War Reports from the Eastern Front: Carnage vs Redmarkus

[kfmiller41]

CarnageINc you have done a stellar job of fending him off. I can only assume he took much more severe losses than i did during his retreat, because I never let up the pressure for 3 months and it seems like your opponent is to weak in alot of sectors to drive you back. That's what i tried to do, attack all along the line and force a break in several areas so he couldn't move troops around. Guess I should be glad i didn't play you huh[&o]

[Flaviusx]

Carnage, don't forget, blizzard penalties diminish in Feb. Some of his frontline units have to be burning out by now, too. By February the Soviet counteroffensive does begin to run out of steam, so you've just about turned the corner here.

The question now: where is he going to send his reserves? He will need to feed fresh forces to keep things going. So keep up your recon.

[bwheatley]

Carnage in the south you can keep shedding hexes. Sure put up a token resistance then just maybe 2-3 hexes back. He'll think he has you on the run. Get cocky and start committing reserves there.

Then you're going to have to move the bulk of your panzers to the south. Have them ready come snow to slice SE towards the rostov area. You will pocket a few armies. Your infantry will still be burnt but you can throw some regimental blockers up between his good forces and his isolataed forces. Then spend the next 2 turns sweeping your panzers back and killing off those pocketed troops as quickly as possible. You know once you pull it off he'll throw everything he might have in reserve at you. So you have to be able to make the breakthrough clear in the first turn of snow.

You can do it!
Btw great job holding him off. As a current soviet PBEM guy i will attest that the soviet units can't attack all winter. Eventually they burn out and without reserves you will see the soviet troops just becoming combat ineffective. If he pushes too hard come snow they are going to be easy pickings. And i promise you that your german troops will recover by spring. My opponents did. Also after winter don't let those 3-4 lines of level 4 forts scare you. You can push through them like my opponent did. And you can get more breakthroughs. That might have to be a little more limited in 42 but you can do it.

Also russian's don't get back lost units after nov 41 so anything you kill now costs AP to rebuild. And reinforcements are much much slower for the soviets. So killing an army or 2 now is a major deal for the soviets at least in terms of AP.

End rant.

[Encircled]

Going to be a problem in the south

What a massive bonus securing the Crimea is though for the Germans in '41

[CarnageINC]

ORIGINAL: miller41

CarnageINc you have done a stellar job of fending him off. I can only assume he took much more severe losses than i did during his retreat, because I never let up the pressure for 3 months and it seems like your opponent is to weak in alot of sectors to drive you back. That's what i tried to do, attack all along the line and force a break in several areas so he couldn't move troops around. Guess I should be glad i didn't play you huh[&o]

A big reason why I think my defense was good was at least preparing for a offensive and having my mobile units in reserve. I plan on keeping 12 infantry divisions in reserves, the most broken ones, from now on for as long as possible. I'm sure when late 44 rolls around I won't have any but a few panzer units but I hope it will not come to that.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Carnage, don't forget, blizzard penalties diminish in Feb. Some of his frontline units have to be burning out by now, too. By February the Soviet counteroffensive does begin to run out of steam, so you've just about turned the corner here.

The question now: where is he going to send his reserves? He will need to feed fresh forces to keep things going. So keep up your recon.

I've been doing a lot of recon except that last 2 turns, sorta spaced it out [:-]. What puzzles me is Red does none, but then again 95% of my forces are always on the front. Come summer I hope his lack of recon hurts him for my offensives.

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

Then you're going to have to move the bulk of your panzers to the south.

I've already decided that 3rd and 4th Panzer for the summer will be operating down south of Moscow. Leningrad will no be an objective this summer so way waste them in the north.

ORIGINAL: Encircled

What a massive bonus securing the Crimea is though for the Germans in '41

It still leaves me a small opition of moving panzer's down there and trying something.

[Flaviusx]

Recon isn't quite as important for the Sovs in 41. Basically, there's not much need to run it in 1941 unless the panzers disappear from the front line. It's fairly obvious when that happens and then you can sortie to see what the evil and devious German is up to.

Now, later on, the recon mind games on both sides can get very deep. It's one of the more fun aspects of the 43 campaign, since both the Germans and Soviets have major mobile reserves they can shuffle around.

[CarnageINC]

Not much to report, no major crisis happened for once. Red made a close effort in pocketing 2 divisions but couldn't position a unit to fill the void. Attacks all long the line in most areas. I'm out of fall back positions in the center and almost in the south. Saving my AP's to make some command changes due to a lot of dismissals since January 1st.

One note to all who follow the AAR, I'll be out of town for a week or more so I may not get any turns done. So don't think the game is over [;)]

[CarnageINC]

Using a new computer where I'm staying at so resolution might be different. I hate change and don't care much for using this Vista programs [:@]

Here is the standard map for the entire front. As you notice the entire southern front is falling into chaos because of the number of unready units that are coming into being. This Feb. turn I'm definitely noticing the effects of the blizzard lessening by the types of assaults being repulsed.

[CarnageINC]

Here is the newest front line trace. It definitely shows that Reds attacks in most areas are bogging down...thanks the war gods [&o] Leningrad area has held on very well, the mid sector not so, but that's probably because of so many new troops being thrown into that area. You can see where I had a big crisis just south of Lake Ilmen and how well it was contained. He hardly made any headway there.

[CarnageINC]

Finally here are the losses so far. I'll post the final losses for the blizzard in the next two turns.

[Mynok]

Lost any units yet?

[CarnageINC]

Not a single division or regiment lost yet! Red has come close about 3 times for isolating 2-3 divisions at a time but I've always have had armor assets near enough to extract those units...[8D]

Here is the report from OKH. If you look at the map you will see how bad the situation is becoming.

[CarnageINC]

My poor troopers are at the end of their ropes. A epidemic of unready units has spread across the entire front lines. I'm complete out of reserves to relieve them. Thank god I only have one more blizzard turn otherwise it will turn into a rout across the board.

This is the type of situation where I/can loose a lot of divisions everywhere and not be able to do anything about it. Come on SNOW!!!

[Aurelian]

Looks grim.

[2ndACR]

You got maybe 2 more turns of Blizzard, then you should get a small break and maybe 1-2 blizzard turns in March 42.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Recon isn't quite as important for the Sovs in 41. Basically, there's not much need to run it in 1941 unless the panzers disappear from the front line. It's fairly obvious when that happens and then you can sortie to see what the evil and devious German is up to.

Now, later on, the recon mind games on both sides can get very deep. It's one of the more fun aspects of the 43 campaign, since both the Germans and Soviets have major mobile reserves they can shuffle around.

Agreed before my 42 offensive i took care to hide my tanks and shock army for winter battle in the woods. It was funny watching ara look for them. He realized i had pulled some stuff out of the line and he found them a few turns later. At least i think he did by the 10+ recon flights of my section of woods where i hid the armies. At least he won't know if they are tanks or not since i think woods only gives you 1 detection..iirc.

[CarnageINC]

Hello gentlemen, been very busy last few day [8D]

Back to the war. I'm still quite busy so I'm only going to post the map for this turn. Next turn before any moves are made I'll post Red total gains and total losses for us during the winter. I figure that will give the most accurate reading of the winter situation.

For the map, I'm glad there are no blizzard turns but this last one for Red. My army is falling into complete shambles and I don't know how it will look on Turn 38. If not much has changed I will probably only make a general offensive with ground being the only objective. I might get 30 miles in most areas but that will have to be seen. I just don't know since most of my army is at 50% and below. Panzer are spread all over the place and I need to pull them back to regain their strength for the summer campaign.

[CarnageINC]

This is turn 38 before any moves on my part have been made. You can see the advance of Red slowing down month by month, that's something good right?!?

[CarnageINC]

Now for destroyed units, I know it may not be to helpful but it gives a comparison for others. I would say maybe 10% of the fortified zones where destroyed by enemy action. Sometimes he got through before I could disbanded them, that's war I guess.

[CarnageINC]

Here we have the total numbers for each side start and end of blizzard. I don't know if these numbers are good or historical but I'm happy with them overall.