Field Marshal von Fogger vs Comrade Marshal Fulkerson

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how the air war is going right now:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a representative group of some of my losses so far. This was all from the GTI.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the east side of Leningrad.........I thought I'd show that first before I forgot again. John is pushing south from the Svir river and
has run up against Nova Lodoga or whatever the name of that city is. I can't let John capture that town since it controls the supply point
for Leningrad. He captures that and my supply disappears.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the west side of Leningrad. John is pushing south for the city of Pskov. He needs that city for a better source of supply than he's
getting now. That's my theory. Either that or he's just trying to get on the north edge of my Pskov defenders to outflank them. Or
something like that. John's been busting bridges leading from Moscow into Leningrad and I've been dispatching engineers out to the
sites to fix the break. So far I can get it repaired within about a turn or two so it's a minor bother.

And speaking of bombing.......I've been trying to drop some bridges w/ my IL-4's way way behind the lines so that John has to travel
further to repair the break. John has deployed some fighters to those areas however so I'm losing some planes to and from the bridges.
Also, I've been pounding his arty and HQ units. I'm hoping to get one of those HQ units to go into reorg so that the whole formation has
a problem. And every tube I can destroy from the air is one that won't shoot at my troops. Besides, if I can get his arty to unentrench
then they won't shoot during my ground attack(s).

[larryfulkerson]

Here's Pskov itself. John is remarkably patient in this area. It's been quiet here so far.

EDIT: John has been pounding my airfields like there's no tomorrow. The last three or four turns in a row has seen an airfield attack on
at least one airfield. I lose about 3 X whatever John loses but I'm thinking that I build more airplanes faster than he does and that maybe
therefore, I can stand the losses better than he can. That's the theory. So the tide could start to turn sometime soon in the air war.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Kiev area. Lots of fierce fighting going on here. Most of the ground losses are coming out of this area, I'm thinking. I've been
railing people in here to replace the tired ones and I'm guessing this is going to take John a turn or two to break out of this. He's already
captured a crossing or two so his supply will eventually get better and then he will be unstoppable. Come onnnnnnnnnnn winter.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the beginnings of the Crimea. John is still fighting to get more equipment on the south side of the river. I'm still trying to block him.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Smolensk area. It's been strangely quiet on this stretch of the front lines. No war going on here. Oh, I'll occasionally try to
probe him gently w/ an ignore losses attack or two but other than that not much is going on here.

[larryfulkerson]

If only because I was curious I pushed my tank unit out to the west and found these two Finn regiments guarding the Axis side. Maybe I
can use this information to my advantage somehow. Although the idea I need escapes me.

[larryfulkerson]

I counterattacked just on a whim and forced the 38th Finn regiment back to the north. I have no plans after this. Just pushing Axis units
around because it feels good. I'll probably have to pay the piper in a turn or two.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the stuff I'm due to get next turn: Lots of reconstituted stuff in there.

[fogger]

GTI = Ground of tactical importance

[fogger]

Just to give an idea how hard it is to move a dug in unit. I have been attcking the 140th inf div at 134165 for several turns. On the last turn I hit it 3 times turning the turn with 1,000 + bomber raid while attacking with a mixed force of inf and armour. I was finally able to push it back but at a cost.

[larryfulkerson]

T28: This is the north edge of the front lines. Everything is holding steady for the time being. John is concentrating on busting bridges
and airfield attacks as well as bombarding my land combat units. I've counted about a dozen broken bridges so far. I've just gotten the
moves from John about 15 minutes ago and about 5 minutes of playback needed to be watched and then this verbage took about 2
minutes so far so I'm still in the process of looking around for some engineers to deploy to those broken bridges to get them fixed as soon
as possible. It's important to be able to move units to the front lines because John is probably going to orchestrate his attacks and
unleash everybody at the same time, make multiple breakes in my lines in various places and thereby swamp my efforts to put the troops
where they need to go. Especially w/ broken bridges to deal w/. I think that's what I would try if I was Axis.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the next sector of the front lines going south from the above image. This too held steady so far. Lots of bombardment and
attacking but not much movement of Axis units. John got some reinforcements or something because I saw some units being railroaded
south in the playback. I can't tell where the effort emphasis is being placed. It feels like a broad-front strategy so far. But I'm on the
look-out for John concentrating his armour somewhere, making a big hole, and then railroading a bunch of units through the hole, all in
the passing of five or six turns. Like lightening.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Southern part of the front lines. John has succeeded in mopping up all those Soviet units behind his lines in this area. Now
all his units can concentrate on the front. It feels so far like an equal effort in two directions: one toward Sevastapol and one toward
Stalingrad. Wait a minute, Stalingrad had an historical battle during '43 I thought. Although I wouldn't put it past John to try to do a
Stalingrad because it's early October and the weather hasn't changed all that much so far. Plus winter comes later in the southern
weather zones. Maybe there's time yet for a Stalingrad push.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the Kiev area. Lots of Axis effort being expended in this area. Lots of bomber strikes and I can imagine John using his arty too,
although I've not seen any. If I can locate his arty I like to bomb it, destroy the tubes before they can strike again.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how the air war is going. John is still doing bou cou airfield strikes. I obviously need to move the bombers back to safety until this
air-to-air stuff slows down somewhat.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the condition of the squadrons. They are mostly all in the green so maybe I'm not using them as much as needed. There's 3
squadrons in the yellow out of, like, 50 squadrons, that's like, 6% of them and I was aiming for about 25-30% of them. So they need to
be redeployed differently obviously.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the stuff due to arrive in T29: