Waiting for the spring miracle... Oleg (Sov) vs Senno (Axis), NO Senno

[Oleg Mastruko]

I am in a fairly bad mood right now, "externalizing the blame" as some of you would say... this time for something unrelated to this particular game.

In one of my other games, that is played on the Slitherine server, I lost my turn, AGAIN!!! I find that terribly demoralizing, as there's nothing I hate more then redoing the turns, restarts etc. So at the moment the very sight of WITE makes me sick and reminds me of all that time I lost for nothing... when this happens I usually take a day or two off game, but in this case it would be unfair to let Senno wait so I'll do the turn.

IN THE MEANTIME AND I WANT TO STRESS THIS DON'T PLAY MP GAMES BASED ON SLITHERINE SERVER. [:@]

[Oleg Mastruko]

I hate this Slitherine thing right now. We had old, time proven system of sending the turns back and forth via e-mail - it wasn't and isn't perfect but it works. Why did they put this in the game if it's so damn unrealiable?? I am not the only one having problems, and it's not the first time I am having problems and losing good turns.

Damn me for being early adopter and having to try out every new invention even if I should know better, that it's probably buggy and untested. Slitherine subsystem should not have been released in this state with this game AT ALL. PERIOD!

[Oleg Mastruko]

Allright, back to this game with Senno...

North, Leningrad will probably fall, again not due to me being outmanouvred or outsmarted but rather to a simple bulldozing brute force attacks over Neva. This time it's not surprising, knowing that he could bulldoze his way into anything I was reluctant of boosting LG defences with any particulary good or useful unit from the outside.

Link to the city via Lake Ladoga is still open, but he will probably isolate and take the city along with coming of the mud. At least he won't have much time to redeploy and capitalize on this success.

[Oleg Mastruko]

In fact, I am thinking of using the Ladoga link to evacuate couple units from LG pocket while I still can.

In the center pretty strange manouver. He used his units in Vjazma salient - that I am now sure are two full Panzer groups - to cut towards north, take Rzhev and link with his units in the NW direction. He isolated some of my units, but if you ask me that's the least important part of my front.

To the panicmongers and traitors - you may see that for the last two turns Moscow was pretty well defended, and the threat from the Vjazma salient was moderate, not catastrophic as some of you predicted (Leo? [;)])

He has only two turns of good campaigning weather now...

[Oleg Mastruko]

In the south nothing much happened, he is still slowly bulldozing to the east, but no breakthroughs. All industry from D-rovsk, Zappy town and Harkov is evacuated, and those cities are still between 10 and 15 hexes from the frontline, so for now nothing too exciting.

Now the big picture in the north and north-center is interesting. With the fall of LG imminent, and with it release of the Finns, AND his strange manouver from Vjazma pocket to the north, there is possiblity this whole huge section of the front might collapse, and very soon (blue arrows show his possible advances). So I will retreat, and it may well be most massive organized retreat I ever did. Luckily, there is nothing too important in this part of the map, only endless forests. If I lose LG and Finns get activated there will be no Soviet activity here for a long long time.

The idea is to redeploy now very weakened NW front along the line drawn on the map, and still pretty strong LG front all the way from Volkhov along the line Volochek - Torzhok - Kalinjin using rail transport.

This may be too panicky, though, giving up on huge swathes of territory for no good reason, with only two turns to go before he gets stuck in the mud. What sayeth you? Is this too panicky or smart?

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko
The idea is to redeploy now very weakened NW front along the line drawn on the map, and still pretty strong LG front all the way from Volkhov along the line Volochek - Torzhok - Kalinjin using rail transport

This may be too panicky, though, giving up on huge swathes of territory for no good reason, with only two turns to go before he gets stuck in the mud. What sayeth you? Is this too panicky or smart?

Hmm, the thing is there is an enormous gap between the Moscow defenders and the Northwest guys. And absolutely nothing to stop your opponent if he sends simple scouts there. They simply advance unopposed, converting tons of hexes to the German side, behind your NW Front. So... I guess you should be doing something, that's for sure [:D] Either you retreat or you protect that rear [8D]

EDIT: or you try to block the gap itself, of course.

[TulliusDetritus]

Senno is learning quickly. He started timidly (to be honest I thought you would utterly destroy him, the poor thing) but now he knows what to do with the German hordes [8D]

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

I am in a fairly bad mood right now, "externalizing the blame" as some of you would say... this time for something unrelated to this particular game.

In one of my other games, that is played on the Slitherine server, I lost my turn, AGAIN!!! I find that terribly demoralizing, as there's nothing I hate more then redoing the turns, restarts etc. So at the moment the very sight of WITE makes me sick and reminds me of all that time I lost for nothing... when this happens I usually take a day or two off game, but in this case it would be unfair to let Senno wait so I'll do the turn.

IN THE MEANTIME AND I WANT TO STRESS THIS DON'T PLAY MP GAMES BASED ON SLITHERINE SERVER. [:@]

Got your message that it was our game, so please feel free to take as much time as you need to get a fresh frame of mind on it. I know I have to do the same thing when things like that happen.

[Oleg Mastruko]

Thanks James, again your mild words sedate every bad feeling one might have - I hereby nominate you the first licensed pscyh terapist of the WITE Forum [:D]

Here is the situation in the northern half of the map after my turn and MASSIVE redeployment. I think I dealt with any threat quite nicely. Lots of LG front units transferred to seal the gap became yellow counter NW front units, or Kalinin front units or directly reporting to Stavka or Stavka armies.

Leningrad is lost but I ervacuated no less than 6-7 good divisions + army HQ from there. No need to give him free 50-60k casualties. General Purkaev won't get the city named after him, I guess, as he didn't defend the city nor died as hero there.

He will lead the army that will liberate the city later in war, though. I'll take care of that.

[Klydon]

Well, it is going to be a bummer losing LG. Your best hope was to have him stall at the gates of the city and then you could launch a counter attack with the Finns still hung up. Not going to happen now.

I think you pull the plug on the whole area to be honest. The Finns will lose quite a few troops here before long, so that will take some steam out of him. The other thing to look at is where do you want to make the focal point of your winter offensive. With the loss of LG, you will need a good one to help beat the crap out of the Axis over the winter and also regain some lost territory and reestablish some good lines of defense.

As far as LG falling and it being fate that the Germans can get it if they want it, I disagree with that in this AAR. Part of the issue is you are defeating yourself by thinking the Germans can't be stopped during the summer. Well, I agree if your criteria is the Russians must defend in level 2 forts or at best some level 3 forts and have no defense in depth. I don't recall if you have a lot of experience as the Germans or not, but I have played the Road to Leningrad scenario several times and trying to dig a stack of Russians out of level 4 forts in nasty terrain (like rough or city for example) is just brutal and more importantly, very time consuming as you are tying up 2 stacks of infantry minimum and more likely 3 stacks, not to mention causing quite a few casualties. Had LG been stocked up with level 4 forts with an outer ring as well, I think you would still have most of it. Oh well, not much can be done about it now, but fortunately the loss of LG is not fatal to the Russian position and certainly you will have many opportunities to deal some heavy shots with the weather changing soon.

[Oleg Mastruko]

Klydon winter offensive is going to be BRUTAL, and I mean brutal for him in this game. As I learned in my game with James, the best way, or indeed the only way to prevent terrible Soviet offensive is to inflict losses. My game with James was my first PBEM and I believed, based on gut feeling, that Soviet manpower pool is almost limitless, and that I have to fight for territory. That proved totally wrong - territory is cheap, manpower is not. (On top of that I evaced all factories easily, making territory even more cheap and worthless.)

With manpower around 3,5 mil as I have in game with James winter offensive is not that easy. (For the record I still think weather and winter combat modelling are far from optimal with values jumping all over the scale from turn to turn, but it's much easier for German if he inflicts enough losses pre-winter).

Vs Senno I have almost 4,5 mil soldiers in my OOB. If nothing radically changes I think I would be able to launch offensives all along the front, but my focus, fairly predictably from all the maps posted so far, will be in the Ukraine.

[Klydon]

Yep. Have to give some credit to Senno for being a quick study after the poor start he had. He recovered well, especially around Leningrad, but the one thing he hasn't fix is how many troops he left you in general, and especially in the south. I think you schooled him early and he is fixing to get schooled again on winter. It will be interesting to see how he handles the different weather transitions and what he may or may not try with the period of snow before blizzard. 

[Emx77]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

This may be too panicky, though, giving up on huge swathes of territory for no good reason, with only two turns to go before he gets stuck in the mud. What sayeth you? Is this too panicky or smart?
...
Here is the situation in the northern half of the map after my turn and MASSIVE redeployment.
...

IMO you withdraw NW front too early (as you did with Kharkow factory). First, I think he will not be able to activate Finns on next turn. In order to activate Finns, he need to isolate LG activation critical hex and Im'm not sure that is doable in one turn. Second, if activated, Fins cannot make as much rapid advance as Germans. They are far from their railhead on that part of front and couple of Soviet brigades or divisions would make them dificult for advancing south. The gap between Finns and Panzers around Rzhev is huge and I don't think it is manageable for Axis player to close it in TWO turns. Especialy if there would be some of your units on probable line of advance. If he is prone to take risk toward such maneuvr and fail to link with Finns he would find himself with very stretch line and sailent which leads nowhere ready to be cut in winter counter offensive.

So, IMO you should redeploy some of NW units, but with MASSIVE redeployment you made mistake.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

In the center pretty strange manouver. He used his units in Vjazma salient - that I am now sure are two full Panzer groups - to cut towards north, take Rzhev and link with his units in the NW direction. He isolated some of my units, but if you ask me that's the least important part of my front.

To the panicmongers and traitors - you may see that for the last two turns Moscow was pretty well defended, and the threat from the Vjazma salient was moderate, not catastrophic as some of you predicted (Leo? [;)])

He has only two turns of good campaigning weather now...

Oleg, please show the Fort levels around Moscow!

The Moscow is now covered with units but, I am afraid, your units are not fortified enough (i.e. there is no "hard" belt)...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Sabre21]

Moscow is safe. Even if Senno pushed thru the mud and into the few snow turns, he won't get there in sufficient strength.

[Oleg Mastruko]

Well, I haven't got a new turn in this game for a while, instead I got mail from Senno that I interpret as his surrender letter.

Let me be clear in that surrendering is perfectly honest option in any game, it's just that I think it takes a huge pessimist to do it this early. I think he still has lots of fight in his forces, he was doing better and better with each turn, after all he's taken Leningrad (well not yet but it's a matter of turn or two), which appears to be the Dream Goal for 41 German players.

On the other hand, it is true that winter offensive I am preparing would be absolutely dreadful for him. I have tons of units, huge manpower pool in this game, and Soviet army in good shape to deliver killing winter blow. But we'll never know I guess, if he surrenders now....

I still haven't read his AAR thread, is he demoralised by not taking Moscow, talking about giving up there? I want to give him couple days to reconsider and maybe get back to the game before reading his AAR....

[Speedysteve]

I'm surprised to hear this as he was doing quite well I thought (especially for his first PBEM game IIRC).

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

I'm surprised to hear this as he was doing quite well I thought (especially for his first PBEM game IIRC).

I planned a winter offensive so devastating to make him surrender by Feb-March 42 but not this early. In fact one of the points of this game was to see whether we (or he) can get to playable spring 42. I think it would not be possible, with 4,5 mil Soviets in the OOB already, but I guess we'll never know.....

[Oleg Mastruko]

If any of you guys are visiting Senno's AAR thread see if you can make him reconsider and continue the game [:)]

Or perhaps someone wants to take the game over from him? I did that couple times in WITP, take over other people's games when they could not or would not continue for one reason or another, and it can be fun, trying to solve problems other people created....

[76mm]

Very disappointing finish if he has indeed surrendered, I thought it was a pretty good AAR.