And Again Again - vicberg (axis) vs. Viktor (Soviets)

[vicberg]

Battle of the Victors or er, em. Viktors. I'll avoid the obvious puns here.

Turn 2

Totally different play style and it has a much different impact.

In the north. A number of pickets. I transferred a corp from PZG3 to PZG4. He had a couple of armor on the north part of the advance ready to sweep down the cut off my panzers. Security untis deployed forward.

[vicberg]

AGC. More forward security pickets making for a more cautious advance. Turn 1, PZG2 went south to close the Lvov pocket. I've sent them back north to rejoin AGC. Going to try something different this game.

[vicberg]

AGS

More pickets. I've decided I'm not going to try an early or hard push over the Dnepr in the south. Just too easy to get bogged down with fuel issues prior to turn 9 or 10. So PZG1 is going to go this one alone. The standard pocket to the west of Rovno was broken, so I had to tighten it.

[vicberg]

Haven't posted in a while.

Turn 7

I've had one turn of mud already. Viktor is doing a classic hedgehog defense. This is first time I've faced it. He has multiple large stacks in depth and ZOC coverage. He places his back defenses in swamps. Attacking with armor/mot is just going to take losses and the infantry don't have the movement for moving to the second line of defense and doing a deliberate attack. I'd love to do hasty attacks, but it's only allowed from one hex (a limitation in the game IMO). So this is a quite effective defense for slowing the Germans down.

My strategy now, and I wish I had adopted a few turns ago, is to push past and isolate small numbers of units. If I can isolate 10 plus units, around 100k plus per turn, by mud and then into snow, I can bring his losses to 2.5 - 3 million. It's a goal that may not be achievable, since I should have started this strategy on turn 2.

AGN.

[vicberg]

AGC

[vicberg]

In the south, I'm taking territory up the river. Kiev fell. But he has strong defenses along the entire river in the south. I'll need to find a couple weak spots, punch with infantry and exploit with armor.

[vicberg]

Turn 8

Another mud turn, just east of Smolensk.

More small pocket isolation in Finland

[vicberg]

AGN. Accross the Luga River.

[vicberg]

AGC

More pockets. Preparing for Smolensk and moving infantry to the landbridge

[vicberg]

AGS

More small pockets then preparation for the crossing.

[vicberg]

So, 12 divisions this turn of some size (not 1-1s). Hopefully 100-150k in casualties. If I can keep this up, I'll be close to reaching my goal.

[sillyflower]

200K total casualties a turn seems to be more than soviets can cope with because it enables so much ground to be taken and destroys any chance of a decent winter offensive ( assuming competant German play) setting up '42 win if opponent is still playing then

[vicberg]

I'm most likely not going to get any mass encirclements against Viktor, so I'll take what I can get. My infantry are now ALL stacked up against him. I'll be launching assaults accross the entire front and see what opens up for the armor. So far it's around 10 divisions a turn I've been able to isolate. I'm hoping to keep that up.

Hedgehogs work great against the current combat mechanics. If I could hasty attack from more than one hex, I think the Hedgehog would fall apart.

[vicberg]

Turn 9

9 more turns left until mud. 1.4 million Sov casualties. I've been able to do 150 - 200k of casualties for the last few turns. I've been able to isloate 5-10 divisions per turn. Not great numbers. I would love a large encirclement, but Viktor keeps putting stacked troops in defensible terrain behind the front lines. My infantry can't get there and do deliberates. My armor/mot are a waste of valuable assets. So I keep snaking through his lines and isolating units.

AGN.

Progress is being made on the far north front.

[vicberg]

AGN (south)

16th Army pushes and more units isloated

[vicberg]

AGC

Smolensk is isolated

[vicberg]

AGS

I'm accross the Denpr in 3 places. Based on the time of the campaign and that I'm behind there, I may set my forts behind the Denpr. Not too thrilled with the idea because of the lack of nice tight lines, but it would be impregnable (almost). I would rather push through the Crimea and set solid north/southeast solid lines. PZG 1 has pulled back a bit to exploit other places if they show themselves.

[vicberg]

Lessons learned:

This game is taking on the same feel as my disaster with Cheerfully Insane. Faced with a defense I've never seen before, it took turns before I came up with a solution, but too late.

I'm not sure it's too late in this game. The small-ball pocketing is working. It's not exciting, but pounding through the front lines just to meet the same thing 2 hexes away hasn't worked either.

I'm going to try both. Infantry are up against him. Smash with everything and then see what the armor can do after. Recon is showing not much behind his initial sets of hedgehogs, so he may be running out of pieces a bit in the north, especially since he has the Denpr in the south so heavily defended. If I don't make progress in the south, that's fine as long as I make progress in the north. Leningrad and Moscow are the goals for this year. With Moscow I can possibly push the entire line east and have the Fins garrison quite a bit of it.

[vicberg]

Turn 10

AGN

I've been using PZG4 primarily to encircle. So it's in pretty good shape. No more rail into Leningrad. I still have a couple of ports to take to isolate the city. This is the first real success I've had since first turn.

[vicberg]

AGC

Making progres is tough tough tough. Those 10/11 stacks are second level defenses. I blast through the front defenses and then have nothing left to take them on.

I really believe the game should allow hasty attacks from more than one hex. It's very difficult to take on these stacks without doing deliberates. Allowing two hexes to hasty attack one, would be the difference. It would also reduce the need to mull, which I don't do.