Trappenjagd, Keunert(sov) vs. alex0809(axis)

[Keunert]

24. May 1942
Turn Seven

It's the calm before the storm. German replacement lists show the arrival of several mobile and tank divisions within the next week. wherever possible we try small counterattacks to reduce their infantry a little. besides that not much his happening outside the Krim.

Replacements are on average. But this turn 25 fighter planes arrive. not bad at all.

[Keunert]

24. May 1942
Turn Seven

The map from Voronezh to Rostow. Little action.

[Keunert]

24. May 1942
Turn Seven

Crimean Front
47A, 51A, 44A
Defend Kerch and Sevastopol

After another round of bloody attacks we do a counterstroke on an Axis plain hex: little entrenchment, low readiness due to the hard fighting and in range of our ships. Naval and artillery shelling prepares two waves of attacks. it's a bloodbath for both sides. but we can afford it. Stalin even requested to reduce the farming population further.

Our attack destroys two regiments of the Romanian 19 inf div, and a regiment of the german 170th and one of the german 46th inf division. The Romanian will now have a very low spirit. We hope to influence their will to send further replacements.

[Keunert]

26. May 1942
Turn Eight

The campaign is slowly gaining intensity. This turn saw again a lot of airstrikes and some of them got intercepted. Overall Alex air campaign cost him 70 planes in two days, we lost 65 planes. With a lot of my fighter units ready we felt that we could start a search and destroy mission to find the Italian airbase. our first recon mission discovered 1PZ A HQ. the recon was intercepted twice but both sides suffered equal losses. our third recon revealed an overstacked Luftwaffe airfield with three JG's and one KG.

After some hesitation we sent in three of our own fighter squadrons. The Luftwaffe was low on readiness after it's mission early in the turn and the fight over the airfield saw another 25 german planes burning with only 5 Soviet losses: the Luftwaffe lost 95 planes in one turn.

[Keunert]

26. May 1942
Turn Eight

Brianks Front
13A, 40A
Defend Voronezh

9Pz followed up our retreat. All of them are stacked in one hex. We decided to try a four sided attack after a Sturmovik attack. We did not manage to push them back. But they lost some halftracks and some readiness. Our losses were considerably higher. Still i think it was worth it.

[Keunert]

26. May 1942
Turn Eight

South Western Front
21A, 28A, 38A, 6A
Take position behind Donetzk

Some more attacks along the front. 6A pulls back. The danger of an encirclement is further reduced. Probably the most important news is the arrival of a new capable commander: V.I. Morozov. He picks up command of 6A from A. M. Gorodniansky. He surpasses his precedessor in all fields by far. the most important improvement is the neglection of the combat penalty. we are pretty sure the units under his commands soon will see a lot of combat and having a -25% combat penalty is inacceptable.

[Keunert]

26. May 1942
Turn Eight

South Western Front
21A, 28A, 38A, 6A
Take position behind Donetzk

Command change:

[Keunert]

26. May 1942
Turn Eight

South Front
57A, 9A, 37A, 56A, 12A, 18A, 46A
Defend Millerowo, Rostow, secure 6th A southern flank.

North Caucasus Front & Trans Caucasus Front
56A, 1KA
Defend Rostow, deny access to Caucasus

This turn we tried another attack on Italian units, but we failed miserably. South Front saw the departure of Soviet's finest: my very own army is now under Trans Caucasus Front command. In front of Rostow the fortificated line is now 40km long.

We were able to intercept a Funkspruch of a high ranking OKH officer: on a call to Berlin he explained that their allied Hungarian, Romanian and Italian Generals are threatening to leave the campaign! even before it started! we will try to keep pressure on them.

[Keunert]

26. May 1942
Turn Eight

Crimean Front
47A, 51A, 44A
Defend Kerch and Sevastopol

We wrote off Manstein too early. after another round of heavy bombing the place looks like an eastern Verdun. There is no more fort left over and a final German attack pushes the defenders back. a follow up attack finishes off the retreated units. But the German units reached their limit and we successfully counterattack and push them back.

Our transport unload a reinforced Soviet division in Operation Timid Pony, effectively destroying all supply access to the Krim. this will hopefully neglect further attacks at Kerch. Depending on the reaction we may try to conduct attacks at Sevastopol.

Stavka orders us to attack Sudak, just behind 11A HQ. Greedy bastards!

[krupp_88mm]

Operation Timid Pony


Nice.. but the Germans will still be receiving limited supplies from the ports at Yalta and Alushta. There are several options to block the supply flow. Bomb / shore bombard the ports continuously. Most effective is probably move ships right in front of the ports to interdict supply. Or you could also block the ports that the supply flows form probably Odessa. Or you could just intercept the supply lines form the ports, you need to reposition your ships quickly to cut the flow. t should be reduced but not totally gone, plus i think they can still get very limited supply without a port. but not much at all.

Also it looks like sudak is unguarded. Can you just do a quick one turn landing and grab it.

[Keunert]

you are right! thanks for pointing this out. so much for proper planning.

[Keunert]

OKH played the increase experience card on Alex. He is in a Feldmarschall scout training camp for two weeks. The poor lad will have an exam on Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz tomorrow. we were able to interdict another radio channel stating: 'Diese feigen Ungarn, Italiener und Rumänen machen uns fertig!' translated into russian:

Эти трусливые венгров, итальянцев и румын закончить нас!

not bad at all!

[Keunert]

The campaign has started again. But the OKH feels like they are already far behind schedule.
also the OKH didn't like our Krim landings at all.
we will see how long the game will go on from here and report again.

[krupp_88mm]

I think trapenjagd will be a very difficult campaign against a good soviet player. I might like to try playing as the germans sometime after I finish my soviet case blue campaign.

Too bad your opponent didn't like the landings, its completely understandable, but also in reality the germans should not be able to get away with not garrisoning their rear. I feel like with the new transport nerf he could have bombed them if he had his air-force in place? maybe he will use air-supply correctly?

anyway looks lik you are really giving him a hard time everywhere, good luck

[Keunert]

i believe it is the duty of a good axis commander to take care of his supply routes. it really doesn't need that many troops to protect the crimean bottlenecks.