FITE Chambers vs Fulkerson

[Zorchi]

This game got wings again...extremely fascinating evolution of events.
Usually i wake up in the morning, grab newspaper from mailbox, make tea and look at Larrys Fite AAR. Lately i check AAR first and then go about doing other things...hehe.
If I may...Larry i hope u dont mind...i would like to describe things as i see it.

With Leningrad lost Soviets suffered 10% reinforcements penalty. Add to that the huge amounts of units lost(or withdrawn) from that area and the next logical course of action for axis was to pursue the extremely weakened enemy at the northern front.
Larry faced three options:
1. Either move his now free units closer to some other fronts(objectives) and hope that a breakthrough will occur. Three things opposed this. One was that any major movement of forces would not go unaware by Curt, so he would be able to strenghten those fronts as soon as Larry brought his reinforcements in. Second others fronts saw relatively little action so the soviets are rested(here i presume larry concentrated his attacks only in the north) and better fit for fight. Third the farther Larry moved his forces, the greater the expenditure of time and more turns of Case Blau offensive will go to waste by relocating units.
2. Commit his whole northern army in a massive attack on retreating northern soviet forces. Axis units will figh through that Case Blau turns inflicting heavy damage. Soviet forces nearby would be annihilated and the only prospect of a new front is probably near Pestovo-Cherpovets-Vologda. Thats probably optimistic line for the soviets. Probably the front line will be established much lover near Sonkovo-Rybinsk-Danilov with the danger of taking Yaroslavi too. This would meant another 10% of reinforcements penalty for soviets. And afcourse there is also Archangelsk in the far north and its sweet -5 supply penalty for Soviets if taken. The neagtive side here is a bad terrain in the north that just burns through movement points and a bad road situation. What will be the speed of progress towards south is questionable.
3. This is a combination of the two. Move an army or two to Kalinin(this should have been done afcourse a few turns back when Leningrad was about to fall)and attack towards Rybinsk or directly towards Yaroslavi spliting Soviets in two. The rest just attack and annihilate all the units that are caught in between.
Larry is taking the mild 3 step without reinforcing that part of line, trying to push forvard and to disrupt enemy retreat.

Great game again. Looking forward to future moves.

P.S.
The course of events probably prevented Curt from realising his offensives, that I suspected he was prepairing. It will be intereesting to see if he will attack nontheless and thretean Axis on some part of the front or just abandon all plans and moved those units north to establish new fronts. Will he try and make some compromise between the two, establishing new northern fronts while threatening some parts of the southern front forcing Larry to divert his units from north, so slowing his drive to the South.

[larryfulkerson]

The Soviet air superiority is starting to have drastic effects. He's shooting my planes down faster than I can build them.

[larryfulkerson]

In order to make the picture small enough to post here I had to clip off the south end of the front lines....but here they are at the end of turn 100:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a closer-up detail of the north end. Here you can see some of my Panzers in the forest. Panzers in the forest? What was I thinking? I have only a few turns left of my offensive where the shock difference is best and needed to get the most of the punch I had to make a better push and the Panzers have the best punch I have so there they are. I'm going to slowly phase out the tanks in the forest and put them back on the roads when the Case Blau is done and maybe make some better headway.

[larryfulkerson]

I dropped the FJ division behind enemy lines to try to get a semi-permanent break in the Soviet lines. I hope to get some regular ground troops there in time to save their lives.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like near Murmansk now ( turn 102 ):

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like in the area south of Murmansk:

[larryfulkerson]

Most of the changes are occuring in the north half of the front lines so I thought I'd post that too:

[Raindem]

Crisis in the North, Summer 1942 -

Larry's spring offensive has been spectacular.  I congratulate him on a well conceived and executed plan.  Combined with some huge mistakes on my part, it achieved in just a few weeks what should have taken the whole summer.  And once Leningrad fell I thought I could re-establish the line and contain the catastrophe.  But Larry just burst through every front I put up as if it was July 1941 all over again. He also made some good progress northwest of Moscow and even in northern Finland, where I thought my position was fairly secure.  There were a few turns there where I was worried about the entire front falling apart.

But then I noticed something, starting with his breakthrough north of Kalinin.  He would create a breach and surge ahead but he wasn't encircling any troops  (this was a few turns after Leningrad fell).  And at each breakthrough his troops veered more northeast than east. In other words I was worried about him encircling Moscow from the north be he seemed to be pointing in a different direction. There were some breaks in the line where I could have plugged the hole better, but I purposely left some areas weak just to see how far he would venture into the evergreen forests.  Larry's offensive, devastating as it was, was starting to lose focus.  It was at this point that I realized that the Soviet Union will not fall in 1942, that I will be able to hold on to the vital central and southern sectors which still produce enough output to keep me in the game.

So now what?  It is true that I had orginally planned another southern offensive this year.  And I still think the balance of forces favor me there.  But that is not going to happen now, and I'm already starting to slowly disburse the army group that had gathered south of Rostov.  The crisis in the north is not over yet.  Soviet offensive operations for the remainder of the year will most likely be local actions (like reversing the encirclement on his FJ division).  I'll eventually come up with something for the winter offensive but it won't be anywhere near as consequential as the historical Soviet attack. 

Larry's shock bonus is almost over, and I know his troops are tired, but there are still three good months left in the campaign season.  Where will he strike next?

[larryfulkerson]

It looks like I vastly mis-estimated how long it would take Curt to get some troops around my FJ division. All indications point to the notion that they are as good as dead since I don't seem to have the firepower nearby to rescue them before Curt can destroy them. So what seemed like a good idea before seems now to be a bridge too far. The truth of the matter is that his air force is just powerful enough to prevent their employment too much anymore anyway. The reason they are where they are is that they flew a short distance and are bigger squads than the Brandenberger units. I will miss them however since they project power better than a ground unit can. Let's see if I can pull a rabbit out of the hat and save them.

EDIT: And another thing: I used to complain about the Axis not having a surplus of arty units like the Soviets do and then I just now realized that the Soviets don't have very many HQ units ( with organic arty ) and that the Axis has plenty of HQ units that have built in arty. So I guess I'll shut up and make good use of the HQ units.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's an abbreviated version of the Axis losses so far:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines at the end of turn 103:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a movie showing the Axis moves in turn 103:

[larryfulkerson]

I miscalculated how fast the Soviets could get reinforcements to the area where the FJ division landed behind enemy lines and now they are almost gone. It's a disaster of the highest magnitude. Oh well. That's how we learn.

[Zorchi]

That soviet marsh-hex unit bugs me probably just as much as Larry. Here are my questions:
1. Curt cant move it can he?
2. If he could move it the unit would be toast a while ago...(since then u could attack it)
3. Can he disband it even though it is stranded?

My humble suggestion. If it cant move why just not leave it there and move those 6 inf units to the front. Leave just arty nearby to hit it every turn (or can that push it on movable terrain like for instance how sometimes railroad ing get hit and 'get pushed' off the rails?). Winter is far away. So just leave it there for the summer and fall.
Or better why not make some kind of a house rule with Curt to disband such stranded units so they would not be holding troops back because of a game bug/exploit (especially since they would otherwise be destroyed ages ago). Fairplay and all (yes i know its a war game but still...

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Zorchi
That soviet marsh-hex unit bugs me probably just as much as Larry. Here are my questions:
1. Curt cant move it can he?
2. If he could move it the unit would be toast a while ago...(since then u could attack it)
3. Can he disband it even though it is stranded?

My humble suggestion. If it cant move why just not leave it there and move those 6 inf units to the front. Leave just arty nearby to hit it every turn (or can that push it on movable terrain like for instance how sometimes railroad ing get hit and 'get pushed' off the rails?). Winter is far away. So just leave it there for the summer and fall.
Or better why not make some kind of a house rule with Curt to disband such stranded units so they would not be holding troops back because of a game bug/exploit (especially since they would otherwise be destroyed ages ago). Fairplay and all (yes i know its a war game but still...

If my stuff wasn't next to it Curt could move it off the marsh hex. I'm bombarding it with my arty and it's steadily getting weaker and weaker and turning from green to yellow now. It'll be gone in about 40 turns or so. You don't have to worry about it then. Um......it's out of supply and can't be disbanded but that's a good suggestion. If Curt could disband it he probably would have by now.

[Zorchi]

40 turns... thats huge. Thats 5 months.
Lightbulb turned on in my head again...
Another humble suggestion. Well if Curt can move that unit out of the marsh and is willing to disband it...then why not opening the encirclement and just letting him move it to a better prearranged position (say you two agree on a hex two hexes south of the marsh) for you to quickly get rid of it. Its the same idea as above... Destruction would be imminent if not for the exploit/bug, so why not try to 'fix' that with such an arrangement between both sides.

And my earnest apologies for littering your AAR, even if with such good intended rumblings of mine. If you feel im breaking some AAR etiquette please inform me so.

[larryfulkerson]

I've enquired to Curt about what he thinks we should do for this situation and he didn't seem all that willing to move it just so I could kill it faster.  He and I have agreed, I believe, to just do what we been doing and park our units where the hell we feel like it and the other guy just has to work around it.  Seems fair.  It's just a game dudes, doesn't mean anything.  I wasn't doing anything really really important with those Italian troops and they don't seem to mind having babysitting duty for awhile.

EDIT: feel free to post anything you wish. It's the property of the forum after all. I'd like comments that pertain to the situation ongoing but your comments fit that criteria so it's all good.

EDIT_2: And another thing: When I surround a unit, like the one in question.....he's out of supply and will slowly turn red and the strength will detereriate ( how do you spell detereriate ? ) and when it finally does get killed the next time it regenerates it will have the supply it had when it died. So Curt will have to give it some recupperate time before he can use it effectively again. Maybe 10 turns or so before it's back up to 75% supply, something like that.

[larryfulkerson]

Well the honeymoon is definately over. The shock value has gone back to what it was before the offensive started and while the front lines have changed and the Axis did capture Leningrad not much else has changed. The front lines will probably look pretty much like this for a while to come now.

[larryfulkerson]

The Axis forces tore a big hole in the Soviet northern front lines as you can see in this picture. He may or may not be able to patch it in his turn.