Serbia shall live! Serbia '14 4th Invasion AAR - Central Powers conceded turn 150

[Elxaime]

As the Central Powers player in this scenario, I can now offer some comments from the other side.

First, many thanks for an enjoyable and challenging game. My esteemed opponent was very gentlemanly in pointing out various game mechanics and scenario features, e.g. such as the Montenegrin arrival.

As noted, the CP concession was triggered by the surprise encirclement of an entire Bulgarian division, which was doomed to complete destruction as relief was two days away. This was entirely due to catastrophic error. There was a perfectly good Bulgarian cavalry division set to screen the flank, but based on an assessment (mistaken as it turned out) that the French spotted earlier were likely not in great force, the cavalry was sent south to mask some of the Serb population centers. I had calculated this sector would remain quiet long enough for the additional Bulgarian reinforcements to arrive and enable the resumption of the offensive. Although the CP could have fought on past Turn 150, it seemed to me this stroke merited a concession, as the loss of an entire division would severely delay and weaken the Bulgarian southern advance.

Generally speaking, aside from the above disaster, elsewhere I was satisfied with the CP advance, with some exceptions:

1. The CP in the Beograd area stayed in close contact with the Serb bunker line during the storm turns, calculating they could keep the pressure on and perhaps get a lucky disruption. However this meant significant infantry losses which, although they could be replaced, gave a lot of victory points to the Allies. In retrospect, I would probably remain quiet during the Storm, resuming the bombardment and advance once the weather lifted.

2. Bad mistake moving a German regiment across a river in 11th Army sector just before the big storm hit. Won't do that again!

3. Early on I was too aggressive with the Bulgarians, leading to some nasty ambushes. The Bulgarians have a big numerical advantage, which you can best exploit if you are patient and outflank the foe.

On the bright side, I think I finally got a handle on the best way to advance against Chetnik units, which can disrupt CP guns and MG in T mode as they move up. I ended up keeping the MG and guns further back until my advance enabled me to patrol onto likely Chetnik units. Not foolproof, but I felt this was better than slogging forward with disrupted units, with the side benefit that the MG units could recover strength. In any case, once you are past the bunker lines, the Serbs generally won't stand and fight for more than 2-3 turns against the mass of the CP 3rd and 11th Armies - at least the game ended before a real confrontation resumed - after Beograd it was a slow muddy chase southwards.

On massing stacks of battalions, I usually tried to avoid over stacking, but felt that the benefit of raining hellish fire on Serbs I managed to exchange volleys with was worth the risk. This however may be debatable, as on occasion the mass would run into a Serb MG or artillery ambush. My opponent was excellent in his artillery placement, and in reality the CP probably is better off with low visibility, since that enables easier outflanking.

On lessons learned, it seems to me the key for the CP is patience. A close second is ensuring reconnaissance, not just to avoid disasters like the Bulgarian encirclement, but to find and exploit the weak spots in the Serb lines. The Serbs are stretched thin, and once you detect a front area held by the less formidable reservists, or less numerous forces, you can push those - this will enable the CP to lever the Serb tougher forces out of even strong positions.

One thing I felt I never solved was how to balance this patience with the need to maintain an advance that allows you to get the VP hexes before they disappear. If I was to suggest one possible change in the scenario, it would be to revisit the scheduled of timed VPs for PBEM, as I think they may have been arrived at versus AI, while a clever PBEM opponent will hold them longer. As a quality of life issue, it would also be great if there was an on-map tool-tip telling you when VP hexes disappear, as this would be convenient.

All in all, a great scenario with lots of potential player choices. I think this campaign can go either way. My opponent put up a very skilled defense and I felt like by the mid-game I had discovered some counters. But it was outweighed by the Bulgarian disaster!

[Mr Grumpy]

One thing I felt I never solved was how to balance this patience with the need to maintain an advance that allows you to get the VP hexes before they disappear.  If I was to suggest one possible change in the scenario, it would be to revisit the scheduled of timed VPs for PBEM, as I think they may have been arrived  at versus AI, while a clever PBEM opponent will hold them longer.  As a quality of life issue, it would also be great if there was an on-map tool-tip telling you when VP hexes disappear, as this would be convenient.

Excellent feedback thank you, as far as I know the dates/turns on which the vp hex's expire match the actual historical dates that the CP forces captured these locations, these were not arrived at by playing the AI.

We discussed ways of making the VP expiry turns more obvious but coding restrictions prevented any of the ideas being used, I agree it is not as user friendly as we would have liked. 

[Mr Grumpy]

Closing comments:

Overall, I'm happy with the result and with how my defensive strategy worked until this point. I would've liked to move the Branicevo detachment to safety using a less complicated route, but in the end they reached safety before the Germans could cut them off. Most objectives in the north were held until they expired. From this point on, the turns of expiry would be more ambitious to meet and there's no way I could've held Kragujevac until turn 206 with the available forces without risking the committed units being decimated by the Germans. Considering that fewer divisions were used in the north than was historically the case, I'm surprised it was possible to hold most objectives. It was unexpected, but my delaying tactics worked.

I'm not sure how the fortresses facing the Bulgarians can be held without risking the troops protecting them suffering serious losses. Combat is very lethal in PzC/FWWC and battalions can lose more than 100 men per turn regularly. You'll be bled white on a scale that historically wasn't possible. Without having read historical accounts, it's difficult to figure out why the Bulgarian advance was slow in this area. There are some mountains but the terrain is otherwise not particularly difficult compared to the northern front. Serbian forces are outnumbered at least 2:1 everywhere. It's not densely wooded ánd rugged like the area the area around Valjevo.

According to one account, Serbian commanders were worried when they were losing 100 men per day, per a division during the trench war period between the 2nd and 3rd Invasions in 1914. They would turn mad with despair when they would lose 100 men per battalion, every 2 hours.

The Macedonian front features lengthy stretches of empty space and a limited amount of difficult terrain. That makes using Chetnik forces there less ideal for my defensive strategy, as the goal is to stop and not merely delay the (initial wave of) Bulgarian divisions. You need regular units to stop the attacker.

Chetniks work best when A) There's a lot of difficult terrain and the attacker has to use roads/trails to move more than 1 hex each turn and B) A big part of the firepower of the attacking forces comes from field guns/MG's/artillery. Neither situation applies in most of Macedonia east of Skoplje.

Bulgarian field gun units are numerous, but they will be Low Ammo for most of the game due to the low value Bulgarian supply sources resulting in <20 local supply in most areas. Due to the recent changes, local supply values below 20 result in field gun units not being able to recover from Low Ammo status. Bulgarian MG units, like their Serbian counterparts, have only 60 Men per infantry regiment. Considering that Bulgarian infantry regiments are full strength at 4 battalions, that means relatively speaking the infantry battalions themselves will have to inflict most of the damage.

You cán use Chetniks with good effect against the Bulgarians near the fortresses, but I prefer to use them mostly against the Austro-Hungarians and Germans. The Timok and Juzna Morava river will slow the Bulgarians down more than any Chetniks used in the area. A forward defense at the fortresses also has the built-in risk of being outflanked by the Germans from the north or the Bulgarian 2nd Army coming in from the south.

My strategy focused on creating a situation where I could parry blows with available forces, and had enough units in every sector to prevent a breakthrough. It's a fine balancing act, but it worked. In Macedonia, my Entente reinforcements trickled in at about the same rate as Bulgarian reinforcements, which combined with moving two divisions in from the central and northern sectors created favourable conditions for limited counterattacks.

The overall goal was to preserve the integrity of the Serbian Army at all costs. That worked well. No formations were ever close to becoming ineffective for combat purposes. The short days really help in that regard: 6 turns of action and 2 night turns of rest make it easy to keep Fatigue in green numbers (below 100).

I don't think my opponent made any serious strategic errors. Stacking multiple battalions in a hex is usually a bad idea in FWWC due to the unit density casualty multiplier, but in this case I don't think his losses were much higher than they would've been if he had moved units as single battalions. Aside from a few situations where I could hit stacks hard with fire from field guns and MG's or massed rifle fire, the terrain and weather conditions prevented me from moving units around to attack larger stacks during my part of the turn.

Moving units as stacks also significantly reduces opportunity fire, another reason why I think moving units as 2 battalion stacks as the Central Powers can work well here in non-clear terrain.

It does limit the frontage a unit holds, which eventually led to a situation where the 3rd Balkanska Division could be encircled. My opponent wasn't aware that the French units encircling him were not a small force but the best French division present in the scenario, which led to him only pulling back his left wing a bit instead of pulling back the divisions.

I've reported the result as a minor victory as a major victory would either require the destruction of a very large number of Central Powers forces to compensate for objective point losses, which is unlikely, or exiting a large number of units, and I didn't intend to do so.

It's a quick to play and very enjoyable campaign scenario, a good effort by Volcano Man and the team.

Thanks for your excellent feedback, glad the two of you enjoyed the game! 

[Volcano Man]

Yes, thanks for the feedback. Always good to read thoughts and observations. Seems like you both had fun, and that is my main goal. :)

[ComradeP]

How is your team game going?

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One thing worth mentioning again is how different the 4th Invasion can be, and was in this case, to other FWWC campaigns in terms of visibility. With visibility 1, field gun and MG units didn't really come into play after the first few days until the minimum visibility was at least 2 hexes in the last three days of the AAR.

As support weapon units of a second rate military power like Serbia are small compared to the number of infantry battalions in the divisions, they won't have anything close to the effect of field gun units in France '14 or EP '14, even when they're not Low Ammo.

Bulgarian divisions have lots of field guns, but they'll suffer from Low Ammo status for most of the game and Bulgarian divisions are corps-sized.

With the infantry battalions causing most of the damage in the first few weeks, the Serbian Army has the advantage due to consisting of mostly B quality infantry. That would probably have changed in November with improving weather and better visibility.

[Mr Grumpy]

How is your team game going?

We are on turn 30 with tough fighting in Beograd, Smederevo and along the Mlava river as the CP forces push to try to take the various objectives before they expire.

In my sector (Smederevo and the Mlava) there has been quite a game of cat and mouse as my opponent has tried to find a way to prise me out of the bunker line and I have lived in fear of an arty disruption result that would have allowed him to assault my forces out into open ground, over on the Mlava I have managed to repel his first attempt to cross the river as you allude to in your feedback the 1 km visibility has both helped and hindered both sides in regards to MG/FG units supporting the infantry of both sides, at least on the Mlava line I don't have to contend with any arty as that is still stuck on the wrong bank of the Danube. 

I am pleased (so far) with how I have organised the Mlava defences and the fact I damaged almost all the bridges means my opponent has had very limited options on where to cross, the Pozarevac vp hex expires on turn 53 so I have another couple of day to hold my opponent back before I can think of retiring.

Can't give more detail as that would give the CP side vital intel on the Allied dispositions and intentions. 

[ComradeP]

What should slow down the Central Powers in your sector is that their forces on the Serbian side of the Danube will be Isolated from the 12th to the 17th of October now that the "supplies moving across damaged full hex ferries" issue has been fixed.

As I wrote when I reported the ferry issue, Central Powers supply sources across the Danube in that sector have a value of less than 20 so they'll disappear when the first supply variation hits.

Pre-damaged ferry fix, Central Powers supply values across the Danube were pretty good.

[Mr Grumpy]

Thanks for the heads up, I knew the supply sources on the southern bank were only 15 and so as my CP opponent moved south to try to cross the Mlava that would only get worse, I can't see the "low ammo" flags obviously but I am guessing they are a major headache for him!