T00 Events

[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like in the north right now. I've managed to push the Soviets backward slowly and the Finns have been busy and are approaching their stop line. I'm hopeing to be in possession of Leningrad before the mud turns arrive. Also, I'm trying to trap all the Soviet defenders north of the city so I can destroy them before they escape to the south.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T21 round 1 I just now discovered that the Hungarians are flying some Ju-86's and I'm not making those any longer and there's only 1 on hand and I've lost 10 of these bad boys already so I thought I'd park them at Lodz in Poland for now to get them out of harm's way. Lodz is about 200km SW of Warsaw. I can't spare an HQ for this guy to spunge supply from just now but he's in a high supply area and that's almost as good. I moved him there because I want to save his services for the end game period.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T21 round 1 and this is what it looks like west of Moscow right now. I'm surrounding Soviet units and destroying them. Plus the occasional RBC which is what happened just now north of Medyn where I killed a small Soviet armour unit which left my 106th Inf Div just hanging out there in enemy territory. I'm planning on sending him some support as soon as I can find an unemployed unit of some kind. Even if it's yellow. I've gained the river crossing at Kaluga and I plan on sending several units to garrison that broken bridge. I dropped it via bombers several turns ago and now I have to repair it to use it.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T21 round 4 and this is what it looks like west of Moscow right now. I've killed several Soviet units and have scooted closer to Moscow and there are seemingly fewer Soviet units present than there were a couple of rounds ago. I've busted a bridge east of Moscow and I'm hopeing that that will stiffle the flow of Soviets into this AO. It would be great if I could start my surround already. We'll see if I can manage that little trick.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like around Kiev right now. I'm pushing south as fast as my units will go so I can capture all the Soviet units up against the river bank before they can escape to the east or south. I believe I have surrounded them all so that they are all cut off from their supply sources to the east but I think Kiev itself has a supply point. At any rate I have captured Kiev and the Soviets have no hope of getting it back any time soon. I have crossed the river down south as well and I'm pushing toward Kharkov.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T22 round 2 and I've just finished the first combat round and I'm moving all the tired aircraft to a good supply spot out of harm's way for a while to let them refit, refuel, and get something to eat, take a potty break ( if need be ) and get back in the air. But in the case of Finn aircraft squadron Air Rgt 3-26th S I've discovered to my dismay that this squadron took a beating in this last combat phase and now it's in dire need to refit and refuel. I'm not building any G. 60 Freccia's any longer and there's only 15 on hand and 3 assigned to the squadron so I need to let it gather all the planes that are left and then move it to Murmansk or somewhere out of the line of the majority of the fighting to just threaten Elmer and not to get into a knife fight. That Hungarian bomber squadron that flies Ju-86's I moved to Berlin as a note to me not to involve it in the fighting for a long time.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like around Leningrad right now. The Finns are almost established at their Stop Line and I've managed to push the Soviets backward a little bit and there was a report of supply difficulties for the Axis but I've repaired the rails up to the front lines almost everywhere so there's not really all that much of a crisis. Another Soviet naval unit has appeared near Sevastopol so I need to redeploy all the Stuka's to the Crimea to take care of it. I gained a hex at Odessa finally after about 11 turns of bombardment and one-dot attacks.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like around Moscow right now. I'm sneaking up on Tula and Kalinin and Moscow all about the same time. There's a huge gap in the lines to the south of this image that I need to fill or Elmer will fill it before I do. I usually infiltrate between the Soviet units and surround them one at a time before I destroy them but in this case the Soviets have built a fairly substantial front line in this AO and I'm going to have a harder time using that procedure. I'll have to adjust my tactics somehow as a workaround.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T22 round 4 and this is what it looks like around Kharkov right now. I've finally captured Kharkov and that's a rather big deal for me because of all the rails and roads that pass through there. Supply levels are great because of the proximity of the repaired rail(s). Elmer is railing in more and more troops to this AO and the fighting is sharp and intense.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like around Kiev right now. I've carved out lots of territory and Elmer is going to have a hard time saving all those Soviet units up against the eastside riverbank. I believe I can kill all of them. The supply level gets down to 12 at the south end of my front lines but the railhead is approaching from the north.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T25 round 2 and this is what it looks like to the NW of Kharkov right now. I've managed to surround about 5 Soviet division equivalents with some rather small units and I'm curious to know if Elmer is going to try to break out of my loose ring of units. I'm thinking of flying in a lot of bombers on a mix of CS and INT to do whatever good they can. So far I've been able to surround the Soviet units before I destroy them and I hope I can continue the long run of success so far.

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[larryfulkerson]

I managed to capture all the Soviet units up against the river bank, for the first time since I started playing this game. I got a great deal of help from Axis units advancing from the south. Actually they did most of the heavy lifting. A lot of the Soviet units tried to escape but I caught them at the right margin of this image. I got all of them. I wonder what the loss of all these units is going to do to the Soviet side. They might have to tap that mountain of units they have in the pool They were making 900+ per turn last time I checked. So they probably have a couple thousand stored up on hand. I'd like to see them short of equipment to staff their field units.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like around Stalino right now. The Soviet units are so sparse in this AO that I've had very little problem surrounding the Soviets just before I kill them. I'm keen to plug the Soviet port of Rostov ASAP to prevent the flood of reinforcements north of the river that flows through that city. I captured Odessa finally and all those Romanian units will redeploy to help push through the Kertch Straits.

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[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's happening at Tula right now. I'm attacking from the west with one group and pushing NE through Plavsk with another group. SE of Plavsk there's the 18th MotDiv engineer unit that appears to be in trouble being threatened by a Soviet division and a Soviet calvary unit. I need to send him some support ASAP.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T27 round 1 and this is what it looks like around Moscow right now. I've been able to push a little closer to Moscow but my losses are way to high to attack much longer. I have 21.8K HRS's assigned, 179 HRS's on hand and I've lost 29.4K HRS's so far. Which means that I need to stop attacking and let my units refuel, refit, and rest for a while. I need more HRS's in my LCU's for them to have enough strength to twart the Soviet Winter Offensive when that happens. But the rails are repaired all the way to the front lines so supply is great. It's early September and this turn see's the first cold front to come our way. There will be more cold fronts in future turns.

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[StuccoFresco]

It seems you are doing an amazing work at keeping up the railway repairs with the advancing front.

[larryfulkerson]

It seems you are doing an amazing work at keeping up the railway repairs with the advancing front.

One of the mods I made to this scenario is to give the Axis Corps HQ units some RR engineers so they can repair rail as well as the dedicated RR engineer units and they are helping a great deal in keeping the repaired rails up with the front lines. It wouldn't be possible to do that with only the RR engineer units alone. It helps keep the advance going a lot more than would be possible without the modification. I know it makes the scenario unbalanced heavily toward the Axis but it's a hell of a lot more fun than the stock scenario. It's only September and I'm already close to Moscow for instance. My mod is a sort of "what if" change. It shows what the Axis is capable of if they had had the resources available to do something about the poor supply situation they experienced in real life. I also gave the Soviet LCU's some AT equipment to give the Soviet units a tad bit more juice than they had before as a sort of balancing effort. I'm not sure that it's helping the Soviet side very much though. Thanks for noticing the difference and saying something. It helps me know that somebody is reading this thing. That you said something is encouraging.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T28 round 2 and this is what it looks like around Sevastopol right now. I'm making progress in both of the hot spots in this image. The Romanians are pushing through the Kerch Straits with the help of most of the arty that the Romanians own. Now that they have almost gained the easternmost port I'm thinking of redeploying all the arty over to the effort to gain the biggest port on the isthmus. I finally sank all the Soviet naval units down south so I've moved the Stukas to the effort to gain Moscow because they are so lethal on armoured vehicles. I'm going to devote more resources to the drive along the south coast to get into the Soviet backfield and approach the port from the south. That seems easier than trying to force my way through all the defenders along the north edge of the front lines.

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[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like around Rostov right now. I've managed to get this far by pushing with all the units that are leftover from other hot spots as well as many of the Axis Allies that I can spare. The Italians and Hungarians and some smattering of Romanians and I'm making do with I have for the most part. Rostov is at the bottom right of this image and that's my goal: to capture that port and stop the flow of Soviet reinforcements from getting north of the river at that point. Then to drive east to the other river crossings that Elmer uses to enter his reinforcements into the battlefield.

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[larryfulkerson]

I finally captured Tula just now. I'm going to try to hang onto it through the coming Soviet turn. The Axis unit in the city itself is the 28th JG Division and it's got a health level of 48% so whether or not I can hang onto the city through the coming Soviet turn is sorta iffy. I'll move the nearby supply unit into the hex if I have to. I see some arty present so that will help a great deal.

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