1. MP game vs. Miller41 (SOV) - really no Miller! ;)

[Q-Ball]

It seems like there are 2 Rifle and 1 Sec unit along the Finnish border that, due to the timing of the unfreeze on both sides, are doomed every time with an alert Finnish player. Every game I play, those units are "Pocketed" eventually. There just aren't enough MPs to get them out of there.

Without Leningrad, that's about the extent of the Finns contribution to Blitzkreig

[CharonJr]

I am using knowledge about T6 here already, he "ran" from the Dnepr south of Mogilev, but we can agree that he does not have THAT many units, but still a decent number from what I saw.

The Panzerarmeen around there lack the MPs to really do anything, but their scare-value is still high

Concerning the 2 unit pocket in Finnland I think he might have gotten them out, but this would have taken units from digging in Leningrad, so it is the right decision he made I think.

T5 should not have added very many dead to the Red Army I think, but I will try to remember to take a screenshot at the end of turn 5.

Basically I think I am still unhappy about the T5 crash

Bloody World of Tanks, first it crashes my game and now I can't pull myself away from playing my mighty Bison and PzKpfw 38 in order to focus on my turn

[TulliusDetritus]

I know he's got some forces. The 20, 21, 22 and 24 Armies. Along with the 16 and 19 in Ukraine: I send the latter too to form a big mass between the AGC and Moscow [8D] They start the game frozen though.

[CharonJr]

T6:

Hard fighting around Leningrad, but some progress is made, in addition everything west of Leningrad is cut off, this should help some of my infantry getting there faster in addition to opening up the line of supply from Tallinn.

Very heavy resistance at the Smolensk landbridge and only slow progress is made, while 16. Armee moves towards Velikie Luki, leaving a number of options to me.

Vitebsk was largely abandoned (1 rifle div) and taken this turn (was slowing down my troops heading north).

As expected the Gomel pocket was broken, but it was reestablished this turn.

Kiev is free of defenders, as are Cherkassy and Tallinn (IMO he should have left token forces there to slow me down a bit).

There was more than a token force in Odessa, but 11. Armee forced them to retreat and FDB5 ends the turn 3 hexes from Odessa while the port of Ochakov is occupied.

Kirovograd is lightly defended and occupied while 1. Panzerarmee heads south to isolate Nikolaev and the few troops ermaining there. Currently this seems to be the best use of my armor to me since it will help more infantry to catch up faster due to the cleared/controlled terrain and the supply situation should improve a little bit due to having Odessa and the supplies being able to go directly from there to the troops. In addition it is usefull for starting to put some pressure on the Krim.

There are fairly heavy defenses in front of Sumy and Poltava and I have to start thinking about how I will deal with them - I am fairly sure that Panzer are involved somewhere in this plan

A couple of FLAK companies and Romanian airbases and 3. Rum. Armee are disbanded this turn.

Casualties were fairly light since there were no real pockets here, but the next turn will hopefully see some improvement there, I will need about 150k casualties each turn for the Red Army till the winter IIRC to prevent them from really growing, doubt this will be possible here.

The supply situation is slowly improving and Odessa together with the pocket there to clear terrain should be helping, too.

The status of my Panzer can be guessed fairly well from the large number of unready AFVs, after the initial breakthrough phase the pace will be a bit slower now, but I can see the occasional burst of speed in the future

[sillyflower]

but now we know he's stuffed because he has no armament points with beta 4

[CharonJr]

Good point, and the lost factories will not be helpfull there, too (have to take a look at this nice map posted in the war room to see how many he has already lost).

[Fetrik]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

but now we know he's stuffed because he has no armament points with beta 4

The fix for that has been released. So the fight isn't over yet.

[Flaviusx]

The fix only works on new games, I think. Can't reset pools midgame.

Edit: never mind. Pavel is way ahead of me.

[CharonJr]

Dang, he broke the southern pocket with a cav, looks like I have underestimated their morale/MPs, oh well, with a bit of luck the cav will end up in a new pocket, but my timetable is starting to slip.

Will try to post a full update later today.

[CharonJr]

T7:

16 units with 108k men, 1.4k guns and 57 AFVs were destroyed in the pockets and the pocket in the south is resealed, trapping 6 additional units, one of them a cav division.

Also in the south 1. Panzergruppe established a bridgehead across the Dnepr to the north of the Krim since the Soviets have been starting to put units along the Dnepr to the south of Zaporozhye.

With Kuressare under my control Riga finally acts as a supply source, but at this stage of the game the rail repair has progressed too much for this to be still very usefull.

Heavy fighting continues around Leningrad with my troops cutting towards the east and in the end it is nearly isolated from land (all the rail lines are cut).

To the south of Velikie Luki small progress is made, but with my mobile units finally having regained enough MP a hole is blast into the defenses to the west of Smolensk and a fairly large pocket (about 30 units) is formed.

Basically along the complete front the infantry has caught up with the armor now.

Some of the worse infantry corps leaders were dismissed and replaced by better ones (all of the GENM).

The number of Soviet soldiers looks too low, most likely due to the armaments problem already mentioned, but the next turn should fix this (dang, will likely get less men from the pockets due to this, too).

I thought about sending a German unit to Finnland to circumvent the no attack line, but luckily I tried this in a hotseat game vs. myself first. No chance to pull this off due to the German no move zone - likely established to prevent exactly this from happening

[DivePac88]

I think that the 'Smolensk Mousetrap' is a great operational victory. But the real significance of his heavy losses at Smolensk, will be that he will have to commit his strategic reserves for the foreseeable future to the defence of Moscow. This means that the resources that he can use to reinforce Leningrad, or put in a spoiling offence there are going to be limited.

[CharonJr]

Well, the pocket was not very secure and has been broken, but I have resealed it and it should be secure this time.

To give him forces a larger frontline to protect I have continued to push east in the south of Leningrad.

But the shadow of the armament bug hangs over this game, I think I will offer him a restart. The bad thing is that he will no longer surprised by my moves and I have to try to come up with something different

[CharonJr]

T8:

Gave Miller 1 million armaments this turn, but most likely we will restart.

The Smolensk pocket has been broken, isolating some of my Panzerdivisionen, but in the remaining pockets 10 units with 83k men, 1.1k guns and 152 AFVs have been destroyed.

Around Leningrad he launched his first counterattacks vs. my leading Panzerdivision and managed to force them to retreat after 3 attacks, costing me 1.6k men, 50 guns and 40 panzer while he lost 3.9k men, 100 guns and 240 tanks.

Kolpino hs been taken, but I lack the MPs to send a unit in there. In addition the Volkhov is cross, given me options to either continue north towards the border with Finland and/or isolate Novgorod to the south in addition to threating the airfields to the east where quiete a number of Soviet planes are stationed.

But the lack of additional troops is felt to a huge extend now since the CV of my units is getting low and there is no time to rest them properly. Due to this the main body of 16. Armee is moving north now from their current positions to the south of Velikie Luki.

The Smolensk pocket is resealed and is now save from breaking by movement, if he wants to help this trapped troops he needs to attack. It will remain to be seen how many units managed to escape.

In the south (just north of the Krim) he attacked LAH - who made the Dnepr crossing last turn - 8 times, but each attack was repelled, even with the new morale rules (which I think hurt the Axis more than the Soviets) this should give a nice boost to morale (just checked, just 90, the same as any other SS division, is it really THAT hard now to get additonal morale?). Anyway, Iron Crosses for everybody involved, since they stopped attacks from up to 26k men and made 6k men not leave the field again while only lsoing 310 men themself.

The LAH's bridgehead is massively reinforced and a small pocket is formed (containing 3 airborne brigades and a cav div in addition to 2 rifle div) which might be broken, but not without some effort.

III Panzer is moved towards the south and some panzer of 1. Panzergruppe are assigned to new HQs, freeing up 1 HQ unit and bringing back some order into my unit dispositions.

The arriving Italian troops are put on rail and moved towards the frontline (Krim area).

It will be interesting to see what the 1 million armaments will do for the Soviet troop levels.

[Josh]

I'd say go North, meet up with the Finns to free them up. It shortens the frontline, and the Finns are great in the winter.
But uhm, you're pretty exposed south of Lake Ilmen...? Nothing there?

[CharonJr]

Personally I have a pretty clear idea where I will head in the north, but I dont want to give too many details

My current gap around Lake Ilmen is one of the reasons I am sending 16.Armee north.

[2ndACR]

Holy cow!!! Where is the Russian army? Is he pulling a massive Sir Robin?

By turn 8 I am always facing a solid Russian line sitting in forts of 2+. That screen shot is just crazy.

[CharonJr]

I have not experienced the armaments bug on the Soviet side, but I think he has a very large number of troops waiting for their rifles

I expect the Red Army to grow by at least 1 million men by the next turn.

That's why I offered him a restart. While I should have captured more men in those pockets it is highly doubtful if I would have been able to form so many/large pockets if his divisions were up to strength.

We will see how comfortable Miller feels after the next turn when those reserves are placed in the field and either continue or restart.

[kirkgregerson]

I think the sov players is at a huge disadvantage since he was not able to created in earlier turns units due to the armaments bug in the previous beta?  To me I think the game is kind of unbalanced and looks to be very grim for the sov players.  I've seen already a few games restarted because of this issue.  You guys should restart or maybe the sov player doesn't mind the extra challenge?


The problem with the reserves coming now is it's already too late. Those first few turns where he didn't have the troops have created 'exponential' issues for the sov player. Gaining the troops now is not going to come close to balancing that out. At least that's the way I feel.

[CharonJr]

It looks like Miller wants to continue since I got T9.

My guess about +1 million troops was about right and my first recon seems to indicate that he is shortening his frontline and tries to avoid encirclements where ever possible now, even to the extend of removing troops from Leningrad and abandoning Novgorod.

With less than 2 million casualties for the Red Army and having so far being able to evacuate his industries I think he is still in decent shape for the winter/blizzards, especially considering my mobile forces are pretty banged up from having operated at the frontlines for too long.

[Mynok]

Have to say that was one of the finest first turns in the south I've ever seen. I've had no luck trying to repeat it.