How to lose the war - PDH vs Cpt Flam

[cpt flam]

actually end of turn 17
losses are 0.5 for 3.6
after few attacks (LAH,1RomCav and 3 Hun ) all retraited

[Josh]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

Moscow - the big gamble

Here is where I demand ONE MORE TURN OF GOOD WEATHER

I was too slow, or something, and I will put the panzers and infantry in trouble after the mud. Still, if it works it is worth it. The 3rd Panzer crept around the north of the capital, the 4th (with the reinforcement of the late arriving XXX Panzer Corps) feinted toward Kaluga the previous turn then zapped to cut off Moscow. If it works, I have helped myself a bit, if it fails it proves the original title of this AAR.

Joel you're reading this? One more turn please! [:D] LOL

But this certainly is tense, you got him surrounded but the rasputitsa is about to hit your supply lines. Sooo, well dunno really, can't wait to see what's going to happen next.
Kudos to Cpt Flamm though, I hope he's able to give you some serious clobbering the next couple of turns. Gamewise I mean. [:)]

[PeeDeeAitch]

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

You might find some of those guys in The Big Empty are going to be out of supply in mud.

My guess is everything east of Stalino will be out of supply range. If you check the mouse over box for supply range, everything more than 25 MPs in clear will be out of supply as mud is x4.

Just hope your opponent doesn't know the rule about the chance for isolated unit to surrender if attacked. I got away with it in my Game with Trey.

One of the main goals of the south was to keep supply as best I could - this meant extra first turn attacks through Lvov to open that route up for quicker repair, zooming the 11th Army as fast as I could (with 2 extra OKH divisions), and having the 11th Army rail repair head to Zaporozhye instead of into the newly taken Crimea. As it was, I would over my supply lines to the east of Stalino by 1 hex (crap!) but I got the boys back after a couple of attacks.

The center never had the "black zones of death" report at the beginning of mud, thank god.

[PeeDeeAitch]

(grumble) mud (grumble)

[PeeDeeAitch]

Small update - no pics.  West Moscow fell, yes even in mud. Casualties not too heavy.  Lines straightened - offensive to continue when the damn mud ends.  I will have three turns of fun, then the crying starts.
 
Since OKH did not give in and make all of my infantry into mountain units, I have applied for asylum in Helsinki in the hopes that the entire german army becomes Finnish.

[karonagames]

Hi PDH,

Could I beg a favour, could you post or email me your GE rifle squads numbers at the end of turn 24, and again at the end of turn 25 so we can see the precise number being damaged by the first turn of attrition.

[PeeDeeAitch]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


Be interesting to see your rail situation. You might find some of those guys in The Big Empty are going to be out of supply in mud.

Missed this the first time around. Here are a couple of shots of the rails at the end of turn 17

[PeeDeeAitch]

Center Rails 17





You can note that I really didn't expect to take Moscow - I stoped the rail link there in order to make a spur south. There is a spur south of Pskov to the center as well. In the first picture you will see that I focused a lot of energy (without doubling the rail repair) to supply the south - the Gomel line, the Cherkassy (crossing a bit further east) line, and the Zaporozhye lines all were the focus to keep as much of the south kind of supplied as possible.

[PeeDeeAitch]

Sure thing, I will post them. Just so I am clear, from the production screen click on the rifle squad units line and that will take me to the screen?

[karonagames]

Just so I am clear, from the production screen click on the rifle squad units line and that will take me to the screen?

You need to click on the number in the right hand column, as this is the number of units that contain rifle squads. This will take you to a CR showing those units.

edit: Is this a server game of traditional PBEM?

[cpt flam]

traditionnal PBEM

[PeeDeeAitch]

Let's try this one.

Here are the squads as of the end of turn 17. I do not know completely how to read this, though I expect the numbers show a German army hard used and worn down with few reserves.

[Q-Ball]

PDH: How many of those are READY (in red, hard to read). Looks like 26,000 and change

Interesting shots of the rail building. There could be a whole discussion on the best use of FBD units in the Summer campaign.

I have my rails roughly in the same place, but I didn't get as far as you did, so I started on North-South connectors running roughly along the Dnepr, to stitch everything together. I think that's critical in the Blizzard, so you can easily move between areas.

I am at Turn 18, and have roughly the following rail lines:

AGN the way to Leningrad, through Pskov
A line Pskov-Vitebsk-Mogilev-Gomel
A spur to V-L
Another spur to Vyazma
The Gomel line continues toward Kursk (almost there)
Another line running Rovno-Kiev-along N. bank of Dnepr-Poltava-near Kharkov
Final Line to Nikolev-accross Dnepr toward Crimea-back on other side to Z-Town (exactly what you have)

I need to connect the two southern lines, though the AGS units are helping in this regard.

[PeeDeeAitch]

As Flam said, traditional PBEM. I am old fashioned - I don't trust new fangled things.  I also yell at kids to get off my lawn.

[PeeDeeAitch]

Ready is 26508.

[PeeDeeAitch]

I should have posted shots before of the rail work.  That is one area that lots of vs AI games has helped me.  While it is true one can learn lots of bad habits against the AI, some of the real fundamentals can be learned too.  Rails in part are why I do the 1st turn the way I do it now - so I can clear space on turn two for the builders in part.  Even a couple of hexes (apart from the Baltics where rail building flies) can really help out in the last few clear turns.

[TulliusDetritus]

What an excellent job you're doing, PeeDeeAitch [&o] Moscow is in the bag too!

And you started the whole thing as a joke [:D] Perhaps this is the joke itself...

[karonagames]

hmmm... the axis start with 31k, so they've "only" lost 5k, so still at 80% - historically they were closer to 60% by this stage.

Have you been following the survival guide with regards to reducing arty TOE% and putting the inf. divs. on refit? Have you disbanded any superfluous HQs etc?

[PeeDeeAitch]

RHQ units disbanded.  Artillery TOEs reduced as per your comments.  A couple of air HQs also volunteered men for frontline service.

Oh, and I refit out the wazoo...probably shouldn't but I do. Right now with mud I think I am refitting about 163% of my units.

-edit- I haven't disbanded any Air HQs this game yet.

[karonagames]

You're doing a great job on the first part of the survival plan - the first turn of blizzard will take out about 6k so you will still have 20k - well above the 16k danger level.

The snow turns are the tricky part. Are you going to use HQ buildup on the last turn of mud so you are ready for some pocketing action on the first turn of snow? Even if you don't pocket - you should try to rout as much as you can - anything to disrupt the Sov's ability to organise the counter offensive, and keep the attack number in the 40's.