War Reports from the Eastern Front: Carnage vs Redmarkus

[Joel Billings]

You've still got 9 turns left to get the Soviet casualties higher. Attrition alone will take out some of his forces. Although not much will happen in mud, I bet you'll have some chances still to hurt the Soviets some more. Although I'm all for a certain amount of digging in to prepare for winter, I hate to see good mobile units not take advantage of one or two of the snow turns to continue pocketing enemy forces. I'm enjoying your AAR.

[Klydon]

Be nice to get a second urban hex of Leningrad to winter in if you can some how swing it and that would also make your line there even tighter. Heck, may even be able to clean everything out south of the Neva except for the main port of Leningrad. Troops there would be very safe I think and would allow you to send some extras to help hold the Volkov. Unit density/condition there looks thin, especially with the removal of 4 PG.

I also agree with Joel and the written word can suck at times, but certainly sounds like you are getting ready to dial back quite a bit on killing Russians when really, you need to wack as many as you can and set up for some snow turns before blizzard.

[randallw]

The big mystery about seeing all those Soviet counters is their strength; without good recon you just don't know if a division has about 3k or 10k men.

[Flaviusx]

Carnage, try to get Novgorod. That's going to be pretty important for you come winter and should complete your line along the Volkhov. Without that anchor, you could have some problems down the line.

Your position on the Kuban is very nice and if you can retain that bridgehead going into summer 42, you're already ahead of the game.

[CarnageINC]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

You've still got 9 turns left to get the Soviet casualties higher. Attrition alone will take out some of his forces. Although not much will happen in mud, I bet you'll have some chances still to hurt the Soviets some more. Although I'm all for a certain amount of digging in to prepare for winter, I hate to see good mobile units not take advantage of one or two of the snow turns to continue pocketing enemy forces. I'm enjoying your AAR.

Glad your enjoying it Joel, So you think using my mobile force during the snow is a good idea? Was thinking about having them pull back and refitting for the winter. Some of them are getting in the low 70% and 1 or 2 in the 60's.

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Be nice to get a second urban hex of Leningrad to winter in if you can some how swing it and that would also make your line there even tighter. Heck, may even be able to clean everything out south of the Neva except for the main port of Leningrad. Troops there would be very safe I think and would allow you to send some extras to help hold the Volkov. Unit density/condition there looks thin, especially with the removal of 4 PG.

I also agree with Joel and the written word can suck at times, but certainly sounds like you are getting ready to dial back quite a bit on killing Russians when really, you need to wack as many as you can and set up for some snow turns before blizzard.

I'm doing what i can with Leningrad. I keep saying I wish I had diverted more troops here but I gotta live with what I got. Getting into the urban hexes would be great, I should post a fort shot though, he has a lot of level 4 forts I'm trying to blow through. You would think that this would help him realize that having secondary lines of defense is a good thing, time will tell. I actually hope he keeps up his strictly linear defense in 42, that would help me greatly for the rest of the war.

As far as dialing back my offensive I'm going to only push off his front line forces for most of my line from here on out. The only offensive I'm going to keep making with infantry is down in Crimea. After seeing what happened to Haudrauf I kind of wanted my troops to gain back some strength and lower their fatigue some before getting hammered.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Carnage, try to get Novgorod. That's going to be pretty important for you come winter and should complete your line along the Volkhov. Without that anchor, you could have some problems down the line.

Your position on the Kuban is very nice and if you can retain that bridgehead going into summer 42, you're already ahead of the game.

I'm going to use 4th Panzer Group to get Novgorod as I withdraw it. It might have to happen in the snow, I don't think i can get enough down there to do much before the mud.

If things look good I might send a reinforced 4th Panzer Group out of Kuban mostly just to tie up some of his troops. I would love to drive down to Baku but I don't think that is a realistic idea just because of the limited number of troops and all that terrain to cover to keep any mobile unit from cutting off or isolating my units.

[Flaviusx]

As an alternative, that panzer group could drive north from the Kuban towards Rostov and threaten it from the rear in the next campaign season. This is wide open country and somewhat difficult to reinforce due to the limited rail network.

[CarnageINC]

Thats a good idea if he has a lot of units around Rostov.  I think that having them there in general will cause a lot of chaos for him.  The only thing I don't like is you can't repair the rail line once you go across the water in the Crimean Peninsula.  I found this out in my AI game.  I think that this a huge limiting factor in where my panzer's can operate.  I don't know why you can't build rail line after that, it not like the Germans don't have ferries and boats to haul across supplies.

[Mynok]

I'm quite convinced that diverting all reinforcements to AGN is the way to go. Where did your Panzer Corps reinforcement go?

[KenchiSulla]

Looks like you drove the soviets back with a sledgehammer towards Leningrad... I would worry about Novgorod though..

Nice AAR!

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Like Joel said above you still have plenty of time to do massive damage against Soviets!

BTW the Leningrad is worth taking (by encompassing it and killing it's supply)!


Leo "Apollo11"

[timmyab]

I can't believe he let you get across the Kerch Strait so easily.I think I'd have someone shot for that.

[karonagames]

but there really isn't IMO much I could of done to make up a million more KIA/POW. Anyone see something that I don't? Do please tell.

The dilemma on what to advise you is that I know how to survive the blizzard in reasonable shape, so am prepared to go " Balls to the Wall" during the mud and snow turns. During turns 16 and 17 I would use HQ build up to create pockets that can be cleared up during the Mud. with the current dispositions, 3 panzer could form the Northern Arm and the 2nd Panzer the Southern arm, with the objective to meet at the SW hex of Moscow.

You could also go North and South of the Donbas cities and create another Pocket there. If you crack Leningrad, which again you could do with HQ Buildup giving your motorised forces 2 deliberate attacks on the units south of the river (avoiding the swamp hex), and the possibility to exploit to the north side of the river, you will add to the captured total.

During the Mud Turns you could keep pushing toward Kharkov with your infantry while redeploying 2nd Panzer to be the Northern arm, and 1st Panzer the Southern arm of an attempt to encircle Kharkov when the snow arrives, again using HQ build up.

It is risky, you will burn a ton of vehicles, but I can't see any pool numbers to know if you can afford it or not. You will also need a bunch of APs, depending on how many HQ Build-ups you use. I used about 6 HQ build ups in my game with Trey, and it got me 1 hex of Moscow (2 deliberate attacks with 9 motorised divisions), and Rostov (In conjunction with a para drop).

You will see in "the weather thing" thread, that I posted the Turn 34 front lines from this game and I was ahead of historical, especially in the north.

If you don't feel confident that you can maintain linear integrity along the whole front during the Blizzard, then you should accept the current numbers for what they are, and keep the vehicles ready for 1942 and plan to form huge pockets that will make up for the current perceived shortfall. If he persists with his current linear only defence and does not build defence in depth you should have good opportunities to swallow up large sections of his front.

[Klydon]

I should rephrase by what I meant as "offensive". By this I mean not necessarily going for a lot of ground, but certainly killing as many Russian units as you can is desirable, even if your guys are a bit tired. (They will get a chance to rest during mud probably). Right now, he is getting a chance to catch his breath, get lines formed and dig in. If left to his own devices, the Russians are going to look nasty at the end of mud and even worse by blizzard. My point is you want to try to keep the battle as fluid as possible since that more or less favors the Axis. When it becomes static, etc it has a tendency to favor the Russians more.

[CarnageINC]

Here is turn 16th report, read it for details on some of my winter plans. I'm going conservative this winter since I would like to come out in relatively good shape. Big A I burnt all my admin points on putting in a secondary defensive line. I'm moveing 4th Panzer south a bit.

[CarnageINC]

I'm working on infantry only offensive here. I desperately need IMO to refit 4th Panzer for fire brigade duties in the area. A lot of my TOE here is in the 60% for mobile units. As most of you are starting to tell I'm probably a conservative player for my first winter pbem experience. I just don't feel that confident in the Wehrmacht to stay in one piece. Once I see what kind of offensive drive Red puts together will make my winter of 42 plans different.

[CarnageINC]

I'm building a good layered D here, I plan on using 2nd and 3rd Pz Grp. ID's to be put in reserve and to fall back when the first line of defense falls back to the second. They will in return start putting up another second line of D plus they will be fresh so it should limit any weakness in my front lines.

[Ketza]

Im amazed at the progress you made here with so little troops. Leningrad that is.

[CarnageINC]

Here is a slow rolling general offensive that will be continued in the snow, I plan on inflicting as many casualties as I can to weaken Red here.

[CarnageINC]

Heavy recon by Red has tipped his hand IMO. Here it shows a nice thick look at the area all the way down toward the Crimean land bridge. I'm planing on putting in a four tiered defensive lines to slow him down. I will not put the Fortified regions in a combat position unless he happens to break through to them. But I doubt he will have that much deep penetration.

[CarnageINC]

I will continue to attack here as much as possible. That swamp hex will be a hard nut to crack. I did a through recon of the rail lines leading down to Kuban and it shows he is bring down some infantry units, including a inf. guard division and a tank division. As the situation stands I don't think Red will be able to mount a good offensive here. He is relying on the northern gambit IMO. If things go quite here during the winter I will pull out what ever Corps I can to swing north to assist in the defense in Stalino Front.