T00 Events

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like around Leningrad just now. I'm getting closer to the city each turn, however it looks like Elmer has constructed some large stacks between me and the city. Stacks large enough to be yellow-dense. My solution is to bring up a lot of arty and start pounding away for several turns to whittle down the Soviet defense strength. THEN assault. I've got one small infantry unit, the 707th Infantry Division that has used an engineer unit to leap the river to the immediate east of Leningrad. But Elmer has had some defenders there to stop any progress on my part so I'll have to back him up with arty and maybe an armour unit to help push the defenders to the side.

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[larryfulkerson]

Some people ask me what my playstyle is and it's sort of like this:
I use the OOB to keep track of which unit is the next one to move by scanning the entire list and finding one that has movement points remaining. That becomes the next one to move. In the case depicted in the image I've assigned the current selected unit to bombard a target hex in support of an attack by my land forces. The next one to move is furtther down the list and is the HQ unit of the 18th Panzer Division. This is not to say that you can't move an engineer unit to a broken bridge to repair it before continuing across the bridge with this HQ unit, say. There may be a better reason to move a different unit before the current selected unit and that's okay. And if you ever lose track of which unit was the next one you can just scan the list from the top and skip over those units that have movement points remainiung but you've already given it a mission to do. Eventually you'll find the one that now needs to move next. I do that a lot. It's either the technique that I've described above or write down the name of the unit you're working on to keep track of it and go ahead and move the alternate unit(s). I can reccomend the later way.

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[larryfulkerson]

So um.........hey you guys: it's 23:38 June 22, 2022 which is the 81st anniversery of the start of Operation Barbarosa. I'm not celebrating, just stating a scientific fact. Anyway, I just got up from a short nap and I had a dream about something that really happened to me in real life. Want me to tell you about it? Yeah? OK.
I was again a 19-year old four-striper weapons mechanic at Bien Hoa and I was part of the ground party that was responsible for getting the aircraft refueled and reloaded with weapons. We had 7.5 minutes to do our magic. This was at the alert pad there near the south end of the runway in one of the concrete alert pad cells. The O-2A aircraft had pulled up near the mouth of the cell and shut off his engine. The ground party sprang forward and pushed the aircraft into the cell while the pilot was unstrapping and taking off his helmet, etc. When the aircraft stopped the pilot stepped out of the cockpit carrying a canvas bag containing his helmet, maps, etc. and I just happened to be the one nearest the wing strut on the left wing when he leaned over far enough to make it under the wing strut on his way forward. I asked in the most earnest voice I could manage: "How did it go overall sir?" and he stopped his forward movement, set his bag down and looked me in the eye with a big grin. I could tell he loved talking about what just happened as if to go over it all again so he could better remember all the details. He started with the feet-dry insert near his working area, just south of Vin, North Vietnam. He, a flight of 1, replaced the FAC working in the area after listening for a minute to get a good idea where everybody is, their radio call-sign(s), the position of the target area, etc. The home-bound FAC was glad to get releaved because he was Winchester on willy petes. Our FAC pilot directed the F-100's to their drop point and gave them the go ahead and it was all over in less than 2 minutes. The eye-in-the-sky sent him to "look around" near Danang. Which was their way of telling him that they were fresh out of targets and you are excused from this evolution. And he knew it so he flew back to near home-plate and for the next 2 hours he scoured the terrain from about 1,500 feet near his airbase and he took pictures of specific ground trails and stream crossings and any tracks he could spot on the ground with binoculars. He noticed nothing out of the ordinary and running low on fuel he RTB'd. I showed the requisite admiration and he was his way. My part of the ground team loaded more willy petes and flairs. The other parts of the ground team was refueling the plane and one guy was there to retrive the top secret recordings of the mission, video and audio, and he actually wipped the rightmost window clean. It had information the pilot had written on it in grease pencil: radio-call signs, frequencies for those flights, coordinates of friendly forces, if any, enemy forces if any, BDA, time-on, time-off, etc. And then I woke up guys. Why did I remember this just now?

EDIT: Yes, flares. It was getting toward the early evening and it was thought that he might be out there after the sun went down. Possibly. I thought they were being over optimistic but I kept my mouth shut.

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[StuccoFresco]

It seems you are doing an amazing work at keeping up the railway repairs with the advancing front.

One of the mods I made to this scenario is to give the Axis Corps HQ units some RR engineers so they can repair rail as well as the dedicated RR engineer units and they are helping a great deal in keeping the repaired rails up with the front lines. It wouldn't be possible to do that with only the RR engineer units alone. It helps keep the advance going a lot more than would be possible without the modification. I know it makes the scenario unbalanced heavily toward the Axis but it's a hell of a lot more fun than the stock scenario. It's only September and I'm already close to Moscow for instance. My mod is a sort of "what if" change. It shows what the Axis is capable of if they had had the resources available to do something about the poor supply situation they experienced in real life. I also gave the Soviet LCU's some AT equipment to give the Soviet units a tad bit more juice than they had before as a sort of balancing effort. I'm not sure that it's helping the Soviet side very much though. Thanks for noticing the difference and saying something. It helps me know that somebody is reading this thing. That you said something is encouraging.
german tank firing it's main gun.gif

I believe many people read AARs, but yes feedback is usually very very limited.

There is also an inflation of "classic" scenarios, so they get less attention than usual.

[popejohnpaul]

Hey...I finally got successfully logged on. Way cool beans.

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[popejohnpaul]

It's now T28 round 1 and this is what it looks like around Moscow right now. It's only late September '41 and I'm already close to Moscow. I don't remember ever doing this well before. I have 22.3K HRS's assigned and 544 on hand. That's a lot less than I was hoping were assigned so this means that I have to cut back on the operational tempo to get the number assigned to grow a little. Attack only in the priority areas: Leningrad, Odessa, Sevastopol, and Stalino in that order. The first three involve a drop in Soviet reinforcements if captured but Stalino is on the way to Stalingrad and I'd like to get there before winter sets in. If possible. We got our first Cold Front this turn. Winter will soon be upon us.

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[golden delicious]

I have 22.3K HRS's assigned and 544 on hand.

This is a really important figure to track so I was thinking
1) do you keep an eye on it earlier and see how you're doing against your previous performance and where you want to get to
2) this is a great subject for a graph (but maybe that's just me)

[popejohnpaul]

This is what it looks like around Kharkov right now. I've managed to surround a lot of Soviet units and I'm on the verge of capturing Kharkov itself. The supply level is 11 at the tip of the spear which is not quite enough to continue the operations in this area. At least not as fast as I would like. Progress is being made in this AO and I'd like to keep going until I reach the next major river to the east.

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[popejohnpaul]

I have 22.3K HRS's assigned and 544 on hand.

This is a really important figure to track so I was thinking
1) do you keep an eye on it earlier and see how you're doing against your previous performance and where you want to get to
2) this is a great subject for a graph (but maybe that's just me)

I've been watching the numbers since early in the game and gauging how hard I should press and I'm aiming at about 25K HRS's for the start of the Soviet Winter Offensive. I've dipped lower than that already and now I'm uncomfortable with the numbers. So much so that I'm thinking of stopping operations globally to conserve HRS's. Also, the idea of a graph is an excellent idea. I've been saving past turns so I can create a graph fairly easily. I'll get busy.

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[popejohnpaul]

Here's the chart I built and it's not especially informative I must say. Maybe I should scale it from 20K up to see the variability in the numbers.

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[popejohnpaul]

It's now T28 round 2 and this is what it looks like around Moscow right now. I've managed to get fairly close to the city and I'm seeing a sparse Soviet front line which screams "opportunity" and I'd like to take advantage of that if I can. Perhaps I can infiltrate some units through the gaps in the Soviet line and get into their backfield. We'll see.

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[popejohnpaul]

This is what it looks like around Leningrad right now. I've managed to get adjacent to the port and as soon as my units rest enough to show some green again I'll do some probing with bou cou arty to back me up and I'll soon own the city. Then the Finns will drive south and help me eliminate the Soviet units in the pocket. I'm estimating about 5 turns to clear out the pocket and then I can drive east with everybody.

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[Curtis Lemay]

Larry, what happened to your old login? You seem to have become the Bishop of Rome!?

[rhinobones]

Larry, what happened to your old login? You seem to have become the Bishop of Rome!?

His old login had over 40,000 posts. Maybe Larry hit his limit! I took a look at the numbers and over 17 years he averaged 6.5 posts a day. No wonder he changed.

Regards

[popejohnpaul]

It's now T29 round 5 and this is what it looks like around Leningrad right now. I've managed to stop all supply going to the Leningrad area. All the Soviet units in the Leningrad area are now overextended so badly that they are out of supply. I came realy close to completing the capture of the port this round; you can see what's left of a giant stack of Soviet units, only an AA unit and the remnants of a Soviet division. Elmer is sure to move some of his units into the city hex in his turn to make my next turn attacks harder. I'm wondering what to do with that little island out in the bay just west of Leningrad. As long as Elmer has a unit in that hex that can embark some sea transport I'll need to garrison all of my open ports that he may try to float to. I already have one Stuka unit up here set to sea intercept, just in case. I have reason to believe I've sunk all the Soviet ships with the exception of one small naval unit that Elmer moved to a port in Turkey. I can't reach him with my Stuka's yet and won't be able to attack his ships for a long time, perhaps the remainder of the game. I've repaired the supply rails up to the front lines in several places so the supply level is great.

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[popejohnpaul]

Larry, what happened to your old login? You seem to have become the Bishop of Rome!?

Larry, what happened to your old login? You seem to have become the Bishop of Rome!?

His old login had over 40,000 posts. Maybe Larry hit his limit! I took a look at the numbers and over 17 years he averaged 6.5 posts a day. No wonder he changed.

Regards

Actually, about two weeks ago my logon started not working. I sent an email to the board administrator and thought I was done. I tried to logon at least once each day since then and it never worked and finally after about two weeks and nothing happening and not hearing from anybody about this situation I went to one of those temp. email sites and set one up. Then I registered as a new user using that email site and when the "prove you are who you say you are" validation emails came I just clicked on the link like I knew what I was doing and then started logging in as PopeJohnPaul. That way I can issue edicts. And make proclimations and wear red shoes and an exquisite pant-suit/dress kind of thing. I'll need to change my avatar. And I kind of miss those high post numbers but hey, maybe I can get it up to 40K again. I'll need to live into my 90's to do that.

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[Curtis Lemay]

Don't forget the Popemobile! You really are getting some perks!

[golden delicious]

Here's the chart I built and it's not especially informative I must say. Maybe I should scale it from 20K up to see the variability in the numbers.
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This is really illuminating. The first question is, what the heck happened on turn 20? Up until then your strength seems to have been quite stable.

The difficulty with this scenario is that to prevent the Soviets being overwhelming in the winter offensive, you not only have to keep your own strength up but also do a lot of damage to the enemy. Of course you do have the option of falling back when the shock kicks in to dodge the blow, it will take a while for the Soviets to follow up, and then they will be more exposed when the late winter rolls around and you can resume operations.

[popejohnpaul]

It's now T31 round 2 and this is what Moscow looks like right now. I've managed to push my way closer to the city though my losses are higher than I was hoping for. I now have 19.7K HRS's assigned so I think I might ought to go to the defensive mode and just hold onto what I have gained already. I captured Leningrad in T30 and I'm using the Finns to clear out the Leningrad area of Soviet units. I a little bit worried about the coming Soviet Winter Offensive and I'm wondering if breaking down my tank units and placing each of the pieces in stacks that need the reinforcement. Maybe a piece of an AT unit in the defensive hex will help out as well. And maybe a piece of a recon unit in the defensive hex will help as well. I'll have to try that.

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[popejohnpaul]

This is what it looks like around Vorohilovgrad right now. I'm planning on pushing up to the river and then going on defensive mode until after the SWO, and then if I survive the SWO I'll continue pushing east. These are the groups that I will use to take down Stalingrad.

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