tyronec (Axis) vs Pandaemonium. Pandaemonium welcome

[tyronec]

Turn 8 after my recon and rail conversion.

AGN. Leningrad appears to have been abandoned so no assault. I expect the garrison has been evacuated as much as possible across Lake Lagoda and it looks like the rest have gone to Estonia to cause as much nuisance as they can. More serious a unit or two was hiding in the swamps north of Pskov and have come out and cut the railway - a silly error by me to let this happen.

AGC. We have 4 units in the pocket and another 7 partially surrounded. He has cut off on Pz division from fuel but I have all of PG2 and PG3 with moderate movement and one corps from PG4 with HQBuildup. This is a critical turn to pocket some units and push forwards. Initial inspection suggests I might be able to create a pocket just this side of Rzhev, using the river to reduce his counterattack. Further south around Vyazma will try and push forwards as far as possible. Will aim to keep one good corps back for an HQBuildup. His air force has pulled well back.

AGS. His lone mountain division in the Carpathians has finally surrendered. On the coast he has cut one Pz Division off from fuel with a couple of kamikaze cavalry divisions. Was half expecting this so the other two are OK as are at 40m from the HQ. I have another Pz corps with HQBuildup three have 130% and one 160%. Don't quite understand this, the three on 130% I had fuelled up to 90% by air last turn and thought they would be more full now - the HQ is only 110 miles from the railhead, can anyone enlighten me on how this works ?
He has also emerged from the Crimea, could probably trap something if I diverted a couple of German infantry divisions down there so need to consider that.
The main aim has to be to make some sort of pocket while maintaining the advance along the coast and probably doing an HQBuildup with one corps, but will see what develops. His air force has pulled back.

Air war. He downed 54 planes for 484. Half were shot down in one attack; don't think soviet bombing would do this much damage so am guessing it was in the air during a night attack but that information not available from my side. So rest time for the fighters and my bombers have a free run to support the ground war.

[tyronec]

AGN. 18th Army take Leningrad, releasing the Finns. 16th Army head for Yyshny and support the left wing towards Moscow.

[tyronec]

AGC. I do the infantry attacks first; the first map is after their attacks. I make one mess up, taking 9 attacks to shift one defender - not good. He had a lot of reserve activations and I kept expecting them to run out but they didn't. A lesson for next turn - do overkills for my first few infantry assaults. Am not sure why this experience should help their morale, after all they got hammered 8 times taking heavy losses and then on the 9th they turned and ran. Surely the lesson would be next time you see a guy in a grey uniform just leg it !
Second map - PG3 comes in from the south, making sure the last soviet unit retreats back across the river. PG4 closes the pocket, I think it will be quite hard for Pandaemonium to break it as the river line is protecting the most exposed units, but just in case have sealed of the Western section.
PG2 & 3 push on towards Moscow, 60 miles advance this turn though he may be able to push it back a little. I have one Pz corps on reserve to mess up his counterattacks and another on HQBuildup.




The last map shows my two pockets and the river line in white protecting the panzers. Combat is the first of the 8 failures. Only 70 miles to Moscow !

[tyronec]

AGS. We advance 50 miles and rout a few units with the Romanian air force in support. He is quite strong down here so was not even getting near to making a pocket. HBuildup done for next turn and a few assorted armoured units on reserve. Am not sure if he can mount a counter attack here. The Romanians cross into the Crimea and trap the interloping cavalry, he can cut off my advanced division but they are in a swamp so hopefully too strong to attack.
No admin. No air war.

Thoughts on progress:
Leningrad - job done.
Moscow - am hopeful of taking the capital before the blizzard.
Rostov - am not at all sure about the Southern front and how much he has down there.
Damage to STAVKA - losses have been low this game, have only caused 1.4m losses to date and just 17 destroyed units the last 3 turns. I expect to fall well short of my 4m target and face a strong counter attack in the blizzard, so will look to take as much real estate as possible.

[tyronec]

At this point Pandaemonium decided he did not wish to continue, so game over.

My proposition when I challenged him to a game was that under the present patch the game was weighted towards Axis, even with the '+1'. That the 'Pskov defence' could be broken and Leningrad, Moscow and more taken in '41.

Roll on the next patch !

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: tyronec

Not much happening this turn so will just show the final positions.

Pandaemonium continues to retreat across the front. There are 6 trapped units to mop up.

The air war calms down from both sides and my fighters rest ready to resume the battle next turn.

I would have assumed a "One Hex West of Pskow" defence but this does not look like it?

Yes, that Defence would have been much better But like I said the defence could be broken

My plan was to abandon the North completely and move everything southward. And I mean completely all the way to the No Finish Move Zone. That way all the units from up north go to the defense of Moscow & hold the South in exchange for losing Leningrad. The South would have been interesting since He "has" to clear the ZAP and Dnep cities for his rail to move forward. I wasn't going to give the two cities up and he would have to fight all the units in the south to do so taking up valuable time in the process. In the center around Kharkov he is very weak and he has 3 division I am pretty sure I can surround and force to Surrender on turn 9. Would have been interesting.

But all things considered I it would have been for a very interesting game but I'm too burnt out.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: tyronec

At this point Pandaemonium decided he did not wish to continue, so game over.

My proposition when I challenged him to a game was that under the present patch the game was weighted towards Axis, even with the '+1'. That the 'Pskov defence' could be broken and Leningrad, Moscow and more taken in '41.

Roll on the next patch !

I concur with Tyronec that the current patch is very pro German. The game was more of an experiment for me of taking everything from the North and moving it to Center & South a reverse of what is normally done if you will. But I thank Tyronec for the game and I'm sure we will meet again after a long break for me.

[Dreamslayer]

2 german divisions vs 3+ soviet divisions. 33k + 400art vs 35k + 400art and I see losses 69 - 428. Is this game really about Eastern Front? [:)]

[SparkleyTits]

Well done to both of you

[keitherson]

hey lowsugar, your PM inbox is full so i cannot answer you there and idk your email so this is the only way i could think of to contact you.

[elloboloco]

I found Tyronec to be an excellent "deep thruster" and masterful at timing his headquarter build ups. His use of the Luftwaffe is also strong and innovative. The thing that still bothers me is the ability of the German player to completely isolate the entire Soviet southern front on the first turn. Historically, that did not, and simply could not happen. Still Tyrone, thanks for the nice AAR. I continue to learn from you and others who are willing to post these.