Chapter 8 Roadwarrior (GHC) vs Q-Ball (SHC) Turn 25

[RoadWarrior]

Air losses

[RoadWarrior]

AGN gains a few hexes and preps for a major river crossing next turn.

The winter line is set-up already and the troops are digging.

[RoadWarrior]

AGC finishes cleaning up their mess.

[RoadWarrior]

AGS finishes off the small pocket and pushes east a few hexes. 1st PG is at the end of the supply chain and just don't have the MPs to do a hole lot.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: RoadWarrior

This is what I am looking at when I open my turn. Good game play by Q-ball to keep me honest. I have had players sneak a unit through my lines before but nothing close to this.

YUK!!! That is BUTT ugly. You have to have secure flanks, I rarely leave any open flanks. Just too risky Hopefully lesson learned because you will be cleaning this up for a few turns for sure. Good luck to you though.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

Timely repositioning of 4th Panzer Group!
That could have gotten ugly.

Where does AGC pull supplies from at this point?

Only thing that saved him to be honest. But the delay alone is huge for the Soviets.

[RoadWarrior]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

Timely repositioning of 4th Panzer Group!
That could have gotten ugly.

Where does AGC pull supplies from at this point?

Minsk Line - railhead and depots are at land bridge area. The FBD has started heading to Gomel as you can see in picture.

2 in South 1 north and 1 center.

[RoadWarrior]

Why I took the risk plus the extra fuel, generally have tight flanks.

Center has been a general bore in my games so far. Tring to figure out how to get things moving a little and still do as good in the north and south.

Guess Plan Anti-Boring made things fun, but was almost an epic fail. Thankfully just a fail, but still fun [:D]

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: RoadWarrior

Why I took the risk plus the extra fuel, generally have tight flanks.

Center has been a general bore in my games so far. Tring to figure out how to get things moving a little and still do as good in the north and south.

Guess Plan Anti-Boring made things fun, but was almost an epic fail. Thankfully just a fail, but still fun [:D]

Ya, good thing for sure only a fail

[Beethoven1]

It is a nice delay for the Soviets, but is it really worth it to do that with mech/tank units? For each one of those lost, it can give Germany up to a thousand captured trucks or so. I would try to do that sort of thing more often in my own Soviet game if I were not mortally afraid of giving Germany captured trucks. Over the long run, capturing the Soviet units that were encircled as a result of this should help the Axis logistics. In this case maybe it is worth it anyway because it was quite a large raid and it looks like only 2-3 tank divisions ended up being lost, but it looks like it could have easily ended up with more lost for the Soviets. ?

[RoadWarrior]

River crossed.

[RoadWarrior]

2nd PG looks to form a pocket and shorten the lines.

[RoadWarrior]

Very few supplies and replacements are getting to the front at this point even with railhead close to the front.

I agreed not to use unhistorical SD so play on.

[RoadWarrior]

Another hex cleared. This will take a while, but most of 4th PG is at close to top strength so it should fall before blizzard.

[RoadWarrior]

Tring to close the pocket.

[RoadWarrior]

3rd PG pushes across the land bridge, while AGS rests

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Beethoven1

It is a nice delay for the Soviets, but is it really worth it to do that with mech/tank units? For each one of those lost, it can give Germany up to a thousand captured trucks or so. I would try to do that sort of thing more often in my own Soviet game if I were not mortally afraid of giving Germany captured trucks. Over the long run, capturing the Soviet units that were encircled as a result of this should help the Axis logistics. In this case maybe it is worth it anyway because it was quite a large raid and it looks like only 2-3 tank divisions ended up being lost, but it looks like it could have easily ended up with more lost for the Soviets. ?

As the opponent, in this case I think it was worth it (obviously!). We are playing a few turns ahead; in the end I lost 3 mobile divisions and an infantry division; alot of those units he had to rout out of there just to restore communications. I managed to re-seal the pocket a 2nd turn, so that's 2 turns where that Panzer Group spent halted and not drawing supplies...well worth it, IMO.

Overall, here are my comments to Roadwarriors' good AAR:

AGN: This is a disaster for me.....I did not commit enough units early, and RW took full advantage with a deep thrust all the way to Novgorod on T-3. Well done. Good thing this is a game as I could've ended up in Lubyanka prison for that one....

AGC: Obviously going much better at this point; it wasn't a focus area for RW it seemed, and Smolensk held out a long time. As Soviets you absolutely cannot lose Moscow, and at this point I knew that was not going to happen this summer

AGS: More mixed; I had been giving up ground, but keeping the Red Army intact

Overall, probably my greatest success at this point is not in ground, but in keeping the Red Army in one piece (more or less). Each turn I would withdraw 3-4 hexes in front of the infantry; that surrenders ground, but also keeps pockets to a minimum.

[AlbertN]

The persistently retreating Soviets is something that mindboggles me in my games.
It simply denies pockets and anything in general besides netting some terrain.
VPs need to be more granular across the map - or the system to me does not really work to stop Soviets from retreating consistently and persistently til they're fat enough to build up a wall. Ontop of their incessant CPP build-up.

[RoadWarrior]

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

The persistently retreating Soviets is something that mindboggles me in my games.
It simply denies pockets and anything in general besides netting some terrain.
VPs need to be more granular across the map - or the system to me does not really work to stop Soviets from retreating consistently and persistently til they're fat enough to build up a wall. Ontop of their incessant CPP build-up.

Q-Ball is simply playing based on the rules 2by3 has set at this time and they do seem to be anti-historical.

BUT as German player I am doing the same. I know winter is coming, I know of the mistakes made by Germany.
You really need to understand how logistics works. I am still figuring it out myself, but turns 1-10 I have it "figured out". After that without using the unhistorical logistics rules, still working on it.

We should hold final judgement based on how things play out. Playing out means 45 final results are they close to historical or semi close or not close?

Personally I agree with you, but we have not invested our lives ( a ton of time) into this logistics system.

The VP system does need allot of "hellllp", but no way of knowing how much until some games get into 45.

[jubjub]

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

The persistently retreating Soviets is something that mindboggles me in my games.
It simply denies pockets and anything in general besides netting some terrain.
VPs need to be more granular across the map - or the system to me does not really work to stop Soviets from retreating consistently and persistently til they're fat enough to build up a wall. Ontop of their incessant CPP build-up.

Soviets that don't fight until winter are going to gift all of the bonus VP's to the Axis player and let them get a decent logistics network in place before the winter. Unless they have a spectacular winter offensive, the Axis player should be set up for a really high HWM in '42.