Spring Awakening Axis AAR - historical campaign (settled for a Draw turn 93)

[ComradeP]

After returning from vacation, I decided it might be best to wrap up the in-game day before posting an update.

Compared to the poor weather days, territorial gains and losses inflicted on the Soviets were impressive.

I'll post the T54 and T60 screenshots for the northern and center-south sector in sequence, which should make it easier to follow what happened during the day.

Turn 54, 12:00 March 11th 1945, Soft conditions.

Turn 60, 04:00 March 12th 1945, Mud conditions

Supply levels changed by -5 on March 12th.

Reduced supply levels mostly has an effect on artillery units. They don't get a second supply roll like other units (provided their HQ is not Out of Command) if they fail the supply roll for their local supply level. I've kept the bulk of my artillery close to a primary road for that reason.

In the north, the local supply level is 60 or so at the bridgeheads of Ádands and Nagyberény.

In the center, the local supply level is 80 at Nagybajom and about 65 at Csakoly.

Local supply levels for "Hiterjugend" are fairly low at 40-50 as there's no primary road to Barcs from the map edge.

Supply levels for the assault across the Drava are similar, though the supply levels for the units on the other side are 1. They can only trace a convoluted supply path as long as the Bulgarian units guarding the railway bridge are still there.

The heroes of March 11th are without doubt the Hungarian Jagdpanzer 38(t)'s that made several attacks across bridges in the north. As the Panzers were occupied elsewhere, those units were my only armoured units in the area. Considering that there were only 24 of them at the start of the day in 4 units, the results are even more impressive.





Hoping to catch as many Soviet units as possible before they could retreat behind a river, two different attacks were launched.

As my opponent likes a forward defense, it seemed likely that a number of units could be destroyed or mauled this way.

The Panzers made an uninspired, but effective, dash south-east.

The Shermans of the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps wisely got out of dodge instead of taking on stacks of (Jagd)Panthers and Tiger II's. Several Sherman battalions are now at Som and will have some difficulty with getting across the river towards Nagyberény with the current Mud conditions.

In the end, many Soviet units escaped, but the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps was weakened further and a number of infantry battalions from various divisions were destroyed.

As in our Scheldt '44 Market Garden game, one unit in a stack not becoming Disrupted at various times preserved the integrity of his line in the end.

Overall, I'm happy with the results. Panzer losses were light and my units are now a lot closer to the two 500 point objectives at Nagyberény and Szabadhidbeg.

To the south-west, the advance also went well. Unexpectedly so, I might add. I really didn't expect I could get across two rivers in one day.

Maybe my opponent was caught by surprise by the speed of the advance, or momentarily forgot that some railway bridges are Heavy bridges in this title. Out of 4 bridges my units crossed, only one was temporarily ZOC blocked and my units were already on the other side of the river at the point.

The railway bridge north-east of Balatonkiliti was defended by an AA unit on the "enemy" end of the bridge. It was assaulted several times in several hexes and a path was opened for the numerous infantry units with half-tracks in the area.

The presence of numerous mechanized infantry units was partially a coincidence. I wasn't sure where the offensive would be most successful, so the infantry units were concentrated along the primary road.

After bumping some (Guards) Cavalry units out of the way, encircling them, mechanized units stormed across the bridges and managed to force a crossing at Ádánd and the railway bridge south-west of the town. Arand was reduced to RUBBLE by Nebelwerfer and Soviet artillery fire.

As my foothold was initially precarious, I'm guessing there simply were no Soviet units around to attack my bridgehead at Arand as all my units encountered were some weakened Cavalry units.

As progress was good, I decided to keep my mobile formations in the area aside from LSSAH. I have another surprise in mind for the Soviets, but I'm not really sure when I'll launch that attack.

Hopefully, sufficient progress can be made towards Nagyberény and Szabadhidbeg so that my mobile units are no longer needed after 2 days or so.

Though I suspect I might make it to the 750 point objective town of Ozora in the 3 days of decent to good weather in the final days, that will be tricky. At the moment, I don't intend to advance more than a handful of hexes beyond Nagyberény and Szabadhidbeg.

As the 2 Soviet Tank Corps remain unaccounted for, I don't like the idea of having lengthy exposed flanks.



"Hohenstaufen" destroyed most of the 10th Guards Airborne Division. As expected 1 or 2 Soviet infantry battalions were ferried to safety across the canal by the divisional Sapper unit, albeit in a weakened state. "Hohenstaufen" then shifted its attention south.

The 118. Jaeger Division and the PzG units of "Das Reich" from the south and "Hohenstaufen" from the north managed to pocket most of the 20th and 61st Guards Rifle Divisions.

Making the most of the last turns with Soft conditions, "Das Reich" moved back to Nagybajom at Dusk and will get some R&R during this day.

Panzer and Panzerjaeger units of "Hohenstaufen" are probing Soviet positions on the other side of the canal. As there's a rail line over there, moving reinforcements into the area is trivial for the Soviets, so we'll see how far my units get before running into something they can't dislodge.



The road to Kaposvár was more heavily defended than expected. After attacking with Panzers towards the east for a few turns, I decided that wasn't going to accomplish much aside from mauling some Soviet infantry battalions.

In the second half of the day, the Schwerpunkt shifted to Jákó and Csakoly. At that time, it was already clear that "Hitlerjugend" wouldn't be able to meet the units at Csakoly.





The advance by "Hitlerjugend" went well, but there was a limit to how much could be accomplished in one day with these late war formations.

As in the north, delays caused by AT and artillery units stubbornly refusing to become Disrupted gave 2 Bulgarian infantry battalions room to retreat. Most of the Bulgarian 16th ID is west of my forces or dead, however.



The first units of the 104. Jaeger Division are being ferried across the Drava by Pioniere with boats belonging to "Hitlerjugend".

My losses increased compared to the previous days with Mud conditions, but not all that much. Considering the gains that were made, 3579 losses in men are quite modest.

I think most Katyusha units in the north were around Enying, as I didn't see any 20 Men or so losses per volley in the breakthrough area.

The sharp increase in Soviet losses shows the losses to encirclement, as well as more effective counter-battery fire now that additional artillery from 3 Panzer divisions is available in the north.

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At turn 67, 18:00 of March 12th, we went back to the Soviet turn 59 (00:00 March 12th) to fix an issue with 2 Soviet formations that were not released. The losses and initial positions on the 04:00 turn will be slightly different, I'll change the screenshots for the areas where the positions don't match the previous ones.