FIFTY SHADES OF WiTE: SILLYFLOWER V BRIANG

[Peltonx]

Nice job over all. Still going to be hard to take the hexes with a frontal assault and does not appear you have the time to encircle it.

I think Brian traded that space for time as his bigger units will be north and south of Moscow.

I would also be surpised if Brian was not holding back at least 1 Army for winter.

Generally speaking north of the Oka is a solid line from Dec 41 - late 43.

So whatever you manage to take and hold onto during blizzard is where lines will be locked for a long time.

[sillyflower]

I agree with a lot of what you say but

1 There's not much sign of massed Russians elsewhere, nor are there of any defence lines to speak of in or around Moscow which would be the obvious place. Of course, they may be stuck in the far east awaiting trains. That's what quite a lot of my units are doing in my Soviet game which is on a par date-wise with this AAR. If there are secret squirrel armies around, I would expect them to descend on Moscow in force during his turn. I believe that we are agreed that this is the crucial battle for the rest of '41, and I would be surprised if Brian thought otherwise we shall see.

2 Surrounding urban hexes doesn't help to kill them now. This makes it a lot harder to take Moscow. If brute force doesn't work, and that's likely only to succeed with W Moscow. I will have to isolate Moscow before the mud and hope that 4 turns of isolation weakens them enough to take them in 3 snow turns.A huge ask by any standards. Brian is obviously confident as all those factories are still there + 17 arms in Tula and he's nobody's fool.

Hey ho. On a positive, there are very few fort markers in the screenie, and if a Frenchman on a horse can make it....................

[Disgruntled Veteran]

So does isolating a city/urban do anything? For any amount of turns?

Also, iirc, You can heavily damage factories by attacking a city from the ground. Even if you don't capture Moscow I think you can trash the factories output for quite a while.

[HITMAN202]

I think Moscow will fall, lock, stock, and barrel. It looks bad, very bad for Brian. Where is the Moscow defense network ??? I think even if there was some semblance of an organized defense Sillyflower would take Moscow. But look what he faces .an array of Ruskies exercising a Chinese fire drill. It will be bloody. Three more turns of mayhem and if needed 3 more snow turns. With the AP's saved during the 4 mud turns how many HQBUP could be done ??? I might be wrong, but when Sillyflower falls asleep at night he is having very pleasant dreams of this AAR.

AGN was fun to watch (now 10 hexes of that front will be firmly held by the Finns), AGS a surge to Rostov (now probably contained), but AGC ??? It will be bloody.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Disgruntled Veteran

So does isolating a city/urban do anything? For any amount of turns?

Also, iirc, You can heavily damage factories by attacking a city from the ground. Even if you don't capture Moscow I think you can trash the factories output for quite a while.

It's only units in urban that don't suffer the isolation drop in CV. 4 turns of being surrounded will reduce their CV through attrition. Units in cities suffer full isolation effects.

You are right about factory damage. However, capturing factories is like getting a dog. It is not just for Christmas, but for life.

[timmyab]

Isolated units in urban hexes are losing about half their CV value in my 8.07 game. Air supply restores them close to full strength.
Have to agree with Hitman, it's starting to look like game set and match, 6-0 6-0 6-0 no less.

[mktours]

Yes, it looks an overwhelming game. Sillyflower played excellently, so is his AAR.

[sillyflower]

I'm not playing a noob and I'm well aware of what Brian can/will do in the winter and beyond. Just look at his AAR vs Pelton.

I don't really like playing Germans much - it's a lot more stressy than playing Russians: for me anyway. Russians can survive making more mistakes.

[HITMAN202]

Did the AGC FBD snafu really make a difference in your push to Moscow ??? I think it couldn't (and didn't) because your advance was slow and steady.

It would be interesting to see where the I Corp is in AGC's confusion. Is Model still in charge ??

Do you have any Corsican lineage ??

[sillyflower]

I think the AGC FBD made a difference as I'm still 1 turn behind with the rail conversion.Took longer for the panzers to get back within 20 MPs of supply head which is crucial fuel + HQBUs. Still having an effect now but not so great. Perhaps cost me half a turn in the centre. Maybe it also affected Brian's play - ? made him feel Moscow was safer than it would have been, but who knows.

Model's 1 corps is at the top of the attack with Manstein's panzers. Impossible to tell apart from 9 Army though on this scale of picture, especially as it's buried under combat markers apart from 1 div immediately NW of the SS div. These 2 corps would not have got here any earlier without the FBD error, nor would the weak 2 PzG corps repatriated from AGS or 1 of the T12 pz xx reinforcement is also now part of that 2 PzG xxx. The drive to Moscow has really needed what amounts to an extra army. Probably amounts to 1/3rd of the combat strength of the schwerpunkt north of the Oka.

Having had to think about your FBD qu, he short answer is therefore probably that it made a difference if I just fail to get Moscow by a whisker, but not if the battle for Moscow has a different outcome either way.

The answer to your qu re how many HQBUs in the snow is that I will have enough APs for every pz xxx. Whether any will be worth doing is a different matter. If the Panzers are within short distance of rail head, they will have lots of fuel by then. If not, they would need HQBU on the 1st snow turn for that to be economic. I have no idea whether I would want to use APs for that purpose then anyway. Forts need to be built in the mud and probably a lot of army reorganisation will be needed too.

Finally no Corsican lineage that I'm aware of ( a little french Huguenot blood is the nearest) and the last regular soldier in the family was the only surviving officer from the charge of the Light Brigade. That's the family story, but I think that recent research has shown that there were several such survivors

[sillyflower]

Welcome to T15



All I can say is that it does get more interesting below.

This screenie is strictly for those waiting patiently to see some Finns. There were a few attacks N of lake Ilmen and 1 at Volkov for the eagle-eyed. I wrongly thought I had cut the rail line to the north so I was happy then.

[sillyflower]

South



For some reason Brian stood in place with only weak units on his southern flank again. The Pz xxx on HQBU went round the top whilst everyone else, led by 11th Army, went round via the south. 14 inf xx and 1 tk x in a model firm and compact pocket. This actually required quite a bit of thought and herding. I had to take combat markers off otherwise there wasn't much to see.

Elsewhere in the south, Stalino is taken with 8 arms and 5 vehicle factories, and the 2 marsh hexes adjacent to Rostov and on my side of the Dnestr are cleared of Bolsheviks. A pz corps south of Stalino does the last HQBU of the summer in this part of the world. To the north Orel falls.

Essentially quiet in the Crimea with the defenders and some Rumanians looking at each other.

[sillyflower]

The key battleground



Two surprises

1 Brian broke the Kaluga pocket. though it took 3 bombing runs and 3 or 4 ground attacks. Offending Bolsheviks were routed and the pocket re-closed more strongly. Not a problem as Kaluga is not in my way.

2 His forces in front of Moscow stayed put. It wasn't that hard for Modal and Manstein (the latter did an HQBU last turn) to get round the north flank with a little help from 2nd Army. Khimi fell with its factories. Getting the onlu Li2 factory was a treat as it will make it more difficult to do para drops and fuel because the Russians' other transport a/c are rubbish.

I was sorely tempted to put the mot div that closed the pocket into Khimki, tempted by the sight of a lone STAVKA in N Moscow which still has all its factories, as do the other Moscow hexes. However, the div did not have enough MP to do that and and seal the pocket I thought it most unlikely not to have a combat unit in as well even tho' recce did not reveal it. Also the hex would not be captured. I went with the bird in the hand as can be seen. I had every expectation that the pocket would be broken in that hex even if the units in the pocket would not get far. Resealing it next turn would not be difficult especially as Manstein's units all had 100% fuel left at the end of this turn and better he attack there than retreating my units next to the main Moscow hex. I don't want any of those goodies railing out.

South of Moscow I cleared a wide path, herding some units into the pocket and pushing east. Any reinforcements Brian wants to move from the south will now have to go the long way via Ryazan and Kolumna.

These successes were despite deployment of a new-fangled soviet weapon: a crude rocket launcher on a truck manned by the men of the 101st Guards Rocket Regiment. The unit was destroyed along with its 25 launchers. After such a feeble debut, I don't expect to be seeing any more of these.

! of the 3 Pz xxx (yellow) does HQBU as I reckon I will need all the MPs I can get in the last 2 turns of clear if I'm to surround Moscow. I need to do this so that Moscow's defenders get 4 weeks of attrition as they are all urban hexes so don't suffer the CV loss from being isolated.

2 inf xx in Kaluga pocket. 20 xx (inc. 1 tk, 1 cav and the elite 1st motorised)) and 4 tk x in the main pocket.

[sillyflower]

Thoughts on T15

Losses 14.5K to 69K and air 96 to 110 which are both the worst yet. I forgot to record the T15 OOBs as per Pelton's new tradition but have them for next turn, which is when I shall post them.

On the other hand those losses resulted in pocketing of 34 xx and 5 x this turn, over and above the 8 xx already in the L'grad and Kaluga pockets. That's an excellent investment by any standards and I shall reap the rewards in the following turns. Why is there no smiley icon for villain stroking his white cat? We have 3 cats but none are white.

My predictions at this point are that I will surround and secure Moscow before the mud, and hopefully 3 snow turns will be enough to take all of the city. His forces around Moscow have been hammered and routed for turns now and must be in poor shape, or newbie units which have little experience hence little combat value. His HQs have also suffered quite a lot of retreats so hopefully that is causing some leadership changes. I haven't made any notes about his army commanders so have no idea if that is the case or not.

If I can take W Moscow by brute force before the mud, that will help a lot. 3 urban hexes, in the middle of a river complex, in 3 weeks is asking a lot of the assault troops.

[Peltonx]

I been at the Gates of Moscow in many games and have been unable to take it.

Had it surrounded a few times also and still was unable to take all of it before blizzard.

Good luck with your assault.

Did not make 15 turns
Mr.X, Oshawatt, Shermanny


1.08.00 games

Turn 15
Pelton vs Pitmen Stavka OOB: 3,778,000 Resigned
Pelton vs Chaos45 Stavka OOB: 4,717,000 On-going
Pelton vs brian Stavka OOB: 4,800,000 On-going
Pelton vs smokendave Russian OOB: 4,897,000 Complete game result Draw
Pelton vs rkimmi Stavka OOB: 4,967,000 Resigned turn 55
Pelton vs Huw Jones Stavka OOB: 4,524,000 Resigned
Pelton vs Virabrand Stavka OOB: 4,713,000 Germany: 1511 Russia: 687 Resigned
Pelton vs Callistrid Stavka OOB: 4,552,000 Germany: 1243 Russia: 448 Resigned

[sillyflower]

I have had Germans at the gate, but only Michael T ever captured any of it. However, Moscow looks very vulnerable at the moment. I'm also very surprised that every factory is still there, even though his rail capacity is significantly reduced.

Only 1 way to find out what happens.............

[Peltonx]

yes

Attack but make sure your playing some good old Ted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3d7QgZr7g

[STEF78]

Ouch!

Global situation looks ugly for the russians....

I would bet on the fall of Moscow before blizzard

[HITMAN202]

MT is an WITE first-teamer and discovered many "bugs" that he reported to WITE staff instead of secretly using them to his advantage. MT's and Q-Ball's absence on this forum has been a real disappointment for me.

Incredible play Sillyflorous (I would not offend (nor be grammatically correct) with -flora.) in all fronts. AGN .. what's going on with that foray in northern Volkov River ?? How big is your push east of Novograd ??


AGS ..thought you had overreached to tie down Rostov's AP (you stated so), but to isolate so many units (and poised to do more damage), I'm shocked. I bet he will stay west of the Donets River and allow more mayhem. Remarkable.


And AGC .. goodness gracious ... what a disaster !!! And by trying to hold Moscow he will add more wood to your offensive blaze. The level 2 fort in east Moscow will be your biggest challenge in isolating the Kremlin. However since there are so many clear hexes around the city, I think you will succeed. Great game.


One trivial point. I think the Axis needs to start building the blizzard fort line no later than turn 13. The buildup of forts (even via fortification zones) is so slow in mud and blizzard you will fail to complete an adequate defense line (IMO.)


Question.. When you have a HELD at a key attack (with MP's remaining) what's your general MO ??? I found adding a stronger leader to a key Corp in the assault (yes AP's involved) before repeating the attack was often the best approach.


Wonderful AAR.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: STEF78

Ouch!

Global situation looks ugly for the russians....

I would bet on the fall of Moscow before blizzard

Moscow