Under the Red Banner: Q-Ball (R) v Baelfiin (Axis)

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Just looking at the OOB you posted a couple of turns ago, the Luftwaffe and tank strength are also pretty shot for him at this point in the campaign. Have you been bombing the crap out of his bases or what exactly has gone on that he has lost so many planes to?

After you said that Klydon, I looked up similar OOB for my game vs. Bletchley Geek. It was about the same. I lost a ton of planes in that one too, and probably the same way. All I am doing in this one: I set Fighter Intercept to 300, and I am packing every fighter I have at the front. That's it. Not Rocket science![:D]

His tank losses are about on par I think. It's pretty tough to drive from Poland and not leave a trail of broken ones behind you.

T-14: Battle of Moscow

The Screenshot below tells a good tale I think. I really tried to build advanced forts on the flanks north of Moscow (between the lakes north of town), and also south (along the OKA). Nobody ever takes Moscow from the front, it's always a double-envelopment around both flanks isolating the town, so it seems most logical to focus on those points.

Anyway, we'll see if it works. Regardless of what happens, I plan to make this area a major focal point for Blizzard, mostly because I don't expect the Germans to run West of Moscow. Around Ryazan, I am sure they will run west.

[ComradeP]

That's a risky defensive deployment at Moscow, Q-Ball.

If Baelfiin pays attention to there being only 1 unit in the Moscow hexes, he could try to manipulate the retreat results in such a way that he'd only face the cavalry units (which will fold fairly quickly).

With the forces he has now, he could always go for the "small" encirclement directly around Moscow (most people get greedy and want to do a big encirclement no matter what).

[Flaviusx]

Realistically, he's probably going to lose Moscow, and doesn't want to have a large army bagged in it. Channeling the Germans into a narrow advance into the city proper isn't the worst way to deal with this. Since he's done well elsewhere, Moscow isn't quite a do or die proposition as it might be in a game where Leningrad and the Donbas have gone as well. He's under no pressure to match the German all in with a Soviet one.

I like the plan.

What you see as bugs in it I think are probably features.

[Q-Ball]

Flavius basically summed up my thinking: The last thing I want to do is lose Moscow, AND a big army. Because I think I can re-take it during Blizzard, or at a minimum make him fight for it. So, a direct assault on it is fine by me. I just don't want a big encirclement, and my defenses are organized to prevent that #1.

I am reading Baelfiin's AAR vs. Carnage, and from that I know Baelfiin understands that trying to hold your ground everywhere as Germany is not a good idea. I expect him to withdraw in many areas, particularly that big bulge that is now east of Tula/Orel. While it would seem logical to concentrate my forces there to eliminate that bulge, the reality is that I think he'll pull out of it anyway, because there is no defensible terrain in there.

So, I want to focus on areas where I expect him to want to fight. Regardless of what happens, I expect Moscow to be an area he digs-in and attempts to hold his ground. So this is where I will focus my forces, to create favorable combats for me, and make guards.

I also plan to attack around Nikolev, just because that is so far in his rear, he can't ignore it.

[ComradeP]

Still, not wanting to lose an army and using units with some of the lowest defensive CV's around to hold the city are two different things. The least you could do is make him fight for it. You want to keep him busy until mud/the blizzard, you don't want to lose most of the city on turn 15 just because the units defending the place are not worth much.

[Q-Ball]

T-15: Almost Mud

That was a nice turn by Baelfiin. At some points, you root for your opponent, because you want a nail-biter of a game. If I retained Moscow, Leningrad, and the Donbas at the end of Summer, I wouldn't want that to screw the game up.

No chance of that though, and to boot Baelfiin created yet another large pocket. I thought I had the flaks there pretty set, and that SW corner was not very thick, but he did a skillful job of "Herding" units into it. Another 20 divisions down the tubes!

Moscow:

At the end of the turn I hold the town and a corridor into it, but decided that trying to hold that narrow corridor open would be throwing good Comrades after bad. A handful of units in Moscow were too deep to get out, so we are occupying the city, and will basically allow him to isolate it next turn. That will leave Turn 17 to actually take the City, and mark the end of the Summer campaign.

Tip of the hat to Baelfiin; he beat my defenses.

South:

Elsewhere, his advance is less spirited, as he is "all-in" on Moscow.

I am falling back on Voronezh, because the Bryansk Front was mostly destroyed in a series of battles. Not sure if he is going for Voronezh, but I am preparing defense lines. There are Panzers around Kursk apparently gassing-up, so I am concerned about an assault here.

Further south, I abandoned Kharkov, as I was pressured on both flanks. I'm OK with that, T-16 is pretty late for Kharkov.

First Panzer is finally moving SE toward the Sea of Azov, and in the process pocketed a few divisions.

[Q-Ball]

T-16 Coming up

[Peltonx]

Tula south there is more manpower then in Moscow+ Leningrad

Flaviusx is right a hvy push on Leningrad will help greatly to take Moscow. By turn 7 you can pull armor out of north and let infantry take Leningrad.

But looks like he will take Moscow anyways, if he plays he cards right he can still sweep most of the south.

More then one way to skin a cat I guess.

Let see how Q-ball does during blizzard.

Pelton

[Q-Ball]

T-16 Soviet

Next turn is T-17 for the Germans, the last guaranteed Clear one this summer. Afterwards, he can still get good weather, though it's a greater than 50% chance of Mud everywhere, so can't really count on sustaining the offensive.

I will post final maps and stats next turn, but Baelfiin will probably start winding this down soon.

Overall, I think he has had a good summer offensive, though his lines right now are very long, don't have tons of forts (yet), and appear to have ample opportunity to cause problems during the Blizzard.

Moscow:

Baelfiin surprised me a bit by continuing to attack around Moscow, though he can probably push me a bit more back to create some space for Blizzard.

Blizzard Planning:

I am already thinking about Blizzard, and taking a few steps.

First, all Mountain Divisions and some Cav have spent the summer training and building morale. Mountain divisions help, because they have better mobility in the snow. I have also taken a few 60-Morale Rifle units out of the line, and they are training-up to become nucleus of Shock Armies.

I plan to focus mostly around Moscow, simply becuase the Germans can't really run there.

Further south, from Ryazan to Voronezh, I will commit almost nothing new; I think Baelfiin will just pull out of this area, leaving me punching air. No sense committing much to that!

I also plan a push on Kharkov, because I can either take it back in Blizzard, or he'll have to fight. Either one is good.

[Q-Ball]

T-17: Last Call

Ouch! I thought that Baelfiin might wind things down a bit to start digging for Blizzard. No chance. He attacked, and pocketed at least another 24 divisions. This will make a real nice end to the summer campaign for him.

The Red Army has really suffered this summer, and will inhibit my opportunities to hit back come Blizzard. On the bright side, I saved most of my armaments, and my Manpower situation is in good shape, as I continue to hold Leningrad and the Donbas, which should pump out enough extra peasants and workers to keep the Red Army sustained through Blizzard losses. Still, losing Moscow hurts.

MOSCOW:

Baelfiin continued northward, forcing me to shift forces north, and also pocketing a bunch of guys near Moscow. More than I expected.

In the short-run, I think he is stretching out alot, and I see Zero defensive preparations for Blizzard. Not sure what he is going to do in Snow, but I think continue to attack. I hope so. He is getting dangerously stretched out (though, I could be better as well!)

In the long-run, 1942 may be a campaign to get Leningrad toward the Finnish border.

South:

Here I made some costly mistakes. I didn't think he had the MPs or the balls to make a major encirclement of my guys along the Dnepr. Wrong on both counts. Instead of a great launching pad for Blizzard offensives, I have a whole army destroyed. Ouch.

The only silver lining, is that between MUD and air supply these guys might be tough to wipe-out. I hope I can delay it a couple months at any rate.

[ComradeP]

You had no units/no good units guarding the entrypoints to the Crimea? Ouch. That move bought him a couple of turns at least, especially if he pushes into the Crimea during the snow turns and you don't have much of a garrison in it.

[Flaviusx]

Piffle. Just guard Sevastopol and the Kerch straights and if he wants to march into the Crimea and offer himself up as a blizzard sacrifice, so much the better. It costs him more to try to occupy the whole place minus the parts of it that actually matter than to guard the entry points.

I rarely guard the entry points nowadays, myself.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

You had no units/no good units guarding the entrypoints to the Crimea? Ouch. That move bought him a couple of turns at least, especially if he pushes into the Crimea during the snow turns and you don't have much of a garrison in it.

I did, and beautiful Lvl-3 forts too, with Fort Zones, but I moved the good units just the last turn, because I didn't think he could/would get that far on T-17. My mistake!

I also pushed over the Dnepr against the Romanian Screen to attract attention and pull Germans away from the Center. That part worked, though not the way I intended.

Still, the Crimea ain't worth much, I won't lose Sevastopol, and there isn't much in the Crimea; about 10 Manpower, that's really it. Plus a bunch of coastline the Germans have to guard.

The main thing this impacts is the Siege of Odessa. I still hold Sevastopol, so I still plan to get units into Odessa this Blizzard to create problems, but now I probably have to just abandon it in February after I'm done

(BTW, the Industry is still in Odessa; I can probably get it moved this Blizzard if I really want to!)

Anyway, I am more concerned with the loss of 12 more divisions than I am the Crimea. My losses will exceed 3 mil this summer. On the flip side, I only lost 18 armaments, and I am still getting 125K recruits per turn, so I should be able to have a nice replacement rate this Winter.

[ComradeP]

The problem with that is that Q-Ball's now more or less allowing him to make up for his slow advance in the south by putting some space/no mans land between the Soviets and the Dnepr. That's all that will matter in the blizzard. The starting point of the blizzard offensive matters more than whether or not Sevastopol is still in Soviet hands at this point as defending the Crimea is not just about Sevastopol or Kerch in 1941.

Besides: I simply don't think there's a real reason not to defend the entry points, especially this late. If it costs the Axis 1 or 2 turns to break through, that's time in your favour. An offensive out of the Crimea is perhaps not entirely viable with recent patches, but it can be successful if it starts at the entry points.

Baelfiin ended up having an easy time around Moscow in recent turns (which, in turn, also nullified the plan of not placing an army in Moscow because you would lose it, as he's now still losing that army in a predictable and unnecessary pocket north of Moscow) and now in the south because the defensive deployments were less than ideal.

[Scook_99]

No matter how bad this looks, The Donbas is pretty safe, Leningrad is held, and General Winter will be showing up very soon. That is the fun part of playing USSR, you can have what would be unmitigated disasters to other countries be minor setbacks for you, and will be forgotten about by 1943. I still lean towards Q-Ball being in control in this game, not pushing harder towards Leningrad and no significant (ie: before turn 16) advance towards Stalino will come back and bite Baelfin in the hiney.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Scook_99

No matter how bad this looks, The Donbas is pretty safe, Leningrad is held, and General Winter will be showing up very soon. That is the fun part of playing USSR, you can have what would be unmitigated disasters to other countries be minor setbacks for you, and will be forgotten about by 1943. I still lean towards Q-Ball being in control in this game, not pushing harder towards Leningrad and no significant (ie: before turn 16) advance towards Stalino will come back and bite Baelfin in the hiney.

Baelfiin has had a good summer campaign, and he should enter Blizzard having destroyed 3.5 mil Reds. That's pretty good. But it's not all bad news for me.

Silver Linings

First, though he is making good progress near Moscow, and the South, the other fronts have suffered. I haven't shown, but we are actually making 4-6 counterattacks a turn between Ryazan and Stalino, consistently pushing German infantry. Not sure how wise this is as the combat loss ratio is not favorable to me, but it's good for morale.

Second, I have kept reserves out of harm's way, including a fair amount of Cav, all my Mountain units, and all 50+ morale rifle units. So,while my guys at the front are getting hammered a bit, I do have stuff in reserve to uncork during Blizzard.

Finally, Baelfiin's pushing hurts, but he has virtually no defenses prepared at all for Blizzard. I think he'll probably run like crazy as a result, though the one place he can't run is around Moscow. I plan to make my main push there, because he might fight there. Particularly south of Moscow there is clear terrain to fight over in my favor.

So, I have the opportunity I think to recover a bit.

As a PS, my MANPOWER situation isn't bad, as I am getting 125K per turn, and I only lost 18 armaments, so the Red Army should be able to quickly replace some losses.

T-18


Moscow:
The weather gods shone on the Germans this turn, as the push around Moscow could continue with a Turn of SNOW.

I am disappointed that Baelfiin didn't keep pushing north. I don't think he had a chance at all to make it to the Finns, and would have been ridiculously overextended had he tried. I have extra units i can pull from Leningrad that are of good quality, and would have stopped anything short of the Cherepovets rail line. I already had a couple units in reserve up there in key Heavy Woods hexes blocking a bit breakout.

Instead, Baelfiin did the smarter thing and continued to bag units. I have made some mistakes around Moscow, but he keeps surprising me, probably because he has so many units a 4-deep stack can't stop them.

I should get a couple turns break soon, and I need to hold him off enough for Blizzard.

Elsewhere:

It's mostly mud elsewhere.

Up NORTH, Baelfiin had a division Isolated in Mud; we counterattacked and pushed it back. He has no chance of holding the Luga line during Blizzard if I push, but I don't plan a major effort; too exposed a position.

SOUTH of Moscow, there is just a very thin screen from Ryazan, all the way to Dnepropetrovsk. I think Baelfiin plans to simply pull-out of this entire area in Blizzard. I plan to commit some Cav to chase, but not much infantry; no point.

[Q-Ball]

T20: 10/30/41

Last turn was all Mud, but this turn, SNOW or BLIZZARD across most of the front. That's 2 out of 3 so far around Moscow, so the weather gods are answering Baelfiin's prayers. They wouldn't answer mine, since we are godless communists!

Moscow:

Blizzard this turn near Moscow. Baelfiin attacked north, but made limited progress. I am not sure what he is trying; if it's getting to Finland, there is no way that is happening. He is threatening some units, but I should be able to get them back a bit more next turn if it's Mud, and there is greater than 50% it is.

We'll see what happens. Losses this turn were very high on both sides.

Crimea:

Further south, he is cleaning up the last of my guys holding out via air supply near Nikolev. Not much else, I expected a move by now on Stalino.

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

ORIGINAL: Scook_99

... The Donbas is pretty safe, Leningrad is held, ... That is the fun part of playing USSR, you can have what would be unmitigated disasters to other countries be minor setbacks for you ...

Second, I have kept reserves out of harm's way, including a fair amount of Cav, all my Mountain units, and all 50+ morale rifle units. So,while my guys at the front are getting hammered a bit, I do have stuff in reserve to uncork during Blizzard.

Finally, Baelfiin's pushing hurts, but he has virtually no defenses prepared at all for Blizzard.

Scook, in a nutshell one couldn't hardly describe the situation more adequate [:D]

Q-Ball, I predict hmmmm, a massacre.

Not only because I trust your famous reputation as the defender of the revolution ...
BTW, I am relieved by your reserve arrangement as I looked very careful all over the place to find some some CV's > 1 ...
let's only hope that the fat tankdiv didn't decide to switch in a brigade just before the first attack...

[Peltonx]

I think hes pushing around Moscow to gain space.

Your loses were higher then averge 3 million, but not that bad.

You must have hung onto most of the manpower in south and Leningrad to still have that high of a manpower out put.

Just taking Moscow will not get a German player victory.

Leningrad has to be taken and south then try for Moscow.

Over all I would say you done good.

You lost Moscow, but won North and South.

Pelton

[Q-Ball]

T-21: 11/6/41

Another BLIZZARD turn in North Soviet near Moscow; fall was very strange. Only one MUD turn during the Raputista, and the rivers up there are now all frozen solid. The die-roll gods definitely smiled on Baelfiin during Raputista, which make sense, since we are godless communists and get no divine help.

So, though Baelfiin was robbed during the summer of a critical turn of Clear (T-13, IIRC), he is getting it back with favorable weather during Fall. Things should actually improve for him, as it's likely to be Snow for 3 turns before the real Blizzard hits.

Moscow:

Baelfiin continues to push north, toward Vishny Volochek (V-V).

He managed to pocket 3 units in Torzhok; I would have been able to extract them I think if I had a MUD turn, but I lost that die roll, and it cost me an extra unit. C'est la guerre!

I still think I would like him to continue north, though I am shifting units along the Rail Line through Cherepovets, just in case he gets a big breakout. It's tough terrain though; between snow and light woods, a minimum of 4 MPs per hex for him, 5 for units under 86 morale, so that should limit big breakouts.

Pelton wondered if he is just creating space around Moscow. Maybe, but all the space he is creating is NORTH of town. He must be thinking about setting-up for a 1942 campaign to the Svir, taking Leningrad. Meanwhile, though, I am pretty well dug-in 5 hexes EAST of Moscow. So, I'm still pretty close to the town. He might still shift attacks to nail me in this area; he can have some success, though it won't be easy.

Soviet Attacks:

West of Voronezh, we launched 4 successful attacks against 3 Inf Regts. The Germans here are nothing but a thin screen, more evidence that he plans to RUN during the Blizzard. We are already attacking to the West, which makes me a bit nervous, though I think I have all the Panzers accounted for.

Crimean Bridgehead:

Our air-supplied forces continue to hold out near Nikolev. This is very good, as several Panzer units are tied-down liquidating them. It's taking them awhile, due to mud and lack of German Infantry support.