Tichonovka problem?

[coach3play4]

In the full game, as the German player, I noticed that the town of Tichonovka starts in Russian hands, defended by 4 units (136 division and other) surrounded by my territory. I assume this is correct historically - how did it occur?
But I find it impossible to mount a successful attack on the town, and units. In spite of repeated step attack rol sucess, the russian units never lshow a loss of steps. Also, there should be no supply for the units, but they seem to remain in supply.
Anyone else see this - am i missing something?

[Rob Gjessing]

I dont know how Tichonovka happened historically - maybe someone else with some military history knowledge can help you out there..

But I can tell you that Tichonovka is a supplied source for the Russians. In the scenario editor it is listed under Supply Sources as number 28 Forlorn Hope Looks like it is active for 6 turns from turn 4? And will be destroyed when the Germans capture it.

In terms of assaulting these guys... well its quite hard.. you will get them eventually, but from my experiance they are no walk over and there is going to be pressure on you to decide how many units you want to commit to the attacks rather then throwing into the western front.

The other thing that makes it hard is .. look at some of those strongpoints, I think they are several steps and autorepair.. and remember any attack against a hex that contains units and strongpoints will also be against the strongpoints first. So no damage is going to be inflicted on any units until all strongpoints in that hex have been destroyed. Hard to do when they have autorepair..

So you probably want to get into a position where you can launch several attacks against them in the one turn to knock them out. Once you start punching holes in the strongpoint defense and surround the trapped units you should start seeing some results..

Comments...?

[Nickel]

I take the southern strongpoint w/ overrun attack. There just happens to be enough German horsepower in the neighborhood to take the lone 2 step unit in the woods to the SE by overrun. You acn get 5-1 which will give no retreat and allow a second overrun to finish him off. I leave 2-3 units surrounding and head to the west front with the rest. Wait till the ARM comes later and use them to eat the Russians and capture the town.

[Nickel]

BTW watch your Victory Points in this scenario. Germans don't really need to kill anything or take ground to win. They just need to hold w/out getting wiped out till the cavalry comes! :rolleyes:

[Nickel]

OOPS, sorry punched up the wrong Smilie. Didn't mean this to be sarcastic.

[Nickel]

I need to read these posts closer, I was thinking this was about 1UK, although if you rustle up the right combo of units early on, the attack I described still works the same I think.

[Gregor_SSG]

Originally posted by oleary111
In the full game, as the German player, I noticed that the town of Tichonovka starts in Russian hands, defended by 4 units (136 division and other) surrounded by my territory. I assume this is correct historically - how did it occur?
But I find it impossible to mount a successful attack on the town, and units. In spite of repeated step attack rol sucess, the russian units never lshow a loss of steps. Also, there should be no supply for the units, but they seem to remain in supply.
Anyone else see this - am i missing something?

Here is a plan for Tichonovka, though undoubtedly there are others. This one has been used against me by Ian Trout though, so I know it works.

The battle resolves into two parts. Killing the Strongpoint (hard) and killing the men once you've killed the sStrongpoint (easy).

To kill the Strongpoint, you need the two guaranteed Russian Front killers, armour and artillery. For armour, I suggest you move the 5th SS Panzer (Viking) from the eastern front to Tichonovka.

For artillery, you need the I/III Pz Arko unit that arrives on Turn 7. It's the halftrack with the Nebelwerfers mounted on it, and it gives you a blessed +3 shifts in attack.

You should also adjust the positions of any German artillery with +2 shifts so they can cover the battle (they often have a range of 10 hexes, so it's not too hard).

Other mobile artillery, like the ordinary +1 shift Nebelwerfers will also come in handy.

With good weather, you can have the I/III artillery in range by Turn 9, so you don't need Viking there till then either.

In the meantime, your local forces should have cleaned out the lesser forces and pickets around Tichanovka itself.

Now its time for Tichanovka itself, so lets look at the battlefield. It's defended by a Light Fort with two steps which auto repair in one turn and the hex is a supply source, so it's tough to take. The quick auto repair means that you need to kill the fort (2 steps remember) in one turn, or it will just fix itself.

Looking at the Light Fort CRT, we see that there's a nasty risk of failure all the way up to 9:1, but that at 10:1 there's a 5/6 chance of killing both steps with one attack.

Looking at the terrain, we see a minor river on the western hexsides, so don't put your best attacking units there.

So with Viking, some +3, and +2 artillery shifts, plus the local forces and maybe a General and Air Support, you should be able to get 10:1 for one attack - surely after all this planning you won't roll a 1 will you? I've never tried for two 9:1 attacks - it may be possible also.

Anyway, lets assume that you've killed the Light Fort. Now, you have to get rid of the men, who are still entrenched and in supply on a Village hex, which uses the Woods CRT. Not nice.

What you do is launch a massive attack next turn at 10:1, making sure that you leave the Clear terrain hex due South of Tichanovka vacant. You are hoping for an R result. If gained, the defenders will retreat out of their Village hex, into a clear hex. You occupy the village, and destroy the supply point (make sure there's a unit which can do this!).

Next turn, the gallant defenders are surrounded on the Clear CRT, and wiped out to man, using consecutive attacks at moderate odds if necessary.

Two things to note.

You can use this 'directed retreat' tactic in lots of places, not just Tichanovka.

Once the Viking and all that artillery are on the Western front, the Russian player should be nervous. Forces there are finely balanced, and one extra Panzer division makes a big difference. Two or more mean a real headache for the Russian player.

[BrubakerII]

Good tips.

There is another point to remember here. Matthew Urch taught me this one in one of many pastings he gave me

A unit of the 20th Guards Corps remains trapped in this pocket. Whilst it does so, it remains more than 5 hexes away from its peer armour units to the east and therefore none of them can achieve their divisional integrity. This means that the 3 armour units that begin the game with 1 step each, even if rebuilt, can never properly get to a fullt destructive level. A good reason perhaps to not destroy the small pocket...?

Brubaker

[Nickel]

Excellent point. The attack I play tested was on turns 3-4 (1-2 in 1uk). The ARM brothers of that trapped unit tend to fight towards it from what I have seen, in fact they a sitting in a stack all alone just above the bend in the river to the south of the main German line in the west and still at only 1 step each-Hmmm!

[julianbarker]

Re the reason thoise units were there - Page 38 of the manual explains that the Germans launched a counter offensive in mid January and dove back the 5GTC and surrounded the unts shown in the game.