Workshop for the new guys - Barbarossa 41

[larryfulkerson]

Now that I'm moving the planes I want to move the fighters up as close to the front as they can get and follow up not
quite so close with the bombers. And I'm looking for Soviet airfields that don't have any AA units present so I can
bombard the Soviet planes from the air, destroy them before they can get off the ground. I've found two good candidate
airfields. I'll have to bomb them severely.

[larryfulkerson]

I've noticed that my CAP coverage isn't in the comfort zone for me. I feel the need for moving the fighters closer to
the fighting and that means I'll need a new airfield and I've found two of them I'd like to have. Future goals for this
group.

[larryfulkerson]

The ME-110's have a longer range and can do AS in the far reaches of the front lines but I don't want them to do AS
by themselves for very long. Their performance isn't as good as the ME-109E/F. I don't want to lose many of them.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what I'm talking about with the airplanes and AS missions
and not leaving the Me-110's out in the cold by themselves without
any Me-109E/F support. I'd like the war to be fought largely by
the Me-109E/F's and have the Me-110's support largely after the fact.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's some of the more dangerous missions so far:

[larryfulkerson]

I found a good target for the Ju-87's. It's got lots of AFV's in the hex, a target rich environment. Plus striking
them might help soften them up for the Panzer unit that's trying to move those folks.

[larryfulkerson]

Next to move are the RR engineer units and I've embarked all of them and I'm sending them north to work on the road to
Riga. Prior experience has taught me that it takes all of them to keep up with the front lines in then north and that
there's enough RR engineers in the other Engineer units that it just about works out okay.

[larryfulkerson]

So I've moved everybody and everything is set to execute the combat phase but first I review the battles pending and I
find one that I need to adjust. If I can't make it a two-round attack then I'll postpone it until later in the turn.
I'd like to get the most combat rounds out of this turn as possible.

[larryfulkerson]

And with a slight adjustment we're ready to go.

[larryfulkerson]

I've learned through hard experience to save my game before any major changes just in case you want to revert
to the prior condition.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the results of the first airfield strike on an airfield near Riga. The results are pretty good actually and
portents good results if I should do it again.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a full report on the next airfield attack where the results were alrighty then.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the results of the next airfield attack. Pretty good results. Pretty good.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the full report of an attack somewhere or other.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the results of my Ju-87's hitting that large stack of Soviet armor and other assorted stuff. No hits and nine
losses ( 4 DX, 5 DMG ) and I'm thinking that the AA units there thwarted my attack. I have no proof and we'd need an
expert ( Thomas Harvey is one, Steve Sill is another, there are more ) to judge this attack for us.

[larryfulkerson]

So two rounds were burned and the front lines look like this now:

[larryfulkerson]

So the first thing I do after the resolution of the combat phase and the start of a new round is check the aircraft and
it's a good thing I did because four of my bombers are resting and I have no clue why they are resting. i'm going to
check them out and if their readiness is higher than about 50% then they go back on-line.

[larryfulkerson]

After I check the planes I use the OOB to find the first unit in the list and it happens to be the 1st Inf Div and
all the units of the formation are already at 0 MP's left. So I'll go to the next formation in order and see if there
are any units to move in it. Scheduling attacks PRN.

[larryfulkerson]

Instead of going formation by formation sometimes I use the OOB to find the next individual unit that needs to be moved
and I don't have to sort any of the columns for that list to be correct. Unless you've clicked on a column head and
changed it.

[larryfulkerson]

And for those of you who want to follow along I've attached here below a saved game file of this game and all
you have to do is rename it "*.sal.txt" to ".sal" and there you go.