WiF Barbarossa - First Impulses

This is very much a learning exercise to help me prepare for the coming attack in the Thursday night World in Flames game.

The Vassal module required purchasing, fair enough.  My computer needed upgrading (long over due).  Unlike my use of Vassal with GMT games, WiF required a lot of setting up, which now I come to think of it, makes sense, but it was a bit of a shock.  At least the Vassal module seems robust and easy to understand (mostly).

 I went with the standard setup which has the USSR deployed forward,

but the Axis with only a token force in Roumania.

I'm not sure what happens with Finland and Hungary, I'll have to read up on them.

(Turns out I forgot to align them, but easily fixed in coming impulses.  I also forgot to declare war, duh!  And to say that Germany was taking a Land Move.  More importantly this uses 1 oil.)

Army Group North has three very successful surprise ground strikes.

Army Group Centre has Lvov as its immediate target.

Only Army Group South failed with its bombardment of Cernauti 

(in retrospect this was not the ideal thing to do).

If subsequent attacks are successful, the unit on the coast and in Kaunas will be out of supply when attacked.  The USSR has no convoy to deploy in the Baltic (Option Rule 11) and Kaunas, as a secondary supply source, needs to be able to trace to another source).

 Army Group South has one attack at 25 to 6 or 4.16 to 1

Option 26 die roll is a 3 so odds stay at 4 to 1 which is a +8

The die roll is a 1 and a 7 so final result is a 16 on the assault table.

It's an x1/1 so AGS take the city, but lose two units and are flipped. The USSR unit goes to cadre.  The Axis lose the Romanian militia which goes to cadre and the German mountain division.

While a costly victory, it means the defenders of Lvov are out of supply.

For Army Group Centre the plan had been to attack the Russian cavalry corps first at 10 to 1 which would have put Lvov out of supply, but with the success of AGS this is no longer the case and the SS 9-5 and the Mountain Corps can attack Lvov at overwhelming odds.  It is still an assault, so no breakthrough move by the SS mech corps.

[Aside: As the USSR will be at a disadvantage if they lose both Lvov and Vilna in eastern Poland (as this stops lost units becoming cadres), the next attack might have gone in against the 2-1 garrison unit south of Vilna.  Having read the fine print, in order to become a cadre, the lost unit has to be in supply as well in a home country, so this is not necessary.]

The last two attacks by AGS are at least 10 to 1 blitz and produce automatic breakthroughs.

The first attack by Army Group North is against the 2-1 garrison corps and is an automatic breakthrough (to Vilna).  The USSR loss goes to the cadre pool.  The next attack is automatic assault on Kaunas.  Then there is the 8 to 1 blitz which has a plus 4 and is therefore automatic.  As Kaunas has fallen, the USSR loss does not create at cadre (was in supply, but not home country).  The breakthrough puts the Soviet garrison on the cost out of supply and produces an automatic 10 to 1 assault.

This just leaves the attack against the Soviet 5th Army.  29 to 5 (the railway gun is not being used).  That is 5 to 1 with an 80% chance of being 6:1 (it was not to be - roll of 9). 2D10 roll was a 7 and a 10.  Smashing victory.

There are no aircraft rebases as the number of air missions has already been used up by the four ground strikes.

The situation at the end of the first Axis impulse.

First thing the Russians do is call out the militia.  They arrived in named cities and are flipped. The Reserves are called out selectively with just one going to going to Minsk (roadblock) at this stage.  A Land Move is taken using one oil.  The Kiev factory is railed to safety.

 The situation at the end of the Soviet impulse.

No attacks, but a line of sorts.