Razing the Reich

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

The written word can be a bear at times for intent, especially on a board that has a lot of non-native English speakers.

All those Goddam Yankees mangling the English language is quite painful to read sometimes

[mevstedt]

ORIGINAL: randallw

It does look a little weird that the panzer blob attack is north of the neck of the rivers there; I don't even see where the other pincer is?

There doesn't really seem to be one. I can't really figure out what he is up to so likely he is just attacking because he can while waiting for summer.

[AFV]

I am still confused why Flaviusx says moral for the Soviet is in the low to mid 40s at this stage. I'm not saying he is wrong, just that in my (limited) experience Soviet moral should be near or at 50 (and higher for the high quality units). I guess I can see if the German has a very good '41, the SU might be pressed and have to send lower moral units into battle before they are ready- but other than that I don't get it. Even the crappiest unit with a moral of 30 will be back to 50 within 10 turns sitting back 10 hexes from the front lines. Sure, it takes a lot of planning- and it will be more difficult if you lose a lot of counters- but doesn't every SU player rotate units back and forth?

Not that in this Michael had to rotate units, the retreat made this all quite easy. Of course, now he can start rotating units.

And to Klydon- +1 to what Silly Flower (I believe) said- he is attacking the strategy, not the man- which is a huge difference. And he has that right- and in fact, to a degree, that duty- to analyze his opponents strategy and comment. If your opponents strategy sucks, then there is not reason you can't just come out and say so. I do not expect crap to be sugar coated like "My opponent's strategy is less than optimal".

And also, regarding Michael's white outs. I don't see a problem with that. It does not mean he does not trust Pelton- but how many here are reading both AR's? How easy would it be to accidentally post something in Pelton's AR like "There's no way you can make progress around Kiev with all the reserves he has in that area behind the lines."

[Seminole]

And also, regarding Michael's white outs. I don't see a problem with that. It does not mean he does not trust Pelton- but how many here are reading both AR's? How easy would it be to accidentally post something in Pelton's AR like "There's no way you can make progress around Kiev with all the reserves he has in that area behind the lines."

All the more reason to delay the AAR. It doesn't need to be real time.

[Baelfiin]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower



All those Goddam Yankees mangling the English language is quite painful to read sometimes

I find it very enjoyable to mangle and cause you pain SF [:D]

[janh]

Flavius probably refers to the national morale, which after patch 1.06.06 was 45 for the Soviets in 1942, with brigades and smaller being an exception at 50. I think that was not tuned again, so it should be the present parameter set.

So by sitting behind the lines at >=10h, you rather easily get to 45, and after waiting a bit even 46-47ish and above -- yet the wait for that is considerably longer, i.e. usually not economic. I guess in Michael's case here, any units he didn't have above that threshold 50 by end of 41 will be sitting in the 45-50 range by March/April. Without a morale building blizzard offensive, likely the fewest of his units are battle-seasoned survivors with morale 50-55+.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: AFV

I am still confused why Flaviusx says moral for the Soviet is in the low to mid 40s at this stage. I'm not saying he is wrong, just that in my (limited) experience Soviet moral should be near or at 50 (and higher for the high quality units). I guess I can see if the German has a very good '41, the SU might be pressed and have to send lower moral units into battle before they are ready- but other than that I don't get it. Even the crappiest unit with a moral of 30 will be back to 50 within 10 turns sitting back 10 hexes from the front lines. Sure, it takes a lot of planning- and it will be more difficult if you lose a lot of counters- but doesn't every SU player rotate units back and forth?

Not that in this Michael had to rotate units, the retreat made this all quite easy. Of course, now he can start rotating units.

And to Klydon- +1 to what Silly Flower (I believe) said- he is attacking the strategy, not the man- which is a huge difference. And he has that right- and in fact, to a degree, that duty- to analyze his opponents strategy and comment. If your opponents strategy sucks, then there is not reason you can't just come out and say so. I do not expect crap to be sugar coated like "My opponent's strategy is less than optimal".

And also, regarding Michael's white outs. I don't see a problem with that. It does not mean he does not trust Pelton- but how many here are reading both AR's? How easy would it be to accidentally post something in Pelton's AR like "There's no way you can make progress around Kiev with all the reserves he has in that area behind the lines."

This isn't an ordinary game. Michael has been allowed to max out his morale via refits, and doesn't even have to pick and choose his refits. His replacement pool can support infinite refits for more or less an infinite amount of time. Whatever he lost in terms of guards opportunities in the blizzard has more than been made up for by allowing the whole Red Army to train up.

In an ordinary game a German 42 summer offensive will start beating down the Red Army and forcing it down to its natural ceiling based on national morale norms. And that puts it in the mid 40s. It may not sound like a big difference from 50, but it is huge. If Michael can force a turtle he'll retain this edge. He probably is going to get that turtle. He's running around with a morale level close to an early 43 Red Army rather than a mid 42 army, despite the lack of Red Army 2.0 offensive tools.

TLDR; bizarre game is bizarre.

[Michael T]

I think Flav is right. This is no regular game. It should have ended a while back. But anyhow it goes on and Pelton now faces a no win situation. If he attacks in summer he will suffer unsustainable casualties for little gain. If he goes turtle I will have a 2.0 army much much sooner. And he doesn't have any more ground to give up. He is in a catch 22 now.

Pelton is busy with work so no turns for a fews days. I will update at end of next move.

[Michael T]

End Soviet T41 (26th March 1942) Snow.

The last of the snow turns saw Pelton isolate a total of 5 ID and 6 IB shown on the map in the yellow circle. He continued his drive north towards Gomel surrounding Chernigov. Not much I could do to save them as Mech stacked 3 high are beyond my capabilities at this stage. But his small gain in the AP crunch came at a heavy cost. The losses in manpower and material for the Soviets were insignificant.

I continued my assaults across the front especially in the area to the east of Krivoi Rog, see red arrows. I also advanced in to the no man’s land Pelton left vacant west of Sumy, see green arrows.

Overall I was very happy with the snow turns. Pelton basically went nowhere and paid a high price for it. My attempt to hold Minsk seems to be going ok at this stage. Actually overall the Soviets gained far more territory than they lost in the snow period. Total losses during the snow period were 233K Axis for 370K Soviet. A very acceptable loss ratio.

We now have 5 turns of mud to fortify our territorial gains and prepare for the spring/summer. The OOB is just under 8 million. I still expect Pelton to go turtle well before the summer ends. We shall see.

Next report will be after the first clear turn, T47.

[randallw]

Pelton may be a bit stupefied....he may not have gone into the 1942 thaw this badly since facing Tullis a few months ago?

[Flaviusx]

This is looking pretty good. I was worried about the Baltics, but with mud coming in all these rivers and swamps are going to unfreeze and make it very difficult to shift you. He doesn't have a lot of mech up there anyways.

You've got tons of units you could shift to meet his thrust by Chernigov. Frankly I think he'd be better off pressing you south of Charkassy and into the Dnepr bend, and maybe trying eventually to trap stuff along the sea of Azov.

How is your supply situation? You've got a lot of forts digging, and this could stress it. But you didn't lose that much HI, so it should be ok.

[AFV]

In my last game as the Russian against the AI, my army was 6.9 million. In this respect, MT is doing betteragainst Pelton than I did against the AI. And that was pretty good. 70 turns later its August of '43 and I am in Poland.
Flaviux- I think its quite the understatement that "This is looking pretty good."

Don't get me wrong, Pelton is a great (not good) player, and I really admire his play. He just met his match this game, and has been bested. And it all happened before the great retreat.

Michael, do you care to share how many APs you have at this point?

[Michael T]

There are even more units, maybe another 40 or so Divisions, including my very best troops, that are not visible on the map. Supply is ok so far. There will be some shifting of troops during the mud.

[Flaviusx]

A 40 division reserve is like having an entire Front in your pocket, nicely done.

AFV, by "pretty good" I mean even better than I anticipated. Michael had two potential weak spots going into snow. The first one, along the Dvina and east of Riga turned out to be a damp squib. If Pelton could've forced this position before mud, it could have gotten very awkward up there, since there's not much to fall back on when you get past it until Neva-Pskov-Vitebsk. Pelton was unable to kick him out of it while it was frozen. Now Michael is in position of the best defensive terrain in that area with mud coming in. It's actually harder for the Axis to make gains now in clear weather as opposed to snow over there.

The second weak spot was by Kiev, and Pelton did indeed force the Dnepr there before it could unfreeze. But Michael very skillfully absorbed that thrust and anticipated it, and since the bulk of the Axis mech forces are in this area, and he has amazing reserves, he should be able to turn this into a turtle there as well, despite the terrain not being very favorable for the defense. His line running south of there down to the Black Sea is very solid and deep, despite lacking the Dnepr river north of Cherkassy.

Am surprised he was able to get as many level 2 forts dug in everywhere as he has during the winter. But then he picked these positions and sat on them for a very long time in all likelihood. It was his cavalry doing most of the movement during the winter.

Michael, don't forget that you have tank corps conversions available to you from April onwards. I would suggest making 1 per front for now, and wait until July to make any further ones.

Alternately, since you didn't make cavalry corps during the blizzard, it would be easy to assign some tank corps to shock armies. It won't cost you a fortune to make the reassignments. 4 tank corps per shock army, or some mix of tank corps and cavalry corps. Hold these in deep reserve, probably somewhere south of Smolensk in case the Chernigov thrust gets out of hand.

Another possibility would be to get them blooded way down south where he has no mech at all and you should be able to get some easy wins. Beat up the Romanians. Even single German infantry divisions aren't hard to beat up on given the terrain and relative lack of fortifications here.

Really, you have so many options here. Hard to choose.

[Ketza]

I am surprised how small Peltons army is since there was no big Blizzard hit.

[Michael T]

I have 480 AP. I spend 50~60 each turn.

[mevstedt]

ORIGINAL: Ketza

I am surprised how small Peltons army is since there was no big Blizzard hit.

Pelton hasn't recieved the pre-case blue reinforcements yet and I assume he hasn't topped up his units after the blizzard either so the size is more of an apparent illusion until the game gets to june.

[Michael T]

Two more turns of mud to go. My OOB is over 8.1 million. I finally got a Guards XX thanks to the snow attacks west of D-town. The only mud action has been the constant bombing of the hun by an unopposed VVS. Will Pelton spring a surprise May offensive? We hope so as boredum has set in again [>:]

[Scook_99]

Your manpower size is what I would expect, but your tank level from your last report? Ye gods, you probably don't have too many stinkers in that mix. That alone shows the importance of fighting in winter. I do realize infantry corps is the way of going, but you will have such a significant mechanized assault team, you can have significant breakthroughs.

Have you thought of building up a large group of mechanized corps? This is one game where I see a Russian being able to afford to "bring the pain".

[Michael T]

No large mech force is possible during 42. Just not enough trucks to sustain it

If I had more trucks (or a sensible rail conversion schedule) I could have chased him much further west.

One more mud turn to go now.