While waiting for patch, there's time to reminisce over old battles a while.
This was my most exiting experience of WitE by far, for a number of reasons. Progressing to Turn 93, the end of March 1943, it was my longest game playing Axis. As such, it took me into new terrain and, together with M60's strategies and tactics, many new situations and dilemmas. Getting my hands on a mid war Axis OB, and even employing Panthers at least once was fun, as was experiencing the shifting relationship of forces with my adversary as his corps and artillery armies were formed and gained battle worthiness. It's always a pleasure to prove all the pundits here wrong with the final outcome [:D] but what endured throughout the game was simply not being sure until M60's resignation, how the game would end. Thanks for a great game M60.
rrbill questioned my rationale attacking over the Valdai. right or wrong, here's why.
The route I decided upon for AGN and northern armies of AGC was south of Ilmen, on either side of Valdai, beyond which I hoped to have options to cut off Leningrad and/or drive on Moscow. I didn't think the Russians would have sufficient resources to cover all the threats. Being somewhat used to strategy wrecking mud early on, the first deviation from customary experience was the solid wall of entrenched Russian units with high CV I encountered T7-8, just east of Velikie Luki, running down towards the woods between Smolensk and Vyazma. By comparison, the front south of Ilmen looked the soft option, but my guts churned at the thought of taking on anything I saw outside Ukraine. At the time I attributed this build up to the mud alone, but it turns out shipping everything north had become a Russian standard by the time we played this.
By T9, M60 was showing me CVs of high teens to over 50 south of Valdai, so I decided to unify all my assault forces, two tank groups and main elements of two infantry armies, in one grind directly south of Ilmen. To redeploy would use vital clear game turns and unless they made the long trek south by a provisional rail network, they would likely find only tougher resistance in front of Moscow.
Meanwhile, encountering little resistance in AGS area, advanced forces were outside Stalino/Gorlovka.
As it happened, the grind did lead to a breakthrough and a big pocket. In the south centre, a grab at Voronezh and Lipetsk was rewarding but overall the 2.25 mil Russian losses were disappointing. The big bulge projecting into my centre, with Moscow at its epicentre, and from which M60 began attacking westwards this summer of 41 was a cause of some disquiet.
Overall, a disappointing but interesting summer.
