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Map around Kerch after soviet moves

May 30 1942 / Turn 10 / Weather: Clear

German moves:
Bonners primarily moves his troops where he wants them, with only two attacks on the Crimea, resting his air formations and loading up his artillery units.

Soviet situation on turn 10:

Not much to do for me other than finetuning my defensive lines and keep digging in. Nice entrenchments behind rivers and on forest/hill/urban hexes is the only way to prevent/limit axis breakthroughs at this stage of the game. I want to keep my divisions as intact as possible to slowly fall back from one defendable position to the next, without getting forced into an uncontrolled full retreat. Time is on my side as long as I can prevent large encirclements.

Map of Kharkow, end of turn:

And Kerch:

New general in town: Smirnov. With his org-skill of 65 he's destined to take up a front command. He only gets 1 command point per turn with which to train up subordinate army HQ's, but I'll have to use what I get.

Troops comparison end of turn 10:

The idea was to attack your units before they reached the river and take it at the rush. I should've given up and moved them elsewhere at the point the AAR has reached...C'est la Vie[:D]

ORIGINAL: Bonners

The idea was to attack your units before they reached the river and take it at the rush. I should've given up and moved them elsewhere at the point the AAR has reached...C'est la Vie[:D]

Some things we just have to try out. If they don't work as intended then we try something else next time. I've made my share of mistakes and just hope to avoid them in future. *g*

June 1 1942 / Turn 11 / Weather: Clear

Quiet turn. Apart from bombing Kerch port closed again Bonners rests his troops and planes. I for my part check on my commanding officers and reshuffle them a bit.

June 3 1942 / Turn 12 / Weather: Clear

Axis attacks
Bonners unleashes his troublemakers over the donetz river near Kharkow, while my Kerch defenders hold off another attack.

Wrong picture... Here come Bonners attacks:

Bad luck for Bonners, as he got bad dice with his Gamble card. Facing two bridgeheads made me swallow hard, three would have mad me pull back. My reserves near Kharkow are not strong enough for 3 counterattacks.

Soviet situation beginning turn 12

So Bonners has cut two bridgeheads at Kharkow, this will not do. Retreat is no option, I won't give up the best defensive terrain nearby without a fight as long as I see a chance to succeed with my counterattacks. I have some reserves in the vicinity, so I'll try to throw Bonners butchers back over the river.

Butchers bill for this turn:

With this update the gamble card really is a gamble card. IIRC I lost three gambles in this game, two from Manstein and one from Raus. In future games I wont be taking the gamble. Both have the freedom card available which offers a nice enough mixture of attack points and APs. I was just being greedy and really paid for it.

I think of the gamble cards as a lead card for an offensive that I can delay if it fails otherwise I would not use it.

I definately like the freedom card a lot more than the gamble card. It always works and it costs less so you can play it more often.

ORIGINAL: James Ward

I definately like the freedom card a lot more than the gamble card. It always works and it costs less so you can play it more often.

I fully agree. If gamble backfires as in the case above (belated condolations to Bonners, I didn't see the full impact of your inactivated mobile units back then) some of your best units are ineffective for one turn which might cost the Axis player a possible breakthrough/forced mass retreat or even a nice encirclement. And it takes damn long to collect the lost command points again for something useful.

In my book Gamble is carelessly shooting yourself in the foot when with Freedom you have a failsafe instrument which is just as good as a successful Gamble if you consider you can use it more often. I can't imagine to use Gamble once I switch sides after my current pbem.

I only use gamble to attack a fixed position (like a city). If it fails, the enemy will probably not counterattack, as the loss of readiness/entrenchment level will make his position far worse then if the gamble had succeeded.

Whenever the enemy has 4 hexsides on you, he will attack. It may be better to attack and not take the hex, then give the enemy all those bonuses for attacking.

I do prefer Freedom over Gamble for most things..as the extra AP's will allow you to exploit by attacking the flanks of the penetration (since you gained an extra hexside). Especially if you use speed on the division advancing after combat. I find that when you attack three hexes in a row puts a damper on the enemies desire to counterattack.

Kerch evacuated:

I almost forgot to mention I've evacuated the Kerch defenders on turn 12. I ran out of rested and supplied troops to ship in there (I had kept rotating as many units as I could for the last few turns, letting them rest and regain supplies on the mainland before shipping them back in). My garrison units at the start of turn 12 were worn out, had zero supplies left and would have used up any arriving supply to regain readiness. Stupid game mechanism which does not reserve ammo to fight with. No need for soaps when you have empty rifles… Seeing Bonners had plenty rested troops in the neighbourhood I dedided to leave town instead of throwing away 10'000 soldiers.