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In the south everything runs away. I did a little damage to his retreating units and almost managed to surround a couple units just south of Kiev. But he was too far away and I just ran out of MP's.

I'm not sure how difficult it will be to get across the Dnepr river. Tophat loves rivers so I have no doubt that every hex will be defended.

Anyone have any experience to share here??

Be sure to run recon flights; there should be masses of rifle divisions springing up on the map.

He's lost masses of divisions. 105 of them.

I've done lots of recon every turn and there doesn't seem to be much that isn't getting sent straight to the front line.

Maybe he's hiding a big mass of troops somewhere???????

He's not. The Soviets seem to have inexhaustible troops because they get huge amounts of reinforcements. Its actually quite harrowing in the beginning as there simply aren't enough troops to defend everything. Its just that when we play Axis we believe there is a Soviet division behind every tree and every rock, but there ain't.

There might be 200 or more divisions still on the map, though some are not close to filled out.

It might even be closer to 250...or more. [:D]

And 30 of them are visiting Duty Free stores in Turkey for some 70 odd turns.

In my game vs. german AI, I've lost 1,734,511 men 26,749 guns, 9757 tanks, and 76 full divisions by turn 20. I have 1,326,689 men in the manpower pool.

Game vs. Tophat I've killed 1,533,452 men, 20,744 guns, 10,464 tanks, and 105 full divisions by turn 7.

Against the AI I remember being pretty worried around turn seven. Tophat has a lot less to defend with and he's not playing the AI. It has to look grim on his end.

nice work!, from the maps ive seen of Russia, it looks like you may be a month ahead of schedule in the north, will you dig into Moscow and wait out the winter there? although holding Moscow wont end the game, it is a highly strategic place to launch attacks in 1942 from he cant defend against you from Moscow you can strike north to Leningrad south to caucuses or east to cut him in two

Well I hope I take Moscow. It does depend on a few things.

First I have to get across the Dnepr. If I take to long then Tophat might well strip the Southern front and I will find myself opposed by 50-60 extra divisions.

Second there is the possibilty that I have no clue about how hard this will be. The Germans assumed they would take Moscow about this time and I could be just as deluded. We shall see.

But yes I would hope to drive well beyond Moscow and then hold the city through the winter. I would guess Tophat will defend Moscow to the death so it's capture would mean the loss of another large chunk of Russian units.

Strange that around turn 4 I was very concerened that I might actually be stopped or at least that my offensive would suffer crippling delays. But in three turns it seems that Russian resistance is crumbling and I feel quite confident in my prospects.

Probably deluded.[:'(]

Turn 8 was botched a bit. Wish I had a do-over.

Here the situation after my recon in the south. Note the undefended hexes especially the one east of the Dnepr river. It was really undefended. I reconed it at least five times and every hex around.

I decided to go for a bridgehead with everything I had.

Here's the result. The airborne brigades were retreated quickly to the second rough hex. I moved up to finish them off but they held off the first main attack despite the lack of fortifications. From there it was one attack after another as I kept thinking their morale had to break. 13 attacks!!!!

The guys had a defensive CV of 1 and you can see my adjacent units have a combined CV of 50.

I really screwed that one up.

Give them Guards status!

Unfortunately tanks and rough terrain don't mix - the panzers get big penalties. If you had used infantry and a deliberate attack you would probably have had more luck.

I think they will be first in the queue for guards status!

edit: What were your ammo levels like? After a couple of attacks ammo can get short.

"Don't mix" in this case means: even small units will essentially always stop mobile unit hasty attacks in difficult terrain even when you're attacking with a full stack with an on-counter CV of around 30 against a unit or stack with an on-counter CV of 1. I'd also suggest using at least two infantry divisions for deliberate attacks, as a battle where the Soviets start with a CV of 10 can turn into a battle where they end with a CV of 80 due to impressive modifiers that you can't really counter with only a single division.

I did try to clear the front line with my infantry. The problem was I miscalculated how much force I would need to retreat the airborne brigades a second time.

One of the great things about this game is that you have to make economy of force decisions all the time with only limited intell.

In the example I used most of my infantry forces to clear the front line for my armor to pass through to the river. Then I would have 7 armored units to clear the two divisions next to the river and actually cross the river. 7 units should have been enough but most of my armor started with 30 or so MP's and I don't exactly know the strenth of the two units to be defeated. Maybe 4 divisions would have sufficed but that would mean 2 hasty attacks with a stack of three and my fourth division using all it's movement to cross.

Anyway I decided to try and clear the airborne brigades with my last available infantry division and a deliberate attack. When this failed all I had left was armor and I'm trying to conserve this to get across the river.

So I think "these are two measly airborne brigades that have already been retreated once, are unfortified, and have been softened up by my infantry. So in comes the mech inf and a panzer Div with a hasty attack. Why hasty?? Well to do a deliberate I needed the units with the most MP's. But I wanted to save these for phase 2 of the operation. Attack fails. Try again. Fail.

Now at this point I should realize that evn if I defeat the airborne with my remaining armor it will be a hollow victory. (I won't have enough left to get across the river) But you know it doesn't take long to click another attack. And I'm pissed. Well 10 attacks later 3403 remaining airborne troops sit stubbornly in the hills.

What I should have done was bring in the two armored units with my infantry division in the first attack. But it's all easy in retrospect.

Here's the center on turn 8 and another example of sub-optimal play.

Toward the end of the turn I have two main options. Destroy the circled 2-7 infantry division to complete an airtight encirclement of Smolensk, or simply displace that big mob of routed units.

With hindsight clearly I should have done the later since I was unable to retreat that infantry division. Especially since my grand plan involves my armor inching it's way toward Vyazma.

Does anyone else have the problem of always using every MP available?? There is always something more to do. I know I should try to conserve fuel and vehicles. I have to worry that my armored force is going to just wear out.

Still not a horible operation. 4 division are completly surrounded and Smolensk is basically cut off.

Turn 8 North.

4 Divisions surrounded but I'm not sure he won't be able to reesablish supply. I was scrambling to shore up the pocket but again ran out of MP's.

Finally for turn 8 I ran some recon around Moscow. Note some of these are double, even triple missions. Below are what I found.

Nothing much. Same everywhere on the map. It looks like everything Tophat has is on the front line or heading there as fast as it can.

Panzers in the swamp up north might be the weak spot in that ring. It doesn't look like he has much to attack with however.