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Ahem...ALL of the motorized units are my cannon fodder!

ORIGINAL: Pawlock

Some interesting titbits of info in your texts have caught my eye.
I like the idea of converting back the zoc to slow him down, just started to do that myself when get chance. You mention about Hq's getting bounced, does that mean any SU's directly attached to said hq are automatically lost?
ps. you bashed up on the 29th motorised,seems to be PDH's bogey unit[:)]

Not necessarily. They do suffer retreat attrition and losses, and if an SU is too beat up they can be destroyed. For example, the only unit that I've 'destroyed' of the Axis, so far, has been an SU that was attached to a German motorized unit that was attacked. Some of the support units that are in my more active HQs are at unready status due to losses suffered over several turns of combat. If they don't get enough replacements, they might start dying too.

I am surprised Pavlov has not been shot yet; usually it happens for me on the 1st or 2nd turn.

I still want JAM to make the scary clown with the knife go away.

That last screenshot is interesting with Hungarian motorised units leading the assault towards Kiev. I reckon that is one way to keep down German losses.

ORIGINAL: Sabre21

That last screenshot is interesting with Hungarian motorised units leading the assault towards Kiev. I reckon that is one way to keep down German losses.

PDH likes to throw out bait to tempt me into attacking him. Not trying to get too far ahead of the posted AARs, but turn 9 around Leningrad will be a very interesting read...[;)]

Turn 7

Let it be noted that I am not a pessimist by nature. I wake up feeling pretty good each day, and despite my clown with a knife reputation, I am generally sunny.

Still, mud striking for the second time makes me sad, very very sad. At least it was in the western zone, so nobody could get hurt much...well, cough, not too much.

Anyway, in the North I have to push hard. I lost by my count 2 turns (one to mud, the other to fighting more entrenched units around Pskov). So I drive hard. One thing that helps is that even at this latter date, massed German infantry can smash the soviets. I show this crossing the Luga. The 18th Army breaches the river, and the 4th Panzer Group jumps across. There is not enough movement to trap the western Soviet forces, sadly, and this has been the story of this campaign - so very close.

Still, it is a bit of momentum. I expect the usual counter attacks, but unhinging this river line does help.

To the west, the Baltics are mostly cleared (and yes, I know that the islands are supplied by that port, I was not really sending a division that way, JAM knows. However, I was pointing out to players that they need to be aware of the potential dangers of leaving this port. Jam is a good enough player that he might have left a division there...and come winter this division can become an army...and that would hurt.)

In the center I am on a road to nowhere. As I said, I didn't have the full benefit of the HQ buildup, and the second turn of exploiting was less than I wished, supply disruptions from JAMs units or not. Still, I clear out the shoulders. A deep thrust in the center can provide lots of possibilities, and the area to the south is better tank country than the swamps and forests to the north.

My abused motorized divisions rest a wee bit, some gas is collected, and the infantry moves up. I am a great believer in the power of the german infantry in 1941, in the middle of the summer/autumn, they can steamroll a lot of soviets. The causual viewer will note the 9th Army north of Smolensk, the 4th Army south of that city. My goal was to either lever him out of there, or make the salient in the city so deep he couldn't get out.

Elsewhere, 2nd Army (now 3 corps) moves up and pretends to be useful.

The south...the first twinges of madness.

I carefully positioned my tanks so that the western mud would do the most damage when it hit. Brilliant foresight of me. Turn 6 saw the tanks pretty well fueled and rested...and then they were sitting in a sea of mud and got less recovery and harder movement.

Oh well, I deserved it. Still, I drove on. My plan as I said was to run along the Dnepr (now well defended due to earlier slowdowns), and convert hexes allowing the 6th and 17th Armies to move up. The goal was to find a good crossing point or two, then have the infantry be able to run up to that from a few hexes away and mass assault to get units over.

Other than being slower than I had hoped...the 17th army was also firmly in the mud, this process started.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

(deep breath)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!


The 11th Army had been the one place things were on track. I love the massed purple, I even send a couple of the OKH divisions there to flesh it out after the 11th sheds some of the worthless Romanians. Concentrated, powerful, it can bulldoze forward and has many options - drive to the Dnepr Bend, hook into the Crimea. With such an army Odessa is always easy meat early on unless the Soviets are foolish enough to reinforce that city mightily.

But they do no good in the mud. Mud. Mud. Mud. Dammit.

The worst effect of the mud has been on supply. The southern RR repair has been caught in the mud twice now. I figure I have lost 3-4 hexes of repair due to that alone. This actually will make the whole strategy I planned far more difficult. Any far ranging 1st Panzer strike will be left far more hanging than normal. A rethinking of my goals is in order.

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch


My abused motorized divisions rest a wee bit, some gas is collected, and the infantry moves up. I am a great believer in the power of the german infantry in 1941, in the middle of the summer/autumn, they can steamroll a lot of soviets. The causual viewer will note the 9th Army north of Smolensk, the 4th Army south of that city. My goal was to either lever him out of there, or make the salient in the city so deep he couldn't get out.

I think a lot of people get fixated on the Panzer Armies and the infantry is like an afterthough. IMO they are the real workhorses of the axis army. As soviet I will back off if the infantry comes in range because as you rightly say, they just steamroller anything in thier path.

PDH, you have made me feel much better. You are about as far as I get with the damn mud. Combining this, along with what several Alpha/Beta testers have said, I won't play the 1941 campaign with random weather any more. It really is one of the most frustrating things I have experienced in a game.

This turn was one of my more passive turns. Only one (failed) attack against a Hungarian Motorized Brigade was launched. My forces are still a bit burned out from the fighting around Pskov and Smolensk, so I'm trying to build back up some refitted divisions, and prepare my fall back lines.

Here, in the North, the 27th Army continues to try to work itself around the 4th Pz Gp, and the rest of AGN. I should be able to reach Oranienbaum and Leningrad on the Baltic Coast, and from there, either help defend Leningrad, threaten 4th Pz Gp's flank, or evacuate over the ports to the southern coast of Lake Ladoga, so that I can eventually join it up with the 24th and 31st Armies, which will be assigned to the Reserve Front next turn.

In the region between Lake Ilmen and Smolensk, it is mostly quiet. PDH has been driving his infantry along the Dvina River to clear the railway to Vitebsk. The railhead is still 30 miles NW of Vitebsk, but next turn he should be able to convert to Vitebsk, and being over the Dvina at that point it will significantly increase his supply throw to his dangling bulge south of Smolensk.

I am still contesting the minor river line along the upper Dnepr, to Smolensk, in an attempt to further minimize his supplies to the bulge. These forces are rather exposed, but the divisions left behind are the more beat up divisions, so it won't be too much of a loss if they tie down all those German Infantry divisions for a turn or two. If he attacks them, they may very well rout out, and if he surrounds them, I minimize my losses, and tie him up for a turn, reducing the pocket. This will hopefully give me some time to continue working on fallback lines, and get an idea of where his two Pz Groups are intending on going, once he rectifies his supply problems.

Here is a more detailed shot of his bulge. Wait...can I say that here? Can I show it?[:D]

Anyhow, the town hex just off the top left corner of the map info popup box is Gorki. This shows how his railhead is advancing. After next turn, with his railhead being over the Dvina, and the minor river portion of the Dnepr being converted, he will likely be less than 20 MPs to this point. We're still using 1.04.16 at the time of this game, but knowing that the release of 1.04.22, with its restrictions to HQ Buildups, is imminent, I am keeping a very close eye on his railheads, and the distance to his HQs.

In the meantime, I am still trying to keep his mobile forces engaged. Not only for the increased attrition it will cause them, but also because there is a limit to the amount of information provided by my air recon flights. If I want to see the nitty, gritty details offered by his soft factor display, then I have to dance close with him and keep ground forces engaged. This picture shows his fuel levels are still in the red, so he has not taken advantage of the still liberal HQ Buildup rules.

Notice that though I am engaging several of his mobile units, he is now able to get some safely tucked away within the interior of his bulge.

Here, west of the Dnepr, PDH's gassed up Pz Gp 1 moves along the west bank of the Dnepr clearing a path for his following infantry. His mobile units have been driven hard, and the losses have been mounting on them. He's not foolish enough to try forcing the crossing without infantry support. Thus, to slow down this drive, and reduce his strategic options as to where to try his crossing, I've been using Southern Front to skirmish with both PG1 and 11th Army.

After his turn, my 9th Army has withdrawn across the Dnepr and taken up the fort line at Kremenchug. This section here is one of my favorite ones to force a crossing, and though the 9th has been in constant battle with the Axis for the last 6 turns, it is lead by one of my better generals, and can hopefully blunt any crossing here. I don't entertain any real hope of holding the line, of course, but if I can minimize the breakthrough, I've got fairly strong reserves in the area to counterattack and further wear down any exploiting Panzers.

This screenshot also shows the interesting strategic predicament that both PDH and I share. Him where to attack, and me, where to anticipate. The roughly parallel course that PG1 and PG2/3 are taking will make it a little harder for him to pull off a Kiev pocketing, as PG 1 will have to both make it across the Dnepr, as well as exploit far enough to inhibit my escape. This will take a couple of turns, at least, and PG 2/3 are not really supplied well enough to pull this off. Yet. However, in a couple of turns, all bets are off as this would surely give him time to rest, refit and gas up several Pz Korps, bring up his infantry and really give me hell. Unfortunately, I don't know if a Kiev pocket is in the works, a drive to the Dnepr Basin, a right hook around Smolensk. A strike at Vyazma, or Bryansk, setting up a drive on Moscow are also possible. So many things to defend against, with him possessing interior lines at his bulges, make the defending a tricky proposition. Mainly, I'm trying to checkerboard, build reserves and keep my railways running at 100% utilization, so that I can evacuate as much industry as possible now, and have capacity to shift an army or two to meet any thrusts.

A very intense game.

I know that PDH has been the one who has suffered more at the hands of inclement weather, but this turn, I was adversely affected by it, as well. My plan for this turn was to hightail it away from the 11th Army and abandon the Yuzhny Bug line. I wanted to bring Coastal Army and other Southern Front units up to skirmish with PG1, along the western bank of the Dnepr, blocking the path to the basin. Then, on the following turn, to consolidate the Southern Front armies safely on the east bank. Unfortunately, with the mud, I couldn't extricate as much of the Coastal Army and Southern Front units as I wanted. and was left a bit strung out, and still on the Yuzhny Bug.

Here is the OOB and ground casualties shot. As you can see, this has been a fairly bloody game, thus far. Over the last couple of turns, with combat losses, and irrepairable AFVs mounting, he's been dropped to less than 1500 active German AFVs. Given that this is only turn 7, this is encouraging, as it should reduce the amount of trouble he gets into as the Summer wears on.

On the other side of that coin, is the fact that PDH is very good at keeping focused, and keeps his mobile formations en masse, so even though they have been attrited, they are still in capable hands and very dangerous. Especially when gassed up.

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

Here is a more detailed shot of his bulge. Wait...can I say that here? Can I show it?[:D]

LMAO that is such a brilliant screenshot of his bulge[:D][:D]