AAR for PotzBlitz mod in PBEM: Robotron vs Unwichtig

After action reports for Commander The Great War

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Robotron
Brigadier-General - Elite Grenadier
Brigadier-General - Elite Grenadier
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AAR for PotzBlitz mod in PBEM: Robotron vs Unwichtig

Post by Robotron »

Robotron (CP) vs. Unwichtig (Entente)

I decide my Germans will follow the historic "modified Schlieffen by Moltke" plan, just to give Unwichtig a chance (haha!). Austria screams for German help before the Russians have even attacked and Russia chooses delayed mobilization while Britain warns Germany to not even think about looking in the general direction of Belgium. Kaiser Wilhelm pays off the Turks as compensation for the dreadnoughts withheld by Britain but then Battlecruiser Goeben decides to join the German East Asian squadron instead. Meanwhile Germany occupies Luxembourg and Limburg to make sure the surprise on France will work as planned. Italy is still undecided.

The Austrians fail to do anything useful against the Serbs, as usual.

Then the Germans smash the Belgian army and capture Liege and Brussels during the same turn, singing "Deutschland über alles" (Wave of Patriotism event).
Entente panicks (?) and decides to withdraw ALL French troops behind the line Amiens-Paris-Verdun-Toul-Belfort, giving up Calais and Nancy. After pausing a turn to equip with newly researched grenades, German troops then launch a costly but important attack on Paris: the French government flees to Bordeaux, leaving Josef Gallieni to clean up the mess, which he does: the Germans fail to encircle the city and are already badly overstretched. Antwerp quickly goes down after a heavy bombardment and Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria is awareded the "Hero of Antwerp" medal by the Kaiser. After this German artillery is promptly concentrated around Verdun, helping to chase off any French troops and German Reserve Corps are encircling the fortress.
However, the "Voie Sacree" event stops any German ambitions to take the Verdun for now. Armoured trains from both sides clash around Toul.

Meanwhile the Russians have decided they have finally mobilized long enough and are breaking into Galicia like a deluge, sweeping away anything in their wake, breaking through to Debrecen and heading straight for Budapest and are only held at bay by an improvised force of Austrian armoured trains and forces pulled away from around Belgrade. Serbs come to join the fray: Serbo-Russian party is held at Temeschburg while mangled remains of the Austrian forces in Galicia are pocketed in around Arad and Klausenburg. Austrian morale directly nose-dives down to 50% and everyone wants to become independent already.

Nothing really happens in East Prussia with Russians instead holing up around Warsaw. A quick 2-pronged attack by Germans and Austrians nearly captures Warsaw but a Russian Reserve Corps reduced to 2 strength points holds firm. After that Central Powers are in a world of misery, getting nothing done and failing even at favorable odds there, but steady reserves are getting deployed around Krakov and Thorn. Russians also take Przemysl, further humiliating the Austrians. At this point I REALLY had a strong urge to surrender, but I kept on.

There's also a brief lull in the West and Verdun manages to hold out but in a stroke of luck, Germany manages to get hold of Toul. Because of the large number of German Army Corps around Paris not the usual "Paris defended" but rather the "Stalemate" event is triggered before Moltke is finally sacked by the Kaiser. Italy is mighty impressed by German successes in the West and so is nowhere near to join Entente by end of 1914. The large amount of German forces in the West also means that Russia remains an untamed beast for the moment,

Interestingly enough Britain has failed to decide whether to blockade the North Sea up to now and battlecruiser "Goeben" returns accompanied by Graf Von Spee's Armoured Cruiser in the Northern Atlantic, trying to head home to Germany.

Turkey joins CP in winter but wisely postpones the attack on Sarikamish till spring, which in 1915 came in April because of an extra-long winter.
The British finally decide to make an impact on the war by causing revolts in Kuwait and taking hold of the Abadan oilfields. Simultaneously Ottomans and British attack at Suez and Basra.
Ottomans briefly block the Suez but then have to retreat from the newly brought in ANZAC Newzealanders. Basra falls and the Ottomans are forced to deploy around Kut.
A sneaky counter-attack from Riyadh briefly brings Kuwait back under Ottoman control but the Reserve Corps is quickly surrounded by Kuwaiti cavalry and destroyed.

Meanwhile Germans and Austrians finally get their acts together and start expelling the overstrechted Russians from Galicia. Although a few Russian elite-ranked corps are destroyed, the majority manages to escape to fight another day. Also the Serbian typhoid epidemic has taken off pressure from Austrian troops and in spring 1915 Belgrade finally falls to CP and then later Nis.
This was duly noted by Bulgaria who joins CP in an effort to mop up the remaining Serbs. Italy is still nowhere to be seen.

Next Britain launches an amphibious invasion at Yanbu port not far from the muslim holy city of Medina. Luckily for CP the attack is spotted and a Reserve Corps is hastily deployed there. Meanwhile Russia has given up Sarikamish but launches an amphibious landing of her own near Trabzon. Another Turkish Reserve Corps that was originally planned to be deployed near Kut now must be deployed at Trabzon instead, thwarting the Russian attack. While all this is happening the Russians are happily shelling Contantinople, crippling Ottoman production.
At this time Turkey is mainly held alive by PP railroad transports from either Austria or Germany.

In France the only event worth of mentioning is the rather quick siege of Verdun, which is captured in early summer using newly developed Chlorine gas, crippling French morale.
In Russia the bonus supplies from the "Delayed Mobilitation" event finally run out and the Russians retreate, leaving only the pockets around Warsaw, Novogeorgievsk and Osoviece to be besieged and cleared by the Germans. The only offensive action taken by the Russians at this point is in the Caucasus where Enver Pashas units are slowly but surely pushed back south.

At the same time the Ottomans under the command of Colmar von der Goltz manage to push back the British back to Basra, where they are met by fresh British Army Corps and in turn have to retreat back to Kut and later Baghdad, always in danger of getting outflanked by that pesky Kuwaiti cavalry.

Battlecruiser "Goeben" somehow manages to evade all British patrol ships and reaches Kiel, while Von Spee's Armoured Cruiser is picked off near Denmark after obviously having mistaken Copenhagen for Wilhelmshaven. Goeben Battlecruiser later helps in the decisive battle against the Russian Baltic navy, helping to keep the Swedish convoy route safe from danger.
All the while German submarines are attacking British convoys around Ireland and even the Austrian dreadnought squadron manages to pick off a convoy in the Eastern Mediterranean before getting chased off and nearly sunk by an armada of Entente naval units.

Entente forces then land at Gallipoli but are getting nowhere because once the Serbs surrendered, the Bulgarians were free to act and promptly joined the Ottomans around Gallipoli and Baghdad. At Baghdad they arrived just in time to repulse a British thrust to encircle the city.

Remaining Bulgarians took position at the Romanian border, surely the Romanians were up to something.

In France nothing much happened, beside a daft British landing near Antwerp which was soundly repulsed and constant attacks on Belfort by the Germans.
Entente airforce proved mostly ineffective, although German artillery was suppressed badly, still the front line ran straight from Amiens to Belfort, then later Belfort fell too.

The Russians then got rid of the Tsar in 1916 and Germany managed to break into Minsk and Riga.
Even the Austrians managed to become slightly aggressive again but were held back at Rovno until reinforced by Bulgarians.

About the same time the Senussi uprising in Libya managed to break the deadlock on the Suez and Egypt revolted against the English. Finally the Suez was in CP hands.

The last Entente action was an all-out attack against the German North Sea coast, trying to knock out the German fleet in an attempt to capture the German ports with an amphibious landing, but freshly deployed submarines rushed to the rescue and Britain was already starving because of sunk British convoys for a few months and the French army mutinied.
The British North Sea Blockade finally was started, but it was too late.

And suddenly the war was over, in early 1917 if I remember correctly. I guess it was a rather good victory, but my opponent removed the match from the rooster by accident, before I got to see the result. No hard feelings! ^^
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Slitherine's Commander the Great War - Director's Cut: POTZBLITZ mod!
FIND IT HERE: http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=218&t=77884&p=662610#p662610
Unwichtig
Sergeant - 7.5 cm FK 16 nA
Sergeant - 7.5 cm FK 16 nA
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Location: Portsmouth

Re: AAR for PotzBlitz mod in PBEM: Robotron vs Unwichtig

Post by Unwichtig »

Wow that´s a very comprehensive AAR.
I enjoyed that match, as always every MP game leads to new experiences and new ways to attack.
I tried some new things and initally i thought it looked good - at least in the east.

I was surprised about the fact that i managed to connect the serbish army with the russian invasion as i have been trying to achieve this in so many matches.
BUT: It came at a high price...it requires the majority of the russian army which prohibits any actions in the north. So it stayed calm in East Prussia.
And due to the long distance marches that my armies had to conduct...they were finally exhausted and all labled "red".
And after i successfully encircled a few austrian armies in the "Kessel of Arad and Klausenburg", i think i became overconfident...i just wanted it all and thought i keep up the pace and even try to encircle the remaining austrian armies that sieged Buckarest. So i kept pushing, hoping that my french frontline in the west was "long enough" to prevent any german armies from being redeployed to the east in order to help the austrians. What a mistake that was.
The following 3 Turns i lost it all...The Germans did help, and it was too easy to utterly destroy the exhausted russian armies within a few turns.
The Typhoid finished the serbs, Medical Help for Serbia was not playable as i did not play the russian aid for serbia event. Russian withdrawel was chaotic, only half the army made it back to my 2nd line of defence near Przemysl. I was surprised how quickly germany and austrians managed to organize a counter-offensive. That was well played.
Robotron wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 7:41 pm Entente panicks (?) and decides to withdraw ALL French troops behind the line Amiens-Paris-Verdun-Toul-Belfort, giving up Calais and Nancy.
Well...in fact, they did. Combining the occupation of Luxemburg and Limburg with the Patriotic Movement Event and the "France caught offguard" event was powerfull.
Germany took most of Belgium in one Turn. I could not even move a french reserve corps into Namur to resist a little longer as it was ´not movable´ due to the offguard event. I thought i stabalize the frontline and use the river Seine as a natural barrier to get some extra defence bonus. At least this prevented Paris from being ever captured in the game - it becomes almost impossible to outflank with a stable Seine-frontline. A planned counteroffensive never happened as i was short on PP and my french armies were usually always 1-2 techlevels underdeveloped compared to the germans.
Robotron wrote: Mon Nov 02, 2020 7:41 pm Next Britain launches an amphibious invasion at Yanbu port not far from the muslim holy city of Medina.
Yes...you are actually the first player that survived my ALL IN attack on ottoman. As the ottomans run low on PP from game start and can hardly produce any stuff having zero convoys the help them, my aim was to attack all available Ottoman cities at the same time. Idea behind that is, to prevent the ottomans from concentrating troops as they have to split their armies up into every corner of their empire. As the tech level of russian and british invaders is usually higher, the 1 on 1 battles against dislocated ottoman army groups normally end up with a success. Well...Normally.
That lead to the russian amphibious assault in Trabzon, the amphibious assault on Yanbou to capture Medina (was defended just on time), many fast paced british cavalry units outflanking ottomans in the deserts of basra and the landing in gallipoli. Continuous naval bombardments of constantinople normally finishs off the ottoman economy. The ottoman army corps in the caucasus are initially invited to invade...let them come and get exhausted and trapped in the mountains to prevent them helping on other frontlines. Thats why the initial russian retreat in the caucasus is more like a tactical withdrawel to ´capture two ottoman army corps´ in the middle of nowhere.
But wow...nice plans dont work very often.
The "ottoman and austria first" strategy did not allow me do to any offensive action against germany. Zero.
I could not start the intended "CP Domino effect"...i.e. one "weak" CP nation giving up causing additional collapse points for their allies, ultimately leading to a surrender of another CP country, more collapse points for the remaining countries, making them surrender as well and finally the last big domino - Germany - is only dragged into defeat because of the bad performance of its weaker allies.

Key British mistake was that the Northseablockade was played too late which kept Germany alive.
Key French mistake was that not enough artillery was constructed which prevented any counterattack.
Key Russian mistake was the overconfident attempt to creat a 2nd kessel around Buckarest which made the frontline collapse.
Key US mistake was, that they joined me too late. Just joking.

Very well played. It took you 38 Turns by the way. Sorry for deleting the game from server before you could see the final screen.
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