As for the combat, as I said previously - Moscow stil holds out. Troops there are reportedly happy and quite content to not venture out into the freezing open countryside. As of the first two months of the blizzard, the fall back to my fortified lines (note - lines might only be fortified in the disturbed mind of the poster), has meant that there has been no real threat to the former Soviet capital. Festung Moskau is secure for the time being.
Note, units along the line are seeing the return of troops - my slow fall back here has meant that the "damaged" squads are getting back in line along with new units to replace the disabled casualties. Right now, a 3 CV unit is a godsend, and Moscow has them all around.
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"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
I have spoken about this before, but here is a good example of what I mean. Panzers in a city/urban are not just sitting back drinking schnapps and watching the latest newsreel of glorious victories, they are also ready to jump out and smash spearheads at a moment's notice.
Here, the panzers of the 2nd Panzer Group in Kharkov attacked an armored brigade and the units behind it, clearing out a 2-hex long spearhead of pesky Soviets. The brigade was shattered, and the others retreated. This can't be done all the time, but keeping armor in cities/urban near the front can often make life rough for the reds.
-edit - don't try this at home unless you are sure they can get back to their starting point. Also, they will need to rest (perhaps) for a turn after this so the damaged squads can recover.
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"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
Here I planned to hold firm, well, as firm as a jello-mold in July, but I was determined to hold that.
I had the line of Stalino as an ultimate fall back, but the far south had 2 mountain divisions, and the 3 romanian mountain brigades. Divided into regiments, the mountain divisions can hold a wider range at quite impressive CV in the blizzard, the Romanians go from weak and puny things to supermen in the snow.
This allowed me to fall back north of the tri-cities, but very slowly and tenaciously directly east of Stalino. I have still not reached my fall back line (roughly the Mius river), and the units there are gaining strength. Stalino should hold all winter unless I do something stupid...wait, why is everyone looking at me that way?
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"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
As can be seen, the first two months of blizzard means lots of men no longer able to fight. Still, it is not as bas as it might be, as combat casualties have been low.
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"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
The last month of blizzard is a time of contrasts. Some units are getting healthier, some are just fading away. Squad levels are getting better and better, manpower is returning to the units - but some units are hurt and determined to stay that way. I can't rotate many of these out of the line, and so I want March to come soon.
One problem - east of Kharkov the rubber band has finally started to snap. It seems he doesn't have a lot of reserves in the region, but I have none. It is a race to the snow. The picture below doesn't really do justice to the potential problem.
Oh well, it has mostly been gravy so far.
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"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
All in all, I think I have done alright so far in the blizzard. I will come out of the snow with maybe 3.2 million men. Add in the Romanians, Finns, and Hungarians and I still outnumber the Soviets!
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"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
Just...two...more...turns...
Well, it looks like I will survive, but in some places the candidates for eventual "60% TOE" have been decided by the winter. All of this will take place over the mud, but now the Axis army is ready to break out the speedos and frolic in the upcoming snow! Snowcones for everyone!
The troops are quite happy by the impending warmer weather, having been forbidden to relieve themselves all winter due to my learning that many deaths resulted from "bodily functions." They are quite tense and upset. March will be the month of latrines!
Now, I just need to not lose Moscow in the last two weeks of blizzard...
"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
This is really rather impressive. I would've never thought Moscow would hold through winter. I think you should try and just keep a little corridor open to Moscow, and next turn begin railing units towards Moscow for a potential counterattack during snow if it looks like you can hold out. Hell, even if he encircles it on the last turn of winter, you may still be able to break back through in first turn of snow, and at that point he's got a lot of forward units in very prime positioning for you to push him back.
Well played sir, my hat is off to you. Considering you outnumber the Soviets, this may be the first game we see with a viable 1942 potential.
@PDH. Could you give an idea of the number of attacks the Sovs were making each turn during the blizzard - I don't get the impression that it was the 80+ we saw in previous AARs.
No, it wasn't nearly that amount. We are using your proposed house rule, and the state of unreadiness plus my pull back meant that there were very few attacks in December (11 Dec saw a total of 8 attacks, for instance) - I had routed 50-70 units in the snow and those effects were felt.
More recently, with fewer fronts attacking but more readiness, I have seen more attacks. 1/1/42 Saw 25 deliberate attacks with 8 holds. Feb 19 saw 21 attacks, 6 holds.
All in all, my winter has been light. Cpt Flam has said he has 1.2 million men in the manpower pool. I know that I captured all of Stalino's armaments before they were evacuated (no blame to him, I made a 200-mile penetration), so I think that he has suffered from armaments bottlenecks since then. This, combined with the fact that I focused on making a large portion of his army unready/routed right before blizzard helped me to no end.
Combine all those with my willingness to retreat 6-8 hexes in many places the first month and a half of blizzard, and I limited the damage to myself.
"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
Do you think the house rules were over-generous to you?
I based them on my test game with Speedy, in which the soviets had not got beaten up to the same degree as in your game, and I could make 80+ attacks easily, so I pro-rated the front numbers to that baseline.
I think your AAR shows the template for future games, and clearly shows that the the better you do before the blizzard, the better you will do during the blizzard. There are a lot of similarities to my game with Trey except you got all of Moscow, and I only got 1 hex.
Yes, I think that the house rule made it far easier on me. I focused not only on destroying units, but in the snow turns actively harming/routing units. Had there not been the house rules, according to Cpt Flam, December would still have been very mild - he was just too unready in too many places, units still routed, and I had room to retreat from obvious ready and menacing stacks.
Part of the problem so far with winters has been both the newness of the game (this was only my 3rd PBEM winter, maybe my 8th overall including AI), and the problems that show up time and again with running the Germans well in 1941. When December comes for many, the Soviets are either far too unhurt or conversely the Axis does not have fall back room.
I am of the mindset (as I have said here before) that I am going to lose ground anyway in the blizzard. If the Soviets can, in part, stymie the Germans by well executed fall-backs, the the Germans should do that as well. Still, if the German player finds Blizzard upon them and they are in stuck somewhere slightly east of Smolensk and not to the Donets cities...well, the point is moot.
The thing that strikes me again and again is that I did not run a perfect campaign here, far from it. However, I wanted to hold the initiative and strike where I could over and over - this allowed me to reach the lines that I did. I am sure my tactics would horrify many. Often I broke through multiple lines with corps-sized stacks of tanks/motorized, and my attrition in the Panzer Corps was very high. Still, it is my play style and it worked here.
"...the better you do before the blizzard, the better you will do during the blizzard" should be the mantra of all Axis players.
"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
Ok, the worst feeling in the world is jonesing for a turn - especially when you know it is too late where your opponent is to get one sent to you! I want winter over, and it still has time. [:)]
"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
Last turn of blizzard sent. Now, if Cpt Flam decides to do nothing, I am in the clear!
Moscow will hold - well, barring the worst set of die rolls in history. This comes from the man that attacked the Dutch in Third Reich at 2-1 odds, rolled a "5" for counter attack 1-1, the Dutch rolled a "6" to elimintate all the attackers...
The 3rd and 4th Panzers have spent much of the winter in Moscow and surrounding cities, shortly they will have to venture out into the warm March snow to try and help out. We are playing with Bob's house rules, so I only get one army group to attack with next turn. Both panzer groups are in the Center...so that might be decided...
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"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
In the far south, I am proud of my boys. They have done so well I plan to let them storm a well defended major city sometime in 1942.
The best place to defend, given how I ended up, and the losses here were the smallest. In front of Rostov, only 20 miles were lost. Voroshilovgrad saw losees of perhaps 70 miles. The problem child is north of the Donets, where there has been a lot of ground lost. Here, had my weakness been known earlier, I would have had to lose all my snow-attack ability because it was that dire. As it is, once I am free to do so, the 1st Panzer is ready to spring out.
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"The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."
