Solitaire Barbarossa - A Beginner Stumbles East

[Chocolino]

(I hope you don't mind my commenting on your game. I am trying to be educational. I absolutely do not want to drive you from the game!)

That are the comments I hoped to get when writing this. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Please keep it coming - it is much appreciated.

This was a mistake. Rail moving disorganizes a unit, so these two units will not move farther this turn. The two units rail moved about eight hexes each, or what they could walk in two or three impulses. The turn should last that long, so these units would have been better off walking.

Makes absolute sense and I do grin a bit sheepishly here since I apparently could not count that by myself.....

[Chocolino]

Second Land combat (actually the first as you can see from the list of remaining combats in the upper left of the screen)

This was the initially unplanned and opportunistic one in the south which was successful for the Germans, too.

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Last land combat outcome:

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Finally the Germans re-based forward from Germany proper 2 of their aircraft with their remaining 2 air actions. Re-basing aircraft - as one of a very few exceptions - does not disorganize the units. In this it is different to the rail move. After Courtenay's helpful comment I realize that the latter move is only a good idea if the distance is sufficiently far so that it cannot be walked in the remaining time of a turn. So I guess it makes increasingly more sense to rail move towards the end of the turn.

This is the end of the first German impulse. I will stop here for today and continue tomorrow. I also think that it should be ok to reduce the level of detail for the next impulse a bit.

[Chocolino]

Turn 1 / 2. Impulse

I have played this whole impulse already yesterday before posting the first entry and hence any good advice I have received so far will only affect impulse 3 and on. So you will still see me rail move units.

Russians take a Land Action.

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The Russians plan no attacks and only rearrange their units. They rail in a unit from Kiev to Lvov to beef up defenses. I did this prior to Coutenay's comments re rail move. But I think in this case it is not as bad as the unit railed into Lvov is intended to stay there and defend the city in any case.

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The Russians are quite anxious about the northern front and try to move spare units there. 2 armored corps move from the Ukraine to Gomel and Brest. One Infantry corps moves to the Baltic coast to defend the access to Riga.

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The Russians have only 3 air actions and use them to pull back their air force in order to avoid further overruns.

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Turn 1 / Impulse 3:

The weather turns bad in the arctic zone which is bad news for the Germans.

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The Germans align Finland and set up its forces. One lone infantry is at the border to Karelia, the rest close to Leningrad.

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No port or Naval air.

The Germans conduct two ground strikes - the first on a Russian elite Mechanized unit in Lithuania. No interception possible but it has no effect.

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The second ground strike is on the city of Brest - also no effect.

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The Germans make another mistake here - when land moving units to close in on the Russian Mech I must have accidentally unorganized German infantry moving just one hex in rain. So these units will not be available to attack.

The Russians send in escorted Ground Support aircraft since the unit is a crucial corner stone of the northern front. The Germans are happy to reciprocate with their fighters seeking air supremacy in this area.

[Chocolino]

However the air combat ends with all planes cleared through and the Russian adding their ground support. Luckily the support received is reduced by rain.

[Chocolino]

The Russians also try to beef up the defense of Brest with escorted ground support. Again the Germans intercept and get a better result. They can destroy another Russian fighter and come closer to their goal of air supremacy.

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The remaining Russian bomber at Brest aborts when confronted with the Luftwaffe and the ground attacks start.

Brest is taken but to the German disappointment all attackers became disorganized.

Unfortunately the HQ of v.Bock got exited and carried away and participated in the attack (because of a Ctrl Click all units did get selected - didn't want the HQ to attack) and is now disorganized as well.

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To make matters worse the attack on the Russian Elite Mech in Lithuania is just a 2-1 because of the
successful Russian ground support and the rain. To the surprise of the Germans they do get away
relatively easy (disorganized, no unit loss, bad enough I guess) but the Russian unit is destroyed since
it is lacking a retreat hex.

This rips the front here wide open. But there are no organized German units left that are able to exploit it.

[Chocolino]

Here the Germans make the decision to use v. Leeb and v. Rundstedt to reorganize some of their units - especially since v. Bock disorganized himself already by accident. Then we can use the Offensive Chit to re-organize all HQs if needed.

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V. Rundstedt's reorg:

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This ends the 3rd Impusle

Turn 1 / Impulse 4:

The Russians select a land action as well, do no air strikes and just move units from the quiet Ukraine north plus some air re-bases (see next post for final situation after Russian move). They are also desperate enough to use Yeremenko's HQ to reorganize some Russian reserves in Minsk and hope they can plug their holes with these fresh troops. The Russians are scratching the barrel....