Road To Minsk

[Speedysteve]

Thanks BA

[blastpop]

I admit I am being careful playing Road to Minsk to learn as much as possible, but it is taking a quite a while to play. Of course there is the fact that my Panzers are making careful and calculated moves to bag as many Russians as possible.

I've been playing for over an hour and have not yet finished the German 1st turn. What are you folks experiencing for the first turn of the scenario and the length of the game?

[Great_Ajax]

Thats a good pocket and I see only one questionable point that I would try to test as a Soviet player and that is the slim two hex gap you have on the boundary between the two panzer groups just west of Minsk. I would recommend you try to push a couple of hexes east and knock out that 2 unit stack that I would use in the attempt. What I would try is to move one or both of those units in the 2 unit stack to gain one ZOC between the motorized division and panzer division there west of Minsk and then try to move a unit from inside the pocket to gain the ZOC directly west of the Motorized Division to link up supply again. Otherwise, looks pretty tight. I try to maintain a three hex wide ZOC with no more than a hex hex gap between units and that seems to work most of the time.

Trey

ORIGINAL: Speedy

This looks like a better and more secure encirclement, Testers?

[Great_Ajax]

Even as an experienced player, it took me just under two hours to do the first turn.

Trey

ORIGINAL: blastpop

I admit I am being careful playing Road to Minsk to learn as much as possible, but it is taking a quite a while to play. Of course there is the fact that my Panzers are making careful and calculated moves to bag as many Russians as possible.

I've been playing for over an hour and have not yet finished the German 1st turn. What are you folks experiencing for the first turn of the scenario and the length of the game?

[blastpop]

Thanks!

Admittedly I am savoring the game, so that might have me taking a lot longer when all is said and done...

[Great_Ajax]

I have standardized my opening moves so I know what I want to do at the beginning of every new game. After turn 1, it all depends on how the operational situation develops.

Trey

ORIGINAL: blastpop

Thanks!

Admittedly I am savoring the game, so that might have me taking a lot longer when all is said and done...

[Pford]

ORIGINAL: el hefe

I have standardized my opening moves so I know what I want to do at the beginning of every new game. After turn 1, it all depends on how the operational situation develops.

Speaking of standardized opening moves....One desirable enhancement- down the road- might be slight random changes in the disposition of defending troops at the start of a scenario. With experience these deployments, air and ground, will be memorized by the attacker giving an artificial boost to his assaults. Also, one can foresee libraries of 'fool-proof' openings contributed, over time, by posters. Just a thought.

[LiquidSky]

No plan survives first contact with the enemy. von Moltke

[Speedysteve]

Thanks Trey,
 
Assume even if a supply bridge was established by the Soviet it would purely be a delay for the Axis as they'd crush the link and re-establish the encirclement?
 
Achieved a Major Victory on this one anow and took all of the Objectives. Time for Road to Leningrad, then Typhoon, then a 41 Campaign over the next week or 2!

[Helpless]

Speaking of standardized opening moves....One desirable enhancement- down the road- might be slight random changes in the disposition of defending troops at the start of a scenario. With experience these deployments, air and ground, will be memorized by the attacker giving an artificial boost to his assaults. Also, one can foresee libraries of 'fool-proof' openings contributed, over time, by posters. Just a thought.

1941-45 campaign already has randomness. Although it doesn't change disposition of the units, first turn surprise code makes all Soviet border district units different by randomizing it's exp/morale/damage.

[karonagames]

@ Speedy. The comment I would make ,if I may, is that, as noted in the "First Try" AAR, you need to get as much infantry as close as you can to the Panzers. I tend to use the Security divisions, split into regiments to hold the western section of the pocket, so that 9th and 4th Army's infantry divisions can get as far east as possible on the first turn, then use the 2 divisions from 9th Army that start further west and the Lehr motorised brigade that was frozen on turn 1 to clean up the Pocket on Turn 2.

If you can use the "from rear first" technique, you can use the infantry to capture Minsk, so the Panzers can leap-frog to Mogilev.

[Great_Ajax]

The key to getting enemy units to surrender is that they have to spend a full turn isolated so if the Soviets re-established supply during their turn, you would have to wait another turn after you re-establish the encirclement before you get those Soviet units to surrender instead of routing and/or shattering. During that time frame, the Soviets could slip some of their units out of the trap either by movement or getting routed out of the pocket.

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Thanks Trey,

Assume even if a supply bridge was established by the Soviet it would purely be a delay for the Axis as they'd crush the link and re-establish the encirclement?

Achieved a Major Victory on this one anow and took all of the Objectives. Time for Road to Leningrad, then Typhoon, then a 41 Campaign over the next week or 2!

[Great_Ajax]

I've thought this would be a good option as well as an option for a limited free setup option.

Trey

ORIGINAL: Pford

ORIGINAL: el hefe

I have standardized my opening moves so I know what I want to do at the beginning of every new game. After turn 1, it all depends on how the operational situation develops.

Speaking of standardized opening moves....One desirable enhancement- down the road- might be slight random changes in the disposition of defending troops at the start of a scenario. With experience these deployments, air and ground, will be memorized by the attacker giving an artificial boost to his assaults. Also, one can foresee libraries of 'fool-proof' openings contributed, over time, by posters. Just a thought.

[Flaviusx]

Personally, I doubt there is such a thing as a perfect, fool proof German opening. There's a number of possible gambits, but they all have trade offs involved.

The game simply isn't decided on the opening turn, no matter how well the German does.

[jjax]

I've played this scenario three times as Germans and have not won once. Taking Minsk seems to be the easy part.

Anyways, I appreciate this thread and ask for any tips play-testers have to offer on scoring at least a minor victory.

[Speedysteve]

Thanks Trey.
 
BA - makes sense. Still much for me to learn on this but I'm happy with how I managed to achieve a Major Victory on this one...of course if it was a campaign would need to have refined things more.
 
jjax - Only played this one twice and got a major victory last time. I guess if you could show a screenshot or two of your dispositions it could help? What I've found so far is that you need to use your infantry to blast holes in the frontier for your panzers to roll forward to create an encirclement west if Minsk on Turn 1. Turn 2 should be focussed on liquidation of the pocket by infantry as your Panzers take Minsk and head east with infantry following on and covering the flanks. Turn 3 should be a rush for Mogilev etc by your Panzers. If you do that you'll get a Major victory.
 
How have you played it so far?

[Zaratoughda]

If anyone wants to post their level of victory ratio (e.g. 10.3 to 1 or whatever) in this scenario please do so, and we can see if we can get a bit of a contest going here.

Yeah, maybe ANDY and TREY (and others) will give this one a try. Maybe set a standard that everyone else can push for. Might be enough to motivate me to get at this one again and see if I can beat their scores. The only way I believe I could challange these guys in WitE right now.

More yeah... when I was playtesting this there were a number of things that I was doing that were, well, not necessarily obvious, that had the potential to increase my score. JMass and I got into a bit of a contest but then moved on. Still wondering how far I could push my score up with these things.

Zaratougha

[Zaratoughda]

jjax... you might try letting the AI play against the AI and watching how it proceeds, and then trying it again and seeing if you can do better.

Watching the AI play against the AI gets you past the obvious, and that is a big step.

Zaratoughda

[Swayin]

Flavius is right - flank security is critical! Played this twice last night as the Germans; the first time the Russians got a minor victory despite losing Minsk and a quarter of a million men because I didn't get to any of the other objectives; the second time I used my most northern Panzer Group - the "lime greens" - to push hard for the city in the northeast corner and left Minsk to be snapped up solely by the powerful mechanized/armored forces that start off near Brest-Litovsk. Worked well - minor German victory. I was probably one tunr away from snapping up the city on the east edge, middle of the map, as well, but was held up by one exceptional Soviet tank division when I tried to cross the river north of Minsk.

[jjax]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Thanks Trey.

BA - makes sense. Still much for me to learn on this but I'm happy with how I managed to achieve a Major Victory on this one...of course if it was a campaign would need to have refined things more.

jjax - Only played this one twice and got a major victory last time. I guess if you could show a screenshot or two of your dispositions it could help? What I've found so far is that you need to use your infantry to blast holes in the frontier for your panzers to roll forward to create an encirclement west if Minsk on Turn 1. Turn 2 should be focussed on liquidation of the pocket by infantry as your Panzers take Minsk and head east with infantry following on and covering the flanks. Turn 3 should be a rush for Mogilev etc by your Panzers. If you do that you'll get a Major victory.

How have you played it so far?

Thanks for the tips. I think my biggest problem is that I am not securing my flanks. My Panzers are running out of juice before they get to their objectives; so my supply lines must be getting cut.

If I still can't score a minor victory, I'll post a shot and beg for some more help.

AI Vs AI sounds like a good idea as well.