(Outside) Alexejweka

[manchildstein (ii)]

available at:

http://ns9.super-hosts.com/~dragonlair.net/combatmission/

as "Alexejweka"

Briefing:

Title: Outside Alexejweka

Play as Axis against Allied AI

Default AI Setup

Semi-Historical

Meeting Action

Feb 1943

Very Cold, Very Dry, Blizzard, Heavy Wind, Mid-Day

Size:

1.6k x 1.6k Map

Axis SS: 100+ AFVs, Battalion+ of infantry

Allied Cavalry: Massed Cavalry + AFVs

Roughly 12500 points per side

Turns: 60

Scenario Version: 1.0

Feb, 1943: Fighting is swirling in the areas around Karkhov. The Liebstandarte (LAH) Recon Battalion is cut off behind enemy lines around the town of Alexejweka. Also from LAH, KG Wunsche has been sent to relieve the Recon Battalion.

Overnight the Soviets have massed units of their 6th Guards Cavalry Corps - supported by armor - in an area on the outskirts of Alexejweka.

After daybreak these same, high-quality Soviet units are poised to attack; to clear the road into town of any German elements which are screening it.

At that very moment, elements of KG Wunsche are speeding to an attempted relief of their surrounded comrades.

As the German commander, you start the game on the north side of the map with elements of the LAH Recon Battalion screening a suburb of Alexejweka:

4 x PSW 233 (75mm L/24)

4 x SPW 251/9 (75mm L/24)

8 x SPW 251/10 (37mm)

4 x SPW 250/10 (37mm)

1 Recon Company + 1 Recon Heavy Company

Substitutions and additions:

2 x 150mm sIG instead of 2 x 75mm

3 x 42mm AT instead of 3 x 50mm

2 x Czech MG extra

The at-start units are at 60-70% strength.

Elements of KG Wunsche will be arriving in the area within minutes. They should approach out of the southwest.

Included are a Battalion of Armored Infantry (3 Company), a mixed Company of PZ IIIJ (50mm L/60 and 75mm L/24), and a Company of 150mm L/11 StuGs. Having seen earlier combat, the Panzergrenadier squads are below full strength. To depict earlier halftrack losses, one Company of Panzergrenadiers is transported by truck instead of armored halftrack.

Your at-start Recon KG might also expect some reinforcements from the Battalion but like you they are already stretched thin.

You can expect an immediate, major Soviet attack. The Soviet fast units involved have outrun their main artillery so you can expect only 82mm indirect fire at the worst. Expect though to see the newly-introduced heavy Soviet assault guns supporting their Cavalry.

Notes: The "actual, real-life" fighting took place in deep snow. Playtesting shows deep snow taking much longer to load than with dry ground; and a greater "jumpiness" when scrolling around the map. This was on a Duron 1200 running Win98 with SiS onboard video (cheap), 512mb of system RAM (64mb shared to video).

Also, the 'white' screen of deep snow is a bit hard on my eyes.

But if you want deep snow you can load this into the editor and change it under "Parameters" to "Deep Snow" for your ground conditions.

In either case (snow on the ground or not) you still get the very limited LOS of ongoing blizzard conditions (about 300-400 meters).

Notes: You can either wait in an all-around defense for your relief forces to show up, or you can attempt a break out. There are Soviets on three sides of your at-start force. The main attack appears to be coming out of the east.

KG Wunsche reinforcements begin arriving on turn 2. They are all on the map by turn 4. This was mainly - not having these units on-board at the start - done to avoid foxholes as the scenario is set to "Soviet Attack," but in reality these reinforcements are the main attacking units of the scenario. These southwest reinforcements should arrive in an orderly, easy-to-move fashion. As noted, you may or may not receive units - recon elements - from the north edge as well.

There are Soviet pickets between your relief force and the town. On the other hand you want to get into town as quickly as possible as the forces already there probably can't hold out forever under the weight of a massed Soviet attack.

[Joachim]

Sounds interesting.

Designed for 1.02 or on 1.03?

Gruß

Joachim

[ May 09, 2003, 04:47 AM: Message edited by: Scarhead ]

[manchildstein (ii)]

it was made in 1.02 so i'm fairly certain it should successfully load into either 1.02 or 1.03...

[manchildstein (ii)]

aar/spoiler info:

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i had a chance to play this final version and it was quite the fight. i left the german recon in the town area in their default positions then fired the game up.

the best early victory was over by the farmhouse along the road toward the west side of the map. there the flamethrowers in the rubble and the spw 251/9s facing them managed to knock out 6 t-34s coming down the road. i lost all three flames and an hmg42 but all of the 251/9s were intact.

interestingly, it turns out later that the ai took all of the west-side infantry-type units from their start locations and moved them around the edge of the 'orchard'... not along the road in support of the t-34s but completely around the edge through the trees and into the town... not a single soviet infantry unit attacked the flag there by the farmhouse.

in the town my units were eventually mauled by about turn 15. in particular the platoon of 37mm halftracks placed diagonally in the orchard over there were toasted quickly. the eastern-most infantry platoon fared the best with one squad surviving in some ruins with 2 members left.

the main thing of note was the performance of the 2 150mm guns... one of them had 88 infantry casualties and 4 afvs (tanks or assault guns) knocked out. between the two of them there were probably 140 infantry casualties and 6 afvs knocked out.

the two platoons in the south part of the town area were simply overwhelmed by the soviet attack. in fact the soviets are attacking with 3 cavalry regiments. this is about 3 battalions, supported by 91 afvs... and the worst of these are the twenty or thirty t-70 tanks... then there are the 10 su-152 and 10 su-122... all crack... it's quite a force. another feature are about a dozen t-34 flamethrower tanks.

so against this juggernaut those two platoons didn't stand much of a chance. to add to the mistake of having left them out there, i moved the turn 8 reinforcement platoon up into positions around the factory/rubble tiles. they were swamped like everything else.

in retrospect i would have pulled everything back out of the default setup - except perhaps for the ambushing units to the west... and placed all of the units west of the town center, there by the one flag to the nw of the 'road' going through the town.

as for the relief forces, they lined up with the heavy stugs ('stug 33 or somesuch... 80mm front with 150mm L/11) on the west (left), and the panzer iii platoons strung out to the east. the spw 251/2 (81mm mortar) and spw 250/11 (28/21mm) halftracks followed this armored picket by about 50 or 100 meters, then the rest of the vehicles - the ones carrying infantry - followed up beyond that.

the picket certainly didn't arrive in any kind of fashion to help out the units in the town... it wasn't until about turn 20 that major contact was made, there in just about the middle - from west to east - of the approaches to the town. the heavy stugs were moving in diagonally through the west orchard, and some panzer iiis were out on the right (east) flank, but the majority struck in the thickest area of trees in just about dead center.

leading up to that the armored picket destroyed every gun or infantry (antitank rifle, mg) it met without loss... by about turn 15 the stugs were within sight of the treeline leading into the western orchard. once i had sighted this treeline, the two armored infantry companies moved into that same treeline. still having - on the other side - 251/9s in the field and mgs in the farmhouse, i could tell there probably weren't a lot of soviet units around.

the armored infantry hit the treeline and debarked, mopping up on some more guns, at rifles, and mgs.

from there the two companies swept by foot throught the orchard and toward the buildings of the town. the 251/1s started running recon ahead of them, looking for soviets. the west orchard was empty.

the town was abandoned but that one flag in the nw was still contested, so i ran one platoon of mg42s up to some trees. they unloaded and met their deaths as the remainder of my force hadn't kept up. by then the soviets were swarming through the area.

i wondered later if it would have been better to have simply run 1 or even 2 armored infantry companies much further forward before having debarked them. as it was the infantry platoons debarked but took a bit of time crossing the west orchard on foot.

eventually the heavy stugs met up with the surviving 251/9s and they started provided HE support for the advancing infantry. in the center my panzer iiis mauled the first few soviet tanks they encountered, but after awhile my losses turned grievous.

on my far left i ran about 4 37mm halftracks along with maybe a half dozen 251/1s up into the orchard. then there were the 251/9s south of the road, then looping around more east than south were the heavy stugs and then the panzer iiis.

the infantry was intermingled and the panzer iiis right flank was about at the entrance to the other orchard in the east of the town area.

the 251/2 and some 251/1s continued to mop up on some straggler soviet gun positions on the right, outside of town. a few panzer iiis also helped, but at some point they were facing the guns to their east and being engaged by soviet tanks advancing out of the town to their north. it was a mess and as i said, they ended up with high losses.

i was down to about 8 or 10 afvs with guns other than machineguns, and things were looking up. then in a single turn i lost 3 of those - 1 heavy stug to a gun hit from a t70... and my last mobile, functioning panzer iii on the right was also cooked then... as well as another heavy stug on the left.

my truck bound infantry had unloaded in the center trees and had met up with the other 2 companies. two platoons of machineguns were unloading in the center trees.

by the time i called a cease-fire on turn 34 or so, my infantry had made its way through the south part of the town and all the way to the east-west road.

that flag in the nw was contested, and the flag in the south was under german control.

the soviet infantry was clearly routed, but they themselves had 6 or 8 functioning afvs with guns, including probably 4 assault guns.

my functioning armor (with cannons) was down to 2 heavy stugs, a panzer iiiN, a 37mm halftrack, and a 251/9 halftrack. only the halftracks had any kind of special tank-killing ammo.

there were also 3 disabled panzer iiis (2 N and a J) and an immobilized heavy stug... but all of these were outside of the fighting.

with the pressure being put on my right flank, the mgs in the center woods were in danger from a couple or three soviet afvs. halftracks bringing up the last mg platoon were dodging in and out of soviet tank los.

the 251/2s and a couple of supporting 251/1s were scrambling for cover over there, being exposed to that last-gasp soviet armored onslaught.

my remaining 'heavy' afvs were all over on my left. i probably had another 5 or 6 251/1 halftracks with ammo remaining over there on the left as well.

with my infantry in relatively good shape, i decided to go for the cease-fire.

the final stats were 56 afvs lost by me, and 50 by the soviets. in a cease-fire, it must not count abandoned vehicles as lost.

the infantry casualties were in my favor, about a 4:1 ratio with well over 1000 soviet casualties and over 400 'dead.'

so some impressions i had were that the t34 flamethrower tank is a powerful afv... its flames reach out 150 meters!... and it has a 76mm cannon to boot... so you don't know it's a flamethrower until it starts spewing...

the su152 was also very impressive, creating many exploding german afvs with its 152mm gun... it may have been 'hc' ammo in some cases... i didn't check...

the stug33 afv was also very impressive... even with simple HE it stood a chance of taking out enemy afvs.

as for turn computation times, at about turn 20 these peaked at almost an hour per turn... quickly though the times fell back to about 5 minutes... after about 3 or 4 turns of heavy combat around the edges of town between my main force and the computers, computation times dropped quickly.

from turn 4 - when the main german relief force is on the board - up until about turn 20 the compile times were also about 5 minutes or less per turn.

anyway, with just 5 functioning afvs having cannons, and my infantry in good shape, i was certainly ready for that cease-fire...

as i might have mentioned... i probably wouldn't try to stop the soviet attack cold at the start if i were to play this again... i would 'hover' over toward the west a bit more and try to 'link up' with the relief forces, instead of being practically wiped out and leaving the relief forces almost completely on their own for their break-in back into the town area... i would also use a lot more keyhole positioning for the early defenders... for instance those 37mm halftracks in the eastern orchard may as well have been hung out to dry in the default setup...

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