Germany at War: Minsk Pocket AAR

Germany at War: Barbarossa 1941

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Philkian
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Germany at War: Minsk Pocket AAR

Post by Philkian »

Minsk Pocket AAR

This AAR has been produced by Beta Tester “Spillblood“.

26th of June, 1941. Operation Barbarossa is in full swing. Army Group Center tries to encircle Soviet forces in the Minsk area after having closed a smaller pocket at Byalistok the day before. Orders are to capture Minsk, Novogrudok and Baranavichi and two bridges over the river Neman, one in the north, one in the east . The northern bridge is destroyed at the start of the scenario. The Difficulty settings are user defined, as follows:
Player ressource bonus: 150
Player experience: 0
Enemy ressource bonus: 0
Player experience: 0
Rules: Weather, Fog of War, Supply

The Russians are suspected to have large troop concentrations in the pocket the player is supposed to form.

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Turn 1

Weather conditions are clear.
The plan is to use the armored units in the North (7th, 12th and 20th armor division) and the armor in the south to drive to the eastern bridge as fast as possible and mop up the forces in the pocket with the rest of my troops. 12th Panzer Division, a Panzer38(t) unit, immediately captures an enemy airfield northeast of the river Neman.

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My armored forces in the south manage to advance to the eastern bridge immediately, there are no enemy forces blocking their path. The Soviet rifle division occupying the eastern bridge is decimated to half strength by one of my Panzer III J units.

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Four non-motorized and one motorized infantry units advance towards Novogrudok. Two Soviet Mig-1 fighter units attack my Heinkel He-111 bomber unit which has moved towards the middle of the map, some Infantry and cavalry units advance towards my infantry and artillery units.

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Turn 2


It’s rainy, which means my air units lose effectiveness against enemy air and can’t see as far as in clear conditions. The BF 109 fighter units attacks one of the enemy Mig-fighters, but doesn’t manage to do any damage. My Panzer IVs near Nemen bridge destroy a Soviet tank unit and some infantry guarding the bridge.

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I advance one Pz III towards Minsk.


Turn 3
Weather conditions are cloudy (Air unit view -25%, Air combat -20%, Air ground/Ground air attacks -50%).
I manage to reach Minsk with three Panzer units. They are all out of fuel now, but within one hex of the city, which means I can attack again in the next turn without moving. One of them has gained a new experience level, I choose to attach a flame tank platoon which enables it to attack ignoring entrenchment which should make the capture of Minsk in the next turn even quicker. The infantry unit in the city has 9 strength points left after attacking with all my Panzers.

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The northern bridge over the Neman is captured by 3 of my infantry units. Now they can advance south into the pocket.

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I move some mot. Inf and Panzer units towards Novogrudok.

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One T26-unit captures Baranovichi which I’ve abandoned.


Turn 4
The weather clears up again.
My Panzer units take Minsk and drive out the weakened enemy rifle division.

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My Bf-109 fighter unit attacks and weakens the enemy Mig.

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The artillery unit near Novogrudok is attacked by two infantry divisions and destroyed.
Panzer III and infantry in the south attack and drive away the T-26 occupying Baranavichi.
The Panzer 38(t) unit east of the Nemen river moves over the bridge east of the pocket.

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A Panzer III J stationed near the bridge advances towards the pocket.

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Turn 5
The weather is still clear.
Novogrudok and Baranavichi fall at the beginning of the turn. The rifle division at Novogrudok is weakened by the Ju-88A bomber and driven back by an infantry division followed by immediate occupation, Baranavichi is taken by an infantry division that is already in the immediate vicinity of the city.

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Outcome:
Normal victory
This was a pretty easy scenario. I could have done a bit better by just driving straight to the objectives, but tried to be cautious. My version here probably doesn’t reflect the normal difficulty, because I accidentally had changed the settings from the normal values (that give the Soviets a resource advantage) to a resource advantage for me, because I wasn’t able to advance in the big campaign (Archangelsk-Astrakhan), which probably would have been better possible if I had started again in the final stages of the beta (because the difficulty of the later scenarios was changed).
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