Connect Four Team Game

[thedoctorking]

So, we launched the indicated attacks. The one in the south was successful, breaking the pocket and removing the isolation condition for another turn. That in itself is a victory. Moreover, the attack also displaced a German panzer corps HQ, which should hamper supply to that HQ’s units and slow their response next turn. The northern attack, though, was unsuccessful. Similarly to the attack in the central region, the odds appeared good on the map. The commander in this case was 31st Rifle Corps’ Anton Lopatin, not a stellar commander but not terrible either. He managed to get some air support though no SU were committed to the attack. From a starting odds of 130:58 in our favor, the result of rolls and support reduced the final odds to 29:41. Isaac made a couple of follow-on attacks, both of which were similarly unsuccessful. Again, a number of good units ended up stranded close to Germans who will no doubt encircle and destroy them in the next turn. The German units that we hoped would be isolated are at least in “beachhead” supply status, that is, more than 50 MP from their supply sources, thanks to our tight choke hold on their lines of supply to the north. Hopefully, they won’t be able to do much in the next turn.

[thedoctorking]

Overall losses this turn were 27424 Axis to 215,400 Soviet. Air losses were 197 Axis to 669 Soviet. Axis air losses included 71 fighters/fighter-bombers. Of our losses, 126 were I-153’s and 191 were SB-2’s. These are good numbers for us. Ground losses are going to mount as they will ultimately destroy all those units in the turn 1 pockets. I was unable to reopen the western Belarus pocket, so a couple hundred thousand guys in there will probably surrender next turn or turn after. The guys in the western Ukraine pocket, plus the units that attempted to rescue them this turn, are all doomed. Destroying them will take the Axis infantry at least two or three turns, though, meaning that they won’t confront our main line of resistance forces until turn 5 at the earliest.
I remain optimistic about our prospects in this game. I recommend that the Politburo start getting surviving German, French, and Italian communists out of the Gulags and training them for their future role as proconsuls in the Soviet Union of Eurasia.

[SparkleyTits]

Some unfortunate rolls for us this turn as dislodging the panzer corp in AGC and isolated most of AGS panzer force would of been very nice but all in all not the decisive blow either side was aiming for this turn so will have to see what develops

I would also like to say I am very proud of the commanders willigness to step out of their comfort zones by trying out more aggresively minded Soviet tactics I am fond of
Great stuff comrades and enemies alike, keep it up!

[thedoctorking]

Yeah, man, we came here to fight! Nobody is planning to run to the Urals.

[Telemecus]

Soviet Turn 2
With the Soviet ground commanders all based in the United States and the turn arriving with them on the 4th of July the war must await the end of their celebrations for Rebellious Sedition Day.

(The attached is a picture for the post on turn 3 centre)

[Telemecus]

Axis North Turn 3

Turn 3 finds the small pocket on the Malta river intact and soon dispatched. 4th Panzer Group heads on towards Pskow and Leningrad.

Neogodhobo
And I should have listen to you guys when you told me not to seperate my fast division. Complete waste of time. But now I know for myself haha

Joneleth
Riga has turned into a fortress 89 def cv

[Telemecus]

Axis Centre Turn 3

Searry
I knew vitbesk would mean something ... it means zhukov in the middle [:)]

Turn 3 arrives back from the Soviet team with the Bialystock pocket intact, but still marauding our rail lines, and the motorised near Minsk isolated. Our vanguard at Vitebsk however has been trapped behind enemy lines.

Searry
they did not evacuate minsk or mogilev
I wonder why the strong forward defense

By the end of turn 3 we have reconnected our units including those trapped at Vitbesk and reestablished the Minsk pocket

Searry
lehr's job was to break the rails ... too bad if it gets routed...it's just a brigade so no big deal

Searry
Yeah it's a difficult decision to think what to do either hqbu for fuel or try to pocket something now
though with this amount of fuel(low) it is hard to pocket anything

Centre takes the plunge - and goes for an HQBU!

[Telemecus]

Axis South Turn 3 Start

Joneleth
worse thing is it was chain broken

Joneleth
my MP rolls are annoying... theres like 4 instances of 2 out of 3 regiments aces their rolls and the last one failed all so its like 40 40 10 MP so if i merged them the division wont have any MP

Joneleth
some good news ...if you look at the soft counters, several of the soviet units brought to break my pocket is +50 morale +50 experience infantry, those will be a huge loss to the soviets

[thedoctorking]

Centre takes the plunge - and goes for an HQBU!

Who exactly got the HQBU? Both panzer corps?

[thedoctorking]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

Axis Centre Turn 3

Searry
they did not evacuate minsk or mogilev
I wonder why the strong forward defense

By the end of turn 3 we have reconnected our units including those trapped at Vitbesk and reestablished the Minsk pocket

[/quote]

Like I said, we came here to fight!

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: thedoctorking

Centre takes the plunge - and goes for an HQBU!

Who exactly got the HQBU? Both panzer corps?

A Panzer Group even!

(The attached picture is for use in the next post on turn 3 for south)

[Telemecus]

Axis South Turn 3

Joneleth
some good news on my front if you look at the soft counters, several of the soviet units brought to break my pocket is +50 morale +50 experience infantry, those will be a huge loss to the soviets...considering the amount of forces i trapped in ukraine and how many he still has outside im suspecting the south is recieving the bulk of reinforcements

Joneleth
theres no chance of me taking odessa this turn btw ... there might be a chance next turn ...othervise i expect to take it at turn 5 at the latest
but i can take ochakov this turn

At the end of the turn suggestions are asked for, some are not used

Telemecus
some HQs are vulnerable to displacement

Joneleth
i know but othervise it wont supply all forces, so i consider it a trade off if they move units that close

and some are

Given that the pocket has already been broken once my own view, not shared by many others, is there is little urgency in keeping the pockets sealed - they will die sometime anyway. But there is an absolute need to keep your supply lines and infrastructure protected and your own forces not isolated.

Joneleth
how they react in T3 will change alot of things in our strategy
if he keeps his checkerboard outside kiev then i cant zov block kiev, but he will have less forces guarding the east

This time the pockets are held by an area of ZOCs rather than a continuous line of regiments.

Centre wants to know when they will be getting back the two corps of 2nd Panzer Group in the south.

Searry
how am I getting back my troops?

Joneleth
either rail them back through romania after odessa is taken or we meet in middle in a couple of turns

South sets out their future prospects

Joneleth
with 2 outer defences penetrated at odessa i also feel confident in taking it next turn
next turn hopefully my pockets wont have been broken, so i will capture odessa, clean up the pockets, if any resources left ill pocket a few frontliners, and then talk to searry regarding his forces when how and if he wants them back

[Telemecus]

Axis Air Turn 3

Searry
looks like soviet interception is up more planes flying - soviets are downing my bombers even with huge air escort - I had no idea they could suddenly gain strenght like this

Searry
21 bombers lost damn - I guess escort would be nice - I wasted so many bombers this turn

Searry
ok airfield bombing with stukas at this point is not viable - had to try though

Searry
goddamn I love how simple but effective the 3 ab stack kabuki is

[Telemecus]

999 Battles Error Turn 3

With hindsight we really should have told Searry about the 999 battles bug earlier

tm.asp?m=4323500

Searry
yes

Telemecus
that is why

Searry
uhhh

And it seems Searry is not the first to catch the air war bug - and then the 999 battles bug

tm.asp?m=4432007

As a result all the rest of the team have to play the turn afterwards knowing every battle report gets erased when they do the next battle. And the central panel of the battle display each time will give crazy numbers.

Neogodhobo
This seems a bit excessive, 901 fighter planes and 1,015 bombers. All these airplanes and only one lost on the enemy side (who had 1800 fighters)
Youd think with a thousands bombers, they would have hit something more than 2 arty. Im a bit confused by those high numbers of airplanes participating in a scouting engagement. It seems every battle I do is like this

Searry's team nomination for the award on how to win friends and influence people has since been rescinded. But we know the talent and flair of the Soviet team means they will take it in their stride and probably not even notice.[:)]

[Telemecus]

Axis Allocations Turn 3

For information only.

[thedoctorking]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

999 Battles Error Turn 3

With hindsight we really should have told Searry about the 999 battles bug earlier

tm.asp?m=4323500

Came as a complete surprise to me as well.

[thedoctorking]

Connect 4 AAR, Turn 3

This turn proved that I’m not a very good prognosticator of German objectives. Pretty much all the terrible things I was anticipating last turn failed to come to pass. Instead, as the great Stalin (Sparkly) told me, it was a reasonably quiet turn, with the Axis clearing up spots behind their lines and bringing up infantry to support their armored spearheads.

Unfortunately, my analysis of Axis moves is limited because the Axis (without realizing the impact of their actions) did hundreds of recon missions. In so doing, they over-wrote the battle records. That is, when we click on the “report” button or look at the “battles” tab on the Commander’s Report, only the recon missions are visible. Thus, we have no knowledge of actual combats that took place during their turn. Our ability to track their armor and to know where their most effective generals are deployed has been interrupted. This is clearly a bug, and, I’m sure, not intentionally used as an exploit by the Axis players, but it does give them a significant intelligence advantage for this turn. After some discussion on the Discord channel for the game, they said they would not do it again. Annoyingly, with all those recon missions, they only lost 29 recon planes! Here’s what a serious Axis recon spam looks like – or at least the last 950 recon missions they ran:

[thedoctorking]

In the north, the German offensive turned northwards along pretty much the direct route to Leningrad, although with only one Panzer Group in evidence. One corps pushed across the Velikaya upriver from Pskov, while the other menaced Pskov directly from the west. Meanwhile, at least one infantry corps gathered around Riga but was unable to capture the city. The remainder of about one German infantry army pushed east-northeastwards towards Pskov, while an infantry corps covered the line from the Sorot junction southwards to the Dvina, in the Velikiye Luki sector where we expected their attack to come. Shows you what we know:

[thedoctorking]

After turn one, we considered the possibility of garrisoning and holding Riga as a thorn in the German’s side in the sector. However, the way the German attacks came, there was a real possibility of a successful attack on the city next turn retreating the defending units out to the northeast and leaving them isolated along the Latvian coast. Regretfully, we evacuated the city by sea and sent the remaining units in the vicinity marching back into Estonia. We brought significant reinforcements – about an army’s worth – into the Pskov region to establish a layered defense in depth. No doubt the Germans will push across the river and sweep through the plains to the east, but they will have difficulty shooting their way into the city itself and the retreat path to the north will be difficult to close. There is a faint possibility of a pocket around Pskov, if the Germans have plenty of movement points and good luck in a bunch of hasty attacks. There probably should have been a few Northern Front divisions farther back in safety stop positions. The Germans don’t really have enough troops to seal the pocket though and might end up getting swallowed up in a tide of Russians if they try.

[thedoctorking]

In the center, the expected German pocketing move didn’t happen. Instead, their armor hardly moved aside from making the attack necessary to relieve their pocketed panzer division at Vitebsk. Unmoving armor suggests the possibility of an HQBU. Since they didn’t do one last turn, it’s possible that they had enough AP for two corps. To the rear, they cleaned out the Bialystok pocket and moved their infantry forward, though not fast enough to take Minsk, which held for another turn. Both here and in the north, they stacked their airbases very close to the front and very close to large concentrations of Soviet air power. They also gave back the city of Vitebsk that they took last turn – since cities are such good defensive terrain, it seemed like a poor choice to retreat and cede such a strong point back to us.