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The JanisJarvi is reinforced with a new armor unit. Add in some SU's and the Finn's begin to threaten the whole Peninsula. There are two main targets. One) There is a permanent supply that stems from the hex with a star. Grab that hex and all supply has to come from a single rail source. Two) One hex east of Volkov is a rail junction. Cut that rail junction and Supply MP's goes to 30-50 .. add in the mud and everything is isolated ..

Turn 60 is the first step as Finnish Armor makes a debut .. and advances toward the objective ..

ORIGINAL: Crackaces
There are two main targets. One) There is a permanent supply that stems from the hex with a star. Grab that hex and all supply has to come from a single rail source. Two) One hex east of Volkov is a rail junction.

One) was operation Rudolf earlier in the game
Two) was operation Rednose earlier in the game

we are still waiting for operation Reindeer? [:)]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: Crackaces
There are two main targets. One) There is a permanent supply that stems from the hex with a star. Grab that hex and all supply has to come from a single rail source. Two) One hex east of Volkov is a rail junction.

a) was operation Rudolf earlier in the game
b) was operation Rednose earlier in the game

we are still waiting for operation Reindeer? [:)]

Mission is accomplished on turn 65 [;)] Although I suspect M60 will be making an all out effort at Volkov to push these units back ..

On turn 60 the Soviet Manpower is about 5.6M with just under 5.5M ready and deployed in the field. The picture below shows the stats. The reader can calculate things like man/gun ratios and man/AFV ratios. This trend will continue to worsen as we progress to turn 65 .. about 5.1M. The goal is to hold off of 6.1M as long as possible. When that threshold is crossed .. the Germans will be thinking about a strategic retreat using armor reserves rather than pincers ..

While M60 cooks his side of the turn I thought I would post some thoughts on Turn 61.

One discovery is that the Soviets have moved their airbases moved back to 20 hexes beyond our MLR. This happens every turn so this is systematic by the Soviet side. Why this is important is that our fighters have a range of 20 hexes. The other strategy M60 has employed is keeping a minmal amount of things to attack near the radii where the Germans can do fighter sweeps. So we had a pretty mundane strategic turn.

Just to show M60's cunning plan a little further ..

U2VS:

M60's propaganda machine continues to spew disinformation on the use of U2VS but the records do not lie .. the Soviets have a secret weapons program based on the U2VS ... our intelligence confirms with high confidence this is verified.

Weather:

We have random weather .. the central zone will be mud. This will not effect the North but partisan attacks in the Central zone will be more difficult to hot and return to the original garrison. The Germans will need to plan ..

TURN 61 Center:

M60 is a very aggressive player. I have read his game vs Pelton that went to turn 105.

I tend to plan along the lines "what are you thinking that I am thinking you are thinking ..." One thing is having at least 9 CV defense per hexside. During this match M60 has exploited every time I have left a position vulnerable. Sometimes I leave a weaker position with the thought .. "Ok the Soviets know the Germans can So far the Germans have been able to isolate the attacking units over time with counterattacks. By this time I am thinking "so they wont do that .."

I leave a weak position thinking I can leverage forces to the prime objective (Saratov for center), But the Germans isolated Cav during the winter .. on turn 55, and .. on turn 60 you saw the Soviets attacked with a strong force .. the Germans counter attack and pocket strong forces:

AGN:

The plan now for the North is to optimize the command points. Assign Germans to Finns and Italians .. electric slide stronger units from the North and replace with not so strong units.

The command optimizations is very simple .. there are few good commanders and I just need to have enough command points to avoid penalties in the North and the Germans can hold.
The Center and South are hungry for better TO%E units. There would be one danger. The Soviets shift the fulcrum to where I weaken the line. I calculate that with 5.1 to 5.5 M manpower that would leave the Soviet center and south very vulnerable. My thoughts are that the Soviets can keep the Germans away from Saratov until turn 70 only if they concentrate all of the most powerful Soviet forces -- especially armor at key places. Thus I can electric slide the line:

SOUTH:

The south is a contest of flipping hexes. The Soviets are gathering units to mount a defense but have yet to establish a main line of resistance. The 1st Panzer army is advancing East and south of Stalingrad to cutoff LOC.

ORIGINAL: Crackaces
U2VS:

M60's propaganda machine continues to spew disinformation on the use of U2VS but the records do not lie .. the Soviets have a secret weapons program based on the U2VS ... our intelligence confirms with high confidence this is verified.

M60A3TTS may show screenshots again showing he has no U2VS airgroups. He may even try to claim it is this bug tm.asp?m=4472786

But we all know M60A3TTS is a secret U2VS fanboy .... and there is no denying it now! [:D]

TURN 62: Air War

First and foremost, I want to recognize that M60 took a game forward that strategically for the Soviets was pretty bleak. If I could paint a picture using chess as an analogy .. Black has lost a rook and a queen while white has lost a couple of knights .. not a pretty picture .. but M60 plotted along and has given a challenging game.


The very last recon (on the most northern airbase at Gorky) showed no fighters flying anymore. There is no way to check that all three fighter bases did not run out of fuel or ammo - but that is unlikely. If there is fuel and ammo then the air doctrine is clearly 35%. Only one of their hurricane air groups seems to be left on night missions. This seems unchanged from turn 61.

Unfortunately we also ran out of bombers with under 33% to do the last airfield bombing. And Gorky had already been bombed twice. So they did run out of fighters at just the right final moment! If the Soviets had left their percentage required to fly even one bit higher, we would be back to the happy old times for the bombers!

The Germans paid the price in dive bombers and level bombers. They lost ten F/FBs for every single seat fighter we lost. We raised Gorky fighter factory damage from 24% to 31%. After repair in the logistics phase that represents a 4% gain in damage. A lot less than last turn. Mainly because the first raid was not good. At that rate I am guessing the Soviets will evacuate in four turns, so it is worth it still. Or in future turns M60A3TTS will move a lot more fighters there. Once Gorky fighter factory is evacuated, the Germans can concentrate on the enemy away from the Gorky Flak brigades.

Gorky fighter status at the end of the bombing phases:

As previous discussed above .. the strategy and operational guideline for the North is to have enough fort level and CV to have 9CV per hexside. This is with an outright redistribution of forces toward the center with the eventually goal of isolating Saratov. In certain places the Germans have left weak spots that the Soviets could take advantage of .. but at the cost of the forces in the center. So the Germans have been a little lazy at times .... This might come to haunt them in the winter when the rivers freeze ...

I mentioned above that M60 has been a formidable opponent. I think it is worth demonstrating the state of the Soviet air force and what M60 took over. The graph below shows fighter losses as compared to the Germans calculating production. The German strategy is to reduce production while engaging a maximum attrition effort. The losses have to be better than 1 German fighter frame to 4 Soviet frames for points purposes but even better than that from a strategic level. The Germans have plenty of bombers in this game not enough fighters.

The below diagram shows the current state of the Soviet air force for planning purposes. M60 took over turn 55. You can see a steady increase in interceptors from that turn on. A clear change in strategies as previously covered in this AAR. Implementing these strategies earlier rather than later would yield a much better Soviet Air force. The Soviets should be ready for 1943 ...

On turn 61 .. units are assigned to the Italian 8th Army HQ. Humorously the HQ is a full 400 miles behind the lines "just to be safe" [:D]

On a more serious note, the assignment of the Germans to the Italians is far better than either the command penalty for too many units within a command or the 20% penalty in CV's from assignment to OKH. The 9CV per hexside guideline also has to consider the adjusted CV before combat. This is a non alt CV game and thus not every penalty is apparent ... until the Soviets breakthrough [X(]

There are postings that discuss doubling up rail repair. One such possibility is early around Odessa. Here the Germans show that by doubling up on FBDs and taking advantages of curves in the line, they are able to repair more than the "normal" four hexes a turn on rail lines. In one case this turn the Germans repair 7 continuous hexes of an important rail line to the Black Sea.

This is extremely important as the Germans have Mountain Units roaming the Caucasus Mountains terrorizing the Soviets. Should they exceed 100 hexes (very possible in the mud), this would precipitate a disaster. The other key point is that this will be the supply anchor for establishing a German presence on the Caspian Sea. In certain spots although .. one partisan attack will spell doom for these forces ....(cue the drama music)

TURN 62: JanisJarvi

The Janisjarvi is breaking open this turn ... so what is different? In the combat report below you can see that now the Soviets are defending with a lower fort level and taking a command penalty. The Finn's are adding firepower with SU's. Particularly engineers and heavy artillery with added flak. The 5.58:1 results comes from firepower disrupting Soviet devices and squads as the initial CV odds is much less. Look at almost 400 vs 70 tubes. Add in the penalty for the 63rd and .... the result is that the Janisjarvi line is breaking. By turn 65 the strategy will become quite apparent.

Hi guys. Fantastic AAR. A couple of tangential ideas:
1. Espionage. Perhaps an approved spectator could be asked to pick one post per week from the oppositions AAR and share that with the other side? Just a thought.
2.Did you know there's a download able enigma machine with extra rotors etc free online? You can Google it. Could be fun to share the occasional key command or thought in an encrypted format.