A tale of three cities (hooooper vs Bomazz)

[hooooper_slith]

This is an AAR examining the fate of Leningrad, Moscow and Tula at the climax of Barbarossa. We join the action on turn 13; the Axis have fought a skillful and effective campaign and the prizes are just a few centimetres further on the planning maps. The Soviet leadership has deep misgivings about whether the Red Army can put enough bodies in the way of the Germans, who have formed strong concentrations of armour and infantry on the approaches to the three cities.

First, Leningrad.

[hooooper_slith]

The drive to the Baltic has succeeded and the first attempt to kick down the back door has failed with heavy losses on both sides. The troops of NW and Leningrad fronts that were holding the Luga have made an orderly withdrawal to the Volkhov - the open door defence - but the door has been taken off its hinges (ie Novgorod), as the Soviets scramble to fend off German divisions that have forced a passage to the south of Lake Ilman.

Meanwhile, an ambiguous offensive has been launched between Leningrad and Moscow, north of Kalinin and apparently heading for Vyshny Volochek. My opponent always seems to have a good reason for his moves, so what's this all about? Is it aimed at Moscow or Leningrad? Or does he just want to take VV? Or will they turn north west and try to pocket the two armies holding the Valdai hills? Somehow we will have to come up with an all-purpose plan to meet all of these possibilities. Yeah, right.

[hooooper_slith]

Although the situation in the North is serious, it is at least familiar, and if Leningrad is loss but the bulk of the forces defending it survive then nothing is ruined, especially if the pink panzers can be kept away from Moscow. And speaking of Moscow, here's the situation there. Or there's the situation here.

[hooooper_slith]

Two extremely powerful thrusts have squeezed the divisions from the Reserve and Moscow fronts like Silly Putty, and although the glacis east of Vyazma has held, there is nothing but low value, low morale units between the Germans and the west edge of Moscow. A frontal offensive would be unsubtle, but it would also be hard to stop.

Further south, this is the situation before Tula.

[hooooper_slith]

This pocket formed last turn and I briefly opened it. No hope remains for the two armies of the Western Front encircled, and there is nothing between the Germans and the Urals for about 100 miles. My only consolation is that the Germans may be distracted by the number of tempting opportunities facing them.

This is what's happening in the south.

[hooooper_slith]

Stavka is less worried about this situation than the crises further north, for the reason that there's just the one pincer and there doesn't appear to be any worries of it meeting up with another one, and at some point I may be able to stop it with pressure on the flanks.

Further south its a fight between the Russians and the Rumanians. I've committed the units that were digging in at the Crimea in an effort to convince my opponent that this is a serious threat, but without any success. In fact, my exploiting cavalry has been cut off.

[hooooper_slith]

Soviet responses

The first move is to reinforce the air defences of the city by flying more fighters into the three PVO airbases by the Lagoda port. Last turn these were fairly effective ....

[hooooper_slith]

An attack is made over the Volkhov, which makes some progress, but the main work is rotating high fatigue divisions out of the back door, replacing them with fresh forces, and merging an infantry brigage to bring the defence value back up to 22, which is about the minimum needed to give a reasonable chance of holding the hex. General Bagramyan, the battling Armenian, is put in charge of 23rd Army.

Down at Vyshny Volachek, all I have managed to do it strengthen the southern face of the penetration and weakened the north in the hope of squirting the panzers into a harmless NW direction. Generally, they're a long way from home and I don't believe they can pocket the Valdai, or at least not next go.

[hooooper_slith]

Down at Moscow, I should mention the heroism of the 126th division, which held off five attacks at massive odds, and prevented the pocket from being closed. The survivors will be showered with medals.

[hooooper_slith]

This is the best defence I was able to come up with: as you can see it's a fan design that contests every hex, but not at any great strength. I imagine my opponent will try to grind through using hasty attacks from three stacked divisions; ideally I'd like make the defensive values high enough to force an overcommitment to the attack, with the hope that fatigue will slow them down. The Reserve Front, which will be doing most of the fighting, is commanded by Rossokovsky, so I hope he's in form.

[hooooper_slith]

In front of Tula, the rail network has magicked up a last-ditch defence, and much to my surprise, it proved possible to make a path to the encircled troops. The situation is looking rather better now.

[hooooper_slith]

In the south we have thickened our defences in an attempt to persuade the pincer to head north. This is because there's nothing much there, and also because that should ensure that the Donbas, which is the pride of my position, remains undamaged.

[hooooper_slith]

Finally, here is the big picture:

[IdahoNYer]

Be careful of him attacking Moscow from the flanks - The Kalinin from the north and Kaluga from the south - your carpet might slow a frontal attack, but you look vulnerable to the flanks. Also, put combat units in all Moscow hexes just in case he does break through. You might consider some forts in Moscow and build up an inner perimeter to prevent a panzer thrust from impacting industry. If its early September, he has the time to reposition and assualt before mud, and then also attack in the snow if he wants to risk it.

[hooooper_slith]

That's a big worry. I'm betting that too much infantry has been committed to the central axis, to try to close the pocket. The weaker wing is in the south, and he'll definitely make progress there, but I can't see any mech divisions, apart from the ones on the wrong side of the river, so I don't think there's a risk of him completely outflanking Moscow to the south. In the north, the line on the Volga reservoir is too strong to brush aside, and the going is too bad for mech to "turn the corner". I thought about manning the line of the canal, but in the end I thought the greater danger was a simple push in the centre, so I put the last of my reserves there. [&:]

[Peltonx]

Wow Moscow looks to be in big trouble unless you got troops somewheres. Your CV is in the tank, why did you not build the standard 4 to 5 layers of forts in front of Moscow?

Most guys now just hand the south to GHC and rail 20 divisions north of Tula and send all new units to same area.

If this is a .13+ game you be first SHC to lose Moscow. heheh not a good thing.

But this is the Bomazz dude who like MT is 10-0 GHC 10-0 SHC

So I guess its not that bad of a thing.

[Peltonx]

Hes also not doing anything as far as exploiting the supply system, hes just straight up beating your butt.

[hooooper_slith]

As for the the state of Moscow, I imagine you'd be a pretty good judge, but I'm maybe a little less pessimistic. You have to succeed with two pincers to get your arms around the city and I think the northern wing has the armour but not the terrain and the southern wing has the terrain but not the armour. This might be wishful thinking.

As for losing Moscow, I won't be delighted, but I won't be completely inconsolable. If I were to lose it but keep everything to the east of Dnepropetrovk, I'd say that was a reasonable trade in terms of manpower centres. I forgot to mention in the AAR, but everything's been stripped out of three of the four industrial hexes apart from MIG factories and heavy industry, so I'll keep the aviation industry.

Generally I have no doubt that the Axis have the initiative, but it's going to have to hurry up.

I don't know anything about B, but I'm prepared to believe what you say - he's a most stimulating player. So far I've managed to avoid really big encirclements, apart from the south in the first few turns, but I've been giving ground at a much faster rate than usual. Incidentally, have you ever read Corelli Barnett's book "The Desert Generals"? It's about the men who ran the British campaign in north Africa - it's very vivid description of what it was like to fight against Rommel.

[hooooper_slith]

How do you mean "exploiting the supply system" - and how can you tell?

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: hooooper

As for the the state of Moscow, I imagine you'd be a pretty good judge, but I'm maybe a little less pessimistic. You have to succeed with two pincers to get your arms around the city and I think the northern wing has the armour but not the terrain and the southern wing has the terrain but not the armour. This might be wishful thinking.

As for losing Moscow, I won't be delighted, but I won't be completely inconsolable. If I were to lose it but keep everything to the east of Dnepropetrovk, I'd say that was a reasonable trade in terms of manpower centres. I forgot to mention in the AAR, but everything's been stripped out of three of the four industrial hexes apart from MIG factories and heavy industry, so I'll keep the aviation industry.

Generally I have no doubt that the Axis have the initiative, but it's going to have to hurry up.

I don't know anything about B, but I'm prepared to believe what you say - he's a most stimulating player. So far I've managed to avoid really big encirclements, apart from the south in the first few turns, but I've been giving ground at a much faster rate than usual. Incidentally, have you ever read Corelli Barnett's book "The Desert Generals"? It's about the men who ran the British campaign in north Africa - it's very vivid description of what it was like to fight against Rommel.

Very good point about the manpower centers. If you have enough blizzard exp I am guessing you will be able to retake it, now holding it during 42 will be interesting.

Your a very good SHC player yourself so if hes pushing you hes very good.

Looks like game will be desided in 42 basicly. Whats your OOB look like?

It will be interesting to see what he does during blizzard. He might be 10-0 +, but has he had to fase a strong exp SHC Blizzard O?

As we have seen its not out of the question for the SHC to win the game during blizzard by pocketing 20+ divisions and crushing german infantry morale.