Army Group South Mission

[carrotboy]

Did anyone else feel like the first mission in Barbarossa: Army Group South, feel ridiculously luck based. North and Center felt very precise and the actions required made sense, but the terrible placement of mobile formations just makes this mission feel like I am responding to an offensive rather than the planned invasion it is supposed to be.

[TheLastSterling]

Tbh the 'Stalin' defensive line post Poland was move forward closer to the border leading to manpower up front but lacking depth of the line collapsed. The bulk of Soviet troops were in Ukraine as it was the bread basket of the SU.

Irl the Germans also hit the brick wall down south.

[Soullessweare]

I have found it takes a quick determined drive on Lvov to succeed. Conquer it way sooner than the objective suggests or you will not have a rail connection to supply your troops beyond Dubno and Rovno. This might cost you an engineer, but taking Przmesyl on time grants you one too. Giving that to an elite mountain unit coming in from the northwest might be needed. An oversupplied mobile unit is often able to drive way beyond Tarnopol, conquering those bridges at Vinitsa.

[carrotboy]

Originally posted by Soullessweare:

I have found it takes a quick determined drive on Lvov to succeed. Conquer it way sooner than the objective suggests or you will not have a rail connection to supply your troops beyond Dubno and Rovno. This might cost you an engineer, but taking Przmesyl on time grants you one too. Giving that to an elite mountain unit coming in from the northwest might be needed. An oversupplied mobile unit is often able to drive way beyond Tarnopol, conquering those bridges at Vinitsa.

I don't have any problems with the bridges, I get Lvov early but clearing out those troops on the rail takes some time.

[Soullessweare]

So is it the time it takes to clear out that rail line that makes you say it's luck based? Because the rest of the objectives are easy. Proskurow is easily cut off and Zhitomir falls to a SS mobile unit with a Stug3B every time. For me the luck is mostly in taking Przemsyl on time. The initial river crossing in the north is solved by moving your PzG HQ closer in the preparation phase so you can buy a Morser and engineer for the infantry unit attacking across the bridge.

[Kiwirob]

I haven’t tried the engineer and morser combo for the bridge nor putting the Stug with SS, both of which sound like good ideas, but my take on the scenario is that it can be done with precise moves. I did this scenario a few times on my second playthrough of Barbarossa as I had an OCD need to get all objectives on time in the opening scenarios in one playthrough.
Prep phase
Move AG Sud’s engineer and both artillery to Premzyl.
Beef up the southeastern tanks that are closest to the bridge, and give artillery at least to the adjacent infantry.
Move the supply dump one hex east, and make it a five dump.
Turn 1
Move the security unit across the river at Premzyl so any retreat will go past the victory hex.
Use the engineer to set piece attack the infantry at Premzyl, then regular attacks from the other adjacent hex until it retreats.
Stuka the NKVD enhanced bridge defender, then attack with the three nearest infantry. Ideally you would only need two of them, since the last then has a chance to march all the way to Rovno for turn three. Your lead tank should cut the road five hexes from Rovno.
All your mobile units then move in the direction of Dubno/Rovno.
Don’t destroy the rail bridge west of Rovno, since if you leave the bridge then Soviet units will move across it, away from Rovno.
Turn 2
Try to clear all the units in front of Rovno without using your lead tank, which if you can do will allow your lead tank to move adjacent to Rovno. Try to shield your infantry with mobile units, as otherwise the Soviets will chew them up.
Destroy the bridge east of Rovno, cutting supply to the Soviet northwest.
Move the PG HQ as far as it can towards Rovno while remaining in supply.
Turn 3
Feint the Rovno defender with tanks once or twice so that when you do attack it isn’t so painful. Attack with motorised. Leave a retreat route so the defender isn’t cornered since destroying it will likely be impossible.
As soon as you capture Rovno, every mobile unit should go straight south, cutting the road at Tarnopol and placing Lwow’s defenders out of supply once you cut the second supply road that runs south from Lwow towards the border, which you can do with light infantry from the west or by destroying the bridge.
Turn 4
Move your mobile units towards the plains north and south of Proskurow and have your infantry surround Lwow. Feinting Proskurow (probably next turn) will mean that the defender doesn’t exert a ZoC.
If you can, destroy one of the bridges to Shepetovka. If you can’t, do this on turn 5.
Turn 5
Take Lwow and clear the road ro Proskurow. Every hex of the road that a Soviet unit can reach should be occupied by an Axis unit. The Soviets should be unable to attack due to lack of supply.
One or two motorised units should open the rail line through Vinnitsa, while the bulk including your tanks are moving across the plain towards Bardichev.
Turns 6 to 9 are a case of clearing out the weak defender at Zhithomir and the armour on the Road to Kiev.
I would say that following this approach you can get the objectives on time more than half the time on Hard. Bad RNG is always going to hurt, but mostly the scenario is doable.

[carrotboy]

Originally posted by Soullessweare:

So is it the time it takes to clear out that rail line that makes you say it's luck based? Because the rest of the objectives are easy. Proskurow is easily cut off and Zhitomir falls to a SS mobile unit with a Stug3B every time. For me the luck is mostly in taking Przemsyl on time. The initial river crossing in the north is solved by moving your PzG HQ closer in the preparation phase so you can buy a Morser and engineer for the infantry unit attacking across the bridge.

I can actually get all the objectives, it's mostly the amount of casualties I'm taking that are just unsustainable on the armor side of things, and less so on the infantry. I understand casualties are war and I can eat some. But I lose 2 divisions worth spread across various units yet I see other people can accomplish the same thing with significantly less and faster and I just don't understand

[Soullessweare]

Ok I see. I've had that happen once or twice around Dubno. You should try to park your mobile infantry units in defendable hexes, likes cities or forests, where the enemy doesn't get any armor shift. If you've pushed an armored division too much (with 3 or 4 suppressed steps) the enemy will pound on them. Best defense against this is Rearguard. You can even do this on purpose so the enemy might waste its most powerful attack (some full strength armored division with tank specialist).

Also, make sure to lure enemy armored divisions west, to Luck. I always build a pontoon bridge at the northernmost bridge during the preparation phase. Your armored division with recon specialist can then take the Kowel supply dump on turn one, luring some enemy armored divisions in that direction. If you destroy the bridge behind them on turn two they can't return east to help around Rovno.