Wargammer of the Year Attempt #1

[larryfulkerson]

This German infantryman has shot and killed a Soviet tank crewman as he was
exiting a burning BT-7 and was running for his life. A moving target, it
took two shots to bring him down. It's not safe getting this close to an
enemy tank, especially if it's burning...the fuel tank may explode.

[larryfulkerson]

This is just a quick peek at some of the losses so far. I'm tracking the HRS
squads. They are the most important and I cannot let them get too few in the
number assigned because that's my rough gauge of the strength of the individual
divisions and right now they are about 31K strong and I'd like to keep it close
to there.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how severe the Soviet attacks were.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T25 front lines before I have moved anybody.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the northern front lines currently and you can see the wide gap in the
Soviet lines and I'm thinking that if I act fast enough I can drive some units
up to near the city and cut off some Soviet units and then eventually I can
storm the city hex and try to push the Soviet units out of the city hex. I'll
use the ships to support if I can. I'll fly several bombers up here and dedicate
them to bombardment of the city hex to soften it up a bit.

[larryfulkerson]

I explored that empty area NE of Smolensk and found it empty so the front lines
just expanded a bit. I don't have the people to follow up with a wrap-around
move to the north or south and if I did I could really make hay with this
bump.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on down south currently. I've crossed the rivers and I'm
spreading out and converting the roads and rails and I've got a good supply
level and the mud season doesn't start until T32 so there's time yet to trap
those Soviet units up against the Kiev riverbank by driving for Kharkov with
a two-armed pincer movement over the span of three or four turns. I'm thinking
I can trap a lot of Soviet equipment in a pocket and kill them.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T26 front lines before I have moved anybody.

[larryfulkerson]

Last turn I thought I had put the cap on a hole down toward the southwesst of
Moscow about 200 miles and this turn I see that the Soviets have broken out
just about the time I made a hole in the Soviet lines further north, to the
west of Moscow. That's embarassing. Now I've got to see if I can't put a
bigger cap on the breakthrough and more fully develop the bulge in the north
simultaneously. And there's about 40 more situations that need attention,
although not so much as the breakthrough, that's a high priority. I don't
really expect the Soviets to be able to make hay with their breakthrough, I
think I'll be able to plug the hole eventually. Five turns or less.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on in the middle currently. The fighting has been continuous
since the original meeting engagement about 15 turns ago and we've been struggling
to push to the east everywhere, especially around Bryansk where the Soviet
breakthrough happened. I've been moving some units and I'm getting a handle on it
already. Some more units yet would be a good thing.

EDIT: That annotation about us not being able to see Soviet units in Bryansk, change
that "can" to "can't" for me will you.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the expected reinforcements for T27 and it looks like I already own
some of the hexes where they can spawn without a wait for me to grab the
spot.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the area just NE of Kiev and you can see that the supply level on the
east side of the river isn't quite adequate at the fringes. My overextended
threashold is 5 so I need to look to see where I'm moving to before I move a
unit now to make sure the supply will be okie dokie where I move to.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T27 front lines before I have moved anybody.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

I go away for the weekend and your drive into Russia goes really well!

The Russia push in the South looks threatening, but your openings North and South of Moscow look pretty good too.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19
Larry,

I go away for the weekend and your drive into Russia goes really well!

The Russia push in the South looks threatening, but your openings North and South of Moscow look pretty good too.

Hey there Mike man. I like how it's turning out because there's a lot more supply at the front this time for some reason. The mud seasons are approaching and that means the supply net is going to collapse and I'm trying to get the rails built up to the front line so the collapse won't be devestating. I'd like to be able to keep going during the mud season, as the supply levels might allow.

I'm running low in the number of on-hand aircraft of specific types, mainly bombers. I had a fighter get ambushed last turn and it's red and has 19 of it's 42 planes left so I've parked it at Berlin and I'm going to let it refit until it's full of planes again. There's been a flurry of planes flying back and forth as I rotate the tired ones to airfields in the rear and replace them with fresh planes. Last turn about 2/3 of the fleet was in a rest state because they were yellow or worse. I've been giving them direct attack missions and it's taking a toll on the fleet. I've trimmed the range of the bombers to 50 hexes ( instead of 83 ) to keep them out of the Soviet backfield where my fighters can't reach. Last turn I launched 88 attacks and the turn before that was similar because I'm trying to get as much territory as possible before the mud season turns on. I'm scared to look at the inventory to see what the losses are amounting to so far.

[larryfulkerson]

I decided to take a look at the losses and I was alarmed to see that I'm about
200 squads away from my lower limit of on-hand HRS squads. I was expecting
something like that. The operational tempo is going to have to slow down
remarkably if I'm not about to drop through the lower limit. I'll have to pick
my battles and let the rest of them rest.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm sneaking up on Kharkov, so the southern arm of the pincers is almost
at their goal but where is the northern pincer arm? I may have to make
some adjustments to the plan.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the original plan for creating a big pocket of Soviet units lurking
near the Kiev riverbank. The northern pincer arm is having problems getting
started but the southern pincer arm is almost at Kharkov already. I'll have
to make some changes to the plan to make it work now.

I'm sending the 11th Army units to Sevastopol and I'm going to block the road
at Kerch Straits and I've sent the Hungarians to the east and the Rumanians
are pushing into the Crimea and the supply levels are holding up pretty well.

I've got about a dozen bombers that are missing more than five planes so I've
got them parked at Berlin so they can rest and refit but it's probably going
to be a longish rest because I have only a few planes on hand and I'm not
building them very fast. I'll post a picture to show where we are right now.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Inventory report about the aircraft and as you can see some of them are in great shape and some of them are hurting and I need to do some small adjustments to my policies reguarding the useage of the aircraft to accomodate the changing situation.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Crimea currently. I'm fighting to get to the port and I want to
set up a roadblock near the Kerch Straits to keep out the Soviets from that
avenue.