Battlefield Europe - Operation Barbarossa (Field Marshall)

[GeneralWerner]

February 1944. The final attack on Archangelsk is ongoing. Our troops fight to capture Ulyanovsk and another key city at the Volga River, Saratov. Stalingrad is attacked from the north but the Russians have deeply entrenched in the city and it will take time to dig them out. The Russian winter counter attack included approx. 15 tank divisions. Our well set up defense stopped them quickly and our counter counter attacks defeated one enemy division after the other.

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April 1944. Barbarossa is nearly finished. Only two more strategic targets remain in Russia: Kuybyshev for Heeresgruppe Mitte and Astrakhan for Heeresgruppe Süd. From Rostov the Axis troops start to invade the Caucasus. But the invasion of the Caucasus has no high priority as the OKW already ordered strong forces of the eastern front to Western Europe to fight the upcoming Allied invasion. The OKW always had sufficient troops operating in the hinterland to keep all our railway routes open against numerous Partisan attacks.

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[GeneralWerner]

JUNE 1943 – JUNE 1944

GLOBAL

The main fighting between June 43 and June 44 was done in Russia and Tunisia.

In North Africa the Axis troops plan to capture the whole coastal area from Agadir in the west to Mersa Maruth in the east. There is no plan to attack Egypt.

In Russia the front lines of the last years are shown. It can be clearly seen that the main resistance of the Red Army happened in winter 42/43.

The Allied invasion of Western Europe is expected in the next weeks somewhere in the blue marked area. Currently we have only some few infantry and 88er divisions in France. But the elite of Rommel’s Afrika Korps is currently loaded on rail in Italy including the Panther division. And Heeresgruppe Mitte has sent heavy weapons from the eastern front that already have arrived in Warsaw.

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[GeneralWerner]

JUNE 1944 – JULY 1945

MEDITERRANEAN SEA and NORTH AFRICA

July 1944. The Afrika Korps has recaptured Tobruk.

September 1944. In the east Mersa Maruth is captured and the Axis troops will stop here the advance to the east. In the west Algiers is captured. There is still some American resistance.

November 1944. In the west our troops reach Oran.

February 1945. We reached Rabat at the Atlantic coast. Still American resistance.

July 1945. Agadir is in German hands.




JUNE 1944 – JULY 1945

BARBAROSSA

July 1944. Victory in the east. Stalin has surrendered. He was captured in a huge hidden bunker in Kuybyshev. Except from some last Red Army troops that do not want to surrender and Partisans the fights at the east front have ended.

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[GeneralWerner]

JUNE 1944 – JULY 1945

WEST FRONT

D-DAY. June 1944. Finally the Allies have selected the Normandy for their invasion. The first wave is already in France supported by Allied paratroopers. The second wave is still in the ships on the Channel and will come now under fire from our troops. In the west the American Admiral has made a serious fault and moved his fleet between our battleships and our hidden submarines. Two of our air fleets (yellow) are on the way to the Channel to attack the Allied ships. Our ground forces arrived a little bit too late but now one division after the other will be unloaded in France to fight the invasion.

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September 1944. The Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe prevented nearly all additional landings of Allied troops in France. We face the situation that our battleships and submarines will soon go out of ammo. It is mandatory to recapture Brest and Le Havre soon to be able to resupply our fleets. In the eastern English Channel we have cut of a second Allied fleet with our submarines. We have closed all roads out from the Normandy. The Wehrmacht has significant losses in the air. Many of our bombers and fighters were shot down by the powerful American Air Force by multiple attacks. Our main core of experienced fighters from the east front is currently stationed on airports in Germany. But we plan first to upgrade them to Me262A because of the overwhelming strength of the Allied fighter planes. The Wehrmacht had ordered several Me163B squads (with the prestige from the Russian surrender) to cover our bombers defensively but the Allies have decimated them systematically. In addition we concentrate our 88er Flak stations in France to fire first on the Allied fighters before our fighters attack them. The battle is not over yet. There are still troops in England that will try to land in France soon.

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November 1944. Still the Allies try to land more troops in France but it is clear. The invasion is a disaster! Nearly all transport ships are hunted down by the Kriegsmarine and even if a division could land at the beaches they would immediately face heavy German weapons because our Panzer forces have already overrun the Allied beachhead in the Normandy. We are still waiting for the first Me262As to be delivered. Especially the American Mustang squads shoot down one of our fighters / bombers after the other. In the winter we plan to upgrade as many fighters as possible to have a chance in spring 45 to repel the Allied fighters. This will be mandatory in preparation of operation Seelöwe, the landing of German troops on English soil.

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[GeneralWerner]

February 1945. Operation Overlord has ended and has failed. The Wehrmacht rules the English Channel with out U-Boote. The Normandy is in German hands and the preparations to land German troops in England have started. Over the winter we were able to upgrade four of our fighter squads to Me262A.

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July 1945. The final strike in the west. Operation Seelöwe. We have captured Plymouth and will soon land more troops in the south west of England.

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JUNE 1944 – JULY 1945

GLOBAL

The main battlefield in the last year was the Normandy.

The end of the WWII sees a convincing victory of the Axis against the Allies

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For my first play on Field Marshall level I used all my experiences from earlier plays on General level. The strategy to defeat the Russians before Overlord happens worked. Also the strategy to defend Tunisia with the Afrika Korps worked well. Of course the main work for the victory was done at the east front. Upgrading units in time, set up a good defense grid at the begin of the winter with entrenched infantry mixed with anti tank and 88ers, using my tanks carefully in the second front line and protecting them for upgrades to Panthers is the keystone for success in the east.

Prestige was critical in the second half of 1943. No convoy hunting in the Atlantic anymore, the British bomb German cities and no chance to reach the oil fields in the Caucasus or in Iraq. In this period I had to take out of order many damaged units (especially expensive bombers) and kept them for repair one year later.

Again thanks to Mr. McGuba for this tremendous mod!

[McGuba]

And thank you for another interesting AAR!

The next 1.7 version will bring some important changes, though. Wheter these will make the mod easier or harder, I do not know at the moment, but hopefully it will be more interesting and fun to play. In the end I guess it will be somewhat harder, but definintely more accurate historically.

[GeneralWerner]

I look forward to V1.7.
I guess the newest PzC version will be mandatory?

[McGuba]

Yes, as it uses some of the new graphics and stuff. They have also changed the folder system a bit e.g. intro videos are in a different folder now so I moved it as well accordingly.

[goose_2]

Man I wish I understood how to download and import these mods. They look and sound so cool.

I will continue to just live vicariously through your wonderful and creative playthroughs GeneralWerner.

[McGuba]

Man I wish I understood how to download and import these mods. They look and sound so cool.

To download them you just need to click on the link provided by the creator of the mod on the first page of any mod topic. Most mods, like mine, also include a step-by-step install guide. Or you can check it out here:

viewtopic.php?f=147&t=27158

Unfortunately for now slitherine refuses to add the workshop feature to the steam version of the game, even though it would provide a one click install of mods. That would definitely make mods much more accessible to the masses of players.

[JimmyC]

Its always interesting reading your play-throughs GW, although your original is probably my favorite.

Just wondering – did you start from Poland and bring a core and more prestige over or just start straight from Barbarossa?

[GeneralWerner]

Hello JimmyC
I always started with Barbarossa without bringing a core.

[verstaubtgesicht]

I've just embarked on this long journey and it is fun. The feeling and the style of play is quite different from pre-packaged campaigns (I've done all of them multiple times on levels up to Rommel and with the old rules Manstein). The sheer size of the map and the number of units dictate careful deployment/movement planning, strategic upgrades, transportation logistics... One marked difference is that unlike standard campaigns, one cannot afford only X:0 overkill battles and near total preservation of strength points. There are a lot of predicted X:1 or even occasionally X:2 odds, but my take was that at least in the beginning speed is of the essence and one has to engage the enemy. I might summarize all impressions once done.

However, I have two immediate questions:

1) Why even bother with grenadiers when pioniere are equal in all stats plus they have improved close def of 3 vs. 2? There was always the trade-off of fort killing vs. lower initiative, so the two units had different tasks and it added a great flavor.
2) More annoyingly, allied submarines seem indestructible, even on the periscope level. In a showdown with destroyers, they use ground defense of 9 (plus exp bonus), while destroyers use close def of 7, and attack is the same (6). Hence, I am getting either equal or negative odds for destroyers vs. sub. There is a sub south of Crete basically stopping my whole fleet, because I don't have a tac bomber handy (busy with Mathildas and another sub around Malta), and even if I had one, it takes some time if the only real option is to use a tac bomber. This doesn't make any sense and really skews the naval battle into a very artificial situation. Aren't destroyers supposed to be deadly vs. subs?

[McGuba]

Hi,

While I always welcome feedback from players, I would suggest you to do so in the main topic of this mod (viewtopic.php?f=147&t=47985) as this one here is mainly for AARs. I just checked it now accidentally and other feedback might remain unnoticed.

1. As for the pioneers, you are absolutely right, I just wanted to say price, but then realized it is only marginally more expensive than grenadiers, so not really. So in v1.8 I will increase its price a bit over the vanilla value and also reduce its Ini back to 2. This should solve the issue. However, I like its increased close defense and I think it makes sense. To compensate it will be significantly more expensive than Gren.

2. Allied submarines:
From a historical point of view, British submarines were quite effective vs. the Italian warships in the Med, even though they also suffered heavy losses (45 lost in the Med out of a total of 238 in service, 76 lost in all theatres in ww2). But not as heavy losses as the German or Italian subs, who lost over two thirds of their numbers. And for a number of reasons Brit subs were more effective against warships in general. So they should be good. On the other hand, Italian submarines did not shine so bright under the same circumstances so they should not be as good (e.g. less exp.in game). As for destroyers vs. subs, yes, normally they should be deadly, but not always, e.g. British destroyers had radar, Axis submarines did not, and Axis destroyers did not have radar until late and British and US submarines did have from early war. So there was a clear disparity here. Also, British were ahead in ASW technology like better sonars, hedgehogs, ULTRA, Fido torpedo, solving the Enigma, and the like, especially when compared to Italy. And then comes training and doctrine, which also favoured the Brits.

Also, from a gameplay point of view while players can retreat to a port to repair naval units, the AI is unfortunately unable to do so. So players sometimes can and have to afford unfavourable results in ship vs. sub encounters to finally get rid of them. And in some cases it applies to other units as well, if strategy dictates, just as you wrote.

Even then, in v1.8 I will increase the base naval attack of destroyers to 7-8 (7 for Italian ones), 6 is being a vanilla value, which is undoubtedly low. I do not want to make big changes, though, to avoid breaking the balance. And there will be a bit more Italian destroyers and less British subs in the Med. In general, naval war gets a major overhaul in v1.8.

[verstaubtgesicht]

Gen Werner,

I've noticed that you deployed a long range arty on Sicily. Did you get lucky and obtain a ranged hero on one of your arty pieces in previous campaigns? I cannot find such a unit.

Thx,
VG

[JimmyC]

Hello JimmyC
I always started with Barbarossa without bringing a core.

Brave man! I'm the opposite and always go through the earlier scenarios so that i have more troops and prestige.

[JimmyC]

Gen Werner,

I've noticed that you deployed a long range arty on Sicily. Did you get lucky and obtain a ranged hero on one of your arty pieces in previous campaigns? I cannot find such a unit.

Thx,
VG

The 17cm K 18 has a range of 4. I assume that is what he deployed in Sicily. Its pretty expensive though at over 600 prestige and thats without a transport!