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It's still T67 round 1 and this is the jump map view of the entire map of the scenario which I have cropped and resized 4 times bigger so that it's almost good enough to use for the front lines situation right now. It looks like I've clustered along the rivers because they are frozen over so more care needs be tendered to prevent sizeable gaps. Gaps that Elmer can use to infiltrate my lines and get deep into my backfield. I have reason to believe that I'm outnumbered, that I'm going to need to pull back further to shorten the front lines so that it's not so stretched and fragile, and if I don't do it soon I risk being too late to implement another general pull back.

It's now T68 round 1 and this is the front lines with the supply bubbles turned on. The Axis side still has quite a few hexes that the Soviets will have to traverse yet. I guess the Soviets aren't in a real big hurry to win this game. Which is okay with me.

It's now Soviet T70 round 1 and this is an example of a typical Soviet airfield strike. The Soviet losses are horrendous. At least one Soviet aircraft unit evaporated. I notice the loss of the entire gaggle of Hurricanes employed in the attack which Lend Lease provided a few weeks ago. I hope this is all the Hurricanes the Soviets had. I must underline the fact that this is a typical Soviet airfield attack. There are at least two of these attacks each turn. I'll have to stop the Soviet turn and give you guys a report on the Soviet aircraft losses. I predict that they will be astonishing.

It's still Soviet T70 round 1 and this is a report on what I can decifer from the Soviet Inventory and Replacements showing mostly the losses of Soviet aircraft so far. I gleen from the ships section ( at the top of the list ) that Elmer still has 4 DD's somewhere that I haven't sunk yet. I've already shot down all the I-5's and TB-3's Elmer will ever have. No more I-15's, I-16's, SB-2's, Mig-3's, Su-2's, and Yak-4's will be built and on T75 there will be no more early P-40's built. That's good news. The most fecund Soviet aircraft is the IL-2 which is being built at the rate of 51 each turn. Which means that after about two months from now I'm going to be up to my ears in IL-2's. That's bad news. I added up the number of assigned Soviet aircraft of all types, comes out to be about 2.2K of them, mostly bombers. And roughly 15.0K losses of all types.

It's now T71 round 1 and this is what's going on from Staraya Russa down to Velikiye right now. I'm shifting my Corps HQ units from where they are to the half a dozen hot spots that are developing on my front lines. Small groups of Soviet units are showing up and I'm moving the artillery to where it's needed to help support the infantry against Soviet attacks. To help make the Soviet losses as high as possible. Every little bit helps.

It's still T71 round 1 and I have some misc units dug in in those appropriate places where I'd like to have 100% entrenchments for my defenders to defend from. I had an engineer unit in the same hex that the 121st Division HQ unit is in and just now moved him to a different place to start the entrenchment value to slowly rise. I moved him because the hex the Division HQ unit is in is already 100% entrenched so I need to move the 121st Division HQ unit to a different position to get the entrenchment value started at the new position. Rinse and repeat. This is how I prepare the battlefield for future needs. Every little bit helps.

So um.......Hey you guys, time for some skuttlebut. Last night I worked through the entire night doing moves and this am my opponent, Brian Doctor in Ohio reported to me via email that he had caught some kind of stomache bug and needed a day off from our WITP-AE game. And I was so tired myself that I decided to take a day off as well. So about 05:15 or so I laid down for a short nap. It's now 21:39 local and I just got up. I'm still half asleep. So the long and short of it is that I slept through the entire day. I guess I needed that. Now I'm starving and need some liquid refreshment of some kind. I discovered that I'm down to my last peanut butter cookie and I left the cap off my bottle of Dr. Pepper and now it's flat. So with that mild disappointment I thought I'd do this report and THEN look into some kind of TV dinner or something.

I woke up with a marvelous idea. The Soviet Winter Offensive is over with, my shock is 100% and the Soviet shock is 95% and I have 21.9K HRS's assigned and 11 HRS's on hand, and my supply levels are excellent and the Soviet supply levels are dog shit so the circumstances are set for me to go on the offensive again. The Soviets are coming at me a few units at a time and by the time they reach my lines they are cherry red and very low on supply which makes them brittle, even fragile, so they are easier prey to hunt. I've decided to give it a go and maybe the game will be a little more exciting.

To celebrate my decision I asked my secretary to open a bottle of champaign for us.

It's now T72 round 1 and I'm pushing east along the Volkhov River to the west of Leningrad. The Soviet units I'm meeting are cherry red and very low on supply and they aren't very strong so it's easy to push them around. The supply level is 2 out at the tip of the spear so I'll have to monitor what spaces I'm moving into because I don't want to get any of my units into an overextended situation because of the pestilance penalty. I'd rather not fight the Soviets in a low supply area.

It's still T72 round 1 and this is what it looks like near Staraya Russa right now. As you can see the supply situation at the tip of the spear is very low. I may have to hold back the advance in this area until the supply level is better. I can forsee a time when I'll meet the Soviet MLR and I'll need to break down my units to get enough warm bodies to man the front lines.

It's still T72 round 1 and this is what it looks like NW of Bryansk right now. I'm including the weather ( "MAP" tab, 2nd from left, top row ) for this area and as you can see it's mostly clear skies sunshiney but cold. The rivers are all frozen over as it's only late February. The storms started on 21Jan42 and we've had storms every turn until 22Feb42, last turn. In other words, this is the first non-storm turn we've had this winter. So maybe it'll start getting better until the spring mud seasons start.

It's still T72 round 1 and I just happened to check my land shock value and was astonished to find that it's lower than the Soviet shock for the first time in the game. I'm 95 and the Soviets are 100. I'll have to keep that in mind when I'm moving my units. It may make a difference how the combat results tilt.

It's now T74 round 1 and this is what's going on near Bryansk right now. I have 22.1K HRS's assigned and 422 HRS's on hand which is lower than I'm comfortable with so I'm going to save all the attacking for the priority areas, Moscow and Stalingrad. It seems like it's time for a tour again.

It's still T74 round 1 and this is what's going on east of Velikiye Luki right now. I'm attempting to start a surround on a rather large group of Soviet units. The Soviet backfield looks like it's largely devoid of Soviet units but that may be because there are Soviet units there but they aren't visible to me yet. My Theater Recon is 25 so far but it's contingent on the turn as it decreases as the war progresses.

It's now T74 round 2 and this is what's going on east of Leningrad right now. I'm slowly pushing the Soviets backward while trying to stay on the roads and rails for the better supply. I've made a movie of the supply situation so you can see how low it is on the east side of the river for the most part. Another reason to curtail attacking in this AO.

It's still T74 round 2 and this is what's going at Sevastopol right now. I'm slowly pushing the Soviets backward and I've advanced south of the river north of the port and no longer attacking from the river so the attacks will be more powerful now. I've not gained very many hexes even though I've been attacking almost every turn so far. Losses are heavy. I can see I didn't use enough supporting arty. I'll see if I can't find some and rail them in here to help out.

It's now T75 round 1 and I just opened the turn, haven't moved anybody yet, and thought I'd start this turn with a quick and dirty map study. The first thing I notice is the accumulation of Axis units to the NW of Moscow and it seems to me that the south half of the front lines appears stretched and ragged. Not a proper front line, too many huge gaps, something I need to correct soonest.

It's still T75 round 1 and this is what the supply situation looks like north of Rostov right now. South of the Donets River the supply is peachy but north of the river the supply level drops off a cliff. If I move units into the low supply areas they will be overextended and that's a very bad thing. There's a pestilence penalty being applied to the Axis side right now and I'd rather not cause more losses by doing something stupid. I'll wait for the supply level high enough to support operations.

It's now T75 round 2 and this is what is going on NE of Sevastopol right now. Elmer has moved all his move-able defenders to the outside rim of defenders around the port except for the coastal road hex at the southmost hex which is defended by a medium-sized CD gun Regiment and I have reason to believe that with enough arty support I can gain that hex. I've lost a lot of troops trying in previous turns. I'm weighing the odds in maybe using a Panzer Division to attemp the assault. Run some heavy tanks in there. I'll take a look around for an available Panzer Division.

It's still T75 round 2 and this is what is going on SE of Leningrad right now. I've moved most of the Finn troops to this AO to see how far east we can push while keeping close to the roads and rails. The long term goal will be to capture the port of Archangel. It may take the rest of the game to get there.

It's still T75 round 2 and this is what is going on from Staraya Russa down to Bryansk right now. There's a huge gap in the lines that I need to fix pretty soon but there's a chance for a win near Bryansk in that I've almost got several Soviet units surrounded and they will be gone soon. My land shock is 100 as is the Soviet land shock. I have 22.3K HRS's assigned and 356 HRS's on hand.