Fulkerson of Ketza vs Fulkerson

[larryfulkerson]

Whoa.  Lots of good ideas and stuff I never thought of.  Thanks loads guys.  Really.  I'll get busy and reorganize things and see if I can't turn this around.  Somewhat.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the turn 10 front lines before I moved anything. Leningrad is gone. I bet the emphasis is on Moscow now.

[76mm]

Looks depressingly familiar...I'm now out of the blizzard with Ketza and he is beating up on me again...

A couple of words of advice: he is pretty aggressive, rarely misses an opportunity for a pocket, and I think he uses HQ buildup quite a bit, so even into late summer and fall his panzers can move shocking (to me) distances...you really have to have a checkerboard everywhere, particularly behind your main line, just to slow him down.

One of the biggest problems I have with Ketza is that I find him to be pretty unpredictable, which along with the lousy Sov recon ability can make things pretty scary.

I think you are at grave risk of losing Moscow, the area between Vishny Volochok and Yaroslavl (the Sonkovo corridor) seems to be a natural invastion path. At least with me, he was very passive with the Finns after taking Lgrad, I will be interested to see if he uses them more aggressively with you.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: 76mm
A couple of words of advice....

Thanks for the advice I'll pay attention to it avidly.

Here's the turn 11 front lines before any movement.

[DTurtle]

Could you turn the hex control on for the screenshots? It makes the frontlines easier to see.

Be careful - his panzers barely moved last turn, which means they can make a large lunge this turn.

As far as I can see, he can try to make a lunge for Tula in the North, try a pocket of everything west of the line Kharkov->Kursk->Orel, or try a lunge for Stalino.

Personally, I would expect the pocket attempt, as his supply lines have to be extremely long already. With the pocket he has a chance to destroy a significant part of your ground forces, enabling him to advance again once that pocket is digested and the rail repair has caught up.

What does your industry look like? Just how much has been lost so far?

Edit: Honestly, looking at the map, you will lose everything on the line Moscow-Tula-Orel-Kursk-Kharkov-Stalino-maybe Rostov.

Your goal at this point has to be delay, delay, delay. You have to stop giving him these huge empty spaces he can drive freely through with his forces. You have two (!) divisions between his forces and Tula. You have four or five between his forces and Stalino. Your goal at this point is not to stop him, but just buy enough time to evacuate as much industry as possible. Take a good hard look at where your factories are standing and make sure that he can't get there before you can evacuate them.

[76mm]

If I had to guess, I'd say he's going to try to pocket all of those units west of Kursk, I would pull back all of those units as quickly as possible. I think he will also lunge for Stalino, thus cutting your rail line to the west. All of those units around Zaporozhye and Dnepro are begging to be bagged--you really need to pull them back NOW.

[Da_Huge_D]

Honestly, biggest problem in this situation is, that Larry doesn't just have any static line - Okay there's some kind of strong point around Moscow, but everything else is just remnants, whatever.
Biggest objective in first turns as Soviet Union is to build solid line all way from Lgrad to Black sea. It can be done in 3-4 turns. When the first line is being cracked by Axis, then you gotta start to build another line in somewhere back immidiately, and reinforce old line's hole with some divisions to bug Axis advance down. Soviet player receives tons of divisions on first turns so there shouldnt be lack of troops. As i said earlier, evade overloading some fronts, i see that your situation there isnt much troops in Southern front or Northwest front at all, use these fronts too. Now you have overloaded only couple fronts (like southwest (which is teared apart within 500km lol)).

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Da_Huge_D
Biggest objective in first turns as Soviet Union is to build solid line all way from Lgrad to Black sea. It can be done in 3-4 turns. When the first line is being cracked by Axis, then you gotta start to build another line in somewhere back immidiately, and reinforce old line's hole with some divisions to bug Axis advance down. Soviet player receives tons of divisions on first turns so there shouldnt be lack of troops.

Don't know about that, once you lose a couple of big pockets, you can really start running out of divisions. In my game against Ketza, in the south after a couple of pockets, I literally had NOTHING other than depleted units (and airbases!) to put in front of him for a couple of turns.

Obviously the key is to avoid the pockets in the first place, but it is kind of late for that now.

[squatter]

I think a lot of advice that comes in comes from players who haven't yet faced a strong German opponent.

[Da_Huge_D]

ORIGINAL: squatter

I think a lot of advice that comes in comes from players who haven't yet faced a strong German opponent.

Maybe your're right.

[Klydon]

Yeah, the Russians actually get very little the first two turns, especially north. Turn 3 is their first big slug of re-enforcements. Turn 2, they have to depend more on units becoming unfrozen. This is one of the reasons it is so important the Germans get out of the gate well and leave as little as possible for the Russians to rebuild a defense with. (AGN being the exception where gaining as much ground as possible takes priority). 

[larryfulkerson]

William ( Ketza ) sent me a PM in which he offered to discontinue the game and I accepted.  It's obvious to me that he's on his way to destroying all the Soviet units on the map before winter '41 and we're not exactly evenly matched and he's basically just running over me and has been from turn 1.  I learned a lot from playing him and it's blindingly obvious I have a lot to learn still.  Was sorta fun though.  I guess I need to practice some more before I really get good at this.  I've owned the game about 6 weeks now and I still like it a lot. I think part of the problem is that I'm trying to fight like TOAW instead of WITE. Bad habit to try to break.

[PeeDeeAitch]

I think the learning curve is rather steep. However, you are doing the exactly right thing in learning this - seeing what a devious human can do. Playing the defensive takes a certain mindset, and I am sure that some of the things you did would not happen next game. Each time is new, but some of the strategies work out in the long run.

One thing to always, always, always(!) keep in mind as the Soviet player - the panzers in 1941 can do deep thrusts with a little planning (far deeper than you might expect), and they can carve you up if not prepared...but they are not gods, and cutting off supply to the panzers could throw all sorts of plans out of whack.

[Encircled]

There is a "How to reorganise the Soviet Army in 1941" thread in the War Room somewhere.

Its not to be followed 100% (what would be the point of playing someones elses game?), but its full of ideas, and the majority of Soviet players tend to play roughly the same way.

As has been said, in '41 all you can really do is cut off Panzers to stop them moving so far, and you seize that chance every chance you get.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

I think the learning curve is rather steep. However, you are doing the exactly right thing in learning this - seeing what a devious human can do. Playing the defensive takes a certain mindset, and I am sure that some of the things you did would not happen next game. Each time is new, but some of the strategies work out in the long run.

One thing to always, always, always(!) keep in mind as the Soviet player - the panzers in 1941 can do deep thrusts with a little planning (far deeper than you might expect), and they can carve you up if not prepared...but they are not gods, and cutting off supply to the panzers could throw all sorts of plans out of whack.

I agree. Early posts were about it being too hard for Germans. I now think pendulum has swung the other way. However this is not because of game tweaks but because we now know how to play germans much better and russian early tactics have not yet caught up. Russians must get better at preventing the deep pockets that Germans are now starting to make. That means having fewer units in the front line and real defence in depth. The panzers can't destroy the russian army on their own unless the russian lets them.

No one has managed it against me (yet) tho' I haven't played PDH or Charon............