We pay in Blood - HLYA (G) vs Veterin (S)

[HardLuckYetAgain]

LOL, after my sigh of relief I quickly attacked the Sec Rgmt and it too went into the Rovno pocket. That was a very strong pull of Rovno rout point! I LOVE it!

LOL Sec.png (2.05 MiB) Viewed 1158 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Now to put the finishing touches on the full pocket closure of Rovno and see if we can get a leader kill on Rokossoky. I hope not because I think it should not happen early game but that is just me.

2/25 will take out this fort area

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[HardLuckYetAgain]

1/25 will do the dirty work on the last FZ. The way will be open on full closure after this attack

last fort.png (2.32 MiB) Viewed 1154 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Now, for 11Pz to see if we get a leader kill. Again, I DO NOT want a kill, but it is nice from Hitlers point of view.

No leader kill.

As you can see 11 PZ has the MP's to close the pocket. I wont bore people with the closure but hopefully this walk through will help some German players on the Rovno pocket. Try it out! It is real easy to do and will up your game for sure as a German. I will also show the rest of the south and the capture of 12th Soviet Armor. Also congrats to Vet on having the leader live. Unlike my game with K62 where I lost 19 leaders on the 1st turn under the old patches when I played the Soviets

11 PZ.png (2.59 MiB) Viewed 1151 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

This is the End of Turn picture of the Defense of the pocket. Only a few lucky attacks can break it but I think it should hold. But you never know.

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[HardLuckYetAgain]

Here is the surround of 12th Armor of the Soviets. I was informed by Beethoven this is one of the most "powerful" if not THE most powerful armor Divisions in the Soviet army. I make sure he is not getting away in this game. This is a mid turn picture but the ring is fully shut in the final picture. The 12th Armor Div is fully shut in "without" releasing Southern front. I also lock in 34th Armor Div to the NE of 12th Armor grabbing another Armor division for their trucks.

Das Reich 1.png (618.38 KiB) Viewed 1142 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Close to final in the South. Still have some units & HQ's to move and too tired to go find the final final picture. Yes, Vet still has the turn and has yet to do the ground move but here is the picture. If he can use it then so be it. Give it a try and see if this opening works for you. Good luck & let me know what you think.

Again, Southern Front was not released with this opening.

****Also note that I have the RIVER defense on any unit attack out on the Rovno pocket. A nice bonus to this pocket too ****

Final South.png (5.64 MiB) Viewed 1138 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Here is the Northern part of the South pocket. Bet you have not seen this before. Told you I am not scared to try things others may or may not have tried. Again, this is not the FINAL FINAL but close to the end pictures I have of the moves. Many probably think I am crazy but that is ok I am.

Southnorth part.png (4.59 MiB) Viewed 1133 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Here are the Center pockets. Nothing to see here. LOL, WTF is PINK doing here? And Totenkoph? Something is NOT right in OZ.

Center.png (4.86 MiB) Viewed 1127 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Minsk and extra locked and surrounded! I am going for Soviet units turn 1! If you could not tell.

minsk.png (2.82 MiB) Viewed 1123 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Another view of Minsk. More Soviets surrounded.

minsk 2.png (2.28 MiB) Viewed 1122 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

North, all units surrounded and only the AT brigade in Kaunus was able to get away from routing from being hit too hard

North.png (5.35 MiB) Viewed 1120 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Riga fell again. My argument before I left was Riga can fall and will fall even with the new City battle rule. I fought the established thinking on this as hard to take... So far I am proven correct again. Riga taken easily. It is RNG of 22 NKVD. If it is good and ONLY if it is good will it be hard. Rarely has it been hard. If it is hard then you have to be cognitive of that and have another unit come help for the 2nd attack because of delay from "hasty" attacks. But you can get units across the river with 8MP's. Practice and figure it out and you should never be attacking across the river. You can also move your air GS forward if you need to or want to for more support. But I turn on GS interception and let my fighters take care of the GS coming in. Read 18.1.10 for more info on interception or ask away. I did not move up any bombers from looking at the CV of the hex and attack. 22 NKVD routed away

Riga.png (3.55 MiB) Viewed 1116 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Air losses for Turn 1 FINAL

I bombed airfields for fighters. I am gunning for fighters and fighters first no matter what. I also set up AS and GS interception. The results are in the image.

Air Losses Final.png (4.23 MiB) Viewed 1113 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Ground Loses.

I have 197 Soviet units surrounded if my memory serves me correctly. Roughly rounded up to 800,000 men in pockets.

Ground Losses.png (1.79 MiB) Viewed 1112 times

[Veterin]

Nice write up of T1 HLYA. This game will go at a slower pace than the one Jasonbroomer and I are playing. This will also be a fun game to play through.

I haven't digested all the detail from HLYAs t1 move but he has created some very large pockets with his herding.

Just shy of 200 units isolated with 762k manpower, 10.5k guns and 5.7k AFVs.

1.png (15.98 KiB) Viewed 1095 times

[DesertedFox]

Hi HL,

Great to see you back and your AArs are invaluable as ever. Even those other wonderful and generous souls (not sarcasm) who do write AARs, only a few give us such insight into the game mechanics + strategy, and tactics as you do.

Your comments re Riga are interesting. If I have deciphered them correctly you would prefer Riga NOT to be an almost certain capture on turn 1. For me, I don't have an issue with it falling on turn 1 for balance's sake.

Whilst I tend to agree the temp motorization is probably a tad OP, I usually go with banning it for the Russians and the Axis can use it from turn 3 on.

Turn 3 because it's too easy to capture extra Russian vehicles in the opening turns and after that, I would like the Germans to have some extra ability in 41/42 to threaten and maintain encirclements.

Interesting to see how your two current games play out.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Hi HL,

Great to see you back and your AArs are invaluable as ever. Even those other wonderful and generous souls (not sarcasm) who do write AARs, only a few give us such insight into the game mechanics + strategy, and tactics as you do.

Your comments re Riga are interesting. If I have deciphered them correctly you would prefer Riga NOT to be an almost certain capture on turn 1. For me, I don't have an issue with it falling on turn 1 for balance's sake.

Whilst I tend to agree the temp motorization is probably a tad OP, I usually go with banning it for the Russians and the Axis can use it from turn 3 on.

Turn 3 because it's too easy to capture extra Russian vehicles in the opening turns and after that, I would like the Germans to have some extra ability in 41/42 to threaten and maintain encirclements.

Interesting to see how your two current games play out.

Hiya!

I am but an insignificant contributor hoping to show my ramblings for any wanting to try them. Nothing special since there are many far greater than I.

@Riga I am pretty sure I remember Joel saying it is where it needs to be on taking. But that has been very many moons ago and I could be totally wrong in my recollection. I just know, even with City combat delay, the Germans can 99% of the time take Riga if they know what they are doing.

@Temp Motorization - Great use of temp motorization DesertedFox. I won't use it & will always rule it out or play with some serious addendums to its use in any games I play. Or try to

My game with Beethoven is to bring out things that need to be looked at by the Devs. As you can see from Tech Support https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=387769 here. It is a serious flaw in the game but we can only get results for change when blatant proof is in front of you instead of writing insignificant banter in misc forum threads that no one reads.

[DesertedFox]

Yes I read the report re the air raid.

Seems kinda ahistorical at this point in the conflict.

The air war is not my strength in WW2, but I noticed in my game the reports detailing the movement of Axis air groups to new airfields, the same as Beethoven pointed out.

Seems a bit too much intel for me.

Both sides had wireless units listening to the other side for all kinds of intel. They also had deception wireless units as well.

The Russians seem to have been very good at this as the initiative changed in their favor.

If my old memory is correct, one clear example of airfield raids was at the start of Kursk. The Russians thought they would catch the Germans napping with a preemptive raid but were detected by radar and copped a hidding from the scrambled fighters.

Off the top of my head, I am not sure what the state of German radar technology was like on the eastern front in 1941.

[DesertedFox]

One more thought.

After the initial Barbarossa opening, what was the level of airfield bombing by both sides? From my readings, I don't recall this as being of much importance as it's not mentioned. This is possibly due to the difficulty involved in obtaining a successful attack.

I may be wrong here though.