AAR Liam (Allies) vs Terif (Axis) – Battle of the Atlantic

[Terif]

Just playing another AAR worthy game against Liam with great battles in various places :

The war in the West is played mainly in the water and the Battle of the Atlantic was quite historical in 1940/41 – nearly every turn german or italian subs were raiding somewhere....steadily changing positions not to be discovered....hunted by Royal and later also US navy...but until end of 1941 without success...no Wolfpack lost till then, thousands of merchant ships sunk...

At Christmas 1941 italian subs were the first ones lost and the threat of allied cruisers and carriers became finally real – resulting in new orders to the axis fleets: Capital ships now had to leave port in order to protect the wolfpacks and escort them home whenever they got damaged or caught in battle against allied sub hunters....starting a series of open naval battles around the convoy lanes and several medium sized skirmishes all around the Atlantic between both surface fleets...

We are now in August 1941 – naval losses so far:

Axis: Graf Spee, italian subs and one german wolfpack – Axis shipyards from Portugal till Norway busy 24/7 repairing damaged ships coming in every day while german ports working to capacity building new subs...

Allies: 1 carrier, 4 battleships, 3 cruisers...the other 3 allied carriers also lost already more than 20 strength points and got repaired several times, most of the remaining allied ships also heavily damaged, 3 of them only barely survived at str 1 :

Italian wolfpack, unexperienced in sub warfare gets caught by allied sub hunters and sunk not much later – first naval loss of the war for Axis:

Battlegroups Bismarck, Graf Spee and the italian fleet give cover to a retreating german wolfpack in the middle of the Atlantic:

Skirmish around Faroer Islands between german escorts and the british home fleet:

Last battle of Graf Spee – first loss of an Axis capital ship at all during the battle of Rio de la Plata:

Because both sides are still fighting for the Atlantic and the convoy lanes, on the ground there were no battles so far (also because UK still had to recover from the scandinavian adventure – see below):

[ October 06, 2007, 09:12 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[Terif]

Meanwhile the land battles where not less exciting:

It began with the now famous battle of Scandinavia in Summer 1941 – Allied forces assaulted Sweden without provocation...but in anticipation of the allied cruelty, Germany already prepared strong forces to counter this affront:

In one of the largest combined naval-air-land battles the UK forces got completely annihilated – not a single soldier escaped the slaughter after both norwegian evacuation ports got bombed out of order by german and italian bombers:

O´Connor, tank, 2 armies and countless corps surrendered to the axis liberators of Scandinavia – two third of the british airforce got destroyed.

In Russia things were in the meantime more or less peaceful except for several small battles around Minsk and Romania when Russian forces tried to use the situation with the axis forces busy in Scandinavia for their own offensives in those areas...axis guard forces teached them this was a bad idea and so they had to retreat with some bloody noses...

One year later after the situation in Scandinavia was cleared, Leningrad and the western part of Russia conquered, Axis main forces concentrated for the upcoming decissive battle in Russia...during the last months Russia had plenty of time to build a gigantic fortification system around Kharkov, several hundred miles deep with everything a soldiers heart can desire...4 russian lv 2 tanks...except for the front troops in the southern fortifications, armies and corps with Infantry Weapons 3...airsupport and several HQs for command behind the lines out of axis air range:

Finally in July 1942 Axis high command gave the attack orders – careful preparations and reconnaissance flights paid off...the battle ended in the complete annihilation of the russian fortification system and half of their total forces destroyed or captured. The amazing thing: Axis losses during this battle: not one single unit !

We are now in August 1942 – Rostov, Vologda and Gorky have been conquered. Total land losses so far:

Axis – 3 german land units

Allies – 63 land units

[Col. Gen. Guderian]

lol

[Konigs]

Sounds like someone needed to do some counterattacking to cause some casulties... Best defense is offense...

[Terif]

Well - counterattacks/offensives of the Russians and Britains were the reason for those high allied losses...

A counterattack at Kharkov and therefore leaving the fortification lines would have caused perhaps a few german deaths, but also have lead to total destruction of the russian forces and pretty much game over for Allies (as Liam had to experience during various tries in different wars when he launched such counterattacks at Kharkov ), especially since the West is at the moment no real threat

[Blashy]

I seem to notice a lack of patience with Allied navy by some players.

The Allies should have no problems wiping out the Axis fleet. BUT they have to wait until at LEAST having LR 2 (I prefer 3) on their carriers. You then have the ultimate advantage of site at sea. You use it to entrap the Axis instead of hit and miss to find them while they wait to pounce.

You will have to accept convoy losses until you have the proper tech if the Axis decided to go heavy in raiding.

[Iron Ranger]

nice SS terif, thanks for the AAR. Looks like Laim's head is on the game again!

[Liam]

Indeed this a good match, but very difficult to crush a Player like Terif, he outmanuevered me in very important Battles, the first being in Scandanavia and then later he impressed me with his extreme preparation for my Ukraine Defenses...crushing them utterly!

In our Mirror Match, you'll find a parrallel... Instead of Conquoring the World, as I usually do and split up my forces with constant operation and constant 6 front conflicts against Terif, and obviously Superior Opponent to myself when it comes to multiple operations and balancing I decided to focus my Axis like a Laserbeam, this helped some, but I am very broke and my Axis are going into 1943 with marginal victories, plus his Russian Defense have proven to be formidable, even abdominable... Sp?<

Great Game Also

Axis stand poised to Conquor the Kievan Pocket, Weather Saves them instead of the underteched Russians

[Liam]

Slowly and Steady constant Air Attack break up cohesion in the Russian Lines, but Hardened Elite Troops from the East fill the Gaps, causing endless Axis Casualties, it is slow and but empty Victory for the Axis

[Liam]

In the end the cost is heavier for the Russians, but their goals is achieved, exchange man for man, tank for tank, MPP for MPP, attrittion warfare at it's worst for me... Leningrad fell, Moscow without a fight...but Stalingrad and the whole Don region is a minefield, greatest in History, 25ish units die on each side, dozens of strengthpoints per turn after the River's are crossed and the barbed wire is cut... No real MPP gains for the Axis, minimal losses for the Russians... Who've embark on a endless campaign to suck the life out of the Germans 1 way or the other! As you can see here, a great tactical victory means nothing in SC, it's about the bigger picture

[Terif]

First game with Liam Allies:

German subs had their happy time and raided even directly in front of the US coast, looking for troop transports towards Europe in order to sink any reinforcements - they even could see the harbour lights of New York .

Russia was also economically dead - german and italian bombers destroyed all 3 oilfields in Caucasus long before axis troops entered Stalingrad and approached the ressource rich area.

In September 1942 Liams Allies surrendered unconditionally.

______________________

Mirror game with Liam Axis:

Historical Axis approach - only Denmark, LC and France conquered before Barbarossa and later Yugoslavia in Europe.

Rommel occupied Tunis and Vichy Algeria - in 1942 Montgomeries desert rats approached via El-Alamein and Tobruk from the east while US forces attacked Algeria. The last german forces surrendered in Tunisia end of 1942 - quite historical battle of Africa .

Russia started with a clear disdvantage into Barbarossa by fighting without Infantry Weapons until November 41 and no Anti-Tank tech till today - so they built all available tanks instead of soft units - it took till July 1942 for Russia to finally also reach IW 3 and even the battlefield.

Encouraged by their technical and numerical superiority due to concentrating all forces against Russia, Axis started a full frontal assault against the fortress Kharkov and its mines.

And so the largest battle of this war unfolded around Kharkov mid/end of 1942 as Liam showed in his screenshots - the bloodiest battle the world has seen in a long time...:

You see the 23 german land units in Liams second screenshot ?

They are all dead now...none of them survived the battle - including the paratrooper that jumped into Voronezh and conquered it for one turn before the city got liberated...similar on the russian side...both nations fought till the last drop of blood in this death zone...every single german and russian tank got destroyed at one point before new tanks arrived from the production queue as well as all corps and armies present...

...at the end of the battle 26 german units were destroyed, the same amount on the russian side...only the airunits survived the meatgrinder...8 of them are left on Axis side, only 5 new built german land units are still alive in the area...Russia also nearly had only its 5 airunits left after the battle (among them 2 bombers that destroyed romanian oilfield and capital completely during the summer turns) and now in Winter 1942 finally retreated back behind the rivers at Voronezh and Rostov.

[ October 08, 2007, 08:03 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[Liam]

Loss Tally for the Axis:

32 Land Units

35 Russians

since of the Axis Minor takedown by the Allies allover, this is more like about 20-25 Axis Land Units. Though the Axis may have killed nearly a 3rd more Russian Units, the Massive Russian Air Campaign, denying Ploesti Oil and the massive Russian counteroffensives nearly wiping off the map every German combat Unit has made this a uphill war... I went after him so to speak, thinking he did not have a right hand waiting for me and waited too long, he uppercut the German Forces...

[jon_j_rambo]

Nice family protraits. Glad to see Liam in the mix.

[Liam]

tossing in the towel, killed of 40 reds but Allies are in Benelux-Italy and I'm running out of money to fight on...

Axis need cash to figh

[Terif]

In this game the order of events was pretty historical from 1939 till 1943 – not only in the first stage, but also towards the end :

In July 1943 at pretty much exactly the historical date the italian campaign began with the allied invasion of Sicily. Not much later Italy itself got invaded and the italians signed an armistice - Germany executing „Operation Achse“, the seizure of northern and central Italy with german tanks and support troops.

Yet the main theatre with 80% of all troops and every axis airplane concentrated in the area was still Russia where heavy figthings took place around Sevastopol in Spring 1943. Friedrich Paulus and his 6th german army meanwhile approached Stalingrad.

And this is where the war was won in the end by neutralising the german forces in the area – german airfleets and bombers were busy supporting the ground troops day and night, but simply had not enough planes to break the russian defences despite many russian tanks destroyed by german divebombers.

The Soviets however, had been building up massive forces on the flanks of Stalingrad. Ready to launch Operation Uranus, with twin attacks to be met behind the german frontline, encircling the 6th Army in Stalingrad.

In the west France was still holding – with allied commando units destroying infrastructure and sabotaging enemy production centres behind the lines.

Strategical bombing ultimately destroyed the axis fighting capabilities, forcing the surrender: all of Europe from Paris till Bukarest (Romania) beeing razed to the ground by US/UK and russian bombers...in the end Germany was still ruling over Europe from Bordeaux till Kharkov-Moskow-Finland. But the majority of the factories, mines and oil production had been destroyed and german war production dropped below 250 mpps/turn.

Allies were outproducing Axis 3.5 : 1 – Axis stopped in front of Stalingrad, Italy lost....in contrary to history Axis recognized the defeat and surrendered before they got destroyed completely....and so the war ended already in 1943 .

[jon_j_rambo]

Look at Yodl, nice write-up w/ historical operational names!