Once more into the Breech with D21

[larryfulkerson]

Looking at those numbers, I'd be more concerned about the heavy rifle squads than the motorcycle ones. You've only lost 701 of the latter vs 880 replacements issued (assuming still t16). But you've only gotten 6896 heavy rifle squads issued as replacements vs 9685 destroyed; the big on hand pile is just them not cycling back into your units fast enough.

I have to admit, I think your analysis is correct. I'm operating at the spearhead of the advance and supply AND
replacements are sparse when you're in that situation.

[larryfulkerson]

Capturing Murmansk does not change Soviet Supply but there is a 5% reduction to the entire Soviet replacement pool for its capture, to simulate loss of Lend Lease equipment. Also, cutting the rail will not effect anything except cutting supply to the area. You must actually capture Murmansk to get a benefit.

I did not know that. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. I'm not sure the information will help me capture
Murmansk but does provide encouragement.

[larryfulkerson]

This is Chernigov right now. I'm coming across the rivers into the Soviet backfield and I'm converting hexes and running
up against the Soviet units. The Soviets are fairly sparse right now but that could change in any turn.

[larryfulkerson]

The 16th Panzer Division is typical of the tank units in that the HQ is usually the
greenest unit, not allways, some of the HQ's are firing their arty, and the Pioneer
units are red from having moved around a lot to fix the broken bridges all over the
place. Also, the engr units spend some time in the front lines frequently. The
next most red unit is the recon assets in that they move around quite a bit, especially
in the open terrain in the south. In the north they might be used to suplement a
position on the front lines. The 16th was helping out in the clearing of the territories
between the rivers but with that operation coming to a close soon and the operation to
get some units on the east side of the Kiev river, the 16th is moving north to the railhead
to see about maybe hitching a ride. The rails aren't as developed as I need them to be
but that's an artifact of the fact that the front lines are moving too fast to the east
for the rails to keep up. When the mud season starts up, and I'm about half way there
already, the RR engrs will have more time to catch up. All in all, things are going well.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on downriver from Kiev. These are the territories between the rivers and the operation to clear
the territories is coming to an end when we reach the corner of the rivers at D-town and Z-town. By then most of the
LCU's will be heading north to hitch a ride to the east side of Kiev. Maybe a few divisions will head north to help
out near Leningrad or somewhere.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on around Odessa right now. The siege is ongoing with arty bombardment and light probes on those
places where I can get three attackers in on the attack. Also, we're still fighting over river crossings and a good
crossroads place. I have hopes of getting into the Crimea soon.

[larryfulkerson]

I thought maybe I should try to clear one of the smaller islands and got an engineer with ferry properties and drove
one of the Riga Politicia units over the engineer's pontoon bridge and assaulted the opposite shore and caused the
Soviet arty to retreat but the Soviet regiment stayed put so my boys reembarked and now they can't move. Great.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Here's what's going on around Odessa right now. The siege is ongoing with arty bombardment and light probes on those
places where I can get three attackers in on the attack. Also, we're still fighting over river crossings and a good
crossroads place. I have hopes of getting into the Crimea soon.

If you put your naval unit on top of the offshore Odessa supply point, would that starve the garrison out?

[larryfulkerson]

If you put your naval unit on top of the offshore Odessa supply point, would that starve the garrison out?

Yeah, I thought about that too....the problem is that the naval dude is a riverine unit and won't sail out there in the
deep water hexes. D'oh. I'll give that formation the objective of being that supply point hex and let Elmer move that
formation and cross my fingers.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a view of the operation down south where the Axis forces are clearing the territories between the rivers and the
riverbank approaches and then the operation will be concluded and a new operation will begin, the take down of the
river crossings. I gotta come up with some kind of cool name for some of these operations.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on in the north and as you can see the front lines are splintered and there's small groups facing
small groups. I've got a reserve this time nearby so as to be ready to take the right road to the site of the crime.

[larryfulkerson]

Okay, I moved everybody again in round 4, pulled the trigger and executed the combats and then failed a force
proficiency check and the Soviets did their turn with plenty of attacks, and now it's T17 and I'm presented with
the situation briefing thingie and it says if the game ended right now I'd have a marginal victory. Which is
probably the highest it's going to go for a while, especially in the late game phase when I'm fighting off the
hordes.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines in T17 before I have moved anybody. I've also annotated where the railheads are right now.
I'm not satisfied with the configuration in the north and I'm going to change things remarkaably.

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd plot where the Panzers are right now and having done so I was surprised to see that there are seemingly
none in the area near Moscow. I see a lot of them in the south. I need to get them moved to the Moscow area.

[Nicholas Bell]

Really appreciate and enjoy your detailed reporting, Larry. It surely takes a lot of time you might be playing. I was catching up and thinking "it would be good to ask Larry to show us how far the rails have been repaired" and lo and behold, you did it. Thank you.

Not sure how well the rail conversion is going, but it doesn't appear to have been held up by being unable to advance because of the Soviets being in the way. Historically the Germans had repaired and run trains in Pskov by July 12th and Smolensk by the end of July. I would suggest the in-game repair rate is too low which is why you're having the supply problems you are. Certainly the Germans had some problems at this time, but not quite as bad as where you are at.

Of course the issue is that the real problem the Germans had - rail thru-put capacity - isn't easily modeled in any game system. Converting the track wasn't the issue. Unlike the game, the Germans continued to convert rail in the mud and snow and had 15,000 km(!) completed by the end of Dec '41. The fact the locomotives weren't functioning in the cold temperatures was the problem.

I believe the myth of the track conversion being the issue goes back to Dunnigan's use of it in SPI's War in the East. His use there was an abstraction of the all the German supply problems, not just the conversion of the rails as it was portrayed. But I digress.

While I applaud the designer's clever use of German supply points, it looks to me like they made be a bit too far forward. I might tinker with increasing the auto-repair rate or provide a few more rail-engineer units when I get around to playing this scenario - thanks to your detailed reporting! [&o]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Nicholas Bell
Really appreciate and enjoy your detailed reporting, Larry. It surely takes a lot of time you might be playing.
I was catching up and thinking "it would be good to ask Larry to show us how far the rails have been repaired"
and lo and behold, you did it. Thank you.

Not sure how well the rail conversion is going, but it doesn't appear to have been held up by being unable to
advance because of the Soviets being in the way. Historically the Germans had repaired and run trains in Pskov
by July 12th and Smolensk by the end of July. I would suggest the in-game repair rate is too low which is
why you're having the supply problems you are. Certainly the Germans had some problems at this time, but
not quite as bad as where you are at.

Of course the issue is that the real problem the Germans had - rail thru-put capacity - isn't easily modeled
in any game system. Converting the track wasn't the issue. Unlike the game, the Germans continued to convert
rail in the mud and snow and had 15,000 km(!) completed by the end of Dec '41. The fact the locomotives weren't functioning in the cold temperatures was the problem.

I believe the myth of the track conversion being the issue goes back to Dunnigan's use of it in SPI's War in
the East. His use there was an abstraction of the all the German supply problems, not just the conversion of
the rails as it was portrayed. But I digress.

While I applaud the designer's clever use of German supply points, it looks to me like they made be a bit too
far forward. I might tinker with increasing the auto-repair rate or provide a few more rail-engineer units
when I get around to playing this scenario - thanks to your detailed reporting! [&o]

Thanks for your interest. And I'd like to encourage you to change the supply net parameters. The range of your
supply units, the amount of supply stockpiled, the range supply is spread away from the rails, the overextended
setting. Things like that. I'd like to follow your progress when you do play it.

[cpt flam]

Larry, having different armies around Nikolaiev (South Ukraine) does it modify your fight value?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: cpt flam
Larry, having different armies around Nikolaiev (South Ukraine) does it modify your fight value?

The cooperation between the two formations isn't the best. But I think the attack and defense
values are the same as if they were both from the same formation. This is my understanding.
How's your D21 game going? What's happening right now in your game?

[larryfulkerson]

This is the area to the immediate NE of Kiev and shows what I'm trying to work with right now. We haven't gone very far
from the broken rails across the river and we're already into the single digits of supply. I'll be forced to call a halt
on the advance pretty soon now.

[larryfulkerson]

So I'm moving units and I've come to the 206th Infantry Division
and it's in a relatively good supply area, the division is in
relatively good shape, the HQ unit has plenty of ammo to support
and there's several reasons not to attack. First of all, most
important I think is the presence of Soviet arty supporting the
target. And this is not terrain favorable to the attacker. Amd
what would the goal of such an attack be? Germany can't win a
war of attrition against the largest army in the world at the time.
I like to surround my targets before I kill them and I don't want
my units to get very far from a road or a rail and the target is
further away from both. I'm thinking I can bombard the target with
the arty of the HQ unit and call it a day.