TXX Events

[larryfulkerson]

It's now T29 round 2 and this is what the Moscow area looks like right now. Supply levels are great and Elmer is railing more and more troops to this AO making it harder than ever to gain a hex by attacking. And the Soviets are counterattacking seriously. More than once I've seen a Soviet unit evaporate during their attack. In the upper left of the image you can find the Axis unit that is cherry red, the 110th Infantry Division. He got ambushed by three large stacks of Soviet units and held on for four consequtive Soviet attacks and is down to 83 of 306 HRS's. The unit still has 2 movement points remaining which may allow it to step into the hex to it's NW and get on the rail hex, ready to move out next turn. I'm going to ship that unit and it's associated HQ to Berlin to award them a Presidential Unit Medal and a bronze cross for all the survivors. And give them whatever rest time they may need to fill up again. I backed him out of his ambush hex and I need to find somebody to guard the spot he occupies to enable him to leave the hex he's in right now.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what the Leningrad area look like right now. I'm just on the verge of riddidng this pocket of Soviet survivors. I've been trying to get them to just surrender but the infantry unit and engineer unit that remain insist on defending to the death. So fine. I'll bombard them with arty and allow my tanks to run them over. Then set fire to the area and bombard it one more time. Then seed their fields with salt.
I'm in a bad mood, I admit. I'm pushing east but I think it might be appropriate to just find some good defensive positions and dig in and hold what I've got and let everybody rest, refuel, and refit. I've got units that are in pieces and I need to put them back together. The weather is getting worse, it's very cloudy, almost overcast, and the air is turning cooler. You can see your breath when you exhale. Not everybody has their gloves and white winter uniforms are rare. Supply can't quite keep up with specific needs. The troops are starting to build fire pits to warm their hands. Units on the front lines are rotating so that the troops can have a hot meal in the rear. Morale is still good.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is the area north of Kharkov, what it looks like right now. I'm thinking of advancing to the blue line, that shallow river, and then build a front line and just hold what I've got until after the Soviet Winter Offensive. I suppose I could retreat to the next river to the west but I'd rather not give up ground I've finely finished fighting over.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what the Rostov area looks like right now. I'm thinking of advancing to the blue line, and then build a front line and just hold what I've got until after the Soviet Winter Offensive. It's going to disappoint me if I can't get there within say, 5 turns. I've got about 6 more Romanian divisions headed this way to help out and I'm keeping the Italians and Slavs busy clearing the coast. I'm hopeing to be able to turn the Bulgarians loose. Cross your fingers.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what the Kharkov area looks like right now. I'm thinking of advancing to the blue line, and then build a front line and just hold what I've got until after the Soviet Winter Offensive. I've already reached it in some places. So maybe the action will taper off in this AO for a while. The repaired rail reaches Kharkov and passes through so the supply levels are great. The weather hasn't been much of a problem so far.

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[golden delicious]

While the super rivers are attractive places to draw a line because;
1) They're an easy visual guide on the map and
2) They do present the attacker with a penalty when attacking from a river hex
3) They tend to present more road/rail bottlenecks

It's important to bear in mind that they won't block supply and movement during the Soviet Winter offensive as they'll be frozen- even this far south. As you won't want to just tough it out in your forward positions (as you'd be annihilated) this will be a real problem. Better to draw a short line and use rough ground, or minor rivers where available. Frozen river and frozen super river have the same effects.

[larryfulkerson]

It's now T30 round 2 and this is the area just east of Orel. I've thrust one of my recon units deep into the Soviet backfield and I'm going to try to drive him south to cut off most of the Soviet supply source from a large group of Soviet units. I've tried busting bridges but this works faster.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T30 round 4 and this is what it looks like around Moscow right now. Notice how deep Elmer is arranging his defenders. Lots of Soviet arty on that second row on the SW edge of the front lines. I need to attack somewhere where he doesn't have so much arty. I hate attacking into the face of opposing arty fire. About 1/2 of my bombers are resting and 99% of my fighters are on line; supply is good; the weather is getting worse...another cold front moved into the AO this turn. I finally cleaned out all the enemy units in the Leningrad area and I captured Odessa at long last. Gained one more hex at Sevastopol with heavy losses on both sides. So far so good.

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[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd scope out where the expected reinforcements will spawn to see what I need to capture yet.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T31 round 1 and this is what the Rostov area looks like right now. I'm surrounding a couple of Soviet unit groups and I'm attacking them to make them go away. I want to advance to east of Rostov and then dig in along the shallow river to the east.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T31 round 2 and this is what the Kalinin area looks like right now. I've exceeded where I wanted to dig in just because I like attacking rather than defending but I need to stop attacking in this AO and just dig in and hold what I have instead.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T31 round 4 and I finally captured Tula. I'm not sure what that does to Soviet production but I think it reduces it by 5% if captured by a specific turn. I let you know what it is when I find out myself.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T31 round 4 and this is what the Moscow area looks like right now. You may notice that I've scooted a tiny bit closer to the city but it's hard going to get through the wooded areas. I've lost 34.3K HRS's so far; there are 19.8K HRS's assigned and I have 666 HRS's on hand. The number of HRS's assigned is way way too low to make me comfortable...I've really got to stop attacking and soon.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is the Soviet losses so far. They don't have any Rifle Squads on hand....that may mean that I'm killing them faster than they are building them. If so that's a good sign.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is the T32 news panel.

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[larryfulkerson]

Lemme tell you a war story about a job I used to have many years ago. I moved to Washington D.C. in the mid-1980's to work for a three-initial government organization. They hired me because at the time I was one of the best computer programmers in the world. They put me to work on several programs at once to do maintenance and add new functions. I loved working there. I lived in Virginia and had to commute to work every morning by getting up at 05:00 or so in order to be there by 06:30. I got there that early because I was working overtime, lots of overtime. At any rate I was there for about 11 years or so and earned promotions that made me a GS 13 step 3 by approx. 1999 or so. A policy change came down from on high that "the company" was in the process of moving all the workerbees out into the "field" and out of Washington. Lots of people just retired rather than move but the rest of us had to compete for any openings that occured in the "field" offices. One opening was in Cincinnatti, OH and I applied for it. At noon the next day I was informed that I had been accepted for that opening and to pack my stuff and repair to OH. So on a Friday morning I left for Ohio and moved to an apartment building in Aurora, IN. which is just across the border from Cinn. I discovered that I was working for a GS 6 "manager" doing very very low level work. I noticed several things that needed, badly needed, to be changed. I made a list and went to the "manager" to "make suggestions". He was a brain dead mammal and refused to make any changes at all. So I dropped my campaign for changes. About a week later, the situation left me the only worker present for that unit when my boss's boss happened to drop by and introduced himself and asked me how I liked my job. I made the mistake of telling him the truth. I started my tirade with "I'm not impressed." He sat down to listen and I brought out my list and went through it with him with about a dozen things I thought could be done better. I gave him the list and he said he would go over what I had suggested and get back to me. He never did by the way. At any rate my "manager" soon received an email from his boss containing much of what I had revealed to him. My boss recconized the verbage as coming from ME. He called me into his office and gave ME the task of fixing all the things that needed changing. One of the things that were wrong was the fact that just after the "pass the baton" meeting we had with the crew going offshift all my coworkers, including the "manager", would go to the cantina and play cards for several hours leaving me in the unit to answer the phone. If I called in sick for any reason that would leave nobody in the unit to answer the phone for several hours. And there was obviously no way I could "fix" that problem. So I read the tea leaves and quit to work as a consultant instead. And I'm not the only one treated this way. Your tax dollars at work.

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[StuccoFresco]

Yeah, kinda standard practice in every military in the world, it seems.

[Cpl GAC]

No worries - go get Voronezh.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T33 round 1 and here's a movie to show how badly the supply levels have fallen off and the weather has turned nasty and this is what it looks like in the area just east of Leningrad right now. I've ceased attacking for the most part and a significant portion of my force is in reorg and running out of supply. I would pull my aircraft back to better supply areas but too many of them are in reorg.

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[larryfulkerson]

I finally got your joke. Excellent.

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