Directive 21 ( FITE mod w/ Soviet PO )

[SMK-at-work]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

my Brandenburgers are all over hte place cutting rail lines up to 20 hexes ahead of any other troops - there really needs to be some mechanism to require them to be recalled

I've been doing the same thing, it doesn't seem quite fair to Elmer. Four thoughts I've had : either remove them from the scenario (that's no fun), give them 0 trucks which reduces their full movement from 31 to 16, combine them into one 'regiment' so there can only be three of them if broken down, or at some point remove them from the scenario to be reorganised as part of the Brandenburg Division (which I think didn't fight on the East Front but appeared in the Balkans sometime in 1944). Any other thoughts?

How about making them really, really small...so that they are easily destroyed & have to be rebuilt?

Wiki says they often operated in detachments of only 20-60 men in Red Army uniforms & equipment - so make them small enough so that they get wiped out if caught - as they would have been!

This might encourage the German player to use them only far enough ahead of the main body that they can be reinforced the same turn.

[sPzAbt653]

How about making them really, really small...

That's a good idea, but it's difficult to keep them small and still have a reasonable recon ability. On the left is the original, on the right is a 'small' example.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm sort of following a house rule from FITE:  no air drops more than 10 hexes away from friendly land troops.  After they drop I can move them as far as they will go of course.  I use them for recon, short term front line "place holders", and to finish the surround on units I'm pretty sure will be gone after all the attacks are done for the turn.  They have pretty good mobility and retreat before combat ( which probably saves their lives ) so I'm using them for tasks they weren't "designed" for I guess.  I guess it's gamey of me to use AA guns, MP units, and AT guns to finish the surround on a unit that I'm trying to kill but hey......this is a game after all.  I'm less interested in what a unit is designed to do and more interested in what the unit CAN do. 

[SMK-at-work]

I didn't drop them - I just marched them forwards through gaps.

sPz - looks better - I don't know what the fighting value of those squads & vehicles are but I presume the vehicles are more brittle than the squads?

[sPzAbt653]

I don't know about the brittleness, I was just throwing something out there for consideration. I like the ability to airdrop them, as the 'Burgers and the Abwehr dropped small forces thruout the campaign. But for the purpose of this scenario, might the 'G' icon be better suited? They can't drop, but they can be small, and they don't convert hexes by moving thru them. The way those units are configured now, the idea of 20-60 men converting 150km of road in 3-4 days seems kinda goofy.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

I don't know about the brittleness, I was just throwing something out there for consideration. I like the ability to airdrop them, as the 'Burgers and the Abwehr dropped small forces thruout the campaign. But for the purpose of this scenario, might the 'G' icon be better suited? They can't drop, but they can be small, and they don't convert hexes by moving thru them. The way those units are configured now, the idea of 20-60 men converting 150km of road in 3-4 days seems kinda goofy.

As I understand it, they do convert hexes -- it just happens after the opposing player's turn...or something. At any rate, unless there's been a change I didn't notice, giving the Brandenburgers a 'guerrilla' icon won't keep them from converting hexes.

[sPzAbt653]

...giving the Brandenburgers a 'guerrilla' icon won't keep them from converting hexes.

They don't stay converted, which means they have a different dynamic than a 'special forces' icon, which is the same thing you said, but in different words, I think. I wonder where Victor weighs in on the Brandenburg units in this scenario?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
As I understand it, they do convert hexes -- it just happens after the opposing player's turn...or something. At any rate, unless there's been a change I didn't notice, giving the Brandenburgers a 'guerrilla' icon won't keep them from converting hexes.

I've found that I can use the 'G' units to convert hexes if a special procedure is used when moving them. First move the unit into a new hex and then go to a different unit and then come back to the 'G' unit. The hex will have been converted to your friendly control. Then you can move the 'G' unit into another hex and go to a different unit and then come back to your 'G' unit and the hex will have been converted. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the situation in the Leningrad area. It's past turn 40 so I figured I could use the Finns to attack just so long as they didn't attack into any Leningrad hex(s).

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the situation near Moscow. I'm slowly but surely sneaking up on the Moscow surburbs. We may even get to attack M. this year ( 1941 ).

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the situation looks like in the south. I'm slowly but surely sneaking up on Stalingrad as well. I don't know what the PO is holding it with yet so I hesitate to just try to move my engineer unit into the Stalingrad hex. I could get him killed trying that.

[larryfulkerson]

Well.......Leningrad finally fell. I think I'll try to capture Moscow now.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines as of the start of Axis turn 50

[larryfulkerson]

As you can see from the above post, I'm running around in the southern part of Russia with various units and come across only the occasional Soviet unit. I'm sneaking up on various valuable cities even as we speak. Here's a shot of me near Tula:

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a shot of my Axis elements sneaking up on Krasnodar:

[larryfulkerson]

I walked onto Stalingrad with my engineer unit....now I just have to hold it for the entire Soviet turn.

[larryfulkerson]

I somehow skipped Soviet turn 50 and then thought I'd just skip Axis turn 51 to compensate but then the Soviets got a double turn advantage and it looked like a severe turn of events and I thought it would be better to just start over with the newest version of Directive 21, which you can download at this url:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nbmgnmz2j ... ive 21.zip

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd attack the Soviets on a relatively broad front with three major axes aiming at first for (1) Riga / Leningrad, (2) Minsk / Smolensk, and (3) Kiev / Tula. With the Romanians and Hungarians and Slovak troops aimed at Odessa when they become active.

[larryfulkerson]

Now a word about the air war: From the losses picture below you can see that the round 1 Axis air strike was the most cost effective and the steady lessening of cost effectiveness with each successive round. After the third round the Axis planes were at 33% readiness and I thought it best to rest them so there were only three airfield strikes attempted of the six combat rounds that were obtained in turn 1.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Soviet losses total from turn 1: