Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: timmyab

I think it's fine to leave the Lvov open for one turn and push East as fast as possible. I don't think there's much to choose between that and closing the pocket on turn one. I've done both and there's pros and cons to each.
Not closing the Minsk pocket on turn one will cost 9th and 4th army some time (half a turn ish). Personally I'd rather send one or two of 24th pz corps divisions towards Minsk to seal it.

I could seal the Minsk pocket, but I think that it is much better to postpone it for one turn. You could check to see.
In the south, it is much better to postpone the pocket for one more turn too, easy to check.
As for the speed of infantry, that is not the issue, we will see in T2.

Sending 3 usefull soviet division to Odessa is not a hard task. The city need to be defended, because it's a major port, plus works as supply source. If Odessa fall, the german supply efforts will be much more easier on south.

The GHC can practice and perfect an opening and this one looks devastating. There are a lot of high CV units that have been routed out of there in the south so it seems that a lot must go right to achieve this or it's been well rehearsed to the point of maximizing odds. The LVOV pocket, while technically not sealed, is sealed for all purposes plus GHC has penetrated deeply and locked up many other units. Overall, he is putting SHC to difficult decisions because normally all units not assigned to any front rush north and in this case, it will be very tempting for SHC to not send those units north, but to try to stabilize the south. I think SHC should resist this temptation and play a normal northern defense and accept the fact that the South is screwed for awhile. Half measures will just result in major defeats in both north and south, so if I'm SHC I play my normal northern defense and accept a shit situation in the south where there is a lot more ground to give up.

In the north, it's T2 that will matter most, so won't really comment much other than taking Minsk Turn 1 is of course nice. Open or closed pocket is irrelevant, they're all dead anyway. Further, GHC should rush everything east and leave behind as little as possible to clean up the eventual pocket over several turns.

Where I'm most curious to see this game is after the first turns. How will SHC react and, more importantly, when GHC is not acting from a script any longer, will we see play this brutally efficient. Further, with the +1 and Normal Blizzard it seems GHC is banking on winning the game before these ever come into play (or being so far ahead that they can absorb it). So the SHC needs to survive long enough to be able to use these assets.

Thanks MKTOURS for doing the AAR, for me this is going to be reaaaaaaalllyyy interesting to watch.

Saper set soviet transport level at 50%. It turns out that it might be too harsh for soviet side, but we didn’t know that before we started the game.

I just noticed this rule. To me, this is way too harsh and given how fast you're going to be pressing east in the Industrial south he'll never get enough industry out. As SHC I would give up +1, long before I would give up rail capacity. Further, it's going to make an already difficult SHC T1 and T2 that much more difficult.

I would, at first glance, argue that you're making too many errors, excessive routs, not closing the AGC and AGS pockets, but I do see your points and can't disagree with your reasoning, particularly the impact of Soviet +1 attack. I like the lanes you created your infantry's path across the Daugava, and the penetration in AGS almost to Vinnitsa. But I think AGC can be closed with maximum isolation and the units routed to the swamp will escape. But not bad, in fact best against attack +1. I'm impressed.

With 50 % rail capacity, the soviet has no chance to evacuate Kharkov, and D-town before T05-06.
Against Pitaman, was real hard to decide on the early 3-5 turn to move troops, or evacuate industrial factories.
And sometimes I needed to disband mot/arm troops, don't allow them be encircled, or they where to far from the frontline, and need two turn transporting them, using the critical transport capacity. As I remember, 7 mot/arm division was disbanded by lack of capacity.

Soviet transport level at 50% ?? Tough, but it's Sapper. He'll win. Any bets ???

But I am pulling for mktours. (what in the world does mattp stand for ???)

HITIMAN, I'm not really care about the results. +1 attack, and severe winter... Sappen need only to save his army, and beat the german during the blizzard turn.
Blizzard with +1 attack... Brrr...

Sapper with normal blizzard and +1 attack ??? It would like be giving the M-1 rifle to Napoleon. We would all be speaking French.

ORIGINAL: HITMAN202

Sapper with normal blizzard and +1 attack ??? It would like be giving the M-1 rifle to Napoleon. We would all be speaking French.

If SHC gets no industry out and takes massive losses between now and blizzard, +1 won't matter, severe blizzard won't matter. He needs to survive until then. As I said before when discussing this, I don't think you can win the game on Turn 1 or Turn 2, but you can sure set yourself up for a massive push that will set the SHC back immensely.

Further, the units in the swamp aren't going to escape I don't think unless they rally immediately. They move too slow in the swamp and GHC will be at Kiev turn 2, cutting them off at the east end of the swamp will be no problem for him.

My prediction is that no one wins and they restart the game with normal rail capacity. MKTours is clever because he offers +1 and Norm Blizzard in exchange for (suggested) decreased capacity. He is giving up the future to ensure success in the opening which is when the rail capacity matters most. [;)] So I think he may give up these things hoping that they'll never matter. We'll see.

As for mattp, I'm clearly not as clever as all of you and just used my name. [:'(]

I'm affraid Mktours will bring us an interesting opening, and IF sapper will retreat (why not, don't need to fight, because several industrial area will loose without having chance to transport them), the germans will loose the was on 41 winter.

Sorry Mktours, but the odds, even if you destroy the soviet starting forces, don't favor you.

So now that we've discussed it, how about posting T2.... VERY curious to see how the drive for VL goes. As this is a PBEM game, would be interested to see the SHC setup prior to your turn 2 start and then your end turn. Curious to see Saper's T1 response.

Thanks very much for all the comments! It is nice to see what people thinks about this game.
The game is still ongoing, I have a job to do in daytime and also need to share some leisure time with my family, so I might not be able to attend to the AAR very often.
Indeed, I am having my turn to do at this moment, so I will keep today's update brief.

T1 soviet reaction
north

center

south1
Edit: This picture miss some unit. I reloaded the original file to do haste air recon to show reader the picture, but there are more units on the map didn't show in this picture. Sorry for that, but I see not reason to reload the picture as it is not important. Reader should keep in mind that there are more road block on the road, and a 4 CV motorize div in Kiev city.

south2

I still have some doubts about the power of this opening... in your 1st turn screenshot of southern front I see 8 routed units in Pripyat marshes and 4 east of your panzers... now in the screenshot of Saper's turn 1 I see only one routed unit, all the others are gone away... plus at least 5 of them were tank or motorized divisions... I can't understand how can this opening be more powerful than the standard Lvov pocket.

ORIGINAL: Northern Star

I still have some doubts about the power of this opening... in your 1st turn screenshot of southern front I see 8 routed units in Pripyat marshes and 4 east of your panzers... now in the screenshot of Saper's turn 1 I see only one routed unit, all the others are gone away... plus at least 5 of them were tank or motorized divisions... I can't understand how can this opening be more powerful than the standard Lvov pocket.

It is impossible to pocket all the troops, some should be allowed to escape.

In my AAR of the game against Marquo, I gave two very important suggestion about how to defend this opening:
(1) Soviet must garrison Luki city;
(2) Soviet must guard the Dnepr river properly.
Saper ignore both of them in his T1 deployment.