How deep is too deep ?

[Wikingus]

Wow that is impressive. Hat's off to you, even if you did reload the game once to do it.

In my current PBEM game I never ever managed to pocket anything remotely that large. Then again, it is against a human opponent, and it's my first grand campaign. But considering the frustration I've felt over that this is most impressive no matter what. [8D]

[CharonJr]

Regarding the infantry in the marshes, at first I needed them to protect my railhead, then I just kept moving them east (which was a mistake)

CharonJr

[CharonJr]

Turn 11, not much left of the pocket. 11 additional Soviet units surrendered (66k men, 0.8k guns, some afv).

Most of my armored forces in the center are between 10%-40% fuel and supplies, but there was enough punch left in 2 panzerkorps to encircle Kursk while the other 6 panzerkorps are resting up.

Depending om their fuel/supply levels I might try to move 1 panzergruppe (south) towards Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye next turn for an encirclement there while the rest will concentrate on Kharkov.

CharonJr

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

Pretty sweet panzer drive CharonJr. Well done setting the bar for us all against the AI! Of course in PBEM i gotta watch out when i start as Soviets...

[CharonJr]

And here are the final results:

At turn 12 only 1 Soviet infantry division is left, with 5 more Soviet units having surrendered during turn 12 (about 33k men), bringing up the totals to 91 units with 610k men, 6k guns and about 600 afv which got taken out during the last 3 turns (in addition to units at the other fronts).

3 turns for clearing up the pocket purely with infantry looks ok to me.

I dont know enough about the game yet to have any idea if those losses are enough considering that the mud will hit soon.

Mainly I am afraid that my progress in the the north is fairly bad (will post a screenshot in the next post).

In the south I am not sure if going for Stalino will be possible, but I am fairly confident that I can establish a line along Orel, Kursk, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye and the Azov Sea.

CharonJr

[CharonJr]

While I can still move all those units I doubt that I will be able to reach the 3 ports during this turn, is there any other way to cut off Leningrad from supply?

3 armored and 2 mot divisions are in decent shape up there (50-80% fuel/supplies, 30-35MP), but ththe terrain is not exactly mech/mot friendly

And the bulge south of Leningrad/west of Moscow is far from pretty I am fairly sure that I will not be able to do anything about it before the mud hits.

CharonJr



edit: The hole to the NW of Smolensk will be closed later by chain-shuffeling a lot of infantry anti-clockwise from around Bryansk.