Workshop for the new guys - Directive 21 (D21)

[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like around Smolensk right now. The fighting is bitter and the front lines are fluid and changing
and lots of units are moving to and fro.

[larryfulkerson]

Just across the Dneper heading NE the 12th Panzer Division has just about run out of bullets, fuel, and ideas. They are
in a relatively quiet part of the front lines for the moment at least and they are holding down the frontage it would
ordinarily take three or four divisions to hold. There's a severe shortage of units and it's going to bite me in the
butt one of these turns.

[jjdenver]

Thanks for the AAR Larry, this will be nice so I can compare my progress to see if I'm doing ok.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: jjdenver
Thanks for the AAR Larry, this will be nice so I can compare my progress to see if I'm doing ok.

You can compare your progress with mine but don't take my progress as the standard because I'm
not a very good player, I just tend to post a lot. I'd love to hear news of your progress.
What turn are you on?

[larryfulkerson]

Also, don't emulate what I'm doing. I've got Panzer units interspersed with regular leg infantry and the
cooperation between units isn't the best there is. I need to get organized and put the formations back
together and stop this interspersed nonsense. It got that way because I've had to put out brushfires
several times so far. The nearest unit to plug a hole sometimes had to be a different colored unit and
they have gotten severely mixed up the way they are now.

[larryfulkerson]

I've got one unit of a formation selected and I've zoomed out and turned on the track for that one formation and you
can see that moving the units by hand has gotten the formation off it's intended track and if I was going to use
Elmer to move my units I would first need to adjust the track to pass through the position they hold right now and
then switching over to Elmer would work fine. Not adjusting the track and using Elmer would cause this formation
to abandon what they are doing and take up objectives on the track instead.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the way I've adjusted the track to pass through the area where the formation is now and switching to Elmer for
movement would work just fine.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a close up showing the track passing through the hex the unit is in currently.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm moving the units in OOB order so on the second and subsequent rounds I can use the OOB to find the next unit that
has movement points remaining in order to either dig it in or move it more in order to zero out it's movement points
so that I can skip over the units that can't move anymore and move the ones that can. The game plays faster when I
do it this way. I don't have to make decisions for those units that can't move anymore and can skip the time consuming
steps to see what to do with the unit on future rounds.

[larryfulkerson]

I just repaired a bridge over a river and I'm expecting the supply level to rise now that the supply can flow
freely. Some supply is arriving from the north however, and there's a small level of supply there already.

[larryfulkerson]

I messed up somehow. I've got recon units all bottled up in a pockket when I need to have them racing around the
countryside doing recon. The was it is now they are pressed into service holding a spot on the front lines and
that's just wrong. I need to replace them with a regular leg infantry formation and get them back into the recon
business.

[larryfulkerson]

Meanwhile, down south the tidal wave sweeps east toward the Dneper River, sweeping the valley between the rivers clear of
enemy units and fixing bridges and converting hexes. I'll be up to the river to the east in another couple of turns.

[larryfulkerson]

I've gained a couple of hexes at Odessa but I want to avoid the high losses so I'm waiting on the assault while the arty
bombards the defenders. I've had a few strikes on their arty from my longer ranged arty and it's helping.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's happening above Leningrad. The Finns are pushing hard and there's been heavy losses but the Soviets are
slowly being moved backward.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on around Smolensk right now. The Germans are pressing east and the Soviets are fighting to stay put.
The fighting is sharp and bitter. No units have evaporated yet but I expect some soon, of either side.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines in T16 before I have moved anybody.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what Kiev looks like now. I'm still holding them in and every once in a while I'll launch a probe to see what
the response will be and it's usually a lot of Soviet arty in the mix so there's been no serious assaulting yet so as
to hold down the losses. I'm hoping to have some units on the east side of the river sometime soon but it's looking
iffy that that's going to happen anytime soon. We're still fighting for the river crossings and roads and rails and
it's a hard struggle but progress is slowly being made.

[larryfulkerson]

I've scheduled an attack at the bottleneck and I'm sure it will succeed and gaining that hex will cut off the supply for
all the Soviets west of there. They will be easier to take down if they don't have a supply source. They won't get
any replacements either so that'll help. I might just win this one after all. I'm expecting Soviet units to start
showing up to contest my possession of that area.

[larryfulkerson]

And a little further south from the above image we have the Pskov area as it is now. Lots of little battles happening
here and there. There's no real orthodox front line per se but rather little groups holding back little groups and it's
really uncomfortable for me right now about this situation. The solution is a lot more people but there's only a few
left and they are already acting as a reserve for some other area that's just as impportant. You have to weigh the
priorities and the potential losses that might result from a failure somewhere. There's no reserve for the army, no
strategic reserve and I predict that there will never be one. I'm hoping to get the Panzers to act as the reserve
for the area they are in and then distribute them throughout the front to make sure everywhere is covered. But that may
not happen now as the Panzers are on the front lines where ever they are.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a situation I need to comment about. The German Division facing the small Soviet stack has enough strength to take
the entire stack on and push them back so that's not the problem. The problem is that small stack won't RBC and I'm
going to have to attack it and the small stack is made of significant artillery supporting a small security unit and it's
going to mean losses to the Axis to attack them and probably lots of losses and I'd like to avoid that if possible so
what I need is some armor because Soviet artillery doesn't affect armor like it would troops ob their feet rushing
forward. Some armor could take care of that stack without scratching the paint but all the armor is busy doing very
important things I'm sure. Lemme take a look through the inventory to see if I can't find some unemployed armor.