FITE Chambers vs Fulkerson

[LLv34_Snefens]

In my opinion a withdraw to the Oder is too far at this point. As far as I can see Curt is 12 hexes from Berlin and if you fall back to the Oder, you reduce that to just 7 hexes, without a fight. I would go for the Orange Line i posted earlier (slightly modified down south), with a strong fallback line at the Oder and then add just about a unit in every hex between the front and Berlin. You should have a bit of reserves with this massive reduction of the frontline, alhtough many of them might still be far from full Strength.

[Dr. Foo]

Just going back to the first page. Is this the same game that began on 10/21/2008? If so you guys are hardcore I never made it past a few weeks of FITE!

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: LLv34_Snefens

In my opinion a withdraw to the Oder is too far at this point. As far as I can see Curt is 12 hexes from Berlin and if you fall back to the Oder, you reduce that to just 7 hexes, without a fight. I would go for the Orange Line i posted earlier (slightly modified down south), with a strong fallback line at the Oder and then add just about a unit in every hex between the front and Berlin. You should have a bit of reserves with this massive reduction of the frontline, alhtough many of them might still be far from full Strength.

I've thought about it and I think you're correct. I will modify my lines as you suggest of course.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Dr. Foo

Just going back to the first page. Is this the same game that began on 10/21/2008? If so you guys are hardcore I never made it past a few weeks of FITE!

This Curt Chambers dude is a machine. He is working full-time and playing TOAW III simultaneously. I think there are a few exceptions but for the most part I get Curt's moves almost daily. I don't know how he does it. He's the designer of Campaign for South Vietnam so I'm guessing he's a hard-core TOAW player and is seriously committed to the game in a way that few of us are. Myself....I'm retired and don't have much else to do but I have to admit that 240+ turns of FITE has almost completely burned me out on TOAW and I plan to take some time off before I attempt more games. I don't play cut-throat, I play to see the historical what-if's and for the fun of it. Curt is a good adversary and a good player and I'm glad he agreed to this contest.

[Raindem]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: Dr. Foo

Just going back to the first page. Is this the same game that began on 10/21/2008? If so you guys are hardcore I never made it past a few weeks of FITE!

This Curt Chambers dude is a machine. He is working full-time and playing TOAW III simultaneously. I think there are a few exceptions but for the most part I get Curt's moves almost daily. I don't know how he does it. He's the designer of Campaign for South Vietnam so I'm guessing he's a hard-core TOAW player and is seriously committed to the game in a way that few of us are. Myself....I'm retired and don't have much else to do but I have to admit that 240+ turns of FITE has almost completely burned me out on TOAW and I plan to take some time off before I attempt more games. I don't play cut-throat, I play to see the historical what-if's and for the fun of it. Curt is a good adversary and a good player and I'm glad he agreed to this contest.

Thanks Larry. It takes two to make a good contest, and were it not for your AAR no one would ever know about this wild match.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a shot of the front lines as of the beginning of Axis turn 244. We're still in the mud season and most of the Axis stuff is moving west to build a new front line closer to Berlin. I'm hoping the shorter front lines can enable multiple units per hex because those kinds of hexes tend to stay put longer than a single unit in a hex. Also, the losses are spread out among the units instead of being lumped into that single unit and as a result the units stay "healthy" longer. This mud season is forcast to last until about turn 247 so I have only a few more turns of free moves to make. That means that some of the slower moving units down south will probably get isolated and destroyed but most of the Axis units will break free and can be used again.

During the Soviet winter offensives the shock factor gets bumped downward for the Axis side and I'm not looking forward to Curt's '43-'44 Winter period. He's probably going to make good use of his shock difference in spite of how tired his guys will be, although they get to rest during this mud season just like my dudes do. This game will probably not last all that much longer.

[Veer]

The front line is considerably shorter, especially with all those lakes and inlets.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines as of the middle of the Axis turn 247. This is probably the last mud turn this year. Luckly, I have moved 99% of the guys already and there's only a straggler or two that will be immediately destroyed by the Soviets.

Steve: The Soviets occupy the orange defensive line already so I sortof have to retreat all the way to the Oder river because of the weakness of the South of the front line, if I build one at the proposed Orange defensive line. It seemed more of a liability than an asset to me.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the front lines look like at the beginning of Axis turn 250. This is the first turn after the mud season and the war is on again. I got most of the units moved back to the Oder river but there were some slow moving dudes that are going to get caught and some isolated units that couldn't move.

It's going to get more interesting in the turns ahead.

[fogger]

I was just wondering what version of FITE you are playing with?
PS
I am enjoying watching your posts and by the 15,000 + hits I think I am not the only one. I hope you do a post for your next game.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: fogger
I was just wondering what version of FITE you are playing with?
PS
I am enjoying watching your posts and by the 15,000 + hits I think I am not the only one. I hope you do a post for your next game.

Thanks for your kind words. I'm not sure what version this is, but I know it's the unmodified version ( FITE 5.0 or 5.1 something like that ). Yeah, 15K+ hits is probably a record for AAR's but maybe it's because there are so many turns in this game or something.

I'm getting burned out on TOAW sorry to say, but I expect I will recover sometime after this is over and the next game will be posted ( in an AAR ) as well, you can be sure. I enjoy doing AAR's and there is something about documenting what happened that makes me be more careful about what I do during a game. So it's a good thing all around.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a movie showing the differences between the end of turn 250 and the beginning of Axis turn 251 showing the Soviet Army racing toward Berlin. Also, the Soviets gained several hexes on the southern arm of my front lines. I thought I had a relatively impregnable front line down there and he gained hexes nonetheless. That doesn't bode well for the immediate future. I can't hold him back when he does that. I'm guessing that this contest will be over before the end of '43.

[Dr. Foo]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

I'm guessing that this contest will be over before the end of '43.

Larry,

Do you think that is due to your personal strategy or does the game need tweaking?

The Soviets do appear to be unstoppable.

[Zort]

I am seeing that the Germans are not getting the benefit of fighting in their own country, ie personnel. There should be, in my opinion, a massive influx of some type of rifle squads. Larry is also at the stage where he will not be getting any more HRS, these will be replaced by the AT squads. So his divisions will have little or no rifle squads. I have always disliked the way the game was set up for this change. It's tough balancing this large scenario, especially after the winter of 41-42.

Well done guys in sticking it out this long.

[Dr. Foo]

ORIGINAL: Zort

There should be, in my opinion, a massive influx of some type of rifle squads.

I agree there should be plenty of old men and boys to arm! I would like to see a flood of irregular squads or under strength/under supplied/low readiness irregular units at the least.

Larry needs cannon fodder!

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Dr. Foo

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
I'm guessing that this contest will be over before the end of '43.

Larry,
Do you think that is due to your personal strategy or does the game need tweaking?
The Soviets do appear to be unstoppable.

I have no doubts that this is due to my personal strategy of pulling back too soon. In retrospect I can see how I should have stood by my use of that way forward defensive line. I pulled back because the Germans don't have very many recon units to help other units disengage from the fighting and retreat. The German Army is designed to always attack and almost never to retreat and I'm guessing that Hitlers orders to stand their ground is part of the reason that so many German units were lost during the real thing.

I agree that this game would be "better" if the German Army had some old-men-and-young-boys type of units during the final phases of the defense. It would better reflect what happened to the original units during the fighting on German soil phase. Maybe somebody will come up with a mod to this game to reflect that period of the war.

This is the longest I've ever stuck with a TOAW game and I'm not really sure when we started this game but it seems like a year ago or so. I see from the first post of this AAR that the game started around October 29, 2008 and here it is already almost August of 2009 which is 10 months later. And Curt and I have been getting turns to each other almost every day, sometimes several a day ( during the mud seasons ) and it's been fun almost the whole time. Although I must admit that sometimes the doing of the moves seemed a chore when there's almost no movement of the front lines and the gains are gaining of hexes is in the single digits compaired to the leap-frog style of play as during the opening phase of this game.

Curt is about to make a breakthrough in my lines and isolate and destroy my units and it'll be exciting again so stay tuned you guys.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a movie showing me moving some Panzer units to the south and Curt is moving further into Germany and has gained a couple of hexes on the south part of the line during his part of the turn during turn 252.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the movie showing the differences between turn 253 and the beginning of Axis turn 254. The Soviets gained a couple of hexes in the south. I'm wondering if Curt is going to engage those port defenders on the coast. They are just non-movable forts but still ....

[larryfulkerson]

My defensives down south must be better since Curt didn't gain any hexes during turn 254. Here's a movie showing the differences between the end of 254 and the beginning of Axis turn 255. He's still moving stuff to the west along the coast and hammering away at my lines down south.

[Raindem]

This will definitely not be over by the end of 1943.  Larry has compacted his line so tight I really need to be smarter about how I go about this.  About 2 or 3 more turns to get in position and then the real fighting will start.