The First Blitzkrieg, SeaLion

[gwgardner]

10/13-14

Two days of rain and muddy conditions stalled offensive operations, immediately after the supply situation was restored. But for the last four days 10th Army's offensive towards the east and northeast of London has proceeded well. 9th Army to the west has taken a seconday role, but has a bridgehead over the Thames.

Air support has gone almost completely to 10th Army, with heavy losses from AA batteries in the London suburbs. At one point German air superiorty had grown to 8:1, but after losses to AA in urban areas that has been reduced to 4:1.

[gwgardner]

10/15-22

Time is running out in bad weather.  For the last six days there has been rain, with mud slowing movement and reducing offensive capabilities.  Both 9th and 10th Armies have tightened the noose around London, but are waiting for some clear weather before attempting the final assaults.

The armies are recuperating with reinforcements and regained effectiveness, and the Luftwaffe has once again reached an 8:1 superiority. 

[gwgardner]

10/23-31

Not a whole lot to report concerning operations for the last week of the campaign, due to continued rain and mud conditions.  Offensive operations were limited to destroying my army in the attack on London!  The Luftwaffe was much less effective for the last 15 days of the scenario because of the weather.  Plus it took enormous losses in an abortive attempt to reduce the London Garrison.

Final victory report:


I made so many errors early on with regard to supply, but that in the end was not the real story.  I believe the worst mistake I made was going after London.  I though I needed to capture it, to gain its port.  However, after Brighton and Dover were unsuppressed about 10/12, supply was not an issue.  Just the weather and the ferocious AA around London.

If I had isolated London, and gone after the many other objective cities/hexes, a victory might have been obtained.

Final situation:



Quite a fun scenario, but for the weather.  The AI in this game is very good on defense.  I have not tried it with the AI in an offensive role.  Note that the AI concentrated its defense to the east of London, where the preponderance of my forces were.  Whether that was a reaction to my actions, or scripted by the AI I have no idea.

There's plenty of replayability in these scenarios.

The one thing that irks me about the game is the lack of command/control, attention to organizational heirarchy.  There are Army HQs, with command effect, but its not as immersive as it could be if there were more structure to the OOB.

[Strela]

Interesting comment re command and control. I have it on my wishlist with the programmers to enhance. I want to potentially include activation of HQ’s that allow or restrict a range of actions and a range of other things…

[zovs66]

Great AAR thank you!

[gwgardner]

Interesting comment re command and control. I have it on my wishlist with the programmers to enhance. I want to potentially include activation of HQ’s that allow or restrict a range of actions and a range of other things…

I look forward to that!

One thing I'm going to try in the next scenario I play is to edit the parameters, to increase the stacking limit.  I want to enhance the multi-hex attack capability, similar to what is done in Decisive Campaigns: Ardennes, and many other games.  Doing this, I'll have to play with a house rule that I can exceed the standard (non-edited) stacking limit only when attacks are coming from multiple hexes.

If the divisional frontages as shown on this site https://balagan.info/infantry-unit-frontages-during-ww2 are correct, the game parameter for stacking limits will not allow anywhere near the number of divisions per hex that was typical historically.  Anyway, I'll try upping that stacking limit.

[later]

I made a post in the mods forum of Tiller Operational Games concerning how to associate a new parameter file with a given scenario file - if anyone knows, please advise.

[ComradeP]

Thanks for this AAR and the Saar Offensive AAR.

I've never played the series, like many here I think, so your clarifications on some situations/mechanics make it easier to follow what happens during a turn. It's interesting to read about the mechanics and how they are different from PzC.