Matrix Games Forums

IINM I think it's also in the Manual and I think Bob made a post here about this someplace.

Not sure about the manual, but I thihk Bob's post that I referenced I found the info is at

tm.asp?m=4380544

that post has screenshots from the Interface Guide I mentioned

Here is AGC holding on (barely) as the Soviet winter counter-offensive finally begins to wind down.

Sometime around when the next mud season kicks in I will revert to Elmer control of Soviet of the PO. In the meantime, some house rules I've started making for myself when moving Soviet units for Elmer:

1) Of the Soviet Shock Armies that are on the map right now, only 1st Shock units may attack. (the other Shock Armies did not come in theatre until late 1942, so I am marking them "hands off" for now, moving them only Eastward to their historical theatres of operation for winter 1942 operations) ...

2) Otherwise limiting Soviet attacks to only those units that are in their historical operating theatres as of this winter counteroffensive, using Grantz's "Colossus Reborn" book as a guide (because the units got scattered so wildly the first 30 turns ... taking the time basically to get the formations back in cohesion in their theatres of operation for Elmer)

3) NKVD units may only perform rear security. No stacking NKVD for front line defense and no attacks. NKVD units must stay w/ their assigned formations and only the rear.

As I try to learn more about the Soviet side of things, I will continue to limit my actions so as to not take undue advantage of the overwhelming force on the Soviet side ....

Okay, anyway, As you can see I have stretched that Northern flank pretty badly, and the gash around Yukhnov is pretty serious. Soviet airborne landed south of Viazma but were finally repulsed.

Germans now have a few more tank and infantry divisions 150% supplied now in Minsk, ready to rail to Smolensk. The Minsk - Smolensk rail connection must remain open at all costs as that is where reinforcements are coming from. Okay, well, back to the game! Will try to wrap up this winter bit by the end of next week, then we'll see how Elmer handles the muddy tooty raspazootsy time.

Interesting house rules.

ORIGINAL: StuccoFresco

Interesting house rules.

Yes, and I keep vacillating about the issue; on one hand, I know I messed up the Germans pretty badly, so I want to just go ahead and wipe them out as quickly as I can and see how long it would take me to get to Berlin. At the same time, I don't want to be too ahistorical about it.

On the other, I want to learn about the Soviets and how it went historically (thus my interest in getting an idea of all the formations and how they operated in theatre.)

I guess my conundrum is best illustrated comparing the Shock Armies (1st is just now getting to front line action; historically, the 2d Shock etc. didn't come on line until the 1942 offensive in Grantz's book ... so I want to keep them back until later in 1942)

as opposed to (for example) the 2d Guards (historically, Stalingrad) ... but Stalingrad isn't even an issue for the Soviets or the Germans now. AGS is crumbling, too. So 2d Guards is now leading a counter-offensive around Kharkov.

What a mess. Maybe I will just go full bore toward Berlin, at least w/ reasonable force and get it over with. I guess I should look at it as, "What if the Germans just fell apart disastrously in winter 1941-42?" (which is what is happening)... <sigh>

Ok, well, I'll just go for Berlin ... but also rein in some of the Soviets (e.g., like keeping NKVD in the rear security role).

I really need Soviet rail repair ... I'm not finding any units that can do that yet.

I found some RR engineers in a Motor Engineer unit so look through your Motor Engineer units for your RR engineers.

The Soviets did indeed have a habit of assigning up to 12 RR construction and repair squads with RVGK motorized engineer regiments. They sometimes included a handful of squads with construction battalions too.

Grantz writes, "On the eve of the war, the NKO ... fielded 13 new railroad brigades by June, each consisting of three railroad route battalions, a railroad bridge battalion and a separate railroad exploitation company.[74] When Operation Barbarossa began, 10 of these brigades were supporting movement into and within the western military districts.[75]" Colossus Reborn @ 352.

These specialized forces were in addition to the specialized RR support troops already embedded within the field forces.

Be that as it may, for me in this game, I do not have ANY railroad repair teams. They are simply not on the map, as shown by the the number "Assigned" in the below inventory report.

We'll just have to walk to Berlin and put the supplies on pack mules.

Check the expected reinforcements dialog for entry of units that might have your
RR engineers. OR open a second session of TOAW and pull your scenario into the
editor and check the Soviet side units for your RR engineers and when they enter
the game.

Ok, will keep looking.

Anyway, here is map as of end of Jan. 1942. The Soviet winter counter-offensive is winding down.

Germans are Barely holding on to Bryansk. German building forces in Minsk for when the ground dries up later (or can rail to Smolensk if need more reinforcements there.)

I think the Germans have weathered the storm for now. But they too weak to do anything except hunker down for another month or two.

Near the end of February 1942 now, the Soviets are beginning to run out of soldiers to throw in to the meat grinder. I pushed everything into the fray for Elmer, except for the two or three Shock armies who are holding back until the thaw (and the NKVD who are making sure the meat gets pushed into the grinder.)

Bryansk has fallen (back to the Soviets). AGS is out of supply and in deep trouble. A huge gap lies b/w AGS and AGC but the Soviets just don't have the resources to be able to exploit that...yet. AGN is beginning to crack. I figure there must be at least two or three thousand German artillery pieces that are propping up AGC at the moment.

What a slaughter!

Bryiansk looks really weak now.

Here's a closer look at Bryansk / AGC and the German railheads. The red rail lines are already constructed, the purple lines are planned construction.

Reinforcements gas up in Minsk, then proceed to the Dnepr, then across to try to extend that line. Currently gassing up that 12th Panzer Div. and the three infantry divisions to head southeast and extend the line being established by 2d Pz Armee.

Farther south, the Hungarians / Italians / Rumanians were pretty much cut to pieces, but they are getting reinforcements ready to set up a new line southeast of Kiev.

Soviets are almost static now. They've used up most of their mojo taking back Orel, Bryansk, and Velikiye Luki. But with any luck, Germans will be able to launch a counter-counter offensive after the next muddy season. Going to be a long summer.

Not sure if or when I'll let Elmer have another go at it ... I'm having too much fun with it!

PS: if anyone knows, what are the off-map Soviet units up in the upper right corner? I think they are called "Initiative E" right now, and they seem to have changed colors / icons. But I can't move them, and if I disband them they just re-appear. Just curious! Is that some kind of indication about what objective tracks Elmer would be following? They were tan and green colored and said "Initiative C" a few turns ago I think, now they are tan and blue colored and say, Initiative E? Any hints? Thanks! Fun game! PPS I forget which version of D21 I am doing, it is an older version that came with the disk. Ok, back to it! Will try to advance the game time into April / May 1942 this weekend.

what are the off-map Soviet units up in the upper right corner?

They are Not In Play, they are from an ancient time, they have been removed from later versions, disbanding them may affect initiative switches, try to ignore them [;)]

Not much change, except for the Germans building RR and massing reinforcements for what will become Case Blau I think. Soviets are worn out. Snow is beginning to melt.

On the PO front: I tried to let Elmer have a go, and I guess the computer overheated b/c it crashed after about five minutes of the discs and fans whizzing around like it was going to take off like a whirlybird. I think it overheated and it CTD. SO, I decided to take a look again at trying to "finesse" the PO. Managed to finally set all Sov units to "manual", and started to test out w/ the Soviet 11th Army.

So, it ran fine with only one formation to do with, but here is question I hope you can help me with. On the "formation path" here, we see the red line, and it runs all the way up the map to the Northwest front, then it turn blue to the west. What I would ideally like to do, is edit the formation path "on the fly" but I don't see how that can be done. Would I have to open the game in the editor to change the formation paths? Will that work "mid game" and I can change it and still be on turn 79? Or is that something you can only do from before turn 1?

Ok, well, thanks for your help! In the meantime, I can let Elmer do one formation at a time, and it runs fine, but I would like to be able to adjust the formation paths if possible.

You cannot edit a game that you are playing [:-]

[Well, technically you can, but that is for testing purposes only as the scenario will be unplayable]

You can change Formation Objectives by finding the Elmer Assist button. I don't know where it is in the New Age UI, in the Original UI we click in the Blank Space above the Mini-Map, this will allow you to change Objectives. Watch the Majic Bar at the bottom of the screen for helpful hints.

Thank you! I find that in the Elmer mode, when the purple bar is on the units, then if you right click on the map when the little cross hairs are visible, it will let you set / add / remove the objectives!! Thanks a million! Will experiment with this some more.

Well, my TOAW computer has crashed and it seems irrecoverable, so I will have to abandon this game. Thanks for following along and I appreciate all of your kind helps.

PS: w/re/to the Soviet RR repairs, it seems to have started auto-repairing some hexes / rails that I took back from the Germans over the last few moves, at least around Leningrad. So there's that.

Me sad. I was just starting to get into fooling around w/ the PO. Ok, well, see you all again if / when I ever am able to re-install TOAW and play the game again. Unfortunately, this little laptop would not be able to handle it.

Thanks again!

The Soviet Auto-Repairs are listed in the Situation Report. How many they get, I mean.

Let me know before you restart, if you don't mind. I've got a later version that I might give you.

EDIT: Sorry to hear about the crash. About nothing could be more irritating these days. Hope everything was backed up!

HAH well of COURSE nothing was backed up, except to the same hard drive that has gone belly up. Not sure what happened, but now the disc goes "cli-cli-CLICK, cli-cli-CLIK, cli-cli-CLIK" about 10 times, and then just a black screen.

I can get to BIOS but switching boot sequences was no help. The "hard power down for restart three times to get to safe mode" in Win10 did not work. So I guess the hard drive has failed. Is asking for a recovery boot disk, but that was packed away somewhere 10 years ago. So, oh well. Que sera. I might try another computer I have w/ 4 gigs of ram, just kind of downed right now, b/c I'd have to the download again etc. Bright side, a clean slate whenever it gets done.

Anyway, final thoughts: a fun scene to play. I turned Elmer off when it was getting the inter-turn freeze around move 30. Every time I turned Elmer back on, the discs and fan just went crazy spinning, and heat spiked (that's why I think it CTD that last time, from heat), and I tried switching to just one or two formations for Elmer to slowly build it back up.

Was sad that I had just got to April '42 and snow was melting and I was building a new German offensive just as the Soviets got tired out.

Well, thanks for making this scene, I had a lot of fun playing it while the computer lasted. I will definitely try the latest version next time.

Ok, well, thanks again! Cheers! PS if anyone wants to take over my CSV game (it is on turn 24) let me know and I will let my opp know, I am sure he would appreciate an opponent taking over for me. I will send a password to you if anyone is interested in taking over for that one.

I will post a "Seeking replacement player" in the games section, if you will email me I will send pword. It is mrblonde's move.

Thanks again!!