FITE v.5.0 try 2 same sides as before

[larryfulkerson]

House rule #3 comes with the scenario - later documentation confirms "invade" means sea landing - no sea-lifts for panzer divisions!!

I forgot all about that. I'll have to take it back. Evacuate the troops.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Kiev area now. I'm trying to push the Soviet units out of the city and gain the river crossing so I can destroy the remnants before they can escape across the river. The units already on the east side of the river to the north of Kiev are approaching the Kiev crossing but progress is slow. I've got the rest of the crossings plugged up and I'm using engineers to get units positioned across from the Soviet units on the river hex just to frighten Ian. He's pretty good about plugging my attempts to cross the river. He's brought in some sizeable arty pieces and my losses are heavy. The mud season is right around the corner.

[devoncop]

Firstly....Thanks SMK for your input !

Larry and I are both getting old so we both forgot about the House Rule re Panzer landings [:D][:D]

Soviet Turn 31.....5th October 1941

The 2nd Panzer has been pulled back to the port on the Baltic and will no doubt be sailing off suitably chastised next turn (minus its Recce unit which I managed to destroy).

The Soviet lines hold against multiple attacks this turn.......likely to be the last before the ceasefire.....and Kiev is amazingly still in Soviet control even if in a very precarious state. Medals have been arranged for its garrison albeit most of them will be awarded posthumously !

The Soviet domination in the air war continues and the big hope is that after the ceasefire this can help out a lot.

The task during the ceasefire will be to gear up ready for the Soviet Winter offensive which gives me a short lived shock bonus and fully rest my very tired artillery and air units for the struggles ahead......

[larryfulkerson]

That sneaky Ian has driven some units across the river and has almost surrounded my units just as the mud season starts so that I can't fix the break. I'll just surround his units and wait. I think I have established an LOC with the flow of supply for the group so it's not an emergency yet. I expect to have to move only the RR engineers each mud turn so these turns should go fast.

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 32...CEASEFIRE

The move to cross the Dnepr last turn is an attempt to force the Germans to extend and thin their lines as they are able at present to concentrate at the crossings and points of their choice. It would have been nice to surround the 3 Infantry Divisions trying to force the crossing SW of Poltava but I just couldnt manage it. Nonetheless the position is reinforced this turn....

With interdiction stopped due to the rain I am able to rail to the front the 1st Shock Army and the 3rd and 4th Shock Armies are ready to go next turn too. These being regular troops as opposed to the Militia I have largely been having to employ to date give me the chance of at least trying some offensive operations during the upcoming Winter Offensive.

Larry managed top push the Soviets out of the last city hex in Kiev apart from the Centre itself so Kiev will surely fall when the rains end but it has performed its task well and these next turns will allow the defences in the area to be reconfigured and strengthened safely.

[larryfulkerson]

Mud turns are over now. The war is back on.

I have a confession to make. I was zooming through the mud season turns just repairing rail and hitting end-turn. I never took the time to look around and ensure that the front lines were copecidec. I had completely forgotten about Ian's latest lunge across the river that has almost surrounded several of my units. Now I've got to scrape together about 7 divisions worth of troops to contain this incursion. There are units nearby that can act as roadblocks but they won't hold for long. This may be the thing that wins the war for Ian.

[larryfulkerson]

So I've been moving units and I think I'm ready to pull the trigger and execute the combats. I've managed to build a light shell around the incursion and other units are headed this way. My units have built up a supply level of 150 and I'm pretty sure the Soviet units have too. My units are right now as strong as they will ever be for the rest of the game most likely. I've repositioned the aircraft to the best spots depending on their mission. The aircraft in this image are on INT missions because I want to stiffle any efforts by the Soviets to try to save their incursion group. I really don't know what Ian is going to do but I tend to lean toward him attempting a rescue of his units. All he needs is one or more engineers.

Edit: Yeah, I just now noticed that too.....Ian has already pre-positioned two engineers on the south end of his river crossing. It should be only a minor problem getting them back across the river. Assuming that he was going to retreat them. On the other hand he COULD try to reinforce them and make the bulge bigger. Which of these will he do? He's got most of his reinforcements at the front lines already, given so many mud season turns to move them. Another question is where are his main tank Divisions?

[larryfulkerson]

Okie dokie I'm ready to execute the combats and I thought you might find it interesting to see that there's going to be at least 83 battles. A lot of those are my artillery bombarding Soviet stacks but there's lots of brute force pushing and shoving. This is the first attacks being executed since the beginning of the mud season and I expect lots of fireworks.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what happened, and you can see that these attacks were expensive. Ian has huge concentrations of arty just behind the lines and they are cutting my troops to pieces. I'm going to have to review my policy reguarding the advance and whether or not to push at all. I'd hate to spend the rest of the war doing only arty duels every turn.

I took a good look at the front line and I see where I'm using Panzers to hold positions on the front line and I'd really rather use them as local reserves. So rather than continue beating my head against the wall I'll spend a few turns getting organized and look for ways to use the natural terrain better. Most of the progress is happening in the south so I'll keep pushing down there for a while.

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 42....12th November 1941.

Notwithstanding Larrys's reports above the Germans launch ferocious assaults along the line putting the Soviets under severe pressure. Kiev is overrun by SS Divisions backed by huge numbers of artillery pieces concentrated behind them and Pskov falls as it's garrison is pushed out of the city but the Germans are unable to follow up so Soviet forces re-occupy it during my turn.

Narva, Genichesk,Shimsk and Zubstsov are all successfully defended and there are very heavy air losses on both sides with the Soviet fighters performing well.

I decide that although my Shock advantage won't kick in until the Soviet Winter event starts I will try and take advantage of German efforts which will have depleted them in some areas to try and launch some counter attacks of my own to relieve the pressure. The river crossing previously done just South of German held Kremecheg on the lower Dnepr is reinforced and an assault on Kremicheg itself is successful and the armoured engineers dug in there thrown out of the city securing the crossing.

Further North an offensive planned during the mud season is launched just South of Kiev as the entire 1st Shock Army supported by attached cavalry units sweeps across the Dnepr swinging North to make contact with the massed German artillery around Kiev....The turn ends early before they can be properly attacked but it will hopefully give German commanders pause for thought.

Finally a limited offensive is launched in southern Finland as the River Svir'r is crossed and the Finnish unit guarding the border the 1st Infantry Divn is confronted by Soviet infantry to their front and paratroop drops to their rear.....

[larryfulkerson]

I just received some new moves from Ian and it seems that he has used his engineers to leap across the river in an unprotected sector of the front lines and now he's in my backfield and I don't have a reserve. I'll have to turn off the advance and deal with this now. I've got troops nearby that I can use as roadblocks and strongpoints but this is going to take more troops than I have in this area. I'm going to have to rail in some more troops to contain this. Thankfully all the rails are repaired. If Ian had done this earlier I would have had a major crisis on my hands. But this I'm hoping I can contain. [size]

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a bird's eye-view and I underestimated the distance from my "nearby" troops and the breakthrough. It appears that the Soviets are going to have at least one more turn of free movement and that will no doubt balloon the size of the bulge and create more room for Soviet troops. This may be where the game turns around and Ian is in charge. At least this is different from beating my head against the Soviet wall. It's going to take me about three turns to get some troops down here in serious numbers. The troops are most likely going to have to come from the Crimea. I've got several German units in the Crimea that I can evacuate and turn the tasks in the Crimea over to the Rumanians. If I remember correctly the Italians are sitting on a rail already. I don't remember where the Hungarians and what they are doing but I could use them here too. [size]

[larryfulkerson]

Open email to Ian:

[devoncop]

My email back to Larry .......

Hi Larry,

Thanks for the comments....not sure it's quite as decisive a move as you think (or I would like) but we will see how things look when the turn comes back to me.....I thought I would try something that would maybe relieve the pressure around Kiev and give you something more than battering my lines to think about 😉
I was a bit lucky as last game you had quite a few reserves behind the front lines around Kiev and I ran straight into them when I tried something similar so was expecting the same as Fog of war is still an issue for me at this stage....I think you have maybe moved a lot of excess troops down South this game so hopefully it will take some time to ship them back.

Soviet Winter is not far off so I do want to keep some fresh troops but at least one more Shock Army may have to take a trip to see the sights around Kiev.....let's see 😁

Great game....great opponent !

Have fun

Ian

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 43....16th November 1943

A cold snap reduces German Shock levels to 100 from 120 and they now are only equal to that of the Soviets so a continuation and intensification of the Soviet counter attacks are ordered. Ist Shock Army supported by regular armoured Brigades push West through a screen of German Commandos and combat engineers South of Kiev and take a small rail intersection at Restov. A fight to retake Kiev city centre is now underway with no less than 3 Shock Armies in the area of operations.

Further South the Southern Front is ordered to also try and move into the offensive and Cherkassy and Zaporhozhe (sp?) are retaken with Soviet attackers also using pontoons to reach rear area artillery.

In the far North meanwhile 1st Finnish Division is cut off out of supply by paratroops to the North and Infantry arriving from the south and the assaults on the Division begin with some success.

The centre continues to hold against determined German attacks....with winter closing in will the Germans decide to hold or retreat....

[larryfulkerson]

It's late November and the SWO is approaching and the Axis shock went down to 100 same as the Soviets and Ian has made incursions across the river at several places. I was so outnumbered that I just concentrated on holding the crossings and didn't garrison the rest of the river assuming that the Soviets wouldn't want to cross the river because Ian's concentrating on defending. So without my knowledge, Ian brought up the engineers and used them to lunge deep into my backfield and the troops I'm railing into the AO to contain these incursions haven't arrived yet. I moved about four divisions last turn so I'm thinking I can rail about another four from somewhere. I've been stripping the front lines of units to rail leaving the bare minimum placeholders without backup or reserve. If I can get the incursions contained soon enough maybe I can replace some of the units I'm stripping off. This is the kind of thing that happens when you don't have a reserve.

[SMK-at-work]

Glad to help (albeit I haven't checked up since then!!)

[larryfulkerson]

New moves from Ian and I see where he's made another breakthrough during his turn. That means I've almost got it contained. I've got another Division I haven't used yet so I think I can fix these holes and thus contain them. The next problem is: once I have contained them then what do I do? I think I'll strip off some of the smaller units and start building an MLR somewhere to the west, behind a river to the west. There's probably not enough time before the SWO to get all my units repositioned on the west side of the next river to the west and that will leave my units defending out in the open terrain, the worst kind to defend in. So I'll have to hit the ground running.

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 44...19th November 1941

3rd Shock Army arrives in the "Kiev Bulge" to find German troops have been rushed to the area and expansion for now is minimal.

In the centre East of German held Orsha the Germans pull back slightly but there is certainly no widespread withdrawal and In the South more German reserves have capped the extent of Soviet moves across the lower Dnepr.

Only in Finland are the Soviets starting to make progress. The greater part of the Finnish 1st Division is now cut off and out of supply on the border and further North efforts are being made to force the blocked route to the Murmansk Front and cut off the German formations in the area.

The air war continues to be very much in favour of the Soviets and more airfield attacks take out multiple Romanian bombers this turn and over 250 Axis planes are again lost after almost 800 last turn.

A lucky raid from US Dauntlesses operating off Leningrad manages to sink the German battleship in the area.The

I did try and counter attack in several places this turn but cunning positioning of German Panzer Divisions and artillery caused heavy losses so I may need to wait for the Winter Offensive and a more advantageous shock ratio which at present still favours the Germans...

[larryfulkerson]

New set of moves from Ian and you can see where Ian has pushed his way through my lines and has broken a hole through which he no doubt is planning on moving his units through. Fortunately I have enough troops at hand to contain it. At least I think I do. I'm thinking of pulling all the units back to the west side of this river instead of leaving them out in the open like they are. German units aren't designed to retreat very well and leaving the Soviet zones of control is problematic at best. I'm bound to lose a lot of units trying to pull back. I'm going to have to pull back eventually anyway.