Field Marshal von Fogger vs Comrade Marshal Fulkerson

[larryfulkerson]

Here's another view of the infestation down south. John still holds Maikop and I'm in no hurry to roust him now. It's hard to get troops
into this AO because of all the broken bridges.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the air briefing after the first round of air strikes. It's getting expensive to do this much longer.

[Lobster]

How are these Axis troops in the south getting supplies? They would starve to death and the exhaustion from pushing their armored cars would kill them too. [:D]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Lobster
How are these Axis troops in the south getting supplies?

I'm guessing that they aren't getting much if any supplies. I suppose that as long as they are in a port that they
might be getting SOME but it can't be much I'm thinking.

[Petey]

John's doing well keeping his tank losses low. I get the feeling he's not doing so well in the air.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Petey
John's doing well keeping his tank losses low. I get the feeling he's not doing so well in the air.

I saw in the playback just now ( I got some turn 54 moves from John ) that John is moving all the AAA units he can muster to the front,
well, to the airfields where planes are parked. I might have to rethink my airfield attack policy. I can still attack those fields where there
is no AAA yet. But my losses are already so high w/o any AAA units I'd best not tangle w/ those fields that have it.

Um.......John pulled out his ground units by boat and flew the aircraft to the west. I've got my Poti back ( the city Poti ).

[larryfulkerson]

I was going through the OOB moving units and I got to one of the Forts that I needed to move and I didn't have enough rail cap. to do so
so I thought I'd go through the formations looking for the one that's embarked and disembark it. And when I was going through the
formations I found this one that's mostly AT guns. I've noticed that I'm particularly hard on the AT guns. You don't want to be in an AT
gun unit under my command. I have no idea where they all went either. That's the bad part. If I knew where they were going I could
watch out for them.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how the air war is going in T54. The display says that I have dominance in the air but it doesn't feel like it. I was just
interdicted moving one of my units. So I've used up the rail cap. and the unit didn't get to it's destination and now I've got to
re-think what I'm going to do. It's the little things that mess up your plans. Usually things you don't see before the fact.

[Petey]

[:D][:D][:D][:D]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

I was going through the OOB moving units and I got to one of the Forts that I needed to move and I didn't have enough rail cap. to do so
so I thought I'd go through the formations looking for the one that's embarked and disembark it. And when I was going through the
formations I found this one that's mostly AT guns. I've noticed that I'm particularly hard on the AT guns. You don't want to be in an AT
gun unit under my command. I have no idea where they all went either. That's the bad part. If I knew where they were going I could
watch out for them.

[larryfulkerson]

Lake P. has frozen over so I needed to redeploy some troops along the old riverbank and actually out on the ice in a couple of places.
Also frozen over is the water around Leningrad and I use some NKVD troops to block passage along the ice north or south on the
east and west sides of the isthmus. I'll have to post a picture to show what I mean.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the shot of the Leningrad area that I needed for the verbage above. You can see how I've blocked passage by moving out on
the ice. That may not last long because there's no supply out there.

[larryfulkerson]

Oh, and by the way here's the air briefing from T55:

[fogger]

I have now withdrawn my forces from the two raids in the south. There are a couple of companies that I could not get out which will be destroyed over the next turn or two.

The main objective of the raids was to draw some of Larry’s forces and attention away from the MLR (main line of resistance). The added bonus was the taking of Maykop for a couple of turns as well as dropping a few bridges. With the engineers down south they are not up at the MLR.

Larry has been hitting my airfields and I have had two air units destroyed. To overcome this problem I have spread my bombers over a number of airfields and moved them back a little bit. My fighters have moved up and in some parts been layered and my AA units spread around among the fighters. It will be interesting to see what damage will be done to either/both sides.

We are now at turn 55 (28 Dec 41) and Larry has the winter bonus and should be trying to punch a couple of holes in my lines. But this bug in 3.4 that stopped me from getting to Moscow is now working to my advantage.

For Larry to win the game he has to be in Berlin before turn 405. For me to win all I have to do is hold on until turn 406.

However Larry and I will be play testing FITE2 (hopefully) shortly. When we do this game will go on hold which is a little ionic in that my current front line is roughly were the Germans wanted it to be when they asked the Russians for a peace deal in 43.

[fogger]

"pluck a duck" I did not see that coming. (Lake P freezing over). Larry you may be able to turn my lines and put some life back into the game. It will interesting to see what you do. I am off to bed now but will be up early to look at your turn.
chers
john

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: fogger
"pluck a duck"

Thanks for rephrasing that for a family audience. My mother thanks you too.

ORIGINAL: fogger
I did not see that coming. (Lake P freezing over).

I was guessing that you didn't see it coming so rather than take severe advantage of you I thought I'd do the 'good gamer' thing and
give you fair warning about the Lake freezing over. I parked my stuff on my soil but NEXT turn they may just go hunting and you
know how they get when they get a stomach full of vodka......there's just no talking common sense into them. They wanna do what
they wanna do. I just stand back and watch sometimes.

ORIGINAL: fogger
Larry you may be able to turn my lines and put some life back into the game.

That's the main idea of my first giving you fair warning. I'm going to try to put some life back into the game. I have nothing to lose
otherwise because of the crippling blow the capture of Maikop was. Almost total loss of the rail alone will enable you to press your
mobility advantage. You could start a diversion somewhere and get me to start moving people that way and get really committed to
the diversion and then press the main blow in some other part of the front lines where I'm very thin, say, and you can rail your people
and I can't. Oops. I just gave away the winning strategy. Oh well.

ORIGINAL: fogger
It will interesting to see what you do. I am off to bed now but will be up early to look at your turn.

Nity nite.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the air war has cost so far. I'm almost out of Mig-1's. Once they are gone they are gone for good.

[Petey]

That was a nice raid in the South John. For the loss of a minimum amount of troops you did a decent amount of damage and caused a fair amount of disruption to the Soviets. A real economy of force operation.

[GenSlack]

This scenario isn't boring you guys to death? You're putting enormous amounts of time into it, and it basically turned into WW1 halfway through Barbarossa.[:D]

Larry, has anyone ever told you you look just like Sir Richard Attenborough?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Drew Wagenhoffer
This scenario isn't boring you guys to death? You're putting enormous amounts of time into it, and it basically turned into WW1 halfway through Barbarossa.

As a matter of face it HAS been rather boring for the past 15 turns or so but that's about to change. The rivers have frozen over and
the unmanned border areas are open for invasion and I'm planning on doing something about it. John has forced my hand and it's
going to get a bunch more interesting pretty quickly now.

ORIGINAL: Drew Wagenhoffer
Larry, has anyone ever told you you look just like Sir Richard Attenborough?

He's my long lost brother from another mother.

[fogger]

Ah some life back into the game. I did not see this coming. I thought winter started in early December and have been caught out. Just like it was in 41. Now as I see it Larry has 4 options and I received 3 infantry divisions as reinforcement so I have to use them wisely. In the play back Larry has moved about 15 air units to the north area of the map. He has also moving 8 infantry divisions to the Lake P area. So let’s look at Larry’s options.

1. An attack from166,40 - 167,47 and cut off all my forces on the Svir river.
2. Attacking up from 153,63 – 154, 64 and meeting up with the force coming down from 1. Or a separate operation to pin my forces so that I am unable to withdraw.
3. Attack the fort at 130,63 and get behind my lines and cut off the forces on the Leningrad front.
4. An attack across to the coast to cut off AGN.

Option 3 I think is more of a blocking force to stop me from getting behind his lines so I will move the 1st JG BDE to reinforce the fort just in case.

Option 4 needs to be able to take a port and I have 2 divisions in the area digging a trench line for later in the game. I can use these to slow and block the attack. If Larry is unable to take a port or break in further down south he could lose the force once the ice melts.

Option 2 also runs the risk of being cut off if I can hold the Svir river line.

Option 1. I have intact rail lines so the question is how fast I can move units to the area to block.

Now I am off to do some planning. More to follow shortly.