered, low on ammo, low on organisation, understrength, we would need another army to stop the Soviets if they break through.

Our man power is also under pressure now, unless we get a major break soon I will have to change my opinion on women working in the industry to release more men for front duty, whatever the cost.

Dutifully
Keitel
OKW

Vernichtungsschlagt

A good German word​

From Feltmarshall von Rundstedt HG Sud to OKH/OKW

The annihilation of the Soviet troops on the Crimea enters the last stage, we estimate that around 150000 Bolsheviks wont be home for harvest, at least not the Soviet harvest 1942. Among them an Elite armour division, their marines an armoured train.
The Vernichtung(annihilation) is not much an implementation of the Vernichtungs gedanke as an result of movements to outmanoeuvre the Soviets.
I would like to mention General Loki, General Schaeffer and General Enewald for their good staff work. (mentioned in the wehrmachts bericht) for their ideas of pulling in to pocket, naval blockade and limited offensive.

Following the destruction of the Soviet Crimean army we will send all of the Caucasus Heer over the Kerch straight to run for the Caucasus, this is a waste area for so few divisions to effectively defend.
Hopefully our Stalingrad Heer will have archieved an breakthrough in south Ukraine to cover the north flank by that time.

The Stalingrad Heer is proceeding in its attempt to make a double Kessel by a breakthrough along the south edge of the southern Dnieper bend and the southern side of the northern Dnieper bend. Thereby making a Kessel in the Dnieper bend and another along the coast of the Sea of Azov.

Upgrade of the rails must start immediately upon liberation of the affected provinces or the offensives will quickly run out of steam.


von Rundstedt
HG Sud

 

[loki100]

fascinating stuff ... your airforce is pretty brutal

wonder if your best solution in Karelia is to pull back radically, that might pull the Soviets into poor supply in turn and potentially trap quite a lot of their formations on what is, at the end of the day, a pretty secondary front?

at least you can function again in the S Ukraine though.

 

[unmerged(47028)]

Very good work in Crimea!

 

[Enewald]

Karelia divided itself into Karelian isthmus that is around Viipuri.
Then there is Aunus-Karelia that is between Laatokka and Ääninen. North of that is Vienna-Karelia, named after the sea it is close to.
Isthmus, Aunus, Viena.

 

[shepherd352]

Is this the turning of the tide? You will need to be sure of your strategic goals. It seems the oil is one goal (and perhaps Stalingrad and Astrakhan) but I presume Moscow is another. Arkangel would have been nice but really isn't essential. Retrograde operations in Karelia could benefit your primary goals and create an opprtunity for a late Summer counter-attack.

Onwards the victorious armies (of the Reich)!

 

[Surt]

fascinating stuff ... your airforce is pretty brutal

wonder if your best solution in Karelia is to pull back radically, that might pull the Soviets into poor supply in turn and potentially trap quite a lot of their formations on what is, at the end of the day, a pretty secondary front?

at least you can function again in the S Ukraine though.

Hmm, maybe I overreacted to the Soviet major offensive, they did outnumber me a lot

Very good work in Crimea!

Hi Mnplastic,
Thanks, I'll forward your praise to the Caucasus army!!!

Karelia divided itself into Karelian isthmus that is around Viipuri.
Then there is Aunus-Karelia that is between Laatokka and Ääninen. North of that is Vienna-Karelia, named after the sea it is close to.
Isthmus, Aunus, Viena.

I thought all east of Finland was Karelia (until it in the northern part becomes Kola-peninsula or is that Karelia too?)
So the Finnish fortifications between Ladoga and Onega would have been the Aunus-line?

Is this the turning of the tide? You will need to be sure of your strategic goals. It seems the oil is one goal (and perhaps Stalingrad and Astrakhan) but I presume Moscow is another. Arkangel would have been nice but really isn't essential. Retrograde operations in Karelia could benefit your primary goals and create an opprtunity for a late Summer counter-attack.

Oil is definitive the goal and the protection of it against any threath, which means clearing any enemy at least 750 km from Baku and the oil-pipeline back to the refineries. It is the 2nd Führers will, how else will his flyAAR's fly, his SailAAR's sail and his PanzAAR's roll(except downhill but pushing them up again takes to long)?

I think there are 44 oil there of which I will get 70% in best case 28+2.8 = 30.8 oil, that's 10% of my current need
So flyboys and tankgirls, don't build 71 planes! or you will cry when you have to let them stand OOS.

Luckily I wasn't playing SF or I would have converted my little tanks to medium or heavy and my mot to mech and worsened my problems. My little tank divisions (LArm+Mot+some MotArt) only uses 3+3 not 10+10 like a 2xArm+2xMech+SPArt would.
But still many are out of fuel.

My other goal is a near destruction of the Red Army, during the winter they had build 10+ divisions each month and now number in excess of 200 divisions (215 if you count the Crimean ones), this need to be reduced so only 30-40 max are active in European Russia. If there are more they will wipe me during the next winter.

Then Moscow is a strategic goal in archiving the other 2 goals
a) studies shows that unlike the Napoleonic Moscow the modern city is THE railhub in Russia, taking it will mean the new Capital will be a less than ideal and then the Soviets will have the supply problems.
b) we want their stored gold, oil and fuel.
c) It will make all the minor fascist nations join our cause, like Netherlands, Sweden and China!
d) It's a major blow to their manpower, manufacturing and moral.

Then retaking Volgadorf is another strategic objective in protecting the oil as is Astrakhan.

Arkangel is another economic target as it would stop some trades or at least allow us to target much longer convoys, but that's a tertiary target. Like anything east of Moscow.

Onwards the victorious armies (of the Reich)!

Hopefully, I don't think my moral can take another winter!!!

 

[Enewald]

Yes it all is Karelia south of Kola.
But what I mentioned is the sub-division of it.