FITE Chambers vs Fulkerson

[larryfulkerson]

And the next sector to the south:

[larryfulkerson]

And near Moscow:

[larryfulkerson]

And near Bryansk:

[larryfulkerson]

And near Kharkov:

[larryfulkerson]

And north of Sevastapol:

[larryfulkerson]

And near Rostov:

[larryfulkerson]

I finally mopped-up Odessa:

[larryfulkerson]

I believe I destroyed 36 Soviet units in turn 29: 25 infantry types, 4 armoured divisions, and 7 guns types. Here's the Axis losses so far:

[Zorchi]

Hello larry.

If you had to, how would you describe your current situation as a whole? Do you think you have enough drive for Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad or will you prioritize strategic targets, and if, which? (Or is that a secret?)

I would really like to hear from Curt his own loses and situation. Is he managing his own AAR somewhere?

P.s.
Nice job with these Fite AARs.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Zorchi
If you had to, how would you describe your current situation as a whole?

Um......I've never gone this far into Russia when playing a human opponent so for me it's exhillarating and exciting and a little unsettling since I'm not sure what to do now. I was using the strategy of a "wide front" so as to force him to defend "everywhere" since I have more units than he does at this point and I think maybe it's working since the shortage of units has forced Curt to try to make defensive lines that have holes or weak spots in them that I can use to force my way though. I have noticed a decided lack of arty for the Axis and that has delayed my advance somewhat since I don't relish attacking with infantry into the face of that famous Soviet arty ( he has more guns and bigger guns than the Axis has and they are good, real good ) so I've had to try to force a hole in a weak spot and sneak up on the stronger Soviet points from the east if possible. Odessa was a thorn in my paw because there was no really good place to force a hole without getting a huge loss of good infantry. The game has progressed so the point where his production of aircraft has surpassed those I have fielded and he has parity now in fighters and an overabundance of strategic bombers ( of which the Axis has none ) and I expect the air war to be lost soon, maybe just after the mud season. Then I will be fighting into the face of Soviet Combat Support AND Soviet arty and the gains will be correspondingly less. I may have made all the substantial gains of real estate that I'm likely to make. Maybe. Also, I've been losing more Heavy Rifle Squads ( HRS's ) than I've been producing so the Axis army as a whole is getting slowly weaker. You can see that in the numbers of HRS's assigned on the losses report panel. I expect the whole game to change in personality just after the mud season since he will have about 9 turns to move units around and beef up his lines etc. and I can't stop it due to the mud season. If he ever develops enough units to make his lines 2 units thick I suspect I won't be able to surround and destroy his front line units anymore and the advance will grind to a halt. His advances will start to increase and then I'll be on the defense from then on. So around turn 40 or so this game will start to show Soviet gains I suspect. Curt probably thinks it's overdue.

ORIGINAL: Zorchi
Do you think you have enough drive for Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad or will you prioritize strategic targets, and if so, which? (Or is that a secret?)

Um.....I'm thinking that Leningrad is a possibility and Moscow is a far in the future goal to be driven for but I'm thinking I don't have enough troops to go all the way to Stalingrad. But I haven't studied the map in depth yet and if I can possibly destroy enough Soviet units to make Stalingrad possible I'm going to try for it of course. Priority-wise I think Leningrad first, Moscow second, and then Stalingrad as a distant third may be the ticket.

ORIGINAL: Zorchi
I would really like to hear from Curt his own loses and situation. Is he managing his own AAR somewhere?

I don't think Curt has another AAR he's keeping about this game. He does make entries here from time to time though. I'd like to hear from Curt too. About his assessment of his situtation and losses and his short term goals if he feels like revealing them. I've played the Soviet side of this scenario before and I noticed that I did a lot of reacting to the Axis instead of planning to do something important and shipping troops there to do it. I have never had the luxury of being able to run a Soviet offensive drive in the games of FITE that I've played with people. Last time I played FITE it was with Karri E. from Finland and he mopped the floor with me. It was a complete rout as far as my playing the Soviet side. I lost without ever making a successful counterattack or anything approaching it. I think Curt has the chance to make some good things happen soon after the mud season because he'll be in a much better position resource-wise than he is now. He can beef up his front lines or even build new ones in the places that need them and the Axis will have to go through supply shortages in the winter that will help the Soviet side considerably. So far all the places where the Axis has met the Soviet player has seen the Axis side at least hold it's own but after the mud season I think Curt has figured out that even attrition can win the game for him. He's producing more of everything than the Axis is and even though attrition isn't pretty it will win in the long run. And there's some 370+ turns to do yet, so he has time to employ attrition if need be. As I look at the end of turn 29 map I notice that there's a place or two where the Soviet player could do some damage to the Axis advance if only he had the units to employ. After the mud season he probably will have those units and Curt is smart enough and brave enough to do it and the Axis is in for a rough ride I'm thinking.

EDIT: I've put together a picture of the entire front lines but it's about 2.2M bytes big....to big to post here so I've loaded it on mediafire hosting and you will probably have to download it to see any detail ( using MSPaint ) and you can find the file "entire front lines end turn 29.gif" here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=d47f ... b9a8902bda

[Zorchi]

Thanks for that nice situation assesment and frontline screenshot.

I notice that there is no tangible soviet line from the bulge south of Leningrad to Kaluga south from Moscow. Then there is the Soviet bulged line of one unit depth or so it seems, that is already breached at Kaluga, south of Rylsk with the help of paratroopers(nice one here, i reckon u destroyed a few armoured divisons here with that manouvre, judging from previous image), will be breacheed near Navlya, west and south of Belgorod. Then there seems to be the lonely line of infantry units that are really no threat but more of a niffy target. And from then on soviet line seems to be nonexistent. Even if he is trying to build one, he is overstrung because of the lenght of the front from Leningrad to Donetz river and Azow sea. If you could take Caucasus and oil from soviets that would be sweet. I really think you should concentrate more on south than north. Your plan should be more Stalingrad(and Caucasus with oil), Moscow and Leningrad last, but i suppose you should have made that decision some 10 turns back. Theres really nothing important in the north, but south is full of important cities, that when taken make big impact on Soviets.

As Fungwu (Axis) vs Karri (Soviet) Fite AAR shows, the south is more important than the north. There Fungwu concentrated on taking Moscow and Leningrad but ultimately lost because he didnt take the south, which meant more reinforcements to Soviets. I suspect the next Fite Fungwu will play as axis will consist of the same strategy of one owerwhelming push, but this time in the south, where he will strive to take all south industrial cities along with oil(Caucasus) first and then thrust north on overstrung russian lines. And afcourse mechanised and armoured units fare better in southern planes than they do in northern forsets... and can cover more ground.

So the situation is not that bleak and is quite good, if u can exploit as much as possibly can before the muds. And even after that its not guaranteed that the Soviets will have the initiative.(But i can only speculate on that as Curt has given us no info on his status, maybe its that BAD [8D] ) But yes i did noticed the falling levels of rifle squads that have sunk below 30 000. That now is something to be concerned about, but not just yet.

[larryfulkerson]

I just got through reading your assessment of the strategic situation and I quite agree so this picture of my strategic goals needs to be updated somewhat but maybe it'll mislead Curt:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Axis air briefing before and after the turn. The Soviet losses are higher than the Axis losses but then again, he's producing more planes than the Axis. And the Axis losses are much higher than production....that's why I think in the long run the Soviets are going to gain air supremacy. Probably not too long in the future. And when that happens the war will slowly turn nasty for the Axis.



EDIT: my air superiority is less in the "before" panel than the "after" panel probably because I had a plane or two on "rest" status. And the Soviet air superiority is less in the "after" panel probably because a significant portion of his aircraft are now in "rest" status.

I like to include at least one light bomber combat support mission on every combat if possible because it causes the Soviet fighters to contest the combat which allows my fighters to intercept them and I can shoot down some more Soviet fighters in the resulting furball.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a listing of the aircraft squadrons and their status at the end of turn 29:

[larryfulkerson]

One good thing that happened in turn 30 (just before the mud season) is that I captured Voroshilgrad ( or however you spell it ).

[larryfulkerson]

This picture shows my capture of Bryansk:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the moves minimovie from turns 26 throu 30:

[larryfulkerson]

And now some close-ups starting in the north:

[larryfulkerson]

And the next sector to the south:

[larryfulkerson]

And the next sector to the south: