Field Marshal Fogger vs Marshal Fulkerson (again)

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Odessa area. I've got some units that have the garrison stripe turned on and I can't move them but if they ever do activate
then there's engineers ready to ferry them across the river. I'm building what front line I can on the riverbank on the far west river and
simultaneously I'm going to try to build another front line along the riverbank of the eastmost river as well. Maybe it'll slow John down
somewhat.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the situation to the north of Leningrad. Early activation of the Finns has caught me with my pants down and no recourse for it.
The troops I WOULD use to stem the flow of Finns are those that have the orange garrision stripe on them. I am helpless and hopeless.
It looks like Leningrad might fall early in this game. However giving up Leningrad will free up a boat-load of troops that I could use in a
better place. Like on the front line near Smolensk.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Murmansk area now. It's pretty stable but there have been some Axis probes. Not much for me to do that hasn't already been
done. With the units I have handy it's pretty much how it needs to be for now. Maybe I can ship some more units this way soon.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how the air war is going now. I'm thinking that most of my planes that can fly are in the Moscow area and don't have any
targets. So the losses that are showing on the losses meter are probably from John's airstrikes on my airfields. I have about 25%
of the fleet down for reorganization and they are helpless and can't fly so they are getting clobbered.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the reinforcements I expect to get next turn. Lots of everything. The next problem will be getting them rested and into combat
shape while at the same time getting them moved to the front lines. Some 500 km away sometimes. Rail is the answer and I need a lot
of it right now. Maybe the Soviet rail capacity will increase as the game goes on. I seem to recall that it will.

EDIT: I checked out the expected reinforcements for succeeding turns and I saw the arrival of large shipments, at least as large as T4's
shipment will be, and I can expect the same thing each turn until approximately T9 when the arrivals will start to be half the previous
turn and then around T14 or so there are remnants. So I'm expecting a boat-load of troops. All the troops in the world. Well most of
the troops in the world. And when they reach the front lines and dig in they will probably be able to hold the front lines a lot better. We'll
see.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a close-up of the Minsk area. As you can see in the image the Axis forces are closing in, and what's worse is that Axis forces are
closing in from the north edge of this image and so I expect the city to be completely surrounded in the next couple of turns. I'm hoping
they can buy me enough time to build a better front line closer to Orsha and along the river and a bunch of units at the landbridge.
Then in the south, I need to build successive front lines along the rivers running north and south and blow the bridges as I pull-back
slowly buying time.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the condition of the fleet. As you can see the planes are starting to recover their readiness already. Only a couple of them are
still in the red. And a few are already emerald green. I don't remember how fast the recover rate is so I'm going to have to keep an eye
on the readiness of the planes for a few turns. So far it's average is in the mid-30's and climbing. Some of the IL-4's are in the 50's
already. I need to let the fighters cure before I start using the bombers because I feel the need for some escorts. The Axis interdiction
has been fierce so I'm guessing John has put his fighters on INT missions or something. A Soviet unit moving near the front is typically
intercepted several times and that just sucks the readiness out of the unit. Rail-borne traffic sometimes gets stopped before reaching
the destination.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the losses as of the end of T3:

[fogger]

I have just watch the play back Larry and saw some of my aircraft attack your naval units with the Sea Interdiction. Did they do much damage?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: fogger
I have just watch[ed] the play back Larry and saw some of my aircraft attack your naval units with the Sea Interdiction. Did they do much damage?

No damage to my boats but I did manage to shoot down about three aircraft with each attack. I would invite you to do it some more.

[fogger]

The race for the rivers is on. This the bottom end of the Stalin line and I have pocketed 6+ divisions and I am in the process of moving 2 panzer divisions in the rear. The question is how fast can I move up my Inf & Arty to destroy the pockets and will my tanks reach Larry's next line before he can complete the line?

[fogger]

DISASTER. I have moved a river unit and it ran into a Russian unit and I got a message "mixed group and to close and sent the file to Ralph. The screen ghosted and then closed with no save. Larry I will send you a PM now

[larryfulkerson]

Whenever you get one of those Mixed Units problem the game engine does indeed crash but before crashing the game engine will
write a new file with the name "[something]_mx.sal" and it's this file that you load as if it were a saved game file and then just move
the offending unit out of the hex with the mixed group and continue your game. I've had this happen about a dozen times over
the years and it's not a game stopper except for the fact that we're playing PBEM this time and I don't know how the game engine
will handle that part of it. This will be interesting to see how it handles that part.

[fogger]

It worked. We are back in business.

[larryfulkerson]

It's 21:47 and I've just received John's moves so stand by for an image. I'll edit this box to contain it later.

If you want to watch the pre-turn replay of John's moves download the following file and load it as a saved game. The password
is "password" without the quotes.

http://www.filedropper.com/fiteronsmodv1110turn4


This is the front lines at the beginning of T4:

[larryfulkerson]

This is the north end of the Stalin Line now (T4). John is obviously trying to outflank me by driving around the north end of my lines and
it looks like he's going to be able to do it. I don't have that many units to go around right now and I can't spare the few it would take to
man the front lines in that area. I'll have to give up ground to save the lives of my troops. No need to throw them away........I'm going to
use them to make roadblocks and strongpoints. To slow down John's advance. The new troops are arriving and they are in the red and
out of supply and need to be moved to the front soon. I thought I'd let them sit idle for a turn to give them a positive supply flow and
then when their readiness gets above 50% I'll move them westward. A lot of them are arriving in out of the way places. Some of them
need to be moved via boat(s).

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the south end of the Stalin Line and you can see where John has leaped the river from the south and is enveloping my dudes.
I've started forming a second front line along the river and I think I have stopped up all the river crossings so John may use his
engineers to leap the river again somewhere so I need to have combatants stationed along the riverbank from here down to Odessa.
I don't have enough troops to do that adequately so there's going to be holes along the way. Weaknesses everywhere else. So we'll
see how long John takes to reduce the Stalin Line. Probably not long. At least Minsk industry is still humming right along.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the defenders at the land bridge near Orsha. It's part of the front line I'm building along the river(s) and this area may prove to
be the weakest point since most of the others are at river crossings. I'm moving more troops into the AO from the east along the
superhighway from Moscow. You can see the head of the columns at the right edge of the image. This is what is going to try to hold up
John for a while give enough time to build a right proper front line further to the east between here and Moscow. In more defenseable
terrain.

[fogger]

Turn 4 from my side of the hill. I have broken through the Stalin Line and I am raceing to the east. my aim is to keep jumping rivers and putting my tanks into Larry's rear area.

[fogger]

Riga has been taken. Only to mop up the 12 units in the pocket. My tanks are already racing north and east. Again a race for the river crossings.