Kharkov '43, Krasnyy-Liman or Bust AAR

[MikeC]

I wanted to open this forum for an AAR for a PBEM game of Kharkov '43 Gold 0130_2, Krasnyy-Liman or Bust. I don't want to give away any intel, so I'm not going to post any screen shots of the game yet. But I did want to report on something that happend early on in the game.

A batallion of the 35th Guards  had crossed the Zherebets River, just north of Torskaya on turn one. It encountered two panzer units, under 10 vehicles apiece, so about company strength. Divisional artillery managed to disrupt one of the panzer units early on turn two. So the guardsmen were poised to assault the panzers, with what I thought was a reasonable hope of success.

I hit the travel mode button to deploy the guardsmen, and noticed that I had just put the unit INTO travel mode. HORRORS! The neat column of troops drew opportunity fire from the tanks, took about 20 casualties, but was farily unscathed. Their full movement remained and they had good fatigue. No harm, no foul, I thought. But when they deployed to make their assault, they drew fire. More dead guardsmen, but this time disruption. No assault on the fascists this turn.

Under my breath, I cursed my fat fingers, my cursor, my mouse, and computer games in general. This wasn't the first time I had fat fingered a button. I've also hovered the cursor over a hex contemplating the "perfect"  move, when a batallion jumped to the wrong hex. Simple errors that these "stupid" games would not allow me to correct.

But after considering what had happend, I realized that this is a great simulation of a real-life military operation. What offensive goes off completely according to plan, with each element precisely following orders and the commander's intent? SNAFUs are part of every military operation, and that's exactly what happend to these cyber troops on the banks of the Zherebets.

Cardboard and paper wargames have detailed mechanisms to produce this kind of foul up. Wargamers must crave this degree of simulation. So the next time something similar happens to you (or me) in game, savor the flavor it adds to the game, and chalk it up to a more accurate military simulation. Our SNAFU mechanism is, quite literally, at our fingertips. 

[Plain Ian]

I wanted to open this forum for an AAR for a PBEM game of Kharkov '43 Gold 0130_2, Krasnyy-Liman or Bust. I don't want to give away any intel, so I'm not going to post any screen shots of the game yet. But I did want to report on something that happend early on in the game.

A batallion of the 35th Guards  had crossed the Zherebets River, just north of Torskaya on turn one. It encountered two panzer units, under 10 vehicles apiece, so about company strength. Divisional artillery managed to disrupt one of the panzer units early on turn two. So the guardsmen were poised to assault the panzers, with what I thought was a reasonable hope of success.

I hit the travel mode button to deploy the guardsmen, and noticed that I had just put the unit INTO travel mode. HORRORS! The neat column of troops drew opportunity fire from the tanks, took about 20 casualties, but was farily unscathed. Their full movement remained and they had good fatigue. No harm, no foul, I thought. But when they deployed to make their assault, they drew fire. More dead guardsmen, but this time disruption. No assault on the fascists this turn.

Under my breath, I cursed my fat fingers, my cursor, my mouse, and computer games in general. This wasn't the first time I had fat fingered a button. I've also hovered the cursor over a hex contemplating the "perfect"  move, when a batallion jumped to the wrong hex. Simple errors that these "stupid" games would not allow me to correct.

But after considering what had happend, I realized that this is a great simulation of a real-life military operation. What offensive goes off completely according to plan, with each element precisely following orders and the commander's intent? SNAFUs are part of every military operation, and that's exactly what happend to these cyber troops on the banks of the Zherebets.

Cardboard and paper wargames have detailed mechanisms to produce this kind of foul up. Wargamers must crave this degree of simulation. So the next time something similar happens to you (or me) in game, savor the flavor it adds to the game, and chalk it up to a more accurate military simulation. Our SNAFU mechanism is, quite literally, at our fingertips. 

Well done for being honest. I think you will have a queue of players waiting to play you now.   

I must admit the snafu I make is to toggle assault when I mean to fire. It happens when I get tired and forget to hold down the CTRL key when right clicking the adjacent target hex. I cancel the assault and take the losses and start again. Edit: I mean keep playing not reload........

The other snafu is accepting the AI's movement path and it moves you into a zoc and triggers defensive fire....

Looking forward to the maps.

[MikeC]

I've completed my last turn as the Russian in Krasnyy-Liman or Bust. When my opponent finishes up, I'll begin posting the AAR from the Russian perspective. There will be screen shots from the 0600 turn each day, and then a shot of the final positions at game's end.

[Vasili.I.Chuikov]

My opinion about this game at the moment is good, I am playing the whole campaign. I point out that nothing bad happens either because of taking advantage of the possible trap moves that the game suffers, since your opponent can also do them, to my liking it is still more competitive in this way for both players. The German side is too powerful and overrated, any advance without precaution will result in a continuous death of troops and therefore your progress will be stopped in the dry. Your artillery is the best weapon to take advantage of. Good luck

[MikeC]

Here are the Soviet initial positions from a recent PBEM game of Kharkov '43, 0131 Krasnyy Liman or Bust. You can see the German units visible to the Russian player at start, along with my planned operations for each division. Unit identification colors reflect the colors for the nationality on the jump map, except for a white script over a dark background.  

The Russian 35th Guard Rifle Division was tasked with driving across the Zherebets River, to capture objectives due west of their starting position.


The 195th Rifle Division was tasked with forcing a crossing of the Zherebets, and capturing the town of Torskaya. After the liberation of Torskaya, they would continue to drive west and assist in the assault on Krasnyy Liman, the most important objective on the map.


The 38th Guards Rifle Division was ordered to cross the Zherebets north of Torskaya, bypass that town, and drive directly for Krasnyy Liman.


In the south, the 41st Guards Rifle Division was to drive south and establish a bridgehead across the Severnyy Donets. This was the key operation in the mind of commanders of Southwest Front. 4th Tank Corps would take up positions in the forest just to the north of  41st Guards. Once the bridgehead was established, 4th Tank Corps would cross the Severnyy Donets, capture additional crossing points over the river, and exit the map to the south toward the Sea of Azov.

I should have reminded myself that no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

[MikeC]

This is the situation at 0600 31 Jan 1943. The offensive was going well for the two Guard divisions in the north. The rifle division in the center was having some tough going with the panzer grenadiers putting up some heavy resistance, and the rifle battalions disrupting and not able to assault objectives. 
In the south, the attack by the 41st Guards had really started to unravel.

[MikeC]

The once proud 41st Guards Rifle Division had crossed the Severnyy Donets and seized their objective. It had appeared that all was going according to plan. But they made the mistake of fanning units out to the southeast of the bridge (the hex the survivors occupy in the screen shot above.) This made the "fan out" hex a possible retreat route. 27th Panzer assaulted the objective, taking it back from the guardsmen. The following turn, they assaulted the guardsmen south of the bridge and drove them away from the bridge, isolating them. These two assaults, in effect, sealed the destruction of the 41st Guards units on the south bank of the Donets.

This "fanning out" maneuver was (in my opinion) my major tactical mistake of the game (among many mistakes, I assure you). I welcome any questions or (especially) comments on this "fan out" maneuver.

My major operational mistake occurred just to the north of this sector. Two brigades of the 4th Guards Tank Corps spent the entire first day of the offensive waiting in the forest to the north of this area. When it became apparent that there would be no crossing in the 41st Guards sector, they pulled out and headed for crossing points south of Torskaya. But the Red Army had been deprived of their mobility and firepower for an entire day, for absolutely no gain.

(Note, the screen shot marks elements of the 12th Guards Tank Brigade. This was actually the 14th Guards Tank, as the 12th Tank was to the north, fixed in place),

[MikeC]

Here in the center, 195th Rifle Division was seeing some tough resistance from the panzer grenadiers of the 19th Panzer Division. But they were faring much better than their brothers of the 41st Guards to their southeast. At least the 195th Rifles still had a supply line to the bridge, and were not under assault for the moment.

The tank and motorized brigades from 4th Tank Corps can be seen heading for the engineer bridge to the south of Torskaya. These were the two brigades that had been biding their time the previous day in the forests north of the 41st Guards Division.

[MikeC]

Finally in the north, things were proceeding according to plan. 35th Guards Rifle Division had captured their initial objective (occupied in this screen shot by divisional HQ).

38th Guards Rifle Division still had a few elements east of the Zherebets River. They had encountered elements of the 19th Panzer, but the panzers didn't seem to want to make a stand, except in the northern outskirts of Torskaya. Losses for both guards divisions were about what was expected.

[MikeC]

Here's the general situation at first light on 1 February, the last day of the scenario. The rifle divisions in the north and center are putting nice pressure on 19th Panzer. The highlight for me was that 4th Guards Tank Corps had finally gotten on track.