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Well, here it is the 7th Soviet turn and I'm afraid I may have made a major miscalculation. I thought I'd be able to build a defensive line faster than actually happened. And Buzz advanced faster than I planned on and he destroyed more units than I thought he would .....bottom line, I have two major gaps in my defensive line ( green ovals in the picture ).

Oh darn! [X(] Good luck.

Here's the minimap moves movie from turns 3 thru 7:

Here's some Soviet losses:

Yes I think you have to "defend forward" in those areas - they are full of difficult terrain and I've put a few rifle divisions out at river crossings, dig them in on "ignore losses" and suck the casualties to inflict a 1-2 turn delay at each point - you just dont get enough units to build a solid line across the entire map, and even if you did it would be too thin and the Axis would just blow through it

My strategy is as above - where there's an objective worth holding and terrain is suitable I'll pr up a solid defence - like hte major river lines.

Where the terrain is very closed (easten end of hte Pripet Narshes and n/e of Pskov for example) I sort of skirmish while trying to build a line somewhere to the rear.

That said - HEY BUZZ - YOU GOT LARRY'S TURN DONE - WHERE'S MINE??!!

[;)]

Most of my losses at the start of my turn 7 - first the infantry:

Artillery -

Aircraft:

Old tanks:

And the newer tanks:

I'm a bit worried about the losses of T34's and KV-1's - they seem to have taken the brunt of the tank losses whereas I still have over 6000 45mm gunned BT's and T26's left - I'd much rather it was the other way around - I might have to rest up with some of the formations equiped with the newer models!

I'm really happy to have lost only 16-1700 aircraft total, and the strong reserves of Yak-1 fighters have to be a good sign.

I've lost a lot of artillery, but most of the "frontal" artillery is intact, and it can provide support to anyone so that's not too bad.

I've lost about 4000 more rifle squads than Larry's list above, but 500 fewer heavy rifle squads from the Fortified regions and have 1000 more HRS's assigned than he does - so overall I'm 3000 rifle and heavy rifle squads lighter.

My Fortified Regions are strong and form the backbone of my defence in a couple of areas - typically they are deployed on or behind river crossings with AA, tank and/or AT support. There are still plenty of Rifle squads coming online and in reserve for the regular rifle divisions so I'm not worried about them.

I haven't shown mortar losses - so far they are about 7100 50mm, 5200 82mm and 1700 120mm - reserves are just about zero (<50 of each!) even though I'm producing 1000/turn in total.

Been a little busy and trying to keep both these games straight has been a challenge late at night. Below are my inf losses for turns 7 and 8. I have just hit their first lines of defenses in the center. Larry seems to have given on Kiev and that river line while SMK has placed strong defenses there. I am about one turn behind in attacking SMK's main line as compared to Larry's and that is because SMK has thrown a lot of roadblocks up along with attacking my leading units. I made several poor attacks this turn which really hurt some of my inf divs. SMK's planes are also starting to come up.

yes another policy of mine is to mug leading recce units wherever possible to increase hex conversino costs for the following "main battle line".&nbsp; There's something quite satisfying about a Tank division chasing around after auto-retreating motorcyclists!! [8D]
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Also I'll sacrifice units to attack any and all engineers, since there's a lot of rivers in this game, and to reconvert intact railway hexes owned by the axis - Soviets have a 100% destruction rate for rail hexes they capture, so you are guaranteed to bust any you can get to and/or convert in a ZOC.
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These little actions satisfy my insane urgings for the offense too!![;)]
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I'm pleased to hear you've made more ill advised attack Buzz....[&o]...can't wait to see what I can do to reward you for them [:D]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work
Also I'll sacrifice units to attack any and all engineers, since there's a lot of rivers in this game, and to reconvert intact railway hexes owned by the axis - Soviets have a 100% destruction rate for rail hexes they capture, so you are guaranteed to bust any you can get to and/or convert in a ZOC.

Yea I started digging my engies in with hopefully an inf regt with them.

Spoilsport!![:'(]
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Still...that means infantry units not using their full movement allowance to advance and often staying behind the lines, so it's having an effect.
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This is total war, so everything I do that slows the axis down has an up side [:)]

Well now the engies are making a bridge for me to attack. So after the attacks if I don't take the hex(s) then I dig in. Since you have stopped running I can now bring up my rail and inf to ford those rivers and attack. Pzs find a weak spot and charge forward (you will see I did that in two places).

Well, it's the 8th Soviet turn. Here's the minimap moves movie showing turns 4 through 8:

Stopped running??&nbsp; How dare you accuse me of having stopped running!![:@]
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I have merely given the appearance of having stopped running to fool you into a false sense of being able to kill me!![:D]

Here's some Soviet losses so far:

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work
Stopped running??  How dare you accuse me of having stopped running!![:@]
I have merely given the appearance of having stopped running to fool you into a false sense of being able to kill me!![:D]

Zort is falling into my trap as well.....say SMK, how about an animated minimap of your game? Inquiring minds want to know.