Axis: Flavio Carrillo
Soviets: Jason Long, Joe Hayes

Introduction

In our first playing of the Operation Groza scenario (TEM # 23), Jason Long and I explored only one possible Soviet strategy, that of the limited thrust into Romania accompanied by an active defense in Poland. As the Soviet player in that game, I chose this conservative strategy because I simply shied away from any of the more radical possibilities, especially since I believed them to be crapshoots, whereas the "small" solution I chose presented a more controllable, if less glorious approach to a Soviet 1941 offensive.

However, after playing Groza once, Jason and I wanted more. Jason in particular argued quite eloquently in favor of the advantages of what we call the "Grand Slam": a Soviet assault into both Hungary and Romania. Jason was even willing to put his money where his mouth was by switching sides and playing the Soviets. Our good friend Joe Hayes became interested in this endeavor as well, and you can never have too many players (particularly one of Joe's caliber) in this beast known as FitE/SE. Having thus set the scene, we threw ourselves into one of the strangest Europa games I have ever played.

Axis Set Up

My initial deployment is, shall we say, highly influenced by a vital piece of intelligence: the knowledge of a Soviet all- out Balkan assault. With this in mind, I've placed my forces in Poland in such a way that I can redeploy troops southward by operational and strategic rail. This of course requires a certain thinning of the front line, but then again, I don't expect the Soviets to be able to take advantage of this, since their monster tank units will be in the south.

My Hungarian deployment is a quixotic attempt to defend the indefensible. The Hungarian neutrality watch cannot adequately man the frontiers, given its small size. Additionally, we have decided to play with the latest maps, including map 37 from First to Fight, which changes the Soviet border with Hungary in a most unfavorable fashion by extending it one hex westwards. This hex juts into the Romano-Hungarian border like a dagger into the jugular vein, the vein here being the rail line running through Hungarian Transylvania into the Romanian 3rd Army sector. I cover both the transportation lines and this one offending hex to the best of my ability given the scarcity of forces.

Circumstances in Romania will differ substantially in this playtest not only because of the changed Soviet strategy, but because we've decided to play with the Balkan Front rule regarding low capacity rail lines. Thus, the Soviets need not worry overmuch about the rail line running through Iasi and the llth Army region since the road through Galati now functions as a low-capacity rail line capable of supplying a Soviet thrust into Bucuresti/Ploesti.

In our first playtest, I ran into trouble because it took me three turns to clear 11th army from the Iasi line; here all Jason and Joe need do is to blast through Galati and the Romanian 4th army, a much simpler objective. I deploy my forces in depth throughout the front, with 6+ point front hexes and 4 point or greater back-up hexes to prevent overruns.

Soviet Set Up and July I Turn

Flavio made one major error in that he didn't realize that Axis ZOCs don't extend across the frontier until their own turn (Jul II). Thus we were able to park a number of light tank and motorized cadres adjacent to the border, and this will allow us to overrun 4-point stacks during our exploitation phase. This is conveniently the size of most of the Romanian back line in the south.

Barring anything really strange, we should be able to get motorized units adjacent to both Ploesti and Bucuresti which will interfere with his ability to rail things there. He also neglected to ZOC the land approaches of Constanta which will probably allow our amphibious landing to take the port, since our cavalry divisions can now provide most of the necessary combat power.

His deployment of 11th Army and the Romanian 3rd Army is quite well done with a major defense in depth along the whole front that is going to be quite timeconsuming to destroy. The mistake he made in this sector is that the 2 cavalry divisions placed adjacent to the Hungarian border are more vulnerable than he thinks.

Capture of that hex will allow mountain cavalry units advancing after combat to overrun the airfield and cut the supply line for both Armies. We will make our paradrops on the airfield to practically guarantee that he will be out of supply, even if we can't kill the two cavalry divisions. His defending fighters will probably be able to return one brigade or two, but our strong fighter escort should make that problematic.

Amusingly enough there aren't any other airfields within range so after we capture the base, the Axis fighters will run out of fuel and crash--a slimy way to kill three Luftwaffe fighters, but effective.

Hungary is troublesome if we get enough DRs, but judicious positioning of cavalry and armor in the mountains will allow us to overrun many Hungarians before they can mobilize. We'll just have to force ourselves to sacrifice some motorcycle regiments to overrun the most distant mobilization centers. Sigh.

The Lwow area is fortified by a double fort line as we are very concerned about holding the salient. As I remember from our last game that should turn that front into a grind, which sounds very nice from my new perspective. A 6-point rear line should keep any successes on his counterattacks down to a dull roar, unless he forms the 60-point panzer corps, which I doubt.

Most everything north of the Pripet is merely covered by a 6-point double line with the exception of Brest-Litovsk which is heavily defended so that we're not levered out of the Pripet. Frankly, our attitude is that he can have Riga if we can have either Ploesti or Bucuresti. Hopefully, that is what will happen, as Flavio stares out over the a-ash in front of him in the Baltic and Western MDs.

Things went reasonably well except that our mountain cavalry was stalled in the mountains with a AS which means that Flavio will reopen the damn rail line and our paras will die a miserable death, especially since only one para wasn't disrupted. As Flavio says, deservedly so. Enough airplanes were committed in Romania so that we didn't have any untoward surprises and managed to exploit two motorized divisions next to Bucuresti and Ploesti. They'll die next turn, but c'est la guerre.

Constanta fell to the troops of the valiant Worker's and Peasant's Red Army with the support of the Red Navy. That damn AS was really key and prevented us from doing a real Cossack dance all over the 11th Army.

Total Losses July I
Hungary: 50 (9 c/m)
Romania: 82
Italy: 17
Germany: 44 (3 c/m), 3 air
Soviet: 46

Groza II: The Great Eastern Grand Slam A Europa Series Replay

Introduction, Set Up and July I Turn
July II Turn
August I Turn
August II Turn
September I Turn
September II Turn
German and Soviet Commentary