AAR Video- Punch Through

[Hapless]

Ey up everyone. Thought I'd share one of my old trips to the Eastern Front with you all. Still twiddling with the format and learning how to make the editing stuff do what I want it to do. Hope you enjoy it!

 

[Heinrich505]

Hapless,

  Very nice presentation.  Looking forward to more. 

  "Here comes the SU-76...he's going...he's going....he's not going anymore..."    Classic narrative...I love it.

  Don't worry Comrade.  STAVKA can always send you more of those.  Lots more.  Just be successful or you might find yourself commanding one of them personally, muhaha.

[And they said STAVKA doesn't have a sense of humor...]

  It will be interesting to see if your barrage causes enough smoke coverage to negate some of the 88 AT gun's effectiveness.

Heinrich505

[Half-Track Goner]

Very well done, I've enjoyed you other Cm videos quite a bit. 

[Hapless]

Cheers guys! Part two is almost done, I just need to check it over and find a spare eight hours to upload it (the sheep gnaw on the wires, you know).

Just for fun in the meantime though, any bets on what is going to happen next? How well is it going to go, how many casualties? Have I managed to convince myself into doing something tactically insane when I should be doing something smarter? Why did I not think of asking this in the intervening three weeks between the videos? Answers on a postcard!

Heinrich505: STAVKA have contacted my command bunker to encourage me not to worry about my losses! There are plenty more men and tanks where they came from: losses are irrelevant in the face of victory! Defeat, however, is unacceptable and defeat resulting from a lack of will will not be tolerated. In the meantime, my new ADC has arrived at the bunker: http://www.rkka.ru/uniform/images/nkvd_15.jpg. Not the gender I was expecting, apparently there was a mix-up. He seems competent enough, if a bit clingy... (Sorry, can't do it half as well as c3k!)

Half-Track Goner: Thanks very much man, I'm starting to nail the format down now and its getting much quicker so hopefully the output will start to increase.

Edited February 7, 2016 by Hapless
Incompetence

[domfluff]

Hello Hapless, came across your channel recently.

What I really like about your presentation over others I've found on youtube are that the videos are short and you go into your planning in some detail. A lot of CM youtube videos focus on the "action" scenes, or are great and in-depth, but several hours long. For me at least, the point of a decent wargame is your plan, it's execution, and what happens when it collides with someone else's plan and everything goes to hell.

[Hapless]

Part Two is up, enjoy guys!

domfluff: Thanks very much man. I agree: its all about the plan. And scrambling around trying to sort things out when it inevitably goes totally wrong.

[TerminatorX]

Great videos! Hope you keep making AARs, watching them is a lot of fun.

[Heinrich505]

Hapless,

  Part II is excellent.  Don't worry about competing with c3k for narrative.  He is in a class all by himself - none of us can rival that. 

  STAVKA reports that generally speaking, the use of smoke rounds is preferable to using burning T-34/85s, but if the outcome is successful...meh...

  Your tank charge had a very authentic feel to it.  Nice work staggering the rush, although Dimitri in the first tank might disagree with you.  This might be because his was the choice for first across, but the "Blue Hat" waving his smg around his tank might have convinced him it was better to take his chances out in the field than to try and reason(?) with NKVD.

  I've read accounts where the Soviet tank assault had the infantry stripped away from them as they rode over German positions, but the tanks kept on into the rear areas of the German line, causing mayhem and confusion before they were picked off one by one by rear elements with 'schreks and 'fausts.  However, having shattered the main line, additional Soviet units would then be funneled in to take advantage of the initial breakthrough.  Exactly what you said, but in this case no one else will be following up your charge and you've got to make due with what you have.

  So, STAVKA reports that the actual breakthrough was successful in another area of the Front, and your action is simply a diversion to pull German troops away or pin them in place for possible encirclement.

  If your breakthrough tanks start to soften up the woods a bit with area fire, that might cause further mayhem and allow some of your infantry to follow.

  I think you have a really good balance of plan and action.  I don't need to see the plan as much - I tend to focus on the action.  However, your explanations for what is happening are really good and enhance the action.  I'd say don't change a thing.  Great stuff right out of the box.

Heinrich505

[kevinkin]

Thanks for the videos ... the time you spent is appreciated and the quality is outstanding.

Kevin

[AttorneyAtWar]

That was the most Russian thing ive ever seen...it was beautiful.

[Hapless]

Cheers guys, its good to know everyone is enjoying it!

Dramatic value aside, was the tank bumrush worth it? Would it have been smarter, less costly and more effective to sit back and establish fire superiority first before going in?

How would you guys have done it?

Any ideas on how I should best sort out the mess I've gotten myself into?

[Heinrich505]

Hapless,

  I'd try blasting the woods a bit with your tanks for a start.  If you soften up the enemy infantry hiding in the woods, you might be able to drop some smoke and get your own infantry to rush across the gap to support them.  Also, you might be able to flank the 88 if you ease the armor that way.

Heinrich505

[Reeeech]

Awesome stuff, looking forward to part 3!

[domfluff]

I definitely think that shelling the woods with the assault guns at least could have been worth doing, and perhaps firing with the t34's on the move. The problem with a command push like this is that if you guess wrong, you can end up in a fairly sticky situation pretty quickly. I'm sure that you didn't need to take as many casualties as you did.

Even in a command push strategy, recon is important - what you have here as team meatshield could have been a combination of armoured cars and scouts, with some on map mgs and mortars. The plan and line of attack would be the same, but with the intention of spotting any enemy antitank guns (which are the major threat), and suppressing or taking them out with mortar fire, assault gun he, or whatever. This is the role of reconnaissance in this kind of attack - probing, finding and engaging the main threats to the advance. Preplanned barrages are typically soviet for good reason, but they're often a gamble. Would it have made more sense to bombard the woods you weren't going through? Possibly. It might have made sense to target both, of course.

When I'm attacking with tank riders, they're usually in the second wave. The first platoon of armour breaches the line and suppresses (sometimes under cover from the second platoon) allowing the second platoon to move, and drop off infantry to finish things up. Ideally, you're never shooting or being shot at from the back of a tank, any more than you want to be from any other kind of fighting vehicle.

[domfluff]

That said, I think the fundamental concept here - the simplicity of the plan and it's execution - is fine, and you did achieve the results that you needed, albeit at a higher price than you'd probably have liked.

[cool breeze]

Great videos,  mucho fun! Seemed a very Soviet plan and execution.  Probably would have been a little safer to shoot more first, I would have had some tanks/spguns move to where they could barely area fire the 88 and shoot a few shells each, and I would have let the team meatshield shoot the rifles and mgs at it for longer, the rifles work out to 700m I think.  But the way you did it made for the best video! 

[Hapless]

Cheers again guys, here's Part 3:

 

In hindsight, I might have done a few things differently- prolonged heavy artillery throughout the punch through, perhaps, instead of the rockets seems a solid option, more tanks, more tank riders, highly motivated troops... even more tanks- but I'm standing by the hammer blow over the fire superiority approach.

In fact, the way most people seem to be recommending building up the fire superiority as a prerequisite to an attack is actually encouraging: sounds like you guys wouldn't expect the crazy approach either :P!

But more seriously, the whole thing is based on concentration of force, speed, surprise, and a willingness to take casualties. In a lot of respects I feel that building up the fire superiority takes a long time, tells the enemy what you're doing and can actually make life more difficult.

Take the Panther, for example- how do I gain fire superiority over that? Engaging in a long range, head-on fight against a hull down kitty is not fun for T34s. Fire superiority is borderline irrelevant in that fight and trading T34s for the chance of a lucky hit seems wasteful. I got very lucky in Part 2 with disabling the Panther's gun, but if that hadn't happened then it would have been mobbed and flanked by my surviving tanks the next turn.

I'm not trying to rubbish fire superiority here: its solid but its not the ultimate in tactics and occasionally you can get away with sidestepping it (he says, standing on a pile of his own dead). It worked here and it was decisive. The next time I tried it against the same opponent the prevailing circumstances weren't so suitable.

[Heinrich505]

Hapless,

  Very nice presentation.  I enjoyed it.  Good explanation for your tactics.  I thought they worked well for your battle.  Often we sacrifice the speed and surprise for the tried and true slow and steady.  While it makes for good solid gameplay, sometimes it feels like something is missing.

  In the case of playing the Soviets, it doesn't always "feel" right to drive their attack slowly and steadily.  They did like to punch through and exploit, very much like you did in this AAR.  I tend to try and hold down casualties for whatever side I am playing.  STAVKA is not pleased with that.  They want results...ah...positive results...and quickly. 

  As for your attack, STAVKA was very pleased and will not assign you a new assistant from the NKVD, who would merely be present to "help" you and your men maintain the proper positive attitudes regarding enthusiastic promotion of vigorous attacks against the Facist Beasts.

  Oh yes, and the Colonel wants his Laz-e-boy recliner back.  He spotted your FO team with his binoculars when they were hoofing it across the open ground to call in Arty on the 88mm gun.  The assistant was lugging the recliner on his back.  Seems the FO must have "found" it somewhere and thought it would be neat to call in artillery strikes while reclining in comfort...

  Great action.  

Heinrich505 

[Frankster65]

Excellent presentation.  Been following all these videos of yours regarding this battle.  I particularly like the fact that you explain reasoning for your tactics etc., it gives the viewer the appreciation of the depth of this game.  Not just a point and click game but one which actually rewards thinking.

[simon21]

A seriously excellent presentation.  It's just too bad the game isn't super popular.  I've watched your entire collection.  The amount of work it must take to do put these together is incredible and should be recognized.  I've tried my hand at what you do before, and compared to you I suck.

The amount of work it must take to make those stitched overhead turn shots is a lot more than people I think give it credit for. 

One hint I can give you to make your presentations even better.  Ask your opponent to use a password they don't mind sharing after the game.  In this way you can get a picture of starting positions.  You can also do intentional surrenders to see certain critical turns from both sides.  I fooled with this a bit when I was making videos.