FITE ( Ron's Mod v. 10 )

[larryfulkerson]

This is just after the first round of combat in turn 4. Just a couple ( few ) places left to mop-up and the rest of Riga to capture. There's
about 14 Soviet armoured cars still alive in that Soviet recon unit and I'm pretty sure if I fire one round short and one round long then
they might just surrender. Otherwise we'll have to overrun them, everybody moving all at once toward their position. Sure they will get
a couple of us but they will die just the same.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like to the East of Riga. Imagine all those units in motion going carefully, leapfrogging each other every eye
looking for danger.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's an action shot from just south of the marshes. I've finally supressed the Soviet road block and my recon is zooming east and
he's followed by an armoured column. I've got three RR engineers on the upper left corner there and they are ALMOST keeping up
with the front lines which is a good thing. I can't get too far away from an active rail or I run out of supply and the attacking has to stop.
I've done an end run around the north end of the Stalin Line and I intend to wrap around it and spread out and grab for territory and
look for Reds.

EDIT: I see Soviet armour in this image. That means that Dan is sacraficing his armour to buy some time. He's going to get a boat-load
of tanks later I know, it just seems like such a waste having to use them on the defensive mode. Their best attribute is their speed and
ability to dash into opportunities quickly. They aren't being used to their best advantage when you have to use them defensively.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm running into Dan's roadblocks along the river and I've butted up against his Stalin Line of sorts. I'm just playing this by ear here and
I'm flowing like water into the least resistance area, surrounding Soviet units.

[larryfulkerson]

I attacked Murmansk just so I could get a list of what is there now and although I didn't cause any damage straffing it with my fighters
I did get an exact list of what Soviet equipment is there. I'm going to have to bomb that place for a long time to whittle it down enough
to attack it with the land combat units ( LCU's ) .

[larryfulkerson]

Dan has floated some Soviet CD's to Finland soil and I have no troops handy to fight them off. They can move 1 hex per day when they
move and I don't worry so much of an invasion or anything like that. I need some Axis ships up here to bombard them for a couple of
months. Soften them up a bit. THEN attack. I got the muddy end of the stick in this attack. I think I might re-think my tactics here for
a couple of turns. See if there's a better way to go about this. Maybe use the airplanes on them.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the air war display after the end of round two's combat phase. I've been doing a lot of ground strikes and it's bumped my
losses up considerably. That was to be expected but I'm wondering if it's getting too expensive to do anymore this turn.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's T4's end of turn positions: Well, the north half......I'll post the south half in another post. I made a movie of the changing of the
positions but it was too big to post. Lemme monkey w/ it and I'll see what I can get to post.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the south half of the end of turn front lines: this is the end of T4

[larryfulkerson]

Here's some of my losses as of the end of T4:

[larryfulkerson]

I finally got something put together to demonstrate my moves during turn 4:

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd do the front lines in screenfull chunks. This is the northernmost chunk and shows the positions of everybody at the
beginning of T5 before anybody has moved.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the next screenfull showing Minsk and south.

[larryfulkerson]

And this view shows the more southernmost regions.

[larryfulkerson]

I've grabbed and repaired the two bridges in the yellow circles below and w/ Riga that makes at least three working bridges across the
river. It's about time......it's turn 5 already and I'm only just now getting bridges in place. I'm going to have to rail some RR engineers
up to this part of the theater to help catch up w/ the front lines here. The front line is way ahead of where the railhead is now.

[larryfulkerson]

Near the east side of the marshes I found a Soviet pontoon unit that was obviously going around breaking bridges and he just didn't
happen to get to them all yet. I won the race this time and now I'm across two rivers and next stop is the Soviet rear areas.

[larryfulkerson]

I did one of those bridge-too-far things just north of Kiev. I dropped paratroopers at or near the bridges I'm going to need to get to the
river that passes through Kiev. There's another river to the east of that one and there isn't a whole lot of maneuvoring room there to
go around. I'm really going to need the bridges to make the best speed. I'm bumping up against a Soviet roadblock and therefore I'm
going to have to take the high road and meanwhile do something about the roadblock.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a shot of west of the Smolensk area. A lot of my boys are showing yellow and orange health meters so they are starting to hit
the wall. I'm going to have to find a good stopping point for the front line and give my boys a breather. It's a long war. The Soviets
will still be there when I get back from my day off.

[larryfulkerson]

This must be my lucky day. I've stumbled upon an intact bridge w/o any roadblocks and everything. It's ready to be used to get across
the river. I might not be able to hold the position very long however, since the unit holding it is just AA guns.

[larryfulkerson]

The Axis supply level up near Murmansk isn't high enough to allow sustained combat. I'm having to save up supply for the attacks I do.