Totally Disgruntling the Vet. The Pro's v DV -DV welcome

[sillyflower]

Silly me. I forgot to take pics of T3. However DV was pretty conservative and I assume he's posted maps on his AAR.
No attacks were possible as he's paid more attention to the detail. He persists with the panzer assault in the marshes and rivers NW of Vitebsk and We stayed put, freeing the pocket of 1 tk and 1 mot div and ensuring that his armour continued to have low supplies.

[sillyflower]

Breaking pockets 101

to make up for the lack of excitement or even anything of interest in the last post, I thought I would explain the way that we look at this problem. So at the start of T4 DV had formed 2 pockets as below

[sillyflower]

So what to do?

Breaking pockets is a good thing especially when that means bashing high value targets ie German panzers, motorised and cav. Bashing those targets is always good of course. More importantly, it keeps the surrounded units in play for another turn with the benefits of further disruption to the advance of the bad guys. Success also has a greater psychological impact on the German who will probably be upset by the loss of panzers or other troops that use up lots of arms points, and will probably be more cautious than before. A cautious German is a good one for the Russians. See eg the recent discussions about Hitman's lack of offensive in the Nov '41 snow turns in his AAR. A good German is both very aggressive and very careful. MT's success as the top German player is not just down to the fact that he gets more petrol cans to his panzers than anyone else.

However there are downsides. Any attempt to break a pocket does mean disrupting the defences in that area in the Germans' next turn. The biggest downside is, of course, failing to break the pocket which is the worst of all worlds for the Russian.


In short, success can bring great reward and failure can just make it much easier for the Nazis to gobble up the would-be rescuers in their next turn. Something that inexperienced Russians may miss in their desire to give some payback is that even breaking the pocket may turn out to have been a mistake as the Germans just form a bigger and better pocket next turn.

I will reveal in a day or 2 what actions I take over these 2 pockets and why, but we will all have to see DV's T5 to know whether I took the right ones.

You are welcome to post what you will do on the assumption that you can get a 1:1 in straight CV terms against a pz div holding each pocket. I am genuinely interested in your answers.

[HITMAN202]

No trash- talk here.

Sillyflower is 100% correct about how his aggressiveness (and Sean's) made me paranoid and got me into a coccon to where I did not get aggressive moves 5-10. By then he put up a Maginot Line and I could do little (but I could have done more than I did.) I had tremendous success in 5 earlier games ( 2 server) with a direct smash-mouth attack on the AG's 3 targets, Leningrag, Moscow, and the Dnepr. I now see how amatuerish it was and a little embarassing.

His strategy has been great, but also his tactics. The problem with that is tactical skills are hard to teach or mimic. MT and Pelton have it and more. THEPROS are very, very good. I will follow this AAR closely.

[sillyflower]

Thank you Hitman.

All you have to do now is to answer the question posed, though not to the detriment of finishing your own turn.

I should add that your performance in our game so far is as good or better than any of our other opponents to date, or any German I have faced other than MT. We had 1 who did quite a bit better in the summer then lost over 30 german divisions in the first 5 blizzard turns before surrendering, but I'm not that hopeful in our game.

[sillyflower]

PS @ Hitman

You do know I will have to keep this AAR behind our game. I can't give you all our secrets before it's too late to help you because you will adjust your play to counter us.........

[sillyflower]

Due to forgetting to take any T4 pic, here's end T5



I broke both pockets quite easily and 99 german AFVs went into the dead pile.

So, was it worth it?

In the north the 2 trapped divisions survived as did the rescuers. CV did a good job exploiting the weak spot by Pskov so he had a good turn there. I underestimated his mobility. With hindsight the best response to the pocket would have been to run back to the Luga, but that's not without disadvantages. If I was playing solo I would have sent more from the south to help the North which would make a stand at Pskov much safer.. Ran this turn and hope Luga will hold.

In the middle DV resealed the pocket and added 2 more divs to it. I'm not sure if he routed any away. His panzers were again in poor supply and did not get very far. PzG 3 stayed in the bad terrain but PzG 2 extricated itself and started to move east down the funnel between the Dnepr and Dvina rivers. It's an obvious place to go. I'm hoping his panzers will outrun his inf there as armour is very vulnerable to counter attack and I have a lot of good infantry at the east end and in the Smolensk area.

In my view breaking this pocket was worth it as it tied much of AGC down for another turn.

[sillyflower]

and south



The 2 div pocket at the top of this screen is my real shame.2 divs lost through stupidity rather than poor judgement.

Sean also broke his pocket.as there was a weak spot on the south side defended by a motorised regt. However, packing the east side to stop DV crossing the Dnepr did not work as planned. Fortunately, the lone motorised div that crossed was repelled with heavy losses.

Perhaps honours even on the pocket break and german riposte.

[smokindave34]

I think it was a good move breaking the pockets. You didn't put yourself in a situation where your relief force will end up in a pocket next turn and it will force DV to commit more forces when he pockets units in the future (i.e. he will be more conservative).

How is it that Sean is a Matrix "Legion of Merit" with thousands of posts to his credit yet he never posts in this AAR and seldom on the WITE forum? What is his secret?

[sillyflower]

Indeed, and the last thing we need is a Gruntled Vet. This is not to take away the credit to DV for forming the pockets in the first place. He's been doing better since the first 2 turns.

Soviets cannot simply be passive punch bags in '41 if they are to survive against a good German. Equally being too aggressive or fighting too far forward is the quick way to ruin. It is commonplace that the combat system over-favours the attacker. My hope and expectation is that this is 1 of the big issues that WiTE 2 will resolve as mass runaways (by either side) is neither historical nor fun.

Sean has not told me why he is silent. (I know - cheesy joke). He's quite chatty by nature as you know.

[sillyflower]

DV is clumping his army groups together like lumps of mucus fouling the lungs of Mother Russia. Hitman made the same error. I think it's a sign of lack of confidence like 'holding onto nurse for fear of finding something worse.'

The psychological aspect of this game is often overlooked. As some may know, I have an academic background in psychology so I find it interesting even if no one else does. In almost all competitive activity, success both requires and brings confidence. The less successful and therefore less confident player will therefore do worse against a successful player than one would expect. This then magnifies the success of the of the successful making harder for others to beat them: unless the 'others' are not psychologically a bit intimidated at the start.

Pelton's game against MT was a disappointment as I don't think P played well. He now says it was a sandbox game. In the way he played or in the 'sandbox' decision I suspect Pelton was not his usual confident self and that contributed to his poor '41.That's not to take anything away from MT's performance.

[loki100]

I'd agree completely with the psychological aspect, esp with PBEM and the surrounding correspondence.

I played a RuS PBEM where one of my opponents became utterly fixated on essentially irrelevant Soviet partisan units as they blew up his rails and grabbed back a few small towns. Once I realised this, I just did more of it and he started to disperse his army hunting them down while I rebuilt the Red Army's defenses on the Volga.

still lost, as the player with the other white faction was less easy to distract

[Michael T]

I would agree with what you say David, very much so. The psychological aspect plays its part for sure. But PBEM is nothing like the heat encountered in a FTF engagement. That's when it is almost as much a factor as your knowledge of the game itself.

[sillyflower]

Absolutely psych can be so helpful in FTF - I'm a miniatures player at heart. Started over 40 years ago and even used to own a firm that made them. Not Games Workshop, sadly........

[Belphegor]

ORIGINAL: smokindave34

How is it that Sean is a Matrix "Legion of Merit" with thousands of posts to his credit yet he never posts in this AAR and seldom on the WITE forum? What is his secret?

years of beta testing service. I'm sadly too busy with real life (doing much the same thing) to take that on any more as a contribution to the community. (or maybe I buy post increases like others buy turns in facebook games [;)] )

[Scook_99]

I love playing face to face, felt like swimming in the shark tank with our group. My best friend and me were not allowed to play on the same team, however. That happened once, and we won an automatic victory in 1943........still hate him for that game though, glad he thought I was tougher than I knew.

[sillyflower]

Boardgames are good, but seeing your opponent having to remove from the table his now dead model soldiers which he spent hours painting is sooooo much better than removing a bit of printed card.

I hope to have time this w'end for game update unless I can get Sean to post.

[sillyflower]

End T6 overview




No opportunities to c/attack apart from throwing PzG 4 back across the Luga. Won't slow him down much though.

In the centre, the mucus spread out with the 2 Pz groups going off in different directions, so no progress towards M'town which suits me. Both groups sent full corps to the flanks so they are relatively weak.

The southern clump crosses just south of Kiev, leaving Sean to worry about whether they will head SE or NE next turn.

[sillyflower]

This seems to be my next saved picture



A good bit of herding by DV. Unable to break thru' but 2pz divs ran away from Soviet counter-attacks. Not much Eastward progress in the centre at the moment but 24PzK has returned from the south ( just off screen to the southwhich will give hinm more width - which he needs.

I have been able to stay pretty much in the centre which is valuable for a number of reasons:

Most of my attackers are able to run out of reach to refit. I can also afford to send some other weaker units back to refit whilst other go into reserve mode. Russian always needs to balance reserves and refit. No reserves and German advances better. No refit and units get ground down pretty quickly by combat and attrition.

[Spielverderber]

Could you let us know what the Moral Level settings are in this game?