Serbia shall live! Serbia '14 4th Invasion AAR - Central Powers conceded turn 150

[ComradeP]

Day 19. 18:00 October 25th. Soft conditions. Turn 150.

Start of my turn.



Disaster for the Bulgarians as the Balkanska Division is encircled and the only rescue force available is the mostly E quality Makedonska Division that's currently on the road near the map marker for the Kriva Reka river west of Cifte Han in the screenshot.

As my opponent felt the strategic situation was becoming more unfavourable, with narrowly missing out on capturing a number of objectives on time and that although the loss of the 3rd Balkanska Division would be compensated for by the arrival of the 5th Dunavska Division in the next few days, the Bulgarian 2nd Army offensive could not be resumed due to the initiative being with the Serbian/Entente forces, he conceded.

Closing comments:

Overall, I'm happy with the result and with how my defensive strategy worked until this point. I would've liked to move the Branicevo detachment to safety using a less complicated route, but in the end they reached safety before the Germans could cut them off. Most objectives in the north were held until they expired. From this point on, the turns of expiry would be more ambitious to meet and there's no way I could've held Kragujevac until turn 206 with the available forces without risking the committed units being decimated by the Germans. Considering that fewer divisions were used in the north than was historically the case, I'm surprised it was possible to hold most objectives. It was unexpected, but my delaying tactics worked.

I'm not sure how the fortresses facing the Bulgarians can be held without risking the troops protecting them suffering serious losses. Combat is very lethal in PzC/FWWC and battalions can lose more than 100 men per turn regularly. You'll be bled white on a scale that historically wasn't possible. Without having read historical accounts, it's difficult to figure out why the Bulgarian advance was slow in this area. There are some mountains but the terrain is otherwise not particularly difficult compared to the northern front. Serbian forces are outnumbered at least 2:1 everywhere. It's not densely wooded ánd rugged like the area the area around Valjevo.

According to one account, Serbian commanders were worried when they were losing 100 men per day, per a division during the trench war period between the 2nd and 3rd Invasions in 1914. They would turn mad with despair when they would lose 100 men per battalion, every 2 hours.

The Macedonian front features lengthy stretches of empty space and a limited amount of difficult terrain. That makes using Chetnik forces there less ideal for my defensive strategy, as the goal is to stop and not merely delay the (initial wave of) Bulgarian divisions. You need regular units to stop the attacker.

Chetniks work best when A) There's a lot of difficult terrain and the attacker has to use roads/trails to move more than 1 hex each turn and B) A big part of the firepower of the attacking forces comes from field guns/MG's/artillery. Neither situation applies in most of Macedonia east of Skoplje.

Bulgarian field gun units are numerous, but they will be Low Ammo for most of the game due to the low value Bulgarian supply sources resulting in <20 local supply in most areas. Due to the recent changes, local supply values below 20 result in field gun units not being able to recover from Low Ammo status. Bulgarian MG units, like their Serbian counterparts, have only 60 Men per infantry regiment. Considering that Bulgarian infantry regiments are full strength at 4 battalions, that means relatively speaking the infantry battalions themselves will have to inflict most of the damage.

You cán use Chetniks with good effect against the Bulgarians near the fortresses, but I prefer to use them mostly against the Austro-Hungarians and Germans. The Timok and Juzna Morava river will slow the Bulgarians down more than any Chetniks used in the area. A forward defense at the fortresses also has the built-in risk of being outflanked by the Germans from the north or the Bulgarian 2nd Army coming in from the south.

My strategy focused on creating a situation where I could parry blows with available forces, and had enough units in every sector to prevent a breakthrough. It's a fine balancing act, but it worked. In Macedonia, my Entente reinforcements trickled in at about the same rate as Bulgarian reinforcements, which combined with moving two divisions in from the central and northern sectors created favourable conditions for limited counterattacks.

The overall goal was to preserve the integrity of the Serbian Army at all costs. That worked well. No formations were ever close to becoming ineffective for combat purposes. The short days really help in that regard: 6 turns of action and 2 night turns of rest make it easy to keep Fatigue in green numbers (below 100).

I don't think my opponent made any serious strategic errors. Stacking multiple battalions in a hex is usually a bad idea in FWWC due to the unit density casualty multiplier, but in this case I don't think his losses were much higher than they would've been if he had moved units as single battalions. Aside from a few situations where I could hit stacks hard with fire from field guns and MG's or massed rifle fire, the terrain and weather conditions prevented me from moving units around to attack larger stacks during my part of the turn.

Moving units as stacks also significantly reduces opportunity fire, another reason why I think moving units as 2 battalion stacks as the Central Powers can work well here in non-clear terrain.

It does limit the frontage a unit holds, which eventually led to a situation where the 3rd Balkanska Division could be encircled. My opponent wasn't aware that the French units encircling him were not a small force but the best French division present in the scenario, which led to him only pulling back his left wing a bit instead of pulling back the divisions.

I've reported the result as a minor victory as a major victory would either require the destruction of a very large number of Central Powers forces to compensate for objective point losses, which is unlikely, or exiting a large number of units, and I didn't intend to do so.

It's a quick to play and very enjoyable campaign scenario, a good effort by Volcano Man and the team.