FITE Chambers vs Fulkerson

[larryfulkerson]

Look what Curt did to my paratroopers. There's not much left.

[larryfulkerson]

Curt plugged that big hole I made in his lines. I think I may have to redo my plans and maybe give my boys a rest before I renew the push.

[larryfulkerson]

I made a GIF movie showing all the moves of my 1942 offensive and posted it on a file server so you can download it.  I have reason to believe you can find it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?owym0j22tdm

All 9 turns are depicted in the movie.  It's about 2.4Meg bytes big, way too big to post here.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Axis losses so far: ( abbreviated )

[Raindem]

Just a quick comment on the "unit stuck in the swamp" thing.  In my opinion it is a non-issue. Larry doesn't have to keep anyone around to guard it.  If it moves off the swamp it can't go back in and will then be subject to immediate annihilation, just like any other partisan.  Besides, Soviet troops left in the rear of advancing German armies was an integral component of the campaign.  So it might be a quirk, but it's a historical quirk.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the moves minimovie from turns 103 throu 107. I'm noticing that most of my combat units are at 1/2 strength now and I'm having to pile more and more of them into a hex to get sufficient firepower to advance. That's not a good sign. Maybe I should just go over to the defensive side and wait it out some.

[larryfulkerson]

Most of the changes in the front lines happen in the northern end so I thought I'd post just that:

[larryfulkerson]

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

[larryfulkerson]

The Soviet Air Force is starting to seriously hamper my advance.  Every once in a while I'll see massive amounts of Soviet close air support and even though more Soviet aircraft get shot down than Axis aircraft he's got an unlimited supply of everything ( or at least it seems that way ).  And even though I kill a Soviet ground unit I'll see it back on the front lines about 10 turns later after it regenerates.  It sort of feels like me on the beach sweeping the ocean tide back out to sea.  There's always more to do.  He's got more than enough units to plug the holes I make and it's getting harder to make the holes.  This isn't going to last much longer.....I'm going to have to go over to the defensive side and try to ride it out. 

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the northern end of the front lines looks like at the end of turn 108:

[larryfulkerson]

Rostov has seen some action as of late

[larryfulkerson]

I would be curious to know what the Soviet losses are at this stage of the game.  Hint, hint.

[larryfulkerson]

There's not been much change in the front lines. Here's what the north end looks like at the end of turn 109

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the situation near Murmansk:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like at the southern end of the front lines at the end of turn 109

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd try an amphibious assault on the Soviet HQ unit at archangel and see what happens.



EDIT: as it turns out I moved my dudes up next to Archangel made a mental note to attack when the turn is 50% over and then promptly forgot to attack. The Soviet dude, Curt, moved his ships up in his turn and bombarded my guys into the sea. Two regiments and an HQ unit down the drain.

[SMK-at-work]

As a house rule in Zort's mod we had no amphibs in the Arctic

[larryfulkerson]

Gauging from what happened when I tried it.....that sounds like a good idea.  The Axis didn't have any ships up there to do it anyway did they?  Good rule.

[SMK-at-work]

IIRC we split the Soviet amphib up into 1/2 in the Black & half in the Baltic, each decreasing as ports were captured - all voluntary since there being no provision to do it as a game mechanism?

I don't think it ever mattered tho - we played up to about T50 or 6o max IIRC

Found it -

Sov's - max 1000 in Arctic, 2000 in Baltic, 2000 in Balck sea (total 5000). Baltic reduces 1000 with loss of Riga, 1000 with loss of Tallinin (events reduce total by 2000)

Black Sea - 2000 reduces by 500 with loss of Odessa, 1000 with loss of Sevastopol, 500 with loss of a port who's name I don't recall - half way from Novorossisk to Turkey where the Fleet ended up being based after Novorossisk fell.

Arctic - 1000, 500 each Murmansk and Archangel.

Axis - 0 in the arctic. dunno how much in the Baltic, but 500 in the Black Sea, increasing 500 when Sevastopol is captured and lose it again when recaptured, and lose 500 for Odessa also on the basis that they don't need it after that.

IIRC the hassle is that TOAW doesn't allow for separate totals for each sea zone, so keeping the individual allocations had to be voluntary

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines as they looked just before the combat started in round 1 of turn 112. The thing is that even if the Axis wins the battles to get to Moscow they are in no shape to take the city. Some of the Panzer regiments are at 1/2 strength already.