Vokt (axis) vs Plaid (allies) 3.10 AAR

[Vokt]

Turn 52. June 17, 1942.

The Axis started its Summer offensive, advancing to Don river. A total of 6 Red Army units (5 garrisons and 1 corps) were destroyed. Siege of Sevastopol started. In Allies turn, Soviets completed their withdrawal to the Don river:



Atlantic. A British DD sunk by the attack of 4 German sub units. Plaid told me in one of his emails that when a convoy is that heavily escorted it's more worth for him to attack the escort itself that to risk 2 hits coming from DD's later on Allies turn. Success of this operation shows that following strategy may be more effective.

[Vokt]

Turn 53. July 7, 1942.

Eastern front Axis turn. Axis forces reached the Don:



Atlantic. More u-boats attacks this time to a convoy.

[Vokt]

Turn 54. July 27, 1942.

Eastern front Axis turn. Voronezh was taken by the Wehrmacht:



In Crimea, Sevastopol was finally seized and in the Caucasus, Italian armoured forces advanced south and attacked Krasnodar:



Western front. RAF much weakened Luftwaffe fighter forces defending Germany from Allied bombers. Essen, Frankfurt and Stuttgart were left with no PP’s:

[Vokt]

Turn 55. August 16, 1942.

Eastern front Axis turn. No offensive actions this turn which may have been taken by the Axis for doing repairs and redployments of air units.

Anyway, Soviets kept on with their plans of reinforcing and upgrading their units. They now occupy a good defensive position along the Don river:




Med. Operation Torch was finally launched. Allies were only able to take Oran.

Western Europe. Strategic campaign continued with air combats favouring Luftwaffe 4:2.

Atlantic. Northern convoy (37) sunk.

[Vokt]

Turn 56. September 5, 1942.

Eastern front Axis turn. Germans, with intense air support, killed 2 Soviet corps units in Don river front. In the Caucasus, Romanian forces (mech) entered Krasnodar whilst Stavropol was heavily attacked. Luftwaffe strat bombed Moscow, strategically bombed.

Mediterranean. Axis forces began evacuating Africa. Torch operation continues and so, Allies took Casablanca and Tunis. Algiers and Mareth still hold.

[Vokt]

Turn 57. September 25, 1942.

Med. Italian navy came to Gulf of Gabes to challenge Allied landings there just to get ambushed by British subs standing in the area. Later, in Allies turn, it was the chance to get rid of one of Italian navy capital ships and Allies didn't fail for an Italian BB was sunk. At land, Tunis was finally taken whilst Mareth astoundingly still holds:



Eastern front Axis turn. Italians and Romanians retreated from the Caucasus even abandoning recently took Krasnodar. Moscow continued to be bombed and now it's halved in PP's.

[Vokt]

Turn 58. October 15, 1942.

Eastern front. Fair weather. Axis started a general withdrawal from the Don river abandoning recently took city of Voronezh. Strategic bombings of Moscow continued, PP’s reduced to 3. This time VVS responded to Luftwaffe attack winning air combats by 2:1:





Med. Axis is in full withdrawal mode:


Anyway, Italian subs made some harassment attacks in Malta and in Tunis as you can see in the pic above.

Med. Allies turn. Allied subs hit back at Italian navy in ports. Mareth held again:


In Tobruk, assault on the fortress-city commenced:

[Vokt]

Turn 59. November 4, 1942.

Eastern front. Axis forces made further retreats to Donets river. Strategic bombings over Moscow stopped. Unexpectedly, a quite early severe Winter started at the end of this axis turn:




Eastern front Allies turn. A German corps near Kaluga was killed as a consequence of concentrated Soviet attacks.

Med. Tobruk was taken:



Western front. Hamburg was left with no production due to Allied strategic attacks.

[Vokt]

Turn 60. November 24, 1942.

Eastern front. Red Army, moving fast, attacked and liberated Kursk. Near Smolensk, a Romanian corps was killed either:




Med. Mareth fortress was finally taken. British advance unopposed in Libya:



Shots with current lab progress:

UK


USA


USSR

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Interesting development. How do you think the game balance is after the latest changes?

What do you think of the research changes? As you can see you don't get too far behind in tech areas other major powers have an advantage. E. g. the Russians have tech 1 in all naval areas despite 0 labs there.

[Vokt]

Turn 61. December 14, 1942.

Eastern front Axis turn. Axis unit on the central sector continue to retreat. Later, in Allies turn, Soviets caught and destroyed one of the German retreating corps 2xSE of Bryansk. One more corps was left battered.

Med. Allies heavily attacked Italian reinforcements sent to Sardinia.

[Vokt]

Interesting development. How do you think the game balance is after the latest changes?

What do you think of the research changes? As you can see you don't get too far behind in tech areas other major powers have an advantage. E. g. the Russians have tech 1 in all naval areas despite 0 labs there.

Xp tweak definitely has worked. This is noted e.g. in Eastern front where I remember that in 3.1, some issues with air warfare were reported there. In a 3.1 game of which it was made an AAR too, it was possible to see how powerful xp German fighters challenged soviet fighters even in severe winter turns. Now this has changed and soviet air units have again the advantage during winter weather.

Regarding new research rules so far I haven't seen any game balance issue.

[Vokt]

Turn 62. January 3, 1943.

Eastern front. Red Army main push was south of Kursk where a German corps and an Italian corps were destroyed. Near Chernigov, couple of German corps resulted destroyed either.

Med Axis turn. Italian transport trying to get to Cagliari port was ambushed:


Med Allies turn. Italian transport was sunk and unloaded mech in Cagliari bombed and left much weakened. It will be here in Sardinia where Allies will launch their next amphibious operation.

Atlantic. Germany has 7-8 u-boats units continuously operating against convoys. They have good tech level which makes them also fast. This turn, northern convoy (48) was sunk by 3 German subs.

[Vokt]

Turn 63. January 23, 1943.

Eastern front Axis turn. Wehrmacht completed its retreat to the west bank of Desna river:


Eastern front Allies turn. Red Army kept on advancing and attacking Axis units, several of which ended depleted:


Med. Allied landing fleet approached Sardinian west coasts:

[Vokt]

Turn 64. February 12, 1943.

Eastern front Axis turn. This turn saw some German efforts to contain the advancing Red Army so some attacks with air support were made to the Soviet spearheads:




Eastern front Allies turn. Big Soviet push in Kharkov, allowed to liberate the city and to kill several Axis units, SS mech amongst them:




Med axis turn. Regia Marina went into full action just to get ambushed by Allied subs:



Med Allies turn. Both ambushed Italian BB's were sunk and DD held at very low strength. Landings in Sardinia commenced with rather poor results.


Western front. Allies started bombing Berlin which was halved in PP's. No fighter opposition so it won't be hard to reduce PP's to 0. Apart from the loss of PP's, reduced rail capability will surely hurt the Axis capability of redeploying units between scenarios:

[Cybvep]

You are doing well, especially in the East. Plaid needs mud quickly if he wants to avoid more losses there. Good timing in the Med, too. Sardinia can be a tough nut to crack, but you seized the initiative quickly enough and battered the Italian units stationed there, so it shouldn't take more than 1-2 turns to take the port. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Plaid evacuated his units from the island.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

The key to victory is to not let up the pressure regardless of the losses. The strategic bombers will continue to keep the German PP's down. In the Med the pressure will increase turn by turn.

In Russia the Russians just push for weak spots even when the winter is over. The Germans can counter attack there, but the Luftwaffe doesn't have air superiority anymore so even the German panzers can be harassed by airstrikes and then destroyed if they try to go after Russian mechs and tanks.

More land units can be built in the west and new threats created after Sardinia.

[Vokt]

Turn 65. March 4, 1943.

Eastern front Axis turn. Weather turned to normal Winter. The Axis started a withdrawal to the Dnepr:




Eastern front Allies turn. Soviets followed closely Axis retreating units although ZOC kept them from doing all the attacks thy intended to. Still, 3 Axis units were destroyed as a result of Red Army attacks:




Med Axis turn. Axis air forces in Italy heavily attacked Allied units in Sardinia. Further reinforcements were sent:



Med Allies turn. In seeing Italian strong opposition in the island, Allies decided to reinforce the landing contingent with 1 more unit (a Free French mech). In the meantime, Allied bombings over the Italians are trying get to weaken them as much as possible:




Atlantic axis turn. A powerful u-boats wolfpack attacked one of the British DD's escorting central convoy, sinking Allied escort unit:




Atlantic Allies turn. ASW upgrades start to be noted:

[Vokt]

You are doing well, especially in the East. Plaid needs mud quickly if he wants to avoid more losses there. Good timing in the Med, too. Sardinia can be a tough nut to crack, but you seized the initiative quickly enough and battered the Italian units stationed there, so it shouldn't take more than 1-2 turns to take the port. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Plaid evacuated his units from the island.

To be honest, Plaid is not being much lucky with the weather. Since severe winter started on early November 1942, this meant that when severe winter finished (February 1943) then it would came normal winter turns. Now axis will have to face 2 or 3 additional normal winter turns (this last turn March was normal winter) in which efficiency of units will be recovering but the soviets will surely keep on pushing when possible.

Regardless of the above, the soviets are becoming stronger and stronger and it's their air force which is being specially noted. VVS tacs have received several tech and xp upgrades and they have good efficiency (always within the range of commanders like Zhukov or some others) so in short, they will have a performance very similar to that of German tacs. Soviet fighters are really challenging German fighters and it won't be long until USSR gets air superiority in the east.

In the Med, main threat for the allies now is axis air forces deployed in Italy. If you read the updated AAR, you will see that axis has deployed 3 fighters and 3 tacs there. Enough for sinking an allied naval transport trying to land in Sicily. That's why Sicily was skipped for now and landings have been made first in Sardinia. German fighters in Italy are good units (xp level) that this turn have battered british fighters in Tunisia.

[Vokt]

The key to victory is to not let up the pressure regardless of the losses. The strategic bombers will continue to keep the German PP's down. In the Med the pressure will increase turn by turn.

In Russia the Russians just push for weak spots even when the winter is over. The Germans can counter attack there, but the Luftwaffe doesn't have air superiority anymore so even the German panzers can be harassed by airstrikes and then destroyed if they try to go after Russian mechs and tanks.

More land units can be built in the west and new threats created after Sardinia.

I think it won't be long until the soviets will be on the offensive both in summer an in winter. Keeping in mind high losses in units that axis and specially Gemany is having in the east, manpower will soon drop below 75 (if it hasn't dropped yet). As I have commented to Cybvep, soviet air forces are becoming really strong and more units are being purchased.

Med uses to be a hard campaign for the allies in which the axis with rather little effort, can delay them for many turns. Anyway, the simple fact of withdrawing some assets from the Eastern front (like italian air forces that were deployed in USSR) to face the allies is already something. Evacuation of units from Libya was IMO a complete success that has allowed axis to man Sicily without having to draw units from other scenarios.