Field Marshal von Fogger vs Comrade Marshal Fulkerson

[Petey]

x

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Petey
Larry: The Finns are turning the right flank of your Leningrad line. I think you are defending too far forward, and therefore the defensive line is too long for the units you have availible. I'd pull back a bit to shorten the line and use some of the lake hexes also.

Good idea. I'm going to see if I can't pull back the left flank and set up another defensive line closer to Leningrad. Originally
I was planning on trading space for time by pulling back slowly but since the Finns have broken through on the right I'll have to
re-think that strategy. This is the wrong time for the Finns to be breaking through on the right anyway. They are supposed to try a
lot of head-on attacks on the left and lose a lot of people.

ORIGINAL: Petey
The southern end of your Stalin line looks to be in trouble.

Yeah, they have already grabbed a toe-hold on the river and I have no units handy to block them properly. The Stalin Line is in
the process of crumbling already. I was hoping for more time from them but I had no delusion that they were going to hold out for
very long. It looks like most of them are toast already.

ORIGINAL: Petey
The Odessa area looks good but you could lose it if he breaks through South of your Stalin line.

Yeah, the Odessa area was my one area of sunshine. But as you have astutely noted they are defending too far west and need to be
pulled back to the next river to the east. I hate giving up good defensive positions though.

ORIGINAL: Petey
I'd also not use your planes for those long range bridge attacks. The trade-off doesnt seem worth it. They could be used to blunt his panzers or spt the front line. But that's just me. Exciting game so far. Thanks John and Larry!

Um......the long range attacks only happened twice so far. The first time broke the bridge just east of Berlin and the next day I
attempted to bust a bridge near the busted one and was jumped by Axis fighters and lost about 40 IL-4's. I was hoping to get some
utility out of the IL-4's but I've had a survey of the terrain within range of the planes and it's mostly all covered by Axis
fighters. And I don't want to lose a lot of planes again. I'm giveing some bandwith in my head to the notion of making attacks under
the umbrella of my fighters and that would involve my moving my fighters into harms way and I'm thinking it's too early for that. I
was saving the fighters for the defense of Smolensk and Kiev and they aren't being threatened properly yet. Moving the fighters into
harm's way now would just get most of them shot down.....the Axis fighers are that numerous.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a closeup of the south end of the Stalin Line and as you can see the situation has deterioriated so badly that I have no recourse
to pull those people back as they are already surrounded and written off. The next defensive line will be along the river near the blue
line in the picture. I've already started putting people on the bridges and so on. The problem is that defending along the new river
won't hold very long either. But it may buy me some time to get some people railed in to help defend.

[larryfulkerson]

Off Topic a little bit but here's something interesting. I wanted to turn on the SitRep logs and I think I've found the place to do that in the
Opart 3.ini file. I'm going to turn that on to see what kind of output we get. Hopefully next turn I'll get a file I can attach to this forum to
give you guys a taste of the losses for each combat.

[fogger]

Hi Larry,

I have just captured the port at 140209 with my naval unit and then sailed in 3 inf regts + 1 recon unit and mech regt. I then captued the airfield at 142209 with one of the inf regts and then airlifted in a cdo unit and then the HQ for the inf div. Moved some units and rememberd that HQ's should not be airlifted behind enemy lines.

Questions.

1. Are you happy with me capturing the port?

2. Will you accept the airlifting of the HQ unit?

If not then I will reload the turn and start again
Cheers
john

[fogger]

To everybody else
Hi, while I am waiting for Larry to get back to me I will now have some time to update my position. When Larry and I were discussing the game we agreed not to worry about the bug with defenders on ignore losses and to play with what we had. This has resulted in me taking some heavy losses when attacking the Fort Area units and any units with heavy rife squads that are dug in. it will help Larry in the first half of the game and me in the second half.

My losses in heavy rife squads are as follows
Turn 1 & 2 - 1,652 Turn 3 - 3,286 Turn 4 - 3,646 Turn 5 - 4,580 Turn 6 - 5,684 Turn 7 - 7,252

I have not yet set a formal plan for my objectives for the first year. I am still pushing everywhere and waiting to see what happens. I have set one of my objectives to destroy his forces in detail. This means that as soon as I encounter one of his units I will surround it and then destroy it so that nothing goes back into his replacement pool.

As for my objectives, I was going for Murmansk & Leningrad but the bug with the Finns not going early changed that. I am still going for Murmansk. My second and third objectives are still open.

The defensive line that Larry is setting up along 134105 to 134127 is going to be a hard nut to open. By the time I get to it they will be fully dug in. This may cancel Moscow as an objective in the first year. A lot will depend upon the state of my forces when I get to the line. Some one raised about attacking with units in red status. Larry and I did not discuss before we started. As aback ground for myself I did serve as an Army officer and in my training I always pushed my men hard. The reason being that when one studies military history there are so many battles that have been won by soldiers who put in 110% on the day.

Anyway it is getting very late here and I still suffer from that curse called work so I am off to get some zzz’s now. I will try and post some pictures shortly

John

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: fogger
1. Are you happy with me capturing the port?

Yeah sure. No problemo at all.

ORIGINAL: fogger
2. Will you accept the airlifting of the HQ unit?

Yes, it's one of the capabilities of HQ units that they be airmobile so yeah, it's okie dokie. You're doing great. Keep up the good work.

[fogger]

Hi Larry,
I have just sent you an email. I will press on tomorrow night. The capture of the port will unhinge your southern flank. The question is how fast I can roll it up. Just to let you know I still have 2 tank div’s in reserve
Cheers
john

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the north half of the T8 front lines:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the south half of the front lines in T8 ( at the beginning of the turn ):

EDIT: In the yellow circle we find a division of Axis units and some armour and even some recon. And to rub my nose in it there's
already some Axis planes at the airport there. I've got to re-think my southern strategy now.

[larryfulkerson]

Here the T8 losses so far, well, some of them:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the port that John invaded in Axis turn 8:

[Lobster]

Just out of curiosity, where can I find Ron's mod?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Lobster
Just out of curiosity, where can I find Ron's mod?

I've attached the file Ron's Mod v1.1.10.zip.txt to this post. Just truncate the dot txt off the end of the filename and THEN unzip it. Use
the same equipment file as version 9. You'll have to create a folder etc. for the equipment file and so on. Lemme know if you have any
problems.

[Lobster]

Hey Larry, thanks for the file.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Lobster
Hey Larry, thanks for the file.

Do you need the equipment file as well? I've attached the version 9 equipment file to this post in case you need it too.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the south end of my Stalin Line down south. It's been infiltrated, outflanked, and negated.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the area to the west of Leningrad. John is expanding into the vacuum left by the evacuation of my troops. I'm not having much
luck holding John back in this area.

[larryfulkerson]

The front line isn't ready yet and there's a huge gap in the lines big enough to drive an Axis truck through. I've got roadblocks at the
river crossings but John is adept at negating those. So I'm railing people into the AO and trying to get some blocking going and it's slow
going.

[larryfulkerson]

The Dvina River runs upper left to lower right but my roadblocks at the river crossings are already outflanked by the Axis units at the top
of the picture. John is rolling up my defenders on his way headed SE. John will be up against my front lines in a turn or two.