Adventures in Russia

[larryfulkerson]

This is me trying to break into the Crimee and don't worry, at the end of the turn
the Rumanians will be unstacked. They are in motion and haven't reached their
destinations yet. They get there one hex at a time.

The Odessa siege isn't going all that fast. I concentrated the arty on one specific
and bombarded it three or four times in a row and then tried an assault and it didn't
seem to make much of a dent....Elmer lost 4% and I lost 4% so it wasn't quite worth
attacking. On the other hand, there's no easy way to do this.

I've started pounding Odessa's arty with my RR arty and so far no hits of any kind.
But I did get a list of what's in the hex. I'm going to ship in all the RR arty I
can get my hands on and see if I can't accellerate this process a bit. I need these
folks down in the Crimea soon.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the northern front lines right now. I've pulled back what would move and there's
still one unit that's out of supply but I think the rest of them might have some now.
This is obviously a temporary fix and something else will have to be decided on soon...
whether or not to push a finger NE to cut off Leningrad's supply. I'm not sure there's
enough people here to do that. There's a division headed this way right now, 100%
guarenteed, foolproof, believe me.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on in the area just to the NR of Kiev where Axis units are spreading
out, expanding the perimeter, making a large bulge in the front lines. If the supply
level were higher the progress would be accellerated. The rails are being expanded
very slowly and I don't know why actually. So far I'm making do with what exists.

[larryfulkerson]

Smolensk finally fell and that's a good thing. Meanwhile, I used a spare recon unit
to drive around a small group of Soviet units to isolate them, maybe provoke a retreat
by them, at the very least cut them off from their LOC. I'm in the process of trying
to surround them with physical ground units so I can kill them and not just push them
back. Or attack just to be attacking. I would lose an attrition war.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the northern front lines, the front lines near Leningrad. I've got a situation
I'm trying to fix. I don't want to give up on the attempt to isolate Leningrad so I
need to straighten out the front lines a bit by pushing some Soviet people backwards if
possible. To get some good supply to those people further NE that are in a good jumpoff
position to move north and isolate the city. They are getting a trickle of supply but
not enough to allow them to fill up with supply again.

I still haven't found an unemployed division to send up here. And they need at least one.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a quick peek at some of the losses so far. Medium to heavy I'd say.

[larryfulkerson]

Down south the Axis troops have reached the end of the territories between the rivers
and now they are fighting over the river crossings. It's slow going because the
supply level is so low. The units are having to save up enough supply to attack of
move.

I've got the Hungarians strung out on the road sucking all the supply they can.
Kiev is still blocked by enemy units so those three RR engineers
are repairing rail heading south on the west side of the river heading to this area.

The Italians are pulling their weight, on the east side of Kiev, helping convert
hexes, capture river crossings, blocking enemy units when required. I wish I had
more of them. LOL.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the area north of Bryansk and it shows the different terrain types typical
in Russia at this lattitude and it's not exactly tank country. Tanks do best on
the roads in this area and the rails don't always follow the roads but I need the
rails too. In fact the rails are more important. So I need the infantry too. The
recon units don't get very far before they pick up something on their radar so they
aren't as useful as the recon units down south where the Soviets are sparse. But they
do their job up here too. I've noticed that the aircraft have a small recon value so I
like to keep the fighters right up on the front line and the bombers close behine
unless or until I start being the recipient of some airfield strikes, actually just one
is enough of a signal.

Although, I'm starting to tink about trimming the range of the bombers so that they don't
participate in so many missions each turn. Using up their supply faster that way. I'm
thinking that since I'm primarily using them in the direct mode I could theoretically
trim the range back to half what it is now, say 50 hexes or so. Then they would have an
area they could concentrate on with better coverage in that area. They don't need to do
INT strikes out near the Ural mountains so much. I'll try that and give you a full report.

[larryfulkerson]

This is what the war looks like around the area east of Kiev. Axis units are pushing
south and concentrating on trapping the Soviet units up against the river. I plan to
kill all of them. The further south I go the more units break away from the river and
try to get away.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a view of the Crimea right now. I'm still trying to get thro the bottleneck
and it's getting harder to find a unit that's still green and can attack. Lot's of
yellow ones but they can't attack. I'm playing the red green yellow rule and it's
making for a more interesting gsme. Much more realistic.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a quick peek at some of the losses so far. I'm shooting for about 30K HRS's.

[larryfulkerson]

To cut down on the losses in my bombers I'm going to try cutting back their range so
that they just cover the front lines immediately in front of them, a range of 50 say.
This is what that looks like zoomed out. It looks pretty good to me. I'm going to
leave the fighters at the max and switch them to three-dots. Maybe they will protect
the bombers better at three-dots. Quite a few planes are resting this turn. I'm on
the 3rd combat round of the turn and about half the planes are resting right now. I've
been using them in direct strikes to beef up specific battles and I can't imagine
that it doesn't help. It can't hurt. I'm told it's a force multiplier and I believe
it. I'll have to do some tests of the situation and see what difference they DO make.

[700851McCall]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Here's a view of the Crimea right now. I'm still trying to get thro the bottleneck
and it's getting harder to find a unit that's still green and can attack. Lot's of
yellow ones but they can't attack. I'm playing the red green yellow rule and it's
making for a more interesting gsme. Much more realistic.

The Germans fought differently from the western allies. They'd burn a unit down to next to nothing then withdraw it and replace, the idea being that the cadre of surviving veterans would teach the mass of new recruits. it worked well until the war started going badly and there were no surviving veterans to form a cadre.

The British and Americans, on the other hand, fed green replacements into units as they went along and paused frequently to rest and re-supply (especially the British). The Germans preferred the British as an enemy because of the slow tempo of the fighting. The British would stop to make tea a lot.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: 700851McCall
The Germans fought differently from the western allies. They'd burn a unit down to next to nothing then withdraw it and replace, the idea being that the cadre of surviving veterans would teach the mass of new recruits. it worked well until the war started going badly and there were no surviving veterans to form a cadre.

The British and Americans, on the other hand, fed green replacements into units as they went along and paused frequently to rest and re-supply (especially the British). The Germans preferred the British as an enemy because of the slow tempo of the fighting. The British would stop to make tea a lot.

Thanks a lot for posting that kind of thing. I like hearing factoid's like these. Very interesting
and informative and it adds to the game.

Here's the front lines in T25 before I have moved anybody. There's some places where the Soviets
are very sparse....I'm going to see if I can take advantage of that somehow.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the area just east of Kiev and as you can see the supply is adequate for some
few battle here and there but nothing sustained for long. The units are having to
save up their supply to move or attack. When they turn yellow I park them on the
rail and rest them. I'm making it work after a fashion.

[larryfulkerson]

This area is NW of Moscow and has developed so that there's plenty of open spaces
yet. I'm thrusting units forward even tho there's battles going on left and right
because it sometimes provokes Elmer into a response before he's ready to comitt his
reserves. So the battle ensues, the Soviets get killed and Elmer has no reserves
locally. It's been working so far. Sometimes too many Soviet units respond and
I have to scramble to contain it all. I'm having a blast.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the northern front lines right now. I had to pull back on the right and
give up my attempt to isolate Leningrad from Russia, at least for a little while.
I'm finding this shortage of units mildly irritating. The supply levels are
excellent....if I had the units I could do a right hook and isolate Leningrad
easily. As it is I'm fighting over what I've got and it's not getting any easier.
I'm thinking of bringing in the RR arty from Odessa now that things are winding down
there.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

I can't imagine trying something this big. It is a wonder that anyone can keep track of it all. Well done. I really enjoy your storytelling!

All the best,

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19
Larry,

I can't imagine trying something this big. It is a wonder that anyone can keep track of it all. Well done. I really enjoy your storytelling!

All the best,

Hey there Mike my friend. Thanks for posting something. It helps keep me going on this AAR.
It's a big one alright but I think it's manageable compared to the big ones ( FITE2, etc. )
and I got familiar with the units fairly quickly and yeah, there's a need to take notes if you
don't want to forget anything. But I like to play beer and pretzel kinds of games and I hardly
ever take notes. And the storytelling....I enjoy writing it. It's like my blog or something.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on down in the Crimea. I'm doing some mop up in the rear and
pushing south with available troops. I want to establish some blocking positions
and get the entrenchments started so that when the 11th Army units get here they
will already be started. A head start. A lot of the 11th Army units are busy
forcing the crossings at D-town and Z-town but they can be here within 3 weeks or
so game time. The railhead is passing north of Odessa right now and ought to be
heading into the Crimea in about 20 turns I'm guessing. I can't see the Rumanians
trying to hold back the Soviet hordes that emerge from the Kerch Straits without
stacking so I'll have to use some 11th Army units for that. Either that or back
up the Rumanians with some German units from somewhere. The Hungarians are passing
thro D-town heading north to help clean out all the Soviet units up against the
river. Before they get away hopefully. About 1/3 of the aircraft are resting
because they are yellow. Everybody else is doing something else.