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Rundstedt, one more thing about trapping enemy units: As was said before, in order to cut off Russian armies it is not necessary to surround the whole pocket with your units, because the hexes your (panzer) korps' passed through stay german-controlled. However, if there are unoccupied hexes around the pocket it is normally easy for the trapped forces to just plot their way back to supplied hexes. But in 1941 Russian units, due to poor coordination and organization and low readiness often do not follow plotted orders. This is a rule you should make use of. Just take your panzer korps' and cut off as many Russian units as possible and depend upon the fact that they will be too "stupid" to make it back to russian territory even if there are no German forces to hold them back.

We found that often the panzers during blitzkreig had to wait several turns for supply to catch up, making it almost impossible to reach Moscow before winter, unless you wanted to leave a trail of tanks behind you. The increase for rail only lasts during blitzkreig.
Also the effects for blizzard left the German player entirely too weak to even try to mount any kind of Operation Blau in the spring of 42 unless the Soviet player went completely mad and replicated the disasterous spring Kharkov offensive. The effects of the blizzard is suppose to the severest during December and lessen after the first of the year to simulate some winter gear making to the front.
Those changes alone won't make it to easy for the German player to win, but will give them an opportunity to do so.

Originally posted by Rundstedt:
If you lower the blizzard effect and increase the availability of the Russian railroad net for the Germans, won't it become too easy for the Germans to win? But then again, who am I to argue...

Regards, Rundstedt

Originally posted by Micha:
Rundstedt, one more thing about trapping enemy units: As was said before, in order to cut off Russian armies it is not necessary to surround the whole pocket with your units, because the hexes your (panzer) korps' passed through stay german-controlled.

Nearby Soviet units can, in their turn, move over your panzer corps path and cut it off. This doesn't happen much at first because of the penalties the Soviets are working under. As the Germans you have something close to a free lunch between 22/6/41 and 9/41. After that things get harder, so an unsupported panzer corps will find itself being constantly cut off from supply. You have to support the panzers and you need to defend the flanks of the breakthrough opening (depending on the presence and strength of nearby enemy units).

[ July 28, 2001: Message edited by: Ed Cogburn ]

Thanks for the advice!

Regards, Rundstedt