War in the East: Operation Mars

Over the past week I've played out the 11-turn scenario Operation Mars. That's the counterattack in Nov/Dec 1942 against Army Group Center near the Ryzhev salient, just outside of Moscow. Yes, the Germans were basically still just short of Moscow in 1942; they got pushed back but didn't fall back very far after Typhoon.

I managed to turn this:






into this:











A Soviet Minor Victory.

bec
Historically, this wasn't far off. The Soviets didn't manage to do much against the dug-in German troops in front of Moscow. They managed some advances. I did about the same. Equally, I ground up a lot of Soviet troops to inflict a fraction of those losses to the Germans. But when you've got the manpower advantage it's foolish not to use it, I say. I say that so easily yet I lost over 500,000 casualties and inflicted ~180,000.


Some notes:

- Red Soviet units are Guards units - units can get promoted to Guards based on their success in combat. The units in the German rear with P are partisan bands. They hassle the Germans but do nothing really directly.

- Black and Black/Grey German units are Waffen SS. IIRC Black is elite, Black/Grey don't get the elite morale and effectiveness modifier.

- Since the map is chopped off I couldn't use rail to move my troops very far. Maybe with the full map I could have, but maybe I could't have, moved units around. It depends on where the rail lines go!

- I should have diverted a few more units to the Northwest near Velikye Luki sooner. I could have smashed the Germans there a little faster and probably grabbed another VP and the ones I grabbed, grabbed them a little sooner.

- It was interesting to view the map at the end and see how many of the German units were static - stripped of their horses and trucks.

- One nice bit about WiTE is attrition. Units suffer it all the time, so you don't fret over minor damage. And units adjacent to each other engage in low-level conflict. That line of Germans and Soviets? They're inflicting casualties on each other - slowly - the whole time. Neat.


I really want to play the full scenario now . . . as the Axis. But in my head I think I should try Road to Smolensk again and see if I can whip that, instead of getting a draw as I stall out on the river line near Smolensk. Hmm. Head vs. heart?