Moscow 1941 revised

[Capt. Pixel]

Sorry this is taking so long. Been very busy. Should have the turn back by tomorrow.

[Capt. Pixel]

"Engage your safetys, boys" Sgt Lavrenev wanted to make sure none of his comrades would trip and fire a warning shot to the halftrack they were sneaking up on. The men in the SPW 251/10 didn't seem to take notice even when the squad leaped from the rubble and lobbed grenades at the hapless halftrack. The third grenade arced into the open top and shredded the crew.

A half a kilometer to the west, a squad jumps off a T-34 just as she approaches an enemy PzIV through the rubble. Sgt Karelin swivels the turret towards a panzer covering his flank and moves forward. The Panzer pops a HEAT round off the T-34's sloped hull. Sgt Karelin orders the gunner to fire at the enemy tank. The first shot misses.

Rumbling to the right, the driver squares off with the PzIV. In a scramble, the gunner pops the breech and begins the loading sequence again. Another HEAT round bounces off the T-34s hull and machinegun fires rips away at the front turret. Sgt Karelin aims and then calls to the gunner to fire again, and the 76.2mm round pentrates the Panzer leaving it in a fiery heap.

A feusilier squad becomes visible in the light from the burning hulk, immediately drawing MG fire from the valiant T-34. The driver manages to jam the bow MG, and the couple of bursts from the CMG only serve to put a scare into the german infantry.

Capt Pixel reviews his company and determines that they have been, in fact, decimated. In a little more than an hour, over 140 trained Soviet riflemen have been killed or wounded out of the original company. Nearly all the carnage was caused by German artillery.

Fortunately, more valiant Defenders of Moscow are coming forward to fill the massive gaps left by Pixel's Ill-fortuned Company.

"This is not going to look good on my service record."

Pixel rounds up his remaining troops and starts looking for a safe place to wait out the battle. German artillery rains down all around his position. There are no 'safe' places.

The artillery parks are reporting over 1/3 are permanently out of commision. Weapons breakdowns have not been kind to me so far. (Lucky thing for DerC's Germans. :p )

The defense is strong. We shall not waiver.

[Capt. Pixel]

We've lost the thread again. :sleep:

Kaakao, I've had to re-install windows and managed to lose your e-mail address. Could you IM me with it, please? :rolleyes:

[DerC]

Hi,
I don't know when Kaakao has his next weekend leave but I thought I'd tell you that I will be away for the next two weeks. Hopefully I can play my turn then

[Kaakao]

Finally managed to play the turn. Flames didn't hurt a fort so much but that infantry squad sure is running

[DerC]

Oh well. What a turn, I lost more vehicles than I can remember and killed one T-34 :rolleyes:
Still no breakthroughs, even when pinned down the Russian defenders are holding.

[Scharfschütze]

"Comrade Commander, we have reports of enemy ships steaming north on the river!"

"Those Rivertigers again? They are **** near indestructable. I will not allow any more ammo wasted on them!"

"No, Comrade, not these but the ferries the enemy has been using. Laden with troops, the report says"

"Allright. Hand me the radio"

A little late, two T-34s were pushing through the smoke at the river front, the swerved south to engage the enemy shipping. A shell triggered a large explosion on one of the boats, while another took at least two hits. Good!

Further west, two abandoned tanks had been remanned after extensive encouragement of the crews, courtesy of the NKVD. Just in time to shoot up and advancing enemy HT...

[Capt. Pixel]

A good turn for the eastern Soviets.

Regrouping and reinforcing in the rubble, I advance with a small contingent of Tankdesantniki walking ahead of T34s.

Imagine my surprise when I step forward to a road and find an 88mm Flak
To make matters even more interesting, he's covered by an adjacent Flamingo, a 251/7 and a Flak HT.

To make a long story short, a pair of T34s dispatched the Flamingo but not before he roasts a couple of squads, another finished off the 88 and drove the 251/7 away, An engineer squad successfully assaulted the Flak HT (while under fire from a nearby squad!!), ..... and the street is mine again (temporarily, no doubt :rolleyes: ) I lost a squad.

Congratulations, DerC. Capt Pixel is now running through the rubble, shuckin' and a jivin' between artillery shells. You are certainly persistent.

Kaakao: I've misplaced your e-mail address. (actually, it got erased) I need it to send you the game. :p

(At the current rate, we should finish this game sometime in March, 2004 :rolleyes: )

[Capt. Pixel]

[FONT=Franklin Gothic Medium]KAAKAO!!![/FONT]

I can't send the game to you without an email address. (If you're the 'OneEyedWilly@BigOne.org, I apologize. Deleted you suspecting something from M4 Jess. :rolleyes: )

If ANYBODY has kaakao's email address, please send it to me. IM, email, pony express are all okay. Any other method requires prior approval.

[Kaakao]

Here again, sorry for the long delay but it's quite hard to play any turns when your stuck in the barracks for long times.

As for the turn, killed some infantry, blew up a fort and so on, still getting those reinforces over is taking forever.

[Capt. Pixel]

Okay, I've had enough of this. A 13 month game is not what I signed up for.[>:]

I want to thank all those who made this possible: [:'(]

M4Jess, thanks for the map. It truly was a metropolis ground into mortar and tears. I wish I could have seen more of it than the 1 kilometer front I've been defending for the past year.

Scharfschuetze - you played it well, my friend. Yours was by far the tougher ordeal, and you stood stalwart at my right hand. [:)]

Kaakao and DerC - thank you for the game. I know it was an uphill fight for your Germans, but you pressed on well. Unfortunately, the terrain, even more than the Soviet troops, was against you every step of the way. I'm certain that if you had not had the troubles with amphibious operations, the battle would have taken a completely different turn. Congrats on garduation and Good Luck to both of you in pursuing your futures. [:D]

Hasta la vista, baby! [8D]

[Scharfschütze]

I guess you are right about the pointlessness of this. Getting hammered by mortars while crawling through a ruined wasteland seems to have a discouraging effect on the attackers morale. I think the key in holding the western flank were those counterattacks preceded and followed by heavy mortar shelling. In the end, the germans lost their mobility...

Whatever...[:)]