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ORIGINAL:

In the south, I discovered that the Germans have made a serious blunder in setting up their air defence this turn. Probably hoping for a lot of kills against my night bombers, the local Luftwaffe fighters were all set to fly at night, while staying grounded during the day. As usual, it only took a couple of light probing attacks to establish this, after which I could hit the Luftwaffe bases at daylight with everything I had. That everything included six Air Groups of IL-2 and another six with SU-2’s. After those attacks were done, the German fighter losses were 69 Bf109 F-2’s. Another noticeable thingwais the loss of 49 German Ju/52 Transports. The attacks left the Luftwaffe with basically no fighting capability outside Kiev, which should impact them somewhat come next turn.

Oh my, thats gotta hurt. Dinglir I bet you dropped a ton of Scnapps first to these Germans to catch them on the ground. Thats not right ;-P

(btw nice bombing run)

@##$%!!

ORIGINAL: Hermann

@##$%!!

Woke up from that Scnapps hangover I see.

Ive a surprise coming for comrade Dinglr unfortunately I found a bug devising it so im going to unleash it in a low key manner to avoid exploiting the bug

Me like surprises....

Turn six.

Turn seven.

ust want to point out here that although the Russian player is at a serious disadvantage - the historical attacker allows him to actually take part in the game with the panzerball approach the Russian player is forced to sit turn after turn watching 40 motorsed formations surround po ket after pocket in one tiny section of the front till he runs out of troops... no way to play a wargame. my opponent has had time to display some excellent and admirable qualities and has earned my respect. he is resourceful, observant and meticulous .... GREAT opponent. Panzerballers really need to realize there are 2 players in the game and the key to a great experience is allowing both sides to play ... winning or losing is weeks into the game - having fun starts at turn 1.

Leningrad defense buildup.

Since writing the information contained in this document, I have learned the error of my digging process (you need a fortified region in order to dig to lvl three at the Neva River).

ORIGINAL: Hermann
ust want to point out here that although the Russian player is at a serious disadvantage - the historical attacker allows him to actually take part in the game with the panzerball approach the Russian player is forced to sit turn after turn watching 40 motorsed formations surround po ket after pocket in one tiny section of the front till he runs out of troops... no way to play a wargame. my opponent has had time to display some excellent and admirable qualities and has earned my respect. he is resourceful, observant and meticulous .... GREAT opponent. Panzerballers really need to realize there are 2 players in the game and the key to a great experience is allowing both sides to play ... winning or losing is weeks into the game - having fun starts at turn 1.

Personally, I take no offense at the strategy of the "Panzerball players". What I do think, is that every game should be set up to contain a challenge for both players. Both players should then play the game to the best of their ability to achieve the best possible result. The task for the Soviet player facing a Panzer ball, is to set up in such a way that he minimizes the number of units lost, while keeping the proper amount of terrain.

The problem, in my mind, is not the Panzer ball strategy, but the "German scientific approach" that so often goes with it. In the early game, the Germans hold the initiative, so the German player can, over a period of several games, develop an almost perfect "script" for winning. This is shown perfectly by HardLuck in his game versus Stelteck. HardLuck has perfected his strategy, and against players unfamiliar with it, it is practically a certain win.

Let us take that game strategy as an example. Hardluck has now played some 15 different opponents with it and won every game early on. Imagine he had played the same opponent 15 times - does it not stand to reason, that the result would have been very different?

Please do not construe this as a critizism of HardLuck. I have every respect that he actually publizises his strategy, hoping for people to develop methods to beat it. If he had just sought easy wins and a high win/loss ratio, he would have acted very differently.

Turn eight

Turn nine.

As you demonstrated so clearly, counterattacking for the sake of it in '41 is too expensive nowadays, even if you win, to be worthwhile unless some higher purpose can be served such as removing a bridgehead over the Dnepr or doing something else worthwhile. It's not just the losses in the combat, but you will have many damaged elements as well massive fatigue. All your attacking units will therefore have significantly lower DV in your opponent's next turn.

The above does not matter much if you are winning easily so that eg guards' farming is worth doing and an aggressive approach put your defences at risk.

hey no fair. What about the 500 fighters I took out overrunning your airfields ? my crowning moment of the whole war +(. you got lucky in the pocket battle the initial breakthrough hex defended admirably and cost me the pocket

ORIGINAL: Hermann
hey no fair. What about the 500 fighters I took out overrunning your airfields ? my crowning moment of the whole war +(. you got lucky in the pocket battle the initial breakthrough hex defended admirably and cost me the pocket

My main reaction when opening this turn was one of schock that you could break through as you did. Upon closer analysis, I was immensely relieved that you had not been able to advance just one more hex, as this would have effectively encircled the main part of the Western Front. I must admit to not paying much attention to what happened to my airfields at the time.

In hindsight, I think I must have probably lost somewhat less than 500 fighters at the time, as that would have meant me having almost 3 airfields overrun with nothing but damaged planes on them. But it is certainly true that I have had to take great care with how I structure my airforces in this game. My reserve pools are not climbing as fast as I would have liked them to.

In short, as I write the AAR according to the situation as I see it, I may not get everything right. The story is simply the story as I see it, and thus there is no "truth" in it, only my perception. So if I write something that is not fair, that is simply becasue I have made an inaccurate evaluation of things, not because I try to appear better than I am.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
As you demonstrated so clearly, counterattacking for the sake of it in '41 is too expensive nowadays, even if you win.

I did have a "higher purpose" with that attack by the Northwestern Front. If successfull, I would have sent a single division into the vacated hex and thus slowed the movement of any German Infantry pulling back in this area, in order to relocate to the cavalry breakthrough in the south.

It may not have been a wise "higher purpose", but my thinking was that I risked relatively little. I was very surprised that I lost 2000+ men, but even that loss was not nearly enough to risk the frontline or something similar.

Come next turns report, I am pretty sure there will be more news on the overall success of the Northwestern Front offensive (I wrote it, so I would know).

Turn ten.

Again a big thanks for your AAR as it contains many useful small tips you don't find in the general overview AARs.

This game has evolved into an already very bad german position.

I saw that you have a new secret weapon: A spreadsheet to calculate the enemy MPs. Excellent idea, I will try to unterstand your formula. You however should include the HQ position in your calculations.
If you don't say "No" soon enough I will write a Mail regarding this topic...