AAR: "Enjoy the War."

[Wiking]

You're absolutely right, its more important to have fun than to adhere blindly to historical convention. Also interesting to hear that you served, I notice an awful lot of vets seem to really enjoy Steel Panthers. I've always wished I could have done that, but it was not to be, sadly.

9th Armee? That means you'll be up for Operation Mars after 1941. Nasty business that, with von Model and all. I think you can definitely be excused a single StuG batterie quite frankly! It is often forgotten just how much the German landser had to do with very little. As for myself, I am under 1st Panzer-Armee, XIV-Korps under von Kleist. A bit more glamorous maybe, but we have our own hard share of fighting too.

Right now its the race to the Dnieper river! I don't have time for a full report, but I'll give you this much: So far its mostly not too bad, even the Panzer II's are able to help out with the lighter Soviet tanks. The heaviest we've seen is that single KV-2 back in June, so we're feeling confident. Our Panzerjaeger-kompanie was dispersed so was not able to accompany us any further. Replacement weapons and equipment have reached us steadily since our halt in late July, and we are approaching the suburbs of Kiev. Germania, Nordland and Westland are all mostly at full strength, and the Panzer-Abteilung has a number of the newly produced III Ausf J and IV Ausf F's to replace the III E's lost in the first two months.

[Zardoz]

maybe, "veterans" like me who had not to fight in a war, like wargames. I served in the early 80ies and fortunately the cold war remained cold. The border to the GDR was only some kilometres away.

Yes ... the big counterstroke will come, afterward the battles around Rschew in 1942 and, maybe, if the battlegroup performs well, it is thrown into operation "Wintergewitter", the attempt to relief 6. army. The Wehrmacht gathered everything on the whole front and even called 6. tank division from France. But we will see.

In 1943, 9th army attacked in the northern pincer of Kursk, was destroyed in 1944 during Bagration and, finally fought after some replacement on the Seelower height.

So ... many dramatic situations will occur

[Wiking]

Well, I'm glad your time in the service remained peaceful. It would not have been much fun for anyone if it had been otherwise. And yes, I've got Korsun pocket and Bagration to look forward to. And then the battles around Budapest and Warsaw. Hard times ahead.

A bit more detail: Right now I'm conducting a three pronged advance on Kiev. I've been experimenting with new artillery tactics than what I usually do. In the past I would only call artillery when I specfically spotted an enemy unit or pounding say, a roadway that I expected them to come down. This time I was more pro-active, and for my current Advance mission, I conducted a rolling bombardment right in front of a line of smoke missions. I do two "curtains" of smoke, with the artillery gradually shifting from West to East to suppress anything that my motor-infanterie will come across. So far its worked very well.

Stealing some ideas from the British works on occasion.

[Zardoz]

lol (concerning the Brits)

Funny, I have to perform a night assault (2 hexes sight) and was thinking about the same, i . e. trying to implement a fire curtain prior to contact ...

[Wiking]

You know, with my Japanese campaign I'm suspecting I'll appreciate night assaults and advances much more than I do as the Germans. The way I play the game is almost totally different.

I have a lot more concern for the sectors of responsibility with my infantry battalion in the IJA campaign. For the fast moving Germans, those lines are more flexible. Since I can shift a StuG platoon North or South to assist as needed, and often times we end up dogpiling in the enemy's backfield by the end of the battle. With the Japanese, I have to make much more careful advances and carefully allocate resources because even my tanks and cavalry are not terribly fast. A night advance could work quite a bit better as it means I don't have to worry about dropping smoke as much with my long artillery call times.

Also means I can mitigate enemy automatic weapons and get right in and on top of them

[Zardoz]

Yeah .... with Japanes that might work BANZAI !!!

But I have some doubts that it works if my rather green German infantry moves right into a Maxim MG or a PPsh-Squad

[Wiking]

Yeah, the morale bonuses for the SS are about the only real reason to use them. They're not much better than regular Grenadiers besides that. Still, if your scouts can find the enemy first you can isolate and destroy them in detail. The big issue with fighting Soviets is always that overlapping fire they get, which is less of a problem at night. I'll have to check back into your AAR when you update it next