Workshop for the new guys - Directive 21 (D21)

[larryfulkerson]

This is the T79 view of Moscow right now just before the first combat phase. Lots of attacks are scheduled to happen and I'm moving a lot of my loose combat units to the NE to get on the north side of the Soviet defenders standing off screen to my NE. Yeah, same story as last time. The front lines are moving east slowly as the Soviets give ground. I've got 26K troops assigned, probably about 50% are infantry. I need to disengage my Panzer divisions and use them as the strategic reserve. I've moved the cutoff for supply to determine "tiredness" to 65% instead of the older 50%, meaning if they decrease to 65% I'm going to give them a day off. That way most of them will stay green instead of mild yellow.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is somewhere on the road to Murmansk and I notice that the Soviets have dropped the bridge behind them. From that I surmise that they believe I'm going to succeed in pushing them back and they broke their bridge ahead of time. Notice that the rail behind my troops is fully repaired. Finally.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is the view from Vologda down to Yaroslavl and I've managed to form a front line of sorts and I'm holding them back so far. This section of the front line isn't moving very fast but I suspect that I'll be able to break their line, probably somewhere close to the middle of their line, and be able to roll their lines up in both directions.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is Stalingrad right now. Unfortunately the Soviets sneaked ( snuck ? ) a ground unit into my backfield and stopped up the flow of my supply further south. I'm trying to remedy that at this time. It's important that the flow of supply be restored to facilitate the takedown of a fairly stout group of Soviet defenders to the east of Stalingrad. I've repaired the rail into and outbound from the city so the supply is great on the west side of the river. That Stuka unit in the lower left is on rest status because he's down to 19 of 26 aircraft so I'm giving them leave so they can go into town for a week while I refill the squadron. The air war panel sez I've lost 28 and they've lost 187 and this is just before the first combat phase. They have gotten into the habit of attacking my HQ units, but my fighters intercept and they lose a boat-load of planes. Each attack. I'm trying to encourage it.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is somewhere in Russia, let's say it's secret for cover, and I've noticed that the Soviets are driving their tanks into a forest hex and from that I deduce that they are running out of defenders in this section of the lines. I'm going to force him out of the forest of course and soon I hope because I need to slide to the right to help out those smaller units trying to hold the line by themselves.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is a view of the Yaroslavl area right now. This place is noteworthy because the Soviets have built a fortress out of this place and I'm afraid I'm going to have to surround them and starve them out rather than attack it head-on. You might notice that armour unit at the lower right of the inset. It's really tired and low on supply but I needed a unit to fill that hole real quick and he was available and I'm hoping he will survive the Soviet turn so I can replace him with somebody else real quick. He'll just have to take one for the team.

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[larryfulkerson]

There is exciting goings on at Kem, USSR. It's got a rail repaired almost all the way there. We're aiming for Murmansk eventually and it's a long way to go yet. I've got the HQ unit and two engineer units that can lay rail. Actually that's the only difference between my mod "D21lgf" and "vanilla" D21. I gave all the corps HQ's and divisional HQ's 99 rail engineers so they can repair rail. It's because of that that the rail get's repaired so quicky at all. It proves that the Axis could have won in Russia if they just had the supply to do it.

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[larryfulkerson]

A minor hiccup there at Vologdar. I've got a bridge that needs to get fixed to my NE and I sent at least 4 engineering units up there to fix it and all four failed. D'oh. I'll have to work around it.

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[larryfulkerson]

Good news at Saratov. I just captured a bridge hex adjacent to the city. It's broken but I think I can fix it. I'm setting it to "ignore losses" to make sure it holds the hex through the Soviet turn. I don't know what good it will do me but surely good things will happen. There's a plethora of good things that could result.
EDIT: the label for the pioneer unit ( engineers ) that occupies the hex is found in the upper left of the image and I neglected to move it or give some kind of pointing arrow for instance, but didn't. I guess you would figure out who it applies to.

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[larryfulkerson]

Here's the news near Louhi. I just advanced closer to a Soviet airfield that I intend to capture soon. I'm repairing the rail from here as fast as I can go. It's important to repair this rail line so that my units further north can do what they need to do. Whatever it is that they do. If they do anything at all.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is the T80 view of just NE of Moscow right now. I'm surrounding a large group of Soviet units and I'm going to make them go away. These are the survivors of the Moscow defense but now they are the walking dead.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is the city of Saratov right now. I've moved into the area to the east of the city, a footprint on the other side of the river and I'm finding more and more units that I'll need to defeat.

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[larryfulkerson]

I found a path to the southwestern coast so now I need to send some backup real quick because I need that coastal road real bad. It's a fast way to get south quickly. Especially if I can repair the rail.
EDIT: Just after I moved this unit I went to move the next one and discovered that the Hungarian unit to my immediate east was adjacent to a Soviet stack that has a 10-10 infantry unit under the one that's showing which makes it a rather stout roadblock. He's going to need some help. Fortunately, there's units nearby that can scramble.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is the front lines in T81 such as they are. Up north that stack that's third from the right....it's a huge stack and I'm not doing so well holding it back. We'll see if it holds. The rest of the inserts are just quick pictures of what's going on in those areas. Nothing especially of interest anywhere. Just to keep you guys in the loop.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what greeted me when I opened turn 82. The first of the spring '42 mud season. I'm not sure how long it lasts, I'll look it up. The doc's say from T82 to T89. So the MP's are reduced and land combat shock is 75% for both sides. I'm pretty sure it effects the Soviets more than it effects me.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's about 1/2 way through the movement phase and I found a weak spot in the Soviet lines and forced my way through and pushed way way forward. I know it's the mud season and the MP's are few so I'm counting on the Soviets not being able to react so very fast and that I'll be able to get some help out to the 35th Inf. Div. He's pretty healthy so I'm reasonably sure he'll survive the Soviet turn if I can't get him very much help.

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[larryfulkerson]

I captured and broke the bridge over the river and I'm going to set that engineer unit to "ignore losses" so that I'll be able to hold onto the bridge longer. I need that bridge to get into the lands across the river. I might be able to run a lot of Soviet units out of supply if I can get into his backfield.

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[larryfulkerson]

Nothing is happening at Murmansk because the supply levels are so low. You have to save up enough supply to make an arty strike. The most I can manage up there is about 9 or so. Further south there's a Soviet DD that I can't seem to damage. About a dozen strikes now with Stuka's and not even a scratch so far. I show a loss of a plane or two and his loss panel doesn't even have anything on it showing the ships involved or losses or anything. Ever. I'll have to look into that. The good news is that the repaired rail is getting closer and closer to Murmansk all the time. I've got three engineer units working on it. Further south there's another example of random units showing up to cut my supply flow so I have to continuously patrol the entire path to keep it clear of an enemy zone of control. And further south, just NW of Bui there's a roadblock that doesn't have much to show for it except for a Soviet Guards unit on the far left flank that's probably stout. If I can ever get some supply to my units I'll be able to push them back and defeat them. From Pereslavl-Z down to Kamenka the Soviet lines are made up of remnants of the Battle For Moscow and are ramdomly distributed to make up a rough screen of sorts, not quite a front line, too many gaps for that. And additionally, I finally got rid of that CD gun that was protecting the Stalingrad port and the passage across there was restored so I can finally clean out all that Soviet infection around the city and the local environs. There's not much supply in that area so it'll probably go slow. Everywhere else I'm holding what I've got until the rails are repaired out to the front lines so supply can be facilitated.

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[Curtis Lemay]

Larry, is the Destroyer in Port (anchorage)? If so, you have to use "Port Attack" to target it. If its at sea, that's not the issue.