Stock FitE Karri vs Larry

[Karri]

Here you can see some of the forces that took part in the Smolensk offensive. Some have already been railed elsewhere though, and most of the infantry is securing the left flank. Also 9 railroad artillery units moved elsewhere...






And here's some losses as of turn 31:

[larryfulkerson]

The Soviets are scrambling to build a line to the Southwest of Moscow and the Axis units are advancing northward just before the mud season. The situation is very confused right now.

[SMK-at-work]

The Soviets get a small window of opportunity from the mud, in that they get the last chance to try to isolate German units which can then be stuck out-of-supply.  such isolated units will lose a great deal of effectiveness over the 4 turns, although they probably won't disintigrate 'cos 4 turns isn't long enough.

[Zort]

Well the minimum that mud can be by looking at the events is 6 or 7 turns. Chance of it happening on 32 (possible delay of 3 turns) and ending on turn 40 (possible ending on turn 42(3?)). So far in all my games that got that for I have seen seven turns of mud.
Also Larry has to make sure that the units have a zone of control around them or they will get supply and I think replacements. This was talked about before and saw this happen in one game, my recon unit was 100% total when the mud ended and the sovs evaporated since I surrounded the area they were in.

[SMK-at-work]

Yes the supply rules work as normal - ie they an be traced through hexes that are enemy owned but not occupied or ZOC-ed, but once a unit is isolated it should be fairly easy to arrange that.
 
I had thought hte mud moves weer only 4 trns - one lives and learns!

[larryfulkerson]

The Soviet dude, Me, is running outta Rifle Squads.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Soviet view of the minimap moves movie from turns 28 thru 32:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Soviet view of the minimap moves movie from turns 32 thru 36. This is the mud season and not much is happening ( moves / attacks / etc. ).

[larryfulkerson]

Here's some of the Soviet losses so far:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the front lines look like in turn 38:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Soviet perspective of the minimap moves movie from turns 35 thru 39

[larryfulkerson]

Here's some of the Soviet losses so far:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Soviet view of the minimap moves movie from turns 38 thru 42:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's some Soviet losses so far:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Soviet minimap moves movie from turns 39 thru 43:

[Karri]

That's turns 32-45.

Some notes:
As you can notice the area I conquered near Moscow was abandoned. I thought about this for some time. Had I stayed there it would have given me good offensive possibilities(towards Leningrad, towards Moscow, encircling Bryansk defenders). On the minus side, Larry has a LOT of forces there. Also encirclements suck up a lot of forces. Shortening the line gave me enough forces to organise a decent defence from Leningrad to Stalingrad. What really made my mind was the fact that South of Stalingrad...there are almost no enemy troops... I can advance freely there. Well almost, since I still lack forces there(damn railtransport allows 1 pzd per turn).

Now, I told I was going to take Orel, Bryansk, Voronezsh and Rostov before winter offensive. Well, I have tried...Voronezsh fell, but Bryask and Orel have like 20 division in the nearby hexes and it's taking ages to wear them down. I will continue the attrition battle there however. Rostov, well encircled and clearly doomed. One that I did not anticipate to capture was Sevastopol, I am now 1 hex from the city. That's a nice 10% reduction.

And who knows what can still be gained in the South...Krasnodar(5%) seems close. Stalingrad is a possibility...as is Maykop(-5/+5 supply).


Larry's having fun with the finns though...they are being mauled to pieces. Certainly something to fix(in all my games, they can't stand a chance one Soviets start beating them.) in future versions of FitE.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Soviet view of the minimap moves movie from turns 41 thru 45: It looks like Karri is going to cross the River to the east of Stalingrad and attack from the east and thus take Stalingrad with minimum losses. Not much I can do to stop him either.

[SMK-at-work]

The Finns essentially nothing from the end of 1941 until the armistice in 1944, and it is pretty much up to the Soviet to decide what their fate will be - ie it's up to the Soviets to put a lot of forces agains them and crush them, or make use of those forces elsewhere.  For the Axis they are doign well if they are tying up a reasonable number of Soviet formations.
 
another thing they should do is keep out of range of the Baltic fleet and Leningrad's fixed defences!!

[Karri]

The thing is the Soviet's don't need to place 'lots of' forces there. Just enough to keep pushing, certainly minimal compared to what they have to place against any German offensive. The problem with this is that the area in truth could not support such amounts of troops we see in FitE games. There should be some ways to limit Soviet forces there...

[larryfulkerson]

While you guys are debating the north of Leningrad area I'd just like to point out that the Axis forces are attacking Stalingrad from the EAST. It's almost all over for the Soviets.