FITE v.5.0 try 2 same sides as before

[larryfulkerson]

Here's where Ian drove his forces across Lake Piepus and got into my backfield. I've railed a couple of divisions up here from the south and on the east side of the lake you can see where Ian has been railing troops up here and he's got way more rail cap than I do. I'm still fighting the partisans and you can see the sticky situation I'm trying to handle. I'm prepared to retreat all the way back to Riga if need be. I've got a division at Koningberg that I'm going to sail up here to a port near the front. I expect Ian to rail a lot more troops yet to take advantage of this fabulous opportunity. If Ian can get his tanks into the flat terrain in Estonia there will be no stopping him. I've been railing MP's and AT guns and engineers up here because they cost very little to ship by rail and they can drop a bridge and act as a roadblock. I found two fighter squadrons that I could spare and moved them up here but that's not nearly enough. The rivers won't be much of a hindrance since they are frozen over. I'm moving the groups in the middle of the map but not fast enough to avoid getting cut off, so I'll have to redouble the movement distance of the troops. Maybe I should use the engineers to start building an MLR at Riga because I'll will probably have to pull back that far anyway.

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 57.....4th January 1942

As the battle to connect up my incursion across Lake Peipus with the forces driving west from the Narva River continues there is progress at the northern end of the line as the German Panzer Grenadiers are driven back on their supporting artillery which is then hit hard by Soviet bombers and artillery. The twin pincers soth of this are now only 20Km apart and the intervening German forces are also being reduced. The Germans have rushed considerable forces into the area west of Lake Peipus, presumably to preserve a safe corridor for units further north to retreat into and it would be ideal if I could push through these new arrivals.

Down in the south Hungarian forces are now pushed aside to make another slight gap in the Axis forces penning in the Odessa break out and around Nickolaev the Germans have counter attacked meaning further advances east may not be possible.

In Finland Soviet troops have reached the Swedish border and are now involved in the long march south towards Helsinki whilst Petsamo is under imminent threat and remaining German forces in northern Finland can hopefully be pocketed. In the south of the country there is now a more substantial breakthrough in the Finnish lines as more Soviet armour arrives.

Attempts to break through the German lines again at Dnepropetovsk are again foiled by heavy artillery support.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the area around Kiev right now and shows the progress that Ian has made. Very heavy fighting and artillery duels are going on and the losses are mounting. I've moved some more people into this AO and so far it's holding. I moved some RR arty in here to pound the Soviet stacks especially the arty. I havn't been shooting back because of the shock difference and I've had to move units around to contain the holes and breaks in the lines but so far it's been working out okay. I've got several divisions in reserve so I think I'm good in this area. I have no hope of forcing the Soviet units back across the river and that's not the goal.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the situation in the north. Ian has driven his units even further into the breech and expanded it's size and applying pressure on the defenders. I've railed a lot of people up here to contain the incursion and I can see a new front line forming. I think I got more people here faster, slightly earlier that is, and have a good start on a new MLR and I'm pretty sure I can contain this breech too. We'll see.

[MrLongleg]

Great AAR. I assume the Germans are facing some handicap right now (first winter rules?). How do you guys feel about the balance? The Russians seem a bit stronger than in real life, but I might be mistaken...

[larryfulkerson]

Great AAR. I assume the Germans are facing some handicap right now (first winter rules?). How do you guys feel about the balance? The Russians seem a bit stronger than in real life, but I might be mistaken...

Thanks for your kind words my friend. Ian and I are having a blast and this game is my funnest one so far. Ian is a really good opponent and keeps me on my toes and I never know what he's going to try next. I like that. The German shock is 100 and the Soviet shock is 115 because of the Soviet Winter Offensive and it will be that high for another 7 or 8 turns or so. And about the balance: I have no objections and I've played both sides. The balance is one of the reasons this FITE scenario turned into a classic. It "feels" right. One minor nit to pick is the length of time it takes to watch the playback. It's up to about 4 full minutes now. I believe it's advantageous to watch it however because you can see where he's railing his people to. Right now most everybody Soviet is moving north. The middle of the map, the area around Kiev, is extraordinarily stable whereas I would have expected a lot of pushing and shoving. The south is changing rapidly since Ian broke out of my babysitters around Odessa. Ian is pushing east from Odessa instead of west, the source of my supply. That's fortunate. The Rumanians are doing rather well holding back the red wave. I've got the Hungarians down there too but they are fragile and not very proficient and they aren't doing quite so well. Thanks for keeping up with our adventures.

EDIT: I would be curious to hear what Ian has to say about it.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Orsha area right now. The Soviets were sucessful in getting a couple of units on the river and I'm fairly sure they will be across the river soon. The reserve that was here was a Panzer Division and it got railed north to the breech up there and now we are on the verge of having a breech here. I need to pull the units up north back to make a straighter front line to release enough units to man the front line adequately. Moving them will cause a lot of losses. I think I need to move a lot of MP's, AT guns, and security forces to the peak of the bulge to man the roadblocks and dropped bridges in the path of the retreat as the main forces zoom to the west. I'll need to get away from the Russian units to build a hasty MLR along the river running through Dagavpils.
There's a front line forming NE of Riga that reaches the top of the peninsula near Narva. I'm going to see if I can't pull all those folks south to wind up with a horizontal front line at the base of the peninsula. It would be a much shorter length of space to defend. A shorter front line. That's a task for the near future turns.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the area around Kiev looking north and you can see that Ian has gotten some of his units over the river and is fighting over the crossings and I'm doing my best to stop him. He's a master at finding my weak spots. I've got too few substantial units to fill all the needs for them and Ian is making progress. There's no further reserves for this area so I've got a lot of the units on three-dots. A lot of the partisans that appear spawn just west of this image and it's relatively easy to find a spare unit or two to go chase down the partisan. This part of the front lines is relatively stable so far.

[MrLongleg]

That looks like hundreds of counters for each side. How long does it take to play a turn?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MrLongleg
That looks like hundreds of counters for each side. How long does it take to play a turn?

The Axis side has something like 700+ units and the Soviet side has over 1,000 counters. Turn one moves took about 12 hours to move the units because there were 8 combat phases and plenty of moving units and lots of combat. But now the Axis side is about 3 hours of moving units and usually only a single combat phase. I'm using the red green rule for this game. Green units can move and shoot, yellow units can move but not shoot and the red units must move toward better supply areas and can't shoot. It makes the game more realistic for me. This game is one of the better ones because of all the action and the fact that Ian is one of the better opponents. I'm having more fun with this game than my previous games. Ian tells me he's having a blast.

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: MrLongleg

That looks like hundreds of counters for each side. How long does it take to play a turn?

Hi Mr Longleg !

Thanks also for your comments and Larry is quite correct....it is a superb scenario. Lots of ongoing mini dramas along the whole Front.

Re the time per turn, don't be put off. Larry is a perfectionist and is more careful with his turns than I am and it makes him a tough cookie to play. I don't watch the playbacks but just review the list of battles at the beginning of each turn and check the Front from North to South each turn before moving. From the time I pick the turn up to sending it back it takes between an hour to an 90 mins on average so certainly nothing too bad. I have yet to play Germany so their first turn may take a lot longer but likewise a failed proficiency check can and a turn in half an hour or so occasionally, so it evens out.

Glad you are enjoying the AAR......my next update follows soon

Best wishes

Ian

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 58...

The drive along the Baltic coast continues and the front lines have reached the eastern most Coastal Forts of Estonia. More importantly a German retreat from their positions just to the north of Lake Peipus allows the Soviet forces driving west from Narva to meet up with the forces that had moved across the lake avoiding the risk that as the lake melted they would be cut off from supply. At the southern end of the incursion a drive will shortly be made to link up with the Soviet front lines around Pskov to achieve the same ends.

In the south the move east from the Sevastapol ithsmus towards Nickolaev has been stopped in its tracks leaving a full mechanised regiment isolated on the outskirts of the city as numerous reinforcements are deployed by commanders of AGS.

Further west at Odessa a break has been forced in Romanian lines but it is unlikely this can be exploited at this time.

In northern Finland Petsamo is fully under Soviet control and the nearby coastal forts are now under attack whilst landings are made to cut off all Finnish forces in southern Finland in the eastern side of the country though lines north of Leningrad remain strongly held and there is no movement.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines in T59. Ian has been railing people north and moving them into the breech and the pressure is terrific. There's been artillery bombardments each turn back and forth and the losses are mounting. I've committed about 2/3 of the reserve already and there's only a couple of Divisions left in the strategic reserve. I've moved them to the middle of the map and they are sitting on a rail hex ready to deploy. Partisans are still a problem. I'm going to have to strip off a security unit and use it to chase them down. The Soviets have made a new breakthrough in the Odessa Axis defensive line on the west side this time. They didn't go very far so I think I can contain it. There's a lot of weak spots in the front lines in the middle and Ian hasn't found them so far. Knock on wood. I want to move the northern front lines from the peninsula so that it runs horizontally from Riga to the east. I've got some uncovered ports that I need to garrison else Ian will float some people into them and ruin all my carefully laid plans. There's a couple more turns of high Soviet shock so I'm not counterattacking except for arty bombardments.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm expecting Ian to start floating units into Odessa to follow up on the breeches he's made in my lines. Of all the units I have near Odessa most of them are already fully employed on other tasks and there's no reserve so these breeches are a threat. I moved the RR arty to Kiev and there's no arty left near Odessa and the Soviets have some major tubes to use. The outcome seems to be just a matter of time.

[MrLongleg]

Is the "Green Rule" a house rule or something you do voluntarily?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MrLongleg
Is the "Green Rule" a house rule or something you do voluntarily?

I got it from Steve Sill when we were playtesting one of his scenarios.
It makes the game so much more realistic for me that I really like it
and adopted it as my own. I'm not sure how Ian would react if I suggested
it as a house rule.

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: MrLongleg
Is the "Green Rule" a house rule or something you do voluntarily?

I got it from Steve Sill when we were playtesting one of his scenarios.
It makes the game so much more realistic for me that I really like it
and adopted it as my own. I'm not sure how Ian would react if I suggested
it as a house rule.

Hi both !

The "red orange green" approach is a really interesting one and I am aware Larry used it. My argument would be that the game already gives combat advantages to units who are "green" over units who are orange or red and so accurately models the advantages of looking after your units. Certainly there is a very evident rule of diminishing returns when bombarding with units that are orange or even red.

I do not use the rule as there are to my mind very common instances of troop formations being pushed to the extremes by commanders and ordered to attack when clearly in no shape to do so. The entire 6th Army around Stalingrad would have been a good example or on a smaller scale the badly dispersed and supplied 1st Airborne trying to seize Arnehem Bridge. Neither of these formations could have done what they did using the traffic light protocol.

I am happy for Larry to play however he sees fit and we both just stick to the laid down house rules in the scenario. He loses momentum as the Axis early on in this scenario when attacking through this I believe, but gains later in the game as his troops tend to be much better looked after than mine .....if I am a Patton then Larry is a Bradley as far as troop welfare is concerned 😉

Hope that all makes some sort of sense.

Thanks again for the contribution

Ian

[MrLongleg]

Well, I guess it is good practice to follow that rule until circumstances force you to do otherwise. Are you playing the newest version of FITE? I hear the Russians have been toned down a bit...

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: MrLongleg

Well, I guess it is good practice to follow that rule until circumstances force you to do otherwise. Are you playing the newest version of FITE? I hear the Russians have been toned down a bit...

Yes...Latest version. Larry is in on the patches (I'm not !)
😉

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 59..11th January 1942

The last turn of the Soviet Winter Offensive (I think) so I decide to try and break the line in the north and south with heavy attacks in and around Melitopol to try and reach the forces pushing out of the Sevastapol isthmus. sustained fighting Soviet armour breaks across the bridge but is unable to exploit.

In the north on the Baltic coast west of Narva there is more success. The coastal fort just north of Rakvere in Estonia is overrun and the German line is also breached with a supply depot being subjected to air attack.

An expeditionary force is then launched to try and cut the Helsinki road to the Finnish Forces north of Leningrad and the port of Sakki-Jarvi is taken and the coastal fort at Viipiri overrun.