Matrix Games Forums

April 23

The calm before the storm.

A taster of my May 7 turn which I have not finished yet and may not be able to do until this evening.

Operation Pacman




I know that one is supposed to cut the base of the salient before wiping out the trapped defenders, but I did it the other way round. the no.1 is where a 22CV pz xxx was, 2 and 3 12CV inf xxxs, all dug in for months. The much-maligned red airforce bombed the panzers about 16 times then the Red Army whacked it until it retreated ?? on the 4th attack. Kindly, it retreated or 3 times along the back of the inf xxx until it shattered. Mech xxxs ensured that corps 2 had no retreat path and only 2 attacks later it surrendered. Rinse and repeat for no.3.Having checked the combats, this inf xxx also folded on the 2nd attack. Every attack had 1 unit with hvy art and included inf armies which means that my armour is in v. good shape given what it has achieved. It need to be because I only have 6 trucks left and no more until July. I thought about spending another point on infiltrator, but decided against for now, and I didn't need it. I still have 3 points in the bank.

I suspect that at least some of sveint's reserves on the rail line will be panzers, but all my forward xxx have points to get back to safety when I can get back to the game.

You did it the right way. The conventional solution of attacking the base ignores terrain.

You are in fact doing this the Soviet way: deep battle doctrine, echelon attacks supported by massive reserves. None of the German kesselschlacht crap. Leave that nonsense for the panzer pushers. The Red Army has its own ideas. And you are doing it in the right place, this is the best killing ground on the map for you. You can grind the Germans to powder here unimpeded by rivers.

I'd be wary of exploiting too deeply here or leaving your mech forward. Pull them back and replace them with fresh reserves. Infantry ought to be able to get up there.

Taking ground is very secondary to grinding the Germans. The idea here is to exhaust his reserves.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the Soviet war doctrine from 1943 until the end of war. A ruthless pounding of the german lines until their final obliteration. A doctrine made without even a single thought about the welfare of the troops involved...on both sides. Cruel, but in the end really effective.
Actually we could call it "Trench Warfare 2: The revenge"

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I'd be wary of exploiting too deeply here or leaving your mech forward. Pull them back and replace them with fresh reserves. Infantry ought to be able to get up there.

Already done before I read this - honestly

In retrospect I think Sveint made a mistake here in passively waiting your attacks. In his place I would have attacked first and gotten the drop in this very same area. Now you have gained the initiative on him and he is going to be hard pressed to get it back.

That's like two full turns of production you wiped off the map with just the Soviets. Add to that whatever the allies can do and the Axis cannot take this sort of pounding for very long.

Having 3 panzer corps in North Africa is a luxury for him now. It was ugly down there for the poor Brits, but in the end you made it possible for the Soviets to bring Big Red online.

I checked the combats and it only took 3 attacks to retreat the panzers and only 2 turns for each of the inf xxx to surrender so I did quite a bit better than I had thought. That should worry sveint a little.

I pulled back a bit to avoid a similar loss of units from c/attack. I won't mind sveint coming after me now.




The numbers are the same as on the previous map above, to make it easier to compare. Inf and armour reinforcements arrive.

To cap a Red Letter turn for the USSR, the 1 tac bomber left in the north goes further north to get one bite at the Kriegsmarine in harbour. The US battlefleet failed to find the same ships.



Elsewhere, in N Africa, I wait for sveint to pull troops out before going back on offence.

3 invasion fleets sit in the Bay of Biscay considering their options. I decided at the last minute not to do anything more because of the 25% chance of bad weather next turn.

21 May
A bit of a slugging match in Russia - not much to see, but I did take Ploesti.

I bought the cav xxx when I thought the rule was still a captured oilfield took 1 year to produce. Tests showed that was wrong, but I'd got the cav. so thought I might as well use it in a futile gesture, and it will make sveint keep another unit in Romania.



Heavy rain in the Atlantic prevented play in western Europe

That is dirty, lol.

Note to Axis players: always garrison Constanta, Ploesti, AND Bucharest. I do.

What does cav even land with in terms of MPs? If you had 3 points I would have gone for Bucharest and knocked Romania out of the war right there. But if the game only gives you 2 MPs like regular infantry then Ploesti raid it is.

I don't think this is a futile gesture at all, you're keeping him honest and forcing him to stop slacking on his garrisons, plus it is going to cost him 2 turns of oil production. The cav unit is expendable.

Sveint has a bad tendency to undergarrison and this is hardly the first time he's been caught with his pants down.

Note that scorched earth for oilfields only applies to Soviet oilfields, not any others. The rest of them get captured intact.

Sorry, Flavius but you are wrong about KO'ing Romania. Cav do have 3 OP after lading but this is as far as they can get. I did the Bucharest and Ploesti thing in our previous game ( B on T1 then moved to P T2) when sveint had left the port due E of Bucharest unguarded. However that isn't enough. You also have to take the town just N of Ploesti. As far as I know it's just the 2 cities you have to take to get a surrender. Sadly it is not possible to take that northern town from any invasion hex with any type of unit.



Hex 1 (hard to see but where the 8-0 mech is) is the site of the graveyard of another pz xxx. Hex 2 is annoying because another pz xxx failed to shatter after being attacked at 17:1 odds after already having lost 25 points. They lost 3 more. but Kesselring was able to get the last 2 points to retreat [:@]. Worth a try by the now 8-0 mech though as it overran some tac bombers en route. It does have a retreat route unless sveint wants to stick an inf xxx into the lions' den. I have too much respect for my opponent to risk a back-handed blow. There is a lot of summer left and grinding him down is the top priority. His dilemma is that if he retreats, he will lose the protection of some of his river lines, as well as his forts.

2 pleasing features for me. My ground units benefit not only from fighting but also from losing casualties. The armour almost all started this offensive at 35% experience. Casualty replacements come in at 49% now so they get a double exp. bonus. Same for the inf. Nice.

The other is the performance of the Red Air force. Locally, they now outnumber the LW by 20 units to 8 (after the tac bombers disappeared). Even better, looking at the combat results, the casualty ratio is now 1:1 which I can keep up forever.

My cavalry xxx is isolated but moves to Ploesti.

The western allies are now launching their invasion. It won't be an easy one to pull off and there's a chance that it will end in tears. Advancing in the western desert again to discourage sveint to reduce his forces there.

Well, that is good to know for future reference. Because if Galati is left uncovered, it can be taken with a paratrooper from the Crimea. I had thought that Bucharest alone would do it.

North Africa

We threaten but no more yet

I thought that this would work in 2 turns - at least I hoped I would be able to do it in 2 turns.......



First step was to bomb Cardiff and to send warships round to clear out any possible enemy air cover over the battleground. That went well, and in particular his bombers took quite a few casualties for no return.

Next the US inf xx had to land to clear out the minefield so I could land on the south coast of Wales. Every bomber in range thendumped their loads on Cardiff, including the 2 carrier groups which had been held back from chasing the german warships being a bit impolite on the Arctic convoy route. Then the US para and tank. The latter only had 1 MP left after moving up. I gave the UK ind HA, and the US inf xxx the first infiltrator trait ever for me. I like to think that that clever idea was the cause of the Yugoslav elite corps fleeing after my 2nd, and last possible, attack. Luckily the US xxx had 1 MP left so could enter Cardiff.

PHEW!

This gives me a UK supply source in the UK again. This will make it so much easier to build up enough troops and airpower (with the US fighters and all the tac bombers able to remain in Ireland with its 15 port factors) to force sveint to leave our green and pleasant land and to return to the netherhells from whence he came.

Events in Russia will make it hard for him to divert significant forces from there, so he might have to sacrifice N Africa. It's all about that rubber band...............................

Whatever he does, he's not going to make my life easy.

Slapping an AT advancement on paratroopers is such a neat idea that I am going to steal that.

June 18

Nothing spectacular. Consolidating the hold on Wales, and more allied aircraft (not all visible on screenshot) are all ready for a push next turn, when both UK and US HQs will land. Again, naval and air force units run interference to allow safe disembarking at Cardiff. UK manpower goes up from 3 to 5 per turn. I have been disbanding some garrisons in far flung places. A second large wave of US troops starts crossing the Atlantic now there are spare transports.




Perhaps more significantly, every Axis-held port will be under naval or bomber interdiction. Hoping that this will ensure a degradation of his supplies. He has a lot of troops in the UK so a reduction of supplies should start hurting his readiness.

Russia




Sveint did sacrifice that inf xxx to kill my mech xxx. I also lost an inf army, though I think that was somewhere else. Apart from killing the inf xxx, 2 pz xxx were also smacked about for a total of 20 points lost so honours are about even for the turn. This suits me as my total economy is twice his. His armour at the Smolensk land bridge is in trouble, with 7 more turns before bad weather. The arrival of 100 soviet trucks helps my armour to recover.

In Romania, my cav xxx had been kicked out of Ploesti, but it was able to gallop back in in my turn. £ turns without production is 50% more than I hoped for.

Hopefully next turn will be more exciting for my fan, if I have one...............

2 July '43

Too many armour units too weak to do anything apart from 1 failed attack. 80 more trucks this turn help as I rested the troops and diverted pretty much all production on refit. Manpower on 92% and won't be a problem ever.

A rare treat - the sight of a Soviet build queue




Expect to be concentrating on refit while the good weather holds, then during the bad weather building more offensive weapons ready for May '42. Nothing I start to build now will be any use before then.

UK
A turn largely for reinforcing and tightening the naval blockade. 30th Armour pushes over the R. Avon at it's mouth and eliminates a Spanish inf xxx. Lots of trucks used, but I have lots and lots because UK production has to be focused on stuff that doesn't use manpower. Next batch of Yanks now in range to land next turn.

Oswald Mosley is likely on pins and needles right now. Everything looked so promising a year ago. But then USA to the rescue.