FIFTY SHADES OF WiTE: SILLYFLOWER V BRIANG

[Wuffer]

Must be a trap, it looks much too easy.
Honestly, you caught him out of balance since that superb opening again and again every turn in a very downward spiral of doom.
In the end he failed to achieve (or better said rescue) anything of worth; his army is trashed (alone 7 dead Cav-XXX), his economy is very seriously ruined and he has lost nearly all valueable geographic strongholds and you have still four clear turns left to push his troopers far far away into the steppe together with an improved C&C.

He made some mistakes of course, but in the end this won't last long if you didn't commit some significant blunders... so, just relax and keep smiling.

Btw, post # 253 suggests a total of 15 Guards RDs, including the losses. If there's any reserve army left in the shadows, it would properly contain at least some of them.

[Peltonx]

play on

[Powloon]

Great AAR Sillyflower! As well as being a great read I have learnt so much. Appreciate the effort you've made to explain the "why" of what you do.

One request if I may would it be possible to show a screenshot(s) of your various fronts with the rail map displayed?

[sillyflower]

Thanks Powloon. I will try to remember, but need the turn back first. Brian is taking longer than usual, but it's his last mud turn so he has a lot to think about.

[HITMAN202]

Is that bloke on the computer THE Sillyflower? Do you have 2 brothers (triplets) ??? We need to be informed. The chap does have a distinguished visage.

Your outstanding play in this AAR is creating (IMO) a rather large, fawning fan club. Too many nice things are being said about you. It hasn't, however, been too much for I am not yet nauseated.

[sillyflower]

Nothing like me, or any of my 3 sisters, and if you look carefully at the 3 pictures, you will see it's just 1 repeated x3.

If you want to know roughly what I look like and to understand my character, see Dan Ackroyd's portrayal of me in 'Trading Places'. At least up to the point that he goes all wet.

[sillyflower]

A confession after having just read Michael T's thread about the recce airbase fuel exploit.

I think I may have done itinadvertently because I did send many of my recce a/c back into reserve. I don't do that much recce when attacking, as can be seen in some screenshots, so it's something I tend to do anyway to save trucks. I also moved more into reserve after Brian started bombing those bases, just keeping enough for my needs on the map. I have no idea how close the recce bases were to their army HQ at the time.

I have not, however, moved any recce planes between bases nor have I yet put any back on the board tho' I was planning to next turn to keep tabs on Russian concentrations for his blizzard O. I shall try to remember to put the reinforcements into inf army bases only, or else take care when putting them back in reserve from Pz armies to avoid triggering the exploit.

Edit: I've sent a copy of this post to Brian G as he does not have access to this AAR

[RKhan]

A superb game. I think you embodied the true German principle of blitzkrieg - getting inside his operational timeline so that every counter move comes too late.

[ericv]

Hats off to your achievement.

You played excellent, seems this game is over. All that is left is winning a 'won'position.

Although Brian did make some mistakes early on, if this can be reached against a more than decent player, the german army seems a bit overpowered. Back to HQ Build up = GHC wins button maybe.

[charlie0311]

Fight forward, get slaughtered, ho-hum.

"Getting inside his operational timeline", must mean something, I'm dumb.

[sillyflower]

Thank you for all your comments.

I've just done my T22 (1st snow turn) so I should be able to post that in a week's time as I stay 2 turns behind for Op Sec.

In the meantime, Brian played aggressively forward in the mud. I did promise someone some pics of the rail network. The next 2 screenies show the rail network after I moved my FBDs on T22, but nothing else

[sillyflower]

rail sout



I put all the construction units into OKH and AG HQs as quickly as I could. Not only does the back-filling that these units mainly do make railing units easier, but more importantly they build redundancy into the rail network. Single lines are vulnerable to partisan attack which can severely mess up an offensive or even a whole AG. Having more than 1 route to the supply head eliminates that risk in '41 and all but removes it later.

The other thing I'm trying to do is to complete a north -south line to aid troop movements. Whilst such a line should. in theory be at the front line, there is no point in doing that when the Bolsheviks can be expected to advance.

[Michael T]

I'm dumb

That says it all.

[sillyflower]

Not your usual style, Michael. Are you now Pelton's amanuensis?

[Michael T]

Just for the next two weeks [:D]

[Michael T]

BTW I don't think you would have gained anything from any inadvertent fuel exploits.

You would only gain significant fuel at an Army HQ with attached airbase that you flew 9 JU-88's in to, and then repeat the pattern every turn. As the JU-88's have much greater fuel requirements than other recon types they are the only ones that matter in this respect. A player would have to be fully aware of this bug/exploit to gain anything from it. FWIW I think you are clean [:)]

[charlie0311]

"I'm dumb"..."that says it all"

Thx for the nice compliment..."Deus"

[sillyflower]

Well, you are the chap who wrote on another thread recently that the way to success as Russian is to build 200 inf brigades before the summer of '41 [:-].

[charlie0311]

Yes, that would be me. Summer '42, not '41. And, the reason would be. 1) you then get about 10 extra armies in May, all trained and ready and 2) the survivors will be available for more rifle xxx as needed.

And the reason that this is not a good idea would be??

Note: Rifle brigades may become rifle divisions in May, "free", no AP cost.

[sillyflower]

You wrote '41 [:D]

I agree otherwise and I always bought inf brigades not divisons.