FITE2 Cantonia Allies larry Axis

[larryfulkerson]

This is the takedown of the last Stalin Line remnant north of Kiev's latitude. I'm starting to swarm into the clear terrain due east reaching to the rivers east and south. I have to cross that expanse to clear it and for all I know it's teeming with Soviet units so with no resistance at all I can probably clear all that out in about two weeks. Contingent on resistance. I've got a team of RR engineers somewhere in that area repairing rail and I daresay that they won't be able to keep up with the advance once I get the Panzers down here and operating. The Rumanians will be the follow on forces to clean out all the remnants that will be easy to kill.

[larryfulkerson]

I think I've detected a tiny problem in Odessa. I have reason to believe that Jonathan has turned his CD guns around and is pounding my troops with them. How rude. I'm going to have to hit them from the air I guess. I don't have any ships in the black sea or I would use them for this. I have repaired the rail almost all the way to Odessa and I'm going to bring in some RR arty to pound the CD guns. Them first and then the regular arty and then the troops. It's going to take at least a month.

[larryfulkerson]

I've been moving units for several hours now and the new front lines are starting to take shape. I'm seeing remarkably few Soviet units. The bigger problem is the broken bridges. I'm getting troops across the last river to enter the territories and start spreading out, converting hexes and I'm hoping to eventually get the rail repaired in this area. I'm starting to get my Axis minors mixed up and that's not a good thing. They can't support each other so I've got to get the same colors back together before they get into serious combat. Supply levels at the front are in the high teens, high enough to keep going to the east and see if it's possible to get into the Crimea.

[larryfulkerson]

The Finns have been busy. They have destroyed several Soviet units and pushed their way south on their way to the stop line further south. The Soviets have brought up some arty and several more troops, probably with more on their way. I'm not sure it's safe to move some of the aircraft down closer to the action. The Soviet CD guns can reach out fairly far and none of my squadrons want to be bombarded thanks for asking. I've got to start working on the Soviet ships pretty soon or they will no doubt support the defense. I've got about a dozen Stukas and when I get them all together on one target I can usually lose about two dozen planes and get about 15% damage on the BB. I'm open to advice.

[gliz2]

Great read Larry but why no indication on the dates/turns? It's quite strange. Took me sometime to figure the timelines.

On my game I've pushed 60% of my mech/Pz between Riga and Pskov (got a bridge on Desna river by chance) bypassing Minsk and Smolensk and 30% used Prypet marshes for south of the Minsk flanking surprise (also bypassing Smolensk which will be left for Infantry to handle). I have to say Soviets were caught completely by surprise.
I think, as important this triangle (Pskov-Minsk-Smolensk) is the speed is a key. Taking control of Riga-Pskov line solves the supply issue and gives edge fir elastic operations (you can rapidly advance I think till turn 11-12).

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: gliz2

Great read Larry but why no indication on the dates/turns? It's quite strange. Took me sometime to figure the timelines.

On my game I've pushed 60% of my mech/Pz between Riga and Pskov (got a bridge on Desna river by chance) bypassing Minsk and Smolensk and 30% used Prypet marshes for south of the Minsk flanking surprise (also bypassing Smolensk which will be left for Infantry to handle). I have to say Soviets were caught completely by surprise.

I think, as important this triangle (Pskov-Minsk-Smolensk) is the speed is a key. Taking control of Riga-Pskov line solves the supply issue and gives edge fir elastic operations (you can rapidly advance I think till turn 11-12).

You're of course correct. I'll make more of an effort to include the dates/turns on the images. And thanks for posting your verbage. Your opinion is important to us.

[larryfulkerson]

It's T16, new moves from Jonathan and here's what's happening in the area just north of Leningrad. The Finns are pushing hard and there's some German units in the fight too. There's a Soviet CD gun on the west side that I need to get rid of yet. And I'm thinking that I ought to cover the ports so that there won't be any Soviet invasions. Don't like surprises. I need to fly the aircraft down closer to the action. I need to repair the rail leading down here too.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the Pskov area before anybody has moved. I'm planning on sending out the recon units to get more information to start the planning on the next step. I'm wondering if I have enough people to take down the city. I might ought to start looking for a free Panzer division for duty up here. I haven't been watching the combat replay so Jonathan could have railed several divisions up here to defend. Hence the need to send out the recon units. Have them snoop around, see where everybody is. Get a feel for the battlefield situation now that it's changing. I've wrapped around the Soviets, now to destroy them and get the flow of supply moving through there.

[larryfulkerson]

I did this for you guys but I'm glad I did because it's only now that I see the glut of people leaving Minsk and that I need to split them up and send them north and south leaving only a few more for the middle. I can see for myself from this image that the north needs more formations. I've got a rail cap of 6K of which I have 6K left and that will move about 3 divisions worth of equipment I think, so I'll have to move them in waves over several turns.

[larryfulkerson]

[T16 31Aug41]Okie dokie, I've run into the first stout roadblock the Soviets have built so far. I'm going to have to go around this guy, surround him, bombard him for a while, and then let the supported probes begin, the one-dot attacks to unentrench all the units in the hex, and then the three-dot attacks to destroy them. Other Axis forces north and south of here are running into roadblocks too.

[larryfulkerson]

I blasted a hole in the Soviet defenses at Pskov and I've been driving units through it spreading out and grabbing airfields and converting the roads and rails. I found a Soviet defender straight north from Pskov and he's blocking the road to Narva so I need to move him out of the way or destroy him or both. The flow of supply isn't making it all the way past Pskov yet and I can't go far without supplies. I'd like to be able to keep going east and do a left hook to the north to isolate Leningrad from the rest of Russia.

[larryfulkerson]

I have finally repaired the rail close enough to Odessa that my RR arty can reach the Odessa CD guns on the coast. I've already started the bombardment. The RR engineers are busy repairing rail to the east from here. They are headed for the Crimea. I need the rail to reach almost to Sevastopol to feed the forces so they can take down the city.

[larryfulkerson]

I finally cleaned out Pskov. Now I need to reapair all the damage and it will be as good as new. The railhead is getting closer to Pskov and the supply levels are rising slowly. Getting Leningrad depended on getting Pskov and now that Pskov is in our pocket it's time to get serious about Leningrad.

[larryfulkerson]

New moves from Jonathan and this is T17 and the area just north of Leningrad is a hot spot. Lots of fighting going on and there's some German units that don't have to stop at the stop line. The Finns are slowly pushing the Soviets backward and will soon be at the stop line.

[larryfulkerson]

This shot shows the supply levels at the front lines. It looks like for a while to come there's going to be a series of battles to get across several rivers on the way to Moscow. I need to gather up all the little pontoon units to straddle the river and give my units away across it while it's still possible to do so. When winter gets here the supply levels are going to vanish.

[larryfulkerson]

I found a section of the front lines that doesn't seem to be guarded all that heavily. Maybe I can get a foothold here. If so I'll need a lot more troops to follow up. I'll divert some more troops to this area. The follow on forces need a little rest following the destruction of the Soviet roadblock(s) so they have fallen behind but can be here in about four or five turns or so.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a view of Kiev and the supply levels in that area. Kiev doesn't seem to have been turned into a fortress yet and that may be a good thing. I've got some RR arty that I'm going to employ here as soon as the rail makes a way to do that. I've decided to treat Kiev as just another river crossing and try to force a breech with the tanks of a Panzer division backed up by a lot of heavy duty arty and some CS by about a dozen bombers; that ought to make a dent. It's kind of important to get on the other side of the river so that a drive on Kharkov might begin. Other forces are clearing the terrain south of Kiev on the west side of the river.

[larryfulkerson]

It's 05:32 and I have worked through the night again doing my moves. But I don't want to keep my opponents waiting so I do it. I looked up the Me-109E to find the difference between it's range and the other models of the Me-109 and found that I had to click on the equipment button to get a readout of the range but that I would have to do a cut and paste picture to get more than one model's stats both in the same image. It would be really handy if the inventory and replacements dialog could include the range of the unit and maybe a health dot for the unit. Clicking on a button for the infor one unit at a time isn't all that user friendly.

EDIT: Does anybody know for sure if the Me-110G is a night fighter? I think I read that somewhere.

[larryfulkerson]

I think I've found a game stopper kind of problem. The Ju-87 is supposed to be a ship killer. It's supposed to have an anti-ship value of 120 or so. But when I inspect all the Stuka's I find that they all have a perfectly ordinary value like any other bomber. This will prevent the Stukas from making a dent in the BB's near Leningrad and Sevastopol. I've made strikes on the BB's already and can confirm the lack of a dent. I would like to somehow get a fix for this and then restart I guess. Before we get too much further into the game.

[larryfulkerson]

Jonathan talked me into continuing this game. He said just ignore the
Stuka problem or work around it.