The Cobra vs the Mongoose

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Partisans have started popping up, last turn and this one.

I know the Germans had some challenges with stragglers from the Soviet western armies in their rear areas in the early part of the campaign, but it is I think extreme to give them a guerrilla icon, which will make them extremely slippery and hard to kill. I would suggest that it would be best to omit these units entirely along with the corresponding security units in the German OOB.

Perhaps later in the war true guerrilla units might be appropriate, where these were fighting as large, organised bodies, with Stavka having some degree of control over them. In 1941, it doesn't feel realistic.

[larryfulkerson]

Hey you guys: I'm playing Walter as the Soviet player and I've received Walter's first turn moves and I watched the playback ( 18K+ events ) and
now I'm moving my units and I've come to the "Soviet Factories, Kiev" unit and it says that it has motorized movement but it's MP's are zero so I'm
wondering what trigger gives it the possibility of moving? I'm guessing off the top of my head that it's the close approach of the Axis units that pulls some
trigger event of some kind. I suppose I could use the editor and look through the events that might apply. I'll let you know what I find.

[rhinobones]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

. . . I've come to the "Soviet Factories, Kiev" unit and it says that it has motorized movement but it's MP's are zero so I'm wondering what trigger gives it the possibility of moving?

R/R movement. Soviets have about 5000/turn, enough to move one factory per turn.

Regards

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: rhinobones

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
. . . I've come to the "Soviet Factories, Kiev" unit and it says that it has motorized movement but it's MP's are zero so I'm wondering what trigger gives it the possibility of moving?

R/R movement. Soviets have about 5000/turn, enough to move one factory per turn.

Regards

Sounds good to me. I saved the game in the editor and got a *.gam file that weighed 55M bytes. Notepad++ took almost 1/2 an hour to load the whole thing in so
I could edit it. I'm trying to save just the events and throw everything else away. I said that wrong. I'm going to try to save just the events to a file and
edit that. I'll let you know what I find.
EDIT: There were over 10K events and I couldn't make heads or tails of any of it.
This is the front lines in T6:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines in T7:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like around Kiev right now ( T8 ) and I've run into the first rank of the Soviet front lines. I'm positive that it's backed up by
a substantial collection of arty. The supply level is 11 at the tip of the spear and that's just about as low as I would care to go right now. All my
aircraft are green except for about 8 or 9 bombers. The weather is holding up as good and I'm just now reaching Kiev only because Ken has pulled all his
troops back, all over the map. And he's broken all the bridges he could behind him. All those broken bridges are a major problem. I've got units that
need to get across the river but the bridge is broken and HQ units can't bridge that gap without help. Also, some of the Axis units are incapable of
moving across broken bridges as well. Ken surely has time to build a superior front line because of all the broken bridge delays. This game is so
interesting that I've been putting in marathon sessions to get my moves done so we can see what happens next. Ken must be off work because he's been
doing the same thing. So we're moving at a blistering pace for this scenario. It's a lot of fun too.

[larryfulkerson]

The front lines in T8:

[larryfulkerson]

It's T9 already and I've run headlong into Ken's defenses at Pskov. He managed to build a fairly substantial front line there and I haven't found
a way around it yet. And as I expected he's got a boat load of arty there to back up his valient troops. It's going to be costly breaking through his defenses
in this AO. I'll have to use the bombers to drop the bridges east of these defenders in an effort to cut off their supply lines. I can see I'm going to
need a lot more arty to bust through here. All my aircraft are green except for 4 bombers and the weather is good so far. The supply level is 12
at the tip of the spear. I'm probably going to need to find a way around this group.

[larryfulkerson]

Front lines in T9:

[larryfulkerson]

Ken has spent the first 9 turns pulling his troops back and now here in T10 I've run into the front lines that he has constructed near Smolensk. His
front lines run from Pskov all the way south to the Crimea. I have no idea how he did that. Now that I've confronted his front lines the character
of the game has changed. It's no longer slash and dash. Now we're into the hand-to-hand fighting. Now all my gains must be made a hex at a time. Ken has flown
most of his aircraft into positions to support this troops and the air war is heating up. Ken's partisans popped up near Riga and he captured the city and
cut off my troops from their flow of supply flowing through Riga so I need to re-capture it real soon.

[larryfulkerson]

Here is the situation at Riga where a Soviet partisan has disrupted my supply lines by capturing Riga and you can see how I'm starting to get some units into
the AO to deal with the partisan. I've turned on the supply bubbles so I can envision where the rail lines are finished and where they need some TLC. There
is another possible partisan to the west of Jurmala since the hexes have been converted to Soviet control. I need to get a unit or several units into that
area also.

[larryfulkerson]

I've run into the Soviet front lines near Pskov and I'm astonished by the level of preperation Ken has accomplished. This is a major impediment. Also, the
air war has heated up a lot and aircraft are in several furballs every turn. As you can see the railhead isn't very close and the supply levels aren't as high as
they might be but are still adequate for operations.

[larryfulkerson]

To the north of Kiev is the Gomel area and this is what it looks like right now. Ken is masterfully using the natural terrain for defense...in this
case the major river Soch. You don't see very many Axis engineers in this image because they are busy repairing broken bridges off map. And there are
several broken bridges that I need repaired before I'll be able to get across the river in this AO. It's things like this that is holding up my advance.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the Kiev area right now and shows the preperation Ken has accomplished there. Not showing is all the Soviet arty that's backing up the Soviet lines.
Fortunately, the Soviet defenders in this area aren't the best the Soviet army has so it might not be all that difficult to break through here, depending on the
number and quality of the Soviet arty. I might have to spend a couple of turns bombarding his arty via air to shut off the support they might lend to his defense.
If I can disentrench his arty ( move it from "T" or "D" to "mobile" ) my attacks will suffer fewer losses. So rather than trying to destroy his arty outright
I'm going to try to disentrench it.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the Odessa area right now and shows me approaching from two directions. This is a mostly Romanian operation although there are German units in the
mix. My problem here is the broken bridges. I need to get one or more pontoon units over here to help me leap the major river.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

I've run into the Soviet front lines near Pskov and I'm astonished by the level of preperation Ken has accomplished. This is a major impediment. Also, the
air war has heated up a lot and aircraft are in several furballs every turn. As you can see the railhead isn't very close and the supply levels aren't as high as
they might be but are still adequate for operations.

I think it was Moltke that said "March dispersed, concentrate to fight". You're matching him regiment for regiment along the line here, I guess looking for gaps that aren't there. I'd prefer to concentrate as much force as density penalties will allow at a couple of points to ensure that I can punch through, with plenty of reserves to follow up. He's not going to come out of those fortified positions so a screen along the rest of the front is sufficient.

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Golden dude: Thank you very much for that excellent idea. I'll try that. Ken tells me in an email this morning that as soon as I am ready we can
switch sides and do a restart. I'd love to play him as the Soviet player so I'll accept his idea and in a turn or two we'll do that. This is the best
opponent I've ever faced in a PBEM game. I'm having a great deal of fun even though it's a really hard game for me.

[larryfulkerson]

So um......hey you guys: Ken and I decided to restart and so Ken is now playing the Axis side and I'm the Soviet player. This is the house rules:

Here you go. Please remember that we are playing:

1. The Stalin effect. Soviet Units on the line Narva River, Lake Peipus, Pskov to Idritsa, Idritsa to Polotsk, Dvina River to Vitebsk, Vitebsk to Orsha, then the Dnepr River to the Black Sea exclusive may only move move 5 hexes per turn for turns 1, 2, 3, and 4. Soviet navy is the same. Soviet units outside of this zone have no restrictions. We agreed Limited movement includes for Soviet 7 Army (includes Corps 59 and 120), 14 Army (includes Corps 32 and 131), and 23 Army (includes Corps 19, 50 and 10 Mech). You can move no more 5 HEXES from your turn start, expending as many movement points as you want.

2. No Soviet dismounting of units is be allowed for the first 10 turns.

3. Play with partisans

4. No limit on bridge bombing

5. No limit on interdiction or sea interdiction

6. Artillery, Naval and air at supply level of 1 may not bombard. They may be set on interdict, combat support, sea interdict.

We're playing FITE2 version 1.9 which is a product of "Ken's Enterprises WorldWide, LLC" in which he alledgedly fixed the drop in Soviet production due to the loss of factories and the capture by the Axis of specific cities. So I thought I'd publish the Inventory and Losses Panel for the beginning of T1 to get a baseline figure for Soviet production. I've sorted this image on Rate with the biggest at the top. I'm going to monitor the rates to see if there's a drop of not.

[larryfulkerson]

I've found something that is disconcerting. According to the scenario the Soviet Pe-8 is a fighter bomber and according to real life it's actually
a heavy bomber. I'm wondering how to fix this. Maybe it has something to do with the equipment file?

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the FITE2 v.1.9 equipment file has to say about the Pe-8 aircraft:
<ITEM_1423>
<NAME>Pe-8</NAME>
<COUNTRY>Soviet Union - 1940</COUNTRY>
<EQUIP1>256</EQUIP1>
<EQUIP2>194</EQUIP2>
<AT>0</AT>
<AP>23</AP>
<AA>1</AA>
<DF>8</DF>
<ARTY_RNG>1087</ARTY_RNG>
<EARLY_RNG>0</EARLY_RNG>
<SAM_RNG>0</SAM_RNG>
<NUKE>0</NUKE>
<VOL>999</VOL>
<WEIGHT>0</WEIGHT>
<SHELL_W>250</SHELL_W>
<ARMOR>1</ARMOR>
<FLAG0>4</FLAG0>
<FLAG1>32</FLAG1>
<FLAG2>8</FLAG2>
<FLAG3>0</FLAG3>
<FLAG4>16</FLAG4>
<FLAG5>0</FLAG5>
<FLAG6>0</FLAG6>
<FLAG7>0</FLAG7>
</ITEM_1423>
I didn't see a description of the aircraft that said "fighter-bomber" anywhere so I still have no idea how to fix this.