Defending Mother Russia Saper vs Harrybanana (No Saper)

[Harrybanana]

It is in the South that I am most worried. I think Saper may be able to put a hurt on me here.

[Harrybanana]

T3 Production, OOB and Losses are displayed below. Losses are actually far worse than indicated as there are a lot of isolated units that Saper has not yet destroyed.

[Harrybanana]

T4 North before my moves.

Not too much progress by Saper in the North. 8 of the 9 panzer/motorized units he has in the area are visible and don’t appear to have too much gas in the tank

[Harrybanana]

A wider view of the North after my moves. I made two successful counterattacks in the hexes marked with the red Xs. One to restore supply to my unit in Pskov and the other to retreat his SS Motorized back across the river. Both attacks cost me a lot more in losses than him. The attack on the SS unit in particular was probably a mistake. I believe the 36th motorized division is in the hex circled in blue as that is where he ran an airsupply mission with 142 JU88As. It will be interesting to see how far it penetrates next turn. I am again “hugging” his panzers to reduce their supply

[Harrybanana]

T4 Centre before my moves.

Again only limited progress by the Germans. 6 of his 7 panzer/motorized are visible. I believe the 7th is in the blue circled hex because 90 bombers flew supply into that hex. Air reconnaissance showed a lot of infantry and other units in the area circled in red. His panzer/motorized appear to be more gassed up in this area and I am expecting a major push here.

[Harrybanana]

T4 Centre after my moves.

You can see I pulled back quite a bit here. But in hindsight probably not enough. I should have formed a line well back from the river. Despite knowing what I should be doing (thanks MichaelT) old habits die hard. I suspect he may pocket several units here in his turn.

[Harrybanana]

T4 South before moves

I said that Saper might put a major hurt on me here and I was, unfortunately, right. I believe that in addition to airsupply he probably performed a HQ Buildup in the South last turn as several of his units had a lot of MPs. The result is that he isolated some of my best units as you can see in the screen shot below. The screenshot was taken after I moved a couple units to restore supply. I have highlighted the probable routes taken by the Wiking SS motorized divison, almost all of which was through my territory. He still had enough supply to make 2 hasty attacks on a cavalry division to complete the encirclement. What is worse is the cavalry he attacked retreated into the encirclement. Luckily one of my cavalry retained enough MPs to help break the trap

[Harrybanana]

T4 After My Moves

As you can see from the screenshot below I made several attacks here and was able to push him back from the river and isolate a few of his panzer/motorized units. But I haven’t fooled myself into thinking this will be anywhere near enough. Saper has 14 ½ panzer/motorized divisions in the south and I’m pretty sure a few of them (thanks to air supply) are close to full MP. When I started my moves in the South I felt I had enough units to hold the river (or at least prevent any major encirclement) for one more turn. About ¾ of the way through my moves I realized this may not be the case. By then, of course, it was too late

[Harrybanana]

In addition to the 3 T34 factories in Kharkov I have managed to move 37 arms factories from the South (and Mogilev) so far. But Leningrad, Kharkov (except for the 3 T34 factories) and the Donbas are all still fully loaded with their factories.

I have now received Turn 5 from Saper and, surprisingly, have no new disasters to report.

[Michael T]

have no new disasters to report

Always such a relief...

[Harrybanana]

Saper and I have now completed turn 6 but I have been too busy to post. I’ll do some catching up now.

T5 North.

Below are the screen shots of the situation in the North before (but after recon) and after my moves. As you can see Saper did not make any big progress here this turn. But I was worried that he had a few of his panzer/motorized gassed up. In addition to the fully gassed and ½ way gassed motorized circled in blue 94 bombers flew supply to the motorized circled in red. Accordingly, I retreated back to the Luga. The bigger decision was what to do with my units lined up along the Shelon. Leave them where they are or retreat them to the river lines south of Lake Ilmen. These were some of my best units in the area, they were fortified and they there were in favorable terrain behind a river. I knew they were in danger of encirclement if I left them where they were but I figured if I didn’t move them and Saper didn’t attack them that was good and if he did attack them at least they could defend themselves better than my units along the Luga and it would delay the assault on the Luga for a turn or two. So as you can see I left them. I’ll let you know how that turned out.

[Harrybanana]

T5 North After moves

[Harrybanana]

T5 Centre

Below are the screenshots of the action in the centre. Rather than attempting to encircle my units lined up along the Dnepr Saper chose instead to advance into the area I had largely vacated in the landbridge. You can see from the first screenshot that, thanks to a large number of airsupply missions, Saper has several panzer/motorized units in fair to excellent supply of fuel. So I gave the 2 regiments of the 14th motorized (circled in red) a bloody nose and then I ran

[Harrybanana]

T5 Centre after my moves.

[Harrybanana]

T5 South

My worries about my position in the South were unfounded as Saper didn’t even try to cross the Dnepr. Instead he contented himself with a drive towards D-Town and expanding the size of the area he controls on the west bank of the river. The most worrisome unit is, of course, the Wiking SS motorized circled in red. There was no way I could hold the entire river line so I abandoned most of it in effort to hold the southern portion of it.

[Harrybanana]

T5 South After My Moves

[Harrybanana]

To all the devoted followers of this AAR (all 5 of you):

Saper is very quick at returning turns and I am very busy so I have not been able to keep this AAR current. Saper has just sent me his turn 8 and so I have the choice of either playing my turn or else keeping you all informed of the progress of the war. An easy choice for me. I'll post unpdates as soon as I can. In the meantime enjoy Saper's AAR which I assume (because I am slow at returning turns) is current.

[schascha]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana
I'll post unpdates as soon as I can.

[&o]

[Harrybanana]

T6 North

Below are the before and after pictures of the situation in the North. As you can see Saper elected to deal with my units along the Shelon and almost succeeded in isolating them. Another 4 of my best units (and 1 not so good) will soon be bagged. The good news is that it did delay his attack towards Leningrad and his panzer/motorized units are now mostly out of gas. So did I make a mistake in not retreating these units last turn or not?

[Harrybanana]

T6 Centre Before Moves

My several hex retreat last turn was not enough to prevent Saper from surrounding a few more units in the Centre. The unit in Smolensk was expected, the others not so much. Though I’m not terribly surprised either.