1st PzB Tournament 2nd Battle: #0706_03 Yakovlevo - Breaching the Second Line

[Gregor]

ComradeP and myself have compiled an AAR from our battle in the second round of the PzB tournament and will in the coming weeks present our experience with this scenario. I did write the comments during the fight so it will reflect what I was thinking at the current stage of the battle. I will in addition some time present some analysis with the hindsight of how it all turned out in the end, but will then state that explicit.

I was to fight the experienced player ComradeP and the scenario is much larger than first round. The setting for the scenario is the breaching of the second line by 1st SS.

“Yakovlevo, North of Belgorod: July 6th, 1943. (Scenario Size: Division. Head to Head or German Human vs Soviet AI) SS-Standartenführer Theodore Wisch, Commander 1st SS Leibstandarte Panzer Grenadier Division had decided to use both his SS-Panzer Grenadier Regiments to breach the Soviet second line. Albert Frey's 1st SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment was tasked with taking Hill 243.2, advancing into Yakovlevo and clearing the Belgorod Highway. With the front lines breached and Yakovlevo taken, Frey was expected to push forward and clear Pokrovka. Hugo Kraas's 2nd SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment was ordered to clear the left flank of the Vorskla River as well as assist 1st SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment in breaching the Soviet lines. Unbeknown to the SS, the first formations from 3rd Mechanised Corps were arriving to bolster 51st Guards Rifle Division's defences. The tanks of 49th and 1st Guards Tank Brigades would lead the battle's first heavy counterattack of Soviet armor."

The scenario used was a rebalanced version of the original scenario with the following changes:
Battalion releases by one unit spotted by enemy and most Russian artillery unfixed form start.

Having studied the scenario I decided that I couldn’t dream of holding the line for the full scenario against an experienced player with the assets available to him. My main plan for the defense is to reinforce the bunkers in the German main path of attack and hope to delay the breakthrough as long as possible, hopefully up until round 10 if lucky. That would also hopefully give some initial losses that will weaken his abilities in the later part of the scenario. The main way I am planning to do this is to move as much of the released bunker personnel as possible towards the main axis of attack. In addition I will try to do that in a way so I manage to have as much of my troops as possible to the west of his final brake through. The reason for the last point is that I know the Germans will make short process with all remaining surrounded troops at Hill 243.2.

The second major decision initially is to evacuate all artillery likely to be overrun. That is possible due to the change in the scenario. All mortars by hill 244.1 are to be moved to the area behind Hill 226.0 while the heavies in Yakovlevo and the artillery in the fields behind the Yakovlevo are all to be evacuated to the area around 1st Guard tank brigade. The heavies will still have the range to hit anything on the board while the mortars can reach the heights and support the bunkers in front of Yakovlevo and any move into the town.
On my right flank I have quite a few troops available. They will do a good job in my defenses if I am able to evacuate them through the line. So my third decision is to evacuate those through my own line by making 3 breaches of the mine fields. The engineers will be rushed to the line and make 3 holes (Marked as stars on the picture). One for the infantry, one for the motorized units and one for the heavy artilleries. I will use the few American toy tanks as a mobile rear guard and keep some infantry in their positions in the front to hopefully make some confusion about my intention. I will use the artillery for a couple of turns as I guess I will have some nice targets in the opening turns and then withdraw them in phases to avoid a disaster if they are observed. As they are heavies there will be a need for planning so they are not caught in an attack in that direction. The AT guns on eastern flank I see no way saving. They will just try getting some troops with them in death.


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So that is my initial plan, not much, but hopefully I will make up a worthy fight. It will be interesting to see how the changes to the scenario affects the battle. The old one seemed quite German friendly. The adjustments will surely move in the Russian direction, but will they balance it?

When it comes to phase two of the operation I am more uncertain what to do. As a start I put all of the fixed units not in trenches at work digging in. I expect the attack on the bunker line to come at the highway and to the west of it. What to expect afterwards is difficult to predict. If I were to attack myself I would probably rush the troops on the eastern heights and through the woods and try to hit Pokrovka from north-east and Yakovlevo from the east. Two other possible approaches are attack through the bunkers on top of the hill in front of Yakovlevo (historical approach?) or move through the gap to the west and directly towards the Hill 226.0. I am very unsure how to counter either of them, but hope my opponent not goes for the first one as I see very few counters against it as nearly all troops are fixed and it will delay the release of the Tank brigades. Speaking of Tank brigades, there are one issue. I am very unsure how to use them well. On paper they seems superior to the German ones, but the moral is an important factor. My prior experience indicates that they are better off moving up close to the enemy, but their ability in assaults are questionable. I have in close combat managed to take out some German tanks in the past, but at huge losses, but have little experience with such an infantry heavy enemy and city fighting. I must improvise, but my main approach is to keep the two brigades together if possible and avoid a long range shootout. I will also try to save some smoke to ensure the ability to get the tanks into battle behind a smoke screen if that is needed.

As for the strategic decision to place the armored car I go for the original placement as that’s the best placement for an early release by an approach from the east on Yakovlevo.

[ComradeP]

Note that my comments are mostly post-game, I had to format the PC due to a trojan and only kept the turn screenshots. I didn't take screenshots for some of the initial turns, as very little happened in some of them.

I'll detail my plan in writing, as it was quite simple: move north with basically everything, then swing west into Pokrovka through the fields from the high ground, using a smaller force to capture Yakovlevo.

Using a few units to chase the Soviets in the west was not part of my plan, but as the mirror game would later show, it can be a good strategy if the defender doesn't expect it. I will add comments about the mirror game where Gregor was the Germans from time to time as a useful means of comparison. That game isn't finished yet, but he had achieved a major victory about halfway through the scenario.

The new unit release rules where formations release by the battalion when spotted meant that I wanted to limit releases as best as I could. Unfortunately, the Fixed/release mechanics encourage somewhat gamey play as you're trying to move around certain enemy units.

This is more of a problem in Panzer Battles than in Panzer Campaigns, due to the visibility ranges being significantly higher. In Panzer Campaigns, visibility is usually 3-4 hexes. In Panzer Battles, visibility is usually around 10 hexes for most of a scenario. Flanking the Soviet positions from the east normally means the Tank brigades won't be released until they automatically release.

Regarding the map and force compositions, it favours the Germans as the eastern approach was historically reserved for the tanks and accompanying infantry that moved north later in the day as can be seen in the Ozerovskii scenario. Historically, halfway through the scenario the Germans would also lose a PzG regiment to withdrawals, but that doesn't happen in the scenario so in terms of the in-game force composition compared to the historical force composition, the scenario favours the Germans. Certain units being "duplicated" by being present in two scenarios at the same time is the case in many of the scenarios where a day of fighting is broken into smaller scenarios, by the way. We'll see the same thing in Nechaevka.

Assault plan:

My assault plan was to obscure most of my units with smoke on turn 1, limiting the Soviets to one released battalion and concentrating about a battalion on a single bunker. Vehicle units would fire from two hexes away and AT gun units would move up in support. Follow-up units would then exploit the gap and fan out to isolate the second row of bunkers and move on to the objectives afterwards. Weak forces would capture the hill in the east.

My second PzG regiment didn't have a specific destination yet. I rarely make detailed plans for follow-up forces, as where they need to go heavily depends on the situation at the time of their arrival/release and I don't want to dogmatically commit to a certain strategy, resulting in less flexibility later on.

I was hoping that two recon companies that start in a Fixed state would be released on turn 2 as they could spot Soviet AT guns , and that was the case, giving me two additional companies to use ahead of schedule.

I expected that I would be near Yakovlevo around turn 10, and near Pokrovka several turns later. In the end, this is more or less what happened, so the prediction was accurate but for reasons that will be explained later, victory was soon beyond my grasp.

Flaws in the assault plan:

My expectations for the assaults were too optimistic, as it's very difficult for an attacker to successfully assault a hex as the defender can stack units in them and all of those needed to be disrupted to eject the defender, and both sides use the same stacking limits so you often can't apply a numerical advantage. I don't really like that part of the combat mechanics, which might be why I sometimes forget them as I feel it's one of the weaker parts of the combat system.

I cancelled my assault into Pokrovka at some point, when it might still have succeeded, because I feared the impact the Soviet tank brigades would have and felt I wouldn't be able to remove the AT brigade on time/get into Pokrovka before the tanks showed up. It's difficult to estimate how well your opponent will use his mobile reserves, or what kind of damage they will be able to do. This was probably the event that decided the game, looking back. My initial breakthrough was significantly slower than Gregor's in the mirror game (he broke through by about turn 3-4, I broke through by turn 7-8), but that didn't necessarily matter much.

Differences between Gregor's assault plan in the mirror game and mine:

The crucial difference was that Gregor fired at the units in the bunkers from the adjacent hex with the StuGs, Tigers and Marders, and used infantry mostly to evict the Disrupted defenders. This was very successful, and he got numerous good Disruption rolls in the opening turns, probably above average. I did have fewer units in the bunkers that him, because he didn't release a third battalion.

He also attacked along a broader front, which meant that I had to spread my units out a bit more, but I feel this wasn't the most significant difference as it also meant that he had to assault each of the bunkers with fewer forces.

We discussed whether my breakthrough would have been as successful as his, had I shotgunned the defenders instead of firing from 2 hexes away. His opinion was that having more units in a hex would have limited the success of the strategy. I agree, but overstacking penalties shouldn't be underestimated. As we will see later on, his early losses were quite substantial due to overstacking penalties and me being able to kill a large number of men after evicting stacks from bunkers. Obviously, my losses in the mirror game were also high as my defensive line folded as if it wasn't even there.

[Gregor]

As ComradeP lost most of his screenshots and notes in the data crash I think I will start with my first turn.

Some initial observations. I am getting hit a bit west of the highway. The Germans expended most of the smoke available (16/20) to hinder my easternmost battalion to release. Annoying, but knowing he is soon out of smoke is good news, I think, for later in the battle. He seems to focus on only one spot. That is the way to go in this situation as a German, but I would have been in more trouble if he sent in more engineers to ensure that I had to defend more than one bunker.

Attached is a screenshot that also shows the status in the critical frontal bunker, lost 18 men, but no disruptions. Total losses were 20 men and 8 AT guns this first round. And the general situation is seen on the map. I will reinforce that front bunker as heavy as possible. The good thing about the smoke is that it will also protect my reinforcement. I follow the initial plan and start the evacuation of the artillery as planned, starts digging in for fixed units and rush forward to defend the bunkers in front of the attack. 5 units end in the critical one. The artillery bombard what is seen and focusing on the engineers up to the limitation and then try to kill of some in the large stacks to the south. The recon plane available is set to recon in the rear area hoping to see some artillery or units in travel mode.


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[ComradeP]

What the end of the first Soviet turn looks like from my perspective:



I could and with hindsight should have cleared more minefields, but as explained earlier I was hoping that launching several strong attacks against one bunker with support fire from 2 hexes away would be enough to clear it.

[ComradeP]

The end of Axis turn 2, no bunkers cleared yet, but more units are in position to assault and many AT guns are available for support as well:

[Gregor]

Turn 2:
By the start of the turn I still hold the bunkers and the losses are small and only one disruption in the frontal bunker.

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The second battalion is released and more troops will be rushed to the front. Here you see the initial position.

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The recon plane payed of and some 75mm AT guns observed in travel mode got hit hard. Hadn't it been for the evacuation of the artillery this could be much more costly as I could probably take out some more in the rear, but hopefully the evacuation will pay of later in the game. Else I stick to the plan and reinforce the front and evacuate troops on the flank and artillery in the rear. A good thing is he used the rest of his smoke.

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End of turn shows 3 75mms AT guns taken out and some troops. I order an airstrike on some artillery in the rear. The piling of troops in front of the attack is easily seen both in first and second line of bunkers.

I only manage to attach the pictures, anyone know how to get them shown like the rest of you manage?

[Dog Soldier]

I only manage to attach the pictures, anyone know how to get them shown like the rest of you manage?

Click on the first image in the toolbar at the top of the forum page. It is the one with the arrow in the folder. This opens the My files section of your profile.

From there you should be able to create folders, then open those folders and upload image files from your PC to your profile on the 'blitz cloud'. Folders are useful to organize your images like having a single folder for each AAR you do.

To insert an image in a post open the page where you have the full editing features, not the simple quick edit feature at the bottom of the forum. You can do this by clicking the 'New Reply' or the 'Reply' button in any post. Use the reply button in a post to include the post owner as a quote if needed. Otherwise just use 'New Reply' for most posts.

Position your cursor in your post where you want the image to be located.
In the bottom left hand part of the screen there is a small icon that looks like clouds and sky. click this icon. This icon only appears in the full post edit mode. It will take you to your images stored in your profile. Find the image you want and click on it. The image will automatically be coded into your post. where your cursor is located.

Click the 'Preview Post' button at the bottom of the editing box to see your image.

Dog Soldier

[Gregor]

Thanks

Didn't manage to edit my old posts, but managed to upload to the Blitz and include them here

The plan


VP at start turn 2


Start turn 2


End turn 2


This should make the future posts more readable