Shivering in Stalingrad

[John B.]

Situation near the end of my turn. I settled for bombarding his troops in the pocket rather than continue to throw myself as his strongpoints.

[John B.]

Another turn and more freezing death. Here is the situation at the start of the turn. I think both of our armies are on the brink of exhaustion. Marc has thus far been unable to break through to Stalingrad and I have been unable to make any more progress against the pocket.

[John B.]

As you can see from the previous slide, I had a number of units decide to reorganize this time so I did not have too much available to attack. I did make some progress against his thrust towards Stalingrad and cleared out a couple of hexes in the pocket. My supply is just terrible so I'm trying to limit my attacks for a couple of turns.

[MikeJ19]

Interesting to see how many of your units are set to "one dot" minimize losses. I rarely use that setting. Why are you doing it? Maybe I am missing something.

[John B.]

I have not gotten around to changing them and so far, it's been working so I figure why take additional losses.

[John B.]

Another turn under our belts and the action continues thick and fast. The pocket itself has become smaller and Marc has pushed closer to relieving it. Soviet supply is awful and even resting my units does not seem to repair it.

[John B.]

By mid-turn I had pushed in on both flanks of Marc's penetration towards Stalingrad threatening to encircle them as well. I don't think I can get that far, but it may make Marc back off a bit. Meanwhile, two attacks on the pocket did not take any terrain despite reports from my staff that the chances of success were excellent. Marc and I continue to beat each other up on the distant flanks.

[John B.]

Well, Marc broke through to the pocket and given my very low supply levels (and the fact that neither one of us was very excited about the game) I resigned. The early proficiency checks and low supply levels hurt, but Marc's aggressive play is what sealed the deal for him. Congrats!