Adventures in Russia

[larryfulkerson]

And the next formation to move turns out to be the Wiking division so I moved them
in to where they are now and I lost control of my recon unit....it wanted to convert
that stretch of rail so bad I let him go and as it turns out he had enough MP's left
to get a good start on the barrier, the line of troops I'm hoping to move there to
prevent the escape of the Soviet units to the east.

[larryfulkerson]

And the next formation is the 9th Panzer Division and after they have moved I managed
to continue the building of the barrier. Other units are cloer to the hole and can
travel further than the 9th division units did.

[larryfulkerson]

And the next formation is the 16th Panzer Division and after they got moved into
position I got more firepower further south to counter the Soviet armor in that
location. I feel better knowing I have more armor there. More to come.

[larryfulkerson]

The 14th Panzer division is next and they had just eough MP's to join in the barrier
formation. More armor yet in the critical spot. I'd like a chance to kill that
armor before it can get away.

[larryfulkerson]

And then I moved a few ancillary units ( arty, HQ's, pioneers, etc. ) and then it's
the 13th Panzer division tht moves and there's a tank unit that had enough MP's to
block another road to the south. It's heafty enough to defend itself without support
for a while.

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd use the 11th Division to start blocking north of the hole avenue and
see if I can't trap some more Soviet units.

[larryfulkerson]

The next formations involve those along the north edge of the lines and I'm moving
the infantry adjacent and bombarding with the arty to see if I can disentrench the
targets with HQ arty. Probably not. But it might cause some few losses and that
will soften up the target slowly. I'm not sure you can bombard a unit to death because
of the replacement rate, so it's best to bombard those units out of supply.

[larryfulkerson]

And so now I'm moving the planes and I have here an Me-109 squadron that needs a good
target and I've got my eyes on two nearby. One has a fighter unit by itself and the
other has a light bomber by itself. The light bomber target would be more valuable
if destroyed but I think the Axis will suffer less losses in the long run if I go
after the fighter units first. Without his fighters the other targets will be easy.
Well,easier. I'm avoiding those airfields that have AA guns at them. I don't need
the losses from that. I'm using a three-dot stance because of the very large air
shock difference. I've got 140 and he's got 5 so I almost can't lose.

[larryfulkerson]

As part of my self-protection plan I thought it best to fly in some fighters and a
squadron of Stuka's. The Stuka's have a range of 21 so I don't have to manually
shorten it to make it concentrate on the local area to the exclusion of all else.
The fighters aren't the best available but I'm pretty sure the air war isn't going
to be a problem after all the airfield strikes are flown. I'm thinking it's going
to take me about three or four combat rounds to kill all the Soviet aircraft I can
reach and then there won't be much need for fighters and I'll switch them to INT
so as to hinder the Soviets from getting away.

[larryfulkerson]

Next to move is the 25th Mot Div and they had enough MP's to get in behind the Soviets
and help block Soviets. There's more divisions to move yet.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the pending battles and most of them are airfield strikes. This will be
combat round one.

[larryfulkerson]

This is what the typical airfield strike looks like. I lose maybe a couple and he
looses everybody that was parked there. It's really bloody.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

As part of my self-protection plan I thought it best to fly in some fighters and a
squadron of Stuka's. The Stuka's have a range of 21 so I don't have to manually
shorten it to make it concentrate on the local area to the exclusion of all else.
The fighters aren't the best available but I'm pretty sure the air war isn't going
to be a problem after all the airfield strikes are flown. I'm thinking it's going
to take me about three or four combat rounds to kill all the Soviet aircraft I can
reach and then there won't be much need for fighters and I'll switch them to INT
so as to hinder the Soviets from getting away.

Do stacking rules also apply to air units?

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how the airstrikes went. I destroyed some of the planes I engaged but there's
more planes yet to get.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
As part of my self-protection plan I thought it best to fly in some fighters and a
squadron of Stuka's. The Stuka's have a range of 21 so I don't have to manually
shorten it to make it concentrate on the local area to the exclusion of all else.
The fighters aren't the best available but I'm pretty sure the air war isn't going
to be a problem after all the airfield strikes are flown. I'm thinking it's going
to take me about three or four combat rounds to kill all the Soviet aircraft I can
reach and then there won't be much need for fighters and I'll switch them to INT
so as to hinder the Soviets from getting away.

Do stacking rules also apply to air units?

Yes they do...a max of three aircraft units at any one airfield. Which brings up
another topic to discuss. Why have the limit at three? Why 9 units to a hex?

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
As part of my self-protection plan I thought it best to fly in some fighters and a
squadron of Stuka's. The Stuka's have a range of 21 so I don't have to manually
shorten it to make it concentrate on the local area to the exclusion of all else.
The fighters aren't the best available but I'm pretty sure the air war isn't going
to be a problem after all the airfield strikes are flown. I'm thinking it's going
to take me about three or four combat rounds to kill all the Soviet aircraft I can
reach and then there won't be much need for fighters and I'll switch them to INT
so as to hinder the Soviets from getting away.

Do stacking rules also apply to air units?

Yes they do...a max of three aircraft units at any one airfield. Which brings up
another topic to discuss. Why have the limit at three? Why 9 units to a hex?

I was commenting on your having a German and Romanian unit on that base, and asking if that violated the rule against them being allowed to stack with anything else or if it only applied to land units.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: DanNeely
Do stacking rules also apply to air units?

Yes they do...a max of three aircraft units at any one airfield. Which brings up
another topic to discuss. Why have the limit at three? Why 9 units to a hex?

I was commenting on your having a German and Romanian unit on that base, and asking if that violated the rule against them being allowed to stack with anything else or if it only applied to land units.

Oh. Well...I guess they do. I'll have to move that Rumanian fighter, replace it
with a German one. Good catch. Old habits die hard.

[larryfulkerson]

The 514th Pioneer unit is the next to move and it didn't have many MP's left so I
deliberately moved it up against some enemy units and dug it in. I'm doing that
because I desire to invoke the disengaugement penalty on those Soviet units that
try to move away from the engineer. It subtracts some of the MP's of the departing
unit so that sometimes the departing unit only gets a single hex away. That's the
theory. I'm pretty sure it works, although this time it's an engineer instead of
a combat unit so I'm guessing that the Soviet units will be able to disengage but
that they won't get as far as they would have without the presence of the Axis
engineer unit. Every little bit helps.

[cpt flam]

furthermore I'm not sure that you can use minors unit until they join in the war.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: cpt flam
furthermore I'm not sure that you can use minors unit until they join in the war.

You bring up a good valid point Captain. I probably shouldn't be using the blue
planes until the blue guys are out of garrison mode. I'll park those bad boys
near Budapest for a while. My first guess was a bad one, you are right.