FITE2 Cantonia Allies larry Axis

[larryfulkerson]

The 298th Infantry Division is part of the strategic reserve and I've got it parked on a rail hex ready to move out if needed and I'm wondering if I should (1) park it embarked already or (2) just hope I've got enough rail cap to move them. None of the river crossings need any help right now and I'm wondering if I should move the 298th north to pursue Soviet units in the big gap that's forming there. Or should I move them south where all the progress is being made. I'll have to work on it. Meanwhile I forgot all about doing a survey of the RR arty. I'll do that right now before I forget again.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the RR arty inventory. There were also some armoured trains listed but I'll do them separate. Plus I need to look around for all my rocket arty and distribute them more or less evenly. I'm going to use at least three of the range 11 guns at Odessa and the rest will go to Kiev or Leningrad whichever is ready to be bombarded first. I don't need the range 3 gun for anything at Odessa. I'd rather use it to help out the front lines advance if there's such a spot where it would be useful. There's probably more than one such spot up north. I'm leaving them all here at Odessa for right now because all my other bothersome targets aren't within range of the railhead to park the guns close enough. I'll stay on the lookout for good places to park them other than Odessa.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

I continue to enjoy your AARs. The detail of your planning is great. I would never think of checking for the rail arty units...

Good luck

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19
Larry,
I continue to enjoy your AARs. The detail of your planning is great. I would never think of checking for the rail arty units...
Good luck

I've fought the eastern front battle with different scenarios about two dozen times now and this one is bigger but the principles are the same and I've learned a trick or two during those contests and I've learned through hard experience that your plan can fail for the lack of a horseshoe nail. Or something equally minor and that good planning takes contingencies seriously and I go back to the basics and consider not only what I think he'll do but also what is he CAPABLE of doing and cover that case too. Elmer likes to put his HQ units on the front lines because he's capable of doing that even though it's a monumentally bad idea. [ Unless there's no other unit that will fill that task and it's an emergency or something. I've considered it myself. ] Playing against a human is a different game entirely. I consider Jonathan a good opponent and try not to underestimate him ever. I'm not really all that great a player, I just tend to post a lot.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's happening in Lapland now and you can see the Finns on the right advancing to the east to clear the terrain and finding very little resistance. Above Leningrad the Finns are having arty duels with the Soviets and every once in a while the Finns will launch some probes, one-dot attacks, to see if it's possible to push the Soviets back anywhere along the front line that has formed across the width of the peninsula. I'm not sure why Jonathan isn't using his ships for support....if I had some ships I'm pretty sure I would use them. I've got two BB's right now that are bombarding Hango, that little fortress west of Helsinki sticking out into the Baltic Sea limiting Axis seaborne traffic.

[larryfulkerson]

In the Pskov area the Axis side is adding units to the front lines to lengthen it and the Soviets are still arriving from the north and the front lines are getting longer all the time. I'm railing people up here from the south in order to fill in the bulge forming in the east side of this area. I'm pushing and shoving on the Soviet units but I'm in no hurry and so far I've been using probes to find a weak spot. I've flown in some aircraft for CAP and I railed some arty and the units have rested and regained their supply and are in pretty good shape so I'm optimistic that I can push these Soviet units out of the way.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a lot of the middle front lines and you can see the thin line of German units holding back plenty of Soviet units. The front lines are forming up to the east ( up north ) so that both rivers will be garrisoned by the Soviets, surely, and that I'll have to divert more forces to this area to force a crossing somewhere. If I can make a hole and get across the river in adequate numbers I think I can manage to grab a crossing and open the gates to passage. I'm trying to make a hole somewhere up and down the line with plenty of attacks again this turn. I'm rushing some units to the NE corner and I'll probably arrive there just in time to see the Soviets digging in.

[gliz2]

Larry what is you approach to usage of pontoon/bridge units?
Do you divide them to maximaze the crossing capacity or not?
Are you keeping them on the very advance or just on the frontline?

I tried something new recently which proved so far quite successful (although comes with cost the trade-off I've found to be quite worth it). I took 4 railway battalions and and 2 stronger ones split in 2 units thus to have 6 railway engineers. And I used them in combination with Pontoons. Pontoons foe crosding and Rail Eng.to quick fix the blown up bridges. Attaching them to spearhead of my force (Pz. & SS Divs) was able to strike deep into Soviet lines quickly. The trade-off is you will be 4 RE short for repairing railways. But I've found out it does not change a lot in terms of railheads.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: gliz2
Larry what is you approach to usage of pontoon/bridge units?
Do you divide them to maximaze the crossing capacity or not?
Are you keeping them on the very advance or just on the frontline?

I tried something new recently which proved so far quite successful (although comes with cost the trade-off I've found to be quite worth it). I took 4 railway battalions and and 2 stronger ones split in 2 units thus to have 6 railway engineers. And I used them in combination with Pontoons. Pontoons foe crosding and Rail Eng.to quick fix the blown up bridges. Attaching them to spearhead of my force (Pz. & SS Divs) was able to strike deep into Soviet lines quickly. The trade-off is you will be 4 RE short for repairing railways. But I've found out it does not change a lot in terms of railheads.

Hey, that's a really good idea. I'll have to try that myself. I've found that if I split one of those pontoon units that sometimes they can no longer move onto the river hex to bridge it. So I'm leaving them as one unit and it's the only unit that can move onto the river hex, the regular engineers can't. I've tried. Right now I've got both kinds of units up at the front to repair the bridges that I need to keep the advance going. Other engineers are in the backfield repairing bridges that will help the supply flow better, etc. After the front lines stabilize a lot better and there's no eastbound rail to repair, I'll move the RR engineers to those spots that didn't get repaired in the rear just to keep them in practice. And I'd like to keep ALL the bridges repaired eventually. As my recon units move further into unknown territory I make a special effort to grab the airfields as I go by them and move some fighters up to the base just to provide some CAP for the moving recon unit and I have a suspecion that it provides some small amount of aerial recon for the area around the airfield. I don't know how to check for that actually.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a section of the front line due south of Kiev and shows the supply levels. The flow of supply is adequate for operations but perhaps not for long. My overextended supply threashold is 5 so when the supply levels approach 5 I'm going to have to call a halt to the advance down here and wait for the rails to catch up. I've been railing RR engineers to the end of the rail just NE of Kiev to help out and it's starting to approach within about 8 hexes of the Axis crowd around Kiev.

[gliz2]

Larry do you remember by chance which river you had problems with? And was it a unit dived in 2 or 3? The reason I'm asking is I have not come across this issue so far (only once at Dniepr river I needed to wait a turn as the divided unit needed full MPs to bridge it).

I've found that if I split one of those pontoon units that sometimes they can no longer move onto the river hex to bridge it.

As to the recon. When flying over enemy territory the planes provide some recon. Also seems when on airfields but depending on your set intelligence level (I play at the lowest) and I also have no clue how it works.
The set level of intelligence greatly influences the recon capacities.
After reading some good books on the matter of German recon doctrine in Barbarossa I come to conclusion that even the low level intelligence is too high [:D]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: gliz2
Larry do you remember by chance which river you had problems with? And was it a unit dived in 2 or 3? The reason I'm asking is I have not come across this issue so far (only once at Dniepr river I needed to wait a turn as the divided unit needed full MPs to bridge it).

As to the recon. When flying over enemy territory the planes provide some recon. Also seems when on airfields but depending on your set intelligence level (I play at the lowest) and I also have no clue how it works.

The set level of intelligence greatly influences the recon capacities.
After reading some good books on the matter of German recon doctrine in Barbarossa I come to conclusion that even the low level intelligence is too high [:D]

I actually don't remember the name of the river nor where it was geographically on the map. It's been too long ago and didn't seem all that important to me at the time. I looked under the hood and the unit didn't have all that many ferry engineers in it. Dividing it probably moved the ferry engineering capability too low to do it's job. Or maybe it didn't have enough MP's left to move onto the river hex. Maybe that's what's going on. I'll test it and find out. And that point about the low level intell being too high......maybe we should bring that to the attention of the scenario designer(s).

[larryfulkerson]

After I moved everybody I pulled the trigger and the battles were executed and this is what some of them resulted in. I feel like I'm slowly makeing some progress. In most battles the Axis forces lost almost as much as the Soviet did in each battle. These Soviet units aren't pushovers. They have had some rest and they are stronger now than they were many turns ago and there's many more of them.

[larryfulkerson]

I've reached the NE corner of the bulge and so far it looks like there's nobody home. But the Soviets have surely placed a garrison there near Staraya Russa. So I'm going to keep my units closer together so they can support each other and see if I can't find a way across that river and maybe capture the crossing to keep the advance going. I've found some troops to help out up here and they are on their way.

[larryfulkerson]

This is what Kiev looks like now. The rail is inching closer to the site of the action and I'm slowly getting the bridges fixed and I've been pushing and shoving at Kiev and have made some small progress. All the arty is helping out a lot. My losses have been higher than I'd like....maybe I should bombard them for a couple of turns to soften them up before I attack them again.

[larryfulkerson]

I've been repairing bridges since T2, just after the jumping off positions, and now we're fighting in the approaches to Leningrad and there's a lot more bridges to repair still. I need to fix them in order to facilitate the flow of supply and restore railroad service. We will soon have express one-day service to Berlin and points west. I'm going to establish a rest camp behind the front lines for the supply-poor units to refit. It'll have to be a spot where I can park the units on the road in a relatively high supply area.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how far we've gotten in the south. The holdup is the lack of good supply and all the broken bridges. I've been repairing them as the front moves east but there's a lot more bridges to fix yet. The Axis units are having to save up enough supply to move and still have more than 50% upon arrival. Otherwise the unit turns red and needs to rest again. I've decided to use the Axis minors in the Crimea although I may regret that in the future.

[Big Ivan]

This is a good AAR, I'm really enjoying it!

Thank you Mr. Fulkerson![:)]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Big Ivan

This is a good AAR, I'm really enjoying it!
Thank you Mr. Fulkerson![:)]

Thank you for your kind words. Is there something in particular that you'd like to see that I haven't covered yet? I'm trying to give a lot of the details because I'm going to read this thing myself years from now and I'd like to be immersed in the game again. I'm posting these pictures as I do my moves so that you guys know about it almost as soon as I do.

[Big Ivan]

Actually no. At the moment I'm just trying to get into TOAW-IV as time permits.

My go to is the Campaign Series which keeps my available time almost filled. I use to play TOAW-III a bit so
now I'm trying to learn the flow of the engine in TOAW-IV. Your AAR here and others does a superb job in
conveying the inner workings of the new engine.

Of particular interest which you have covered well, is the air force part of the engine.
I need a little more exposure to that as it can get confusing sometimes as to what certain
air units are good for and not good for. When to designate ground support or air superiority.
When to move air units and supply them is a weak point of mine so I'm trying to learn.

I thank you for that![:)]