[Joe98]

Kharkov – an AAR

I recently played a game against Hank. Here is a small AAR.

Hank’s Soviets started with the usual assault on Kharkov from the northeast
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Players would be aware that the Germans stationed in Kharkov, can make devastating counterattacks over the open ground in a north easterly direction.

After a few turns, Hank mentioned he had not yet played as the Soviet side. I thought his advance toward Kharkov was not as vigorous as it might be and I suspect he was concerned about German counterattacks in the area.

My response was to hedgehog an infantry unit out front hoping to disrupt his advance. I included a recon unit in the stack as this unit can “see” further than standard units. I was hoping the recon unit would spot any major advance coming and at the same time spot any uncovered artillery units he might have so I could send over some counter battery fire
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Placing these units out there was a bit of a gamble. I was trying to set up a defensive line as you can see and removing these units from that line might prove disastrous!

Meanwhile in the south, he quickly broke through. The units of the German 62nd infantry division have a number of options.





They can hedgehog in situ. The problem with this is that to be effective they would need to be 2 hexes apart. Then they could adversely affect the Soviets supply. They could move so they are 2 hexes apart and entrench. But then it takes another turn before they can hedgehog and the Soviets could attack and damage these units during the one turn delay. Further, to entrench whilst out of supply costs a supply can and the act of hedge hogging uses up a supply can and the Soviet attack would also use up a German supply can. So, the division, while hedgehogged in a good location, would be down 3 supply cans and not likely to last the distance!


And, if the Soviets simply go around the 62nd infantry division to their south, Soviet supply is not affected by the presence of the division.

Or the division could withdraw towards either Kharkov or Krasnograd. If they withdraw towards either objective it weakens the defence of the other. Its a tough call.

I chose to withdraw towards Kharkov. Ultimately it is the most valuable objective on the map. The 62nd infantry division then entrenched and then hedgehoged in the rough ground approaching kharkov
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His Soviet armour sliced through right between Kharkov and Krasnograd. This was clever as his armour was invisible to me for about 2 turns and this was a concern.

As it turned out the armour turned south and moved towards Kragnosgrad.


I moved some weak troops to defend Kransograd and was able to hedgehog a few of these. There was much combat and I was very worried for a while but Kransograd held.





In the meantime, down in the south, my German attack started. I noticed that he did not occupy his strong points (“SP”) with entrenched troops. As a result, to destroy a SP with artillery takes a single dice instead of a double dice.

In the early turns, my artillery took out as many strong points as possible to clear the way for the coming offensive.

When the offensive began, his initial defence behind the river was pretty good and my advance was slower than I had hoped for.

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But soon my troops had moved up to the river which flows nearby to Izyum








I had hoped to capture this objective but just then my attack supply ran out and the offensive stalled! I got within 2 hexes of the objective but his defence was too good and I could not get any closer.

There would be little movement around this area for the remains of the game.

I placed interdiction, as shown in the next screenshot but he said it had no detriment to the supply of his troops to that were west of this area





As a result, his armour that had been threatening Krasnograd, turned north to threaten Kharkov.

There was now much fighting south of Kharkov. I had hoped the interdiction in the screen shot above would cut the supply to the Soviet armour here but he says it did not.

Ultimately the fighting bogged down around here till the end of the game.


If the final score were 300 points or less this would result in a draw. As the game wound down with about 5 turns remaining, the projected score was about 290 points in his favour and as we approached the end, the figure slowly reduced but I thought for sure he would score a points victory.

As the German player moves last, my last turn was a very gamey turn. I moved troops to places I would never move them if it were not the last turn and destroyed a few Soviet units. The game was officially a draw but I got a points victory.

Otherwise it was a great tight game which went down to the wire!


We need to think of how the gamey last turn can be avoided.

We both found our movement restricted by the Areas of Operation. It seems to me that

-a tournament game should be played using random AO’s;
-PBEM game is best played without using the AO’s and;
-a game against the excellent AI should always use the AO’s
-Interdiction plced near Izygny has no adverse effect on the Russian supply to the west of this point. This does not make sense.
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[flick]

How hard is it to learn the rules of this game? And is their a demo to download?

[pvt_Grunt]

flick, it's a great game it's fun right away, but it takes a lot to get very good. I've been playing the series for over a year now and I'm still learning. But to me, that's the sign of a great game

[flick]

Have you the location of a downloadable demo?

[Joe98]