1.05.18 Beta - Baelfiin(Soviet) vs Carnage(Axis) -NoCarnagePls-

[Baelfiin]

With much trepidation I am going to try my hand at posting an AAR. I hope that some of you readers will get some enjoyment out of it. At the very least some comic relief.

This will be my first time playing 1.05.18, I am looking forward to the changes that have been made to date.

My overall strategy is going to be evacuate armaments first and foremost, then tank/air factories , singletons if necessary. I am not going to actively go after vehicle or HI factory evacs.

Depending on what kind of Carnage my opponent wreaks (pun intended) I plan on using air supply to the fullest extent possible.

My defense is going to be focused on the south and center, the farther out in the north the Germans get the better.

At some point I will figure out how to do the really nice screens that have been in other AAR's , for now I will be limited to copy paste in paint.

[sillyflower]

Gien that your IT skills as much better than mine I don't expect you will have much trouble with the AAR, or with Carnage unless he stops being as careless as he has been in his other 2 recent games.

[Baelfiin]

North- I am defending a little more south than I probably should, I am probably going to have some panzers get loose towards Leningrad. My strategy is to fight hard in the center and the south, so the comrades in the northern areas are probably going to take it on the chin.

[Baelfiin]

Center- Attempting to Muscle up in the Middle (tm) ... Keeping my fingers crossed that it will be beneficial.

[Baelfiin]

South - The Lvov Pocket turned out to be a little leaky, I am probably going to get a bunch of my guys surrounded trying to keep it open. Units inside the pocket are forming up around air bases, the Lvov airlift begins on june 26!!

The line is pretty thick so I doubt I will have too many incursions this turn. Hopefully things will still be in order on turn 2 for planned withdrawal to the east.

[Baelfiin]

Turn 2
ARM- 7 from Lgrad, 4 from Kiev -- Total 11
HI--- 0
Misc- a couple t50's from Lgrad just becuase i had some rail left and nothing else to move.

--North--

Panzers run wild against weak russian defense, but have they gone a river too far?
It looks like the Germans are able to draw supply through Riga ( at least the MP and distance to rail matches). Not sure if that is an artifact of riga just being captured or if there is actual supply moving through. In any case, I welcome mad dashes by single panzer units. I won't be able to punish them this time, but if Carnage keeps exposing them to isolation, I will bag some eventually.

[Baelfiin]

Turn 2

--Center--

I attempted to build up in the middle and slow the germans down, but failed miserably. The Panzergruppes continue to plunge their fangs into the Motherland, consequently I initiate Operation SqueezePlay in an attempt to cut off the head of the serpent. I was unable to completly close the gap, but at least the gas trucks have a lot rougher road to travel (60+ mps to the tip of the spear)
MuitM continues into phase 2, the rail focus on ARM has left me weaker here than I want to be.

[Baelfiin]

Turn 2

--South--

The Lvov Airlift is underway, I could have done a better job managing which units to get supply though. Nevertheless, it was very enjoyable trying to fly the supplies in. The map shows the extent of what I was able to accomplish with it.
I was very tempted to stay and fight in the south, as I felt the line was pretty strong and the Germans a little scattered. However, recent punishment ( thank you mistress sillyflower, may i have another) when I try to get happy with a forward defense has made mne realize that discretion is the better part of valor in this area, and that being conservative now will make things easier for me later. We will see how much damage Carnage is able to inflict.
For those of you who may be wondering why I am not disbanding the fort regions, my thinking is that any manpower and equipment loss is trivial compared to forcing the germans to hit them and spending AP to disband them. In fact, they are going to be my primary defenders on the Finnish Front, depending on how fast I get beat down up there.

I also raided an airfield that was exposed and ripped up some freshly laid german rail. That will cause a little havoc. I bombed a couple german airbases just to see how things were workiing and got my head handed to me like I deserved. I really like what has been done with the air aspect of the game so far.

---- I think that forts should not decay on turn one if that is something that can be changed by turn ----

[Flaviusx]

Um.

You shouldn't be able to do airhead supply before turn 3, btw. Pavel changed the code for this to prevent early pocket supply by the Sovs.

[Flaviusx]

Ok got a rules clarification on this. The air supply restriction applies to turn 1 only, not all of June. So you are good to go.

Watch your bomber losses, though. It becomes prohibitively expensive to keep an airhead going, especially as the Luftwaffe CAP moves forward and your own aircover retreats. I personally would rather keep these airframes going for other missions, mileage may vary.

[Baelfiin]

Yeah I agree 100 percent.

I just wanted to try things out in a real game and see how it works "live". I think it will be a lot of fun to really jack with the germans when they think they have a pocket somewhere deeper inside of russia, and then being able to supply it so it doesnt get rolled the very next turn.

Should add a whole other dimension for the bean counters to obsess over 8)

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Baelfiin

Turn 2

--South--
However, recent punishment ( thank you mistress sillyflower, may i have another).........
I also raided an airfield that was exposed and ripped up some freshly laid german rail.

mixing masochism with sadism are you now? That's one for the textbooks. Losing at least 1 of turn of railhead advance is no fun for Jerry and you are exploiting Carnage's tendency to be a bit careless to the max.

I expected no less.

[Djouk]

Baelfiin, you learned me the game in my 2 first campaigns (as Djack on server), as that was an opened game i expected to meet a player at max average rank... i suffered very much and lost very quickly. After this i was better so thanks for your lessons and for your patience. This time i will win : i bet on you !

[Q-Ball]

That's kind of a neat trick supplying the Lvov pocket, but ultimately I think it helps the Germans more.

For my part, I want to have untis flowing east anyway, I would just park the Slovaks and Hungarians there and shoot down all your bombers until you stopped.

[Flaviusx]

Amusingly, I just pulled this air supply trick on remnants of the Bialystock pocket in a PBEM game. None of the bombers got shot down for some reason -- no luftwaffe to be seen in the area.

I didn't dare to try this with the Lvov pocket, though, as I saw enemy airbases nearby.

[Baelfiin]

ORIGINAL: Djouk

Baelfiin, you learned me the game in my 2 first campaigns (as Djack on server), as that was an opened game i expected to meet a player at max average rank... i suffered very much and lost very quickly. After this i was better so thanks for your lessons and for your patience. This time i will win : i bet on you !

Hi DJ

I would classify my rank as low average at best 8) Glad we had some fun on those games, I learned a lot as well.

[Baelfiin]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

That's kind of a neat trick supplying the Lvov pocket, but ultimately I think it helps the Germans more.

For my part, I want to have untis flowing east anyway, I would just park the Slovaks and Hungarians there and shoot down all your bombers until you stopped.

It was a one turn flirtation with the resupply rules. I think there will be a lot of fun things that can be done with them as the game gets into the later stages.

[Baelfiin]

Turn 3

--ARM Pts Moved --- 8Lgrad, 3Mogilev, 2Gomel, 3Odessa, 3Nikolayev, 3Kirovograd, 22 for turn, 11 previous, total 33
--HI 000000
-- Misc nothing this turn, a few T50's from Lgrad in total.
Remaining rail used to bring up some troops to the smolensk area.

-- Turn 3 North --
I grabbed the tiger by the tail last turn when I surrounded the First panzer div. I got raked pretty good by it after some of the stragglers from PG4 reestablised communications. I am fully expecting to get my ass kicked up here towards leningrad over the next couple of turns. But all I really need is just one more turn for rail, and then after that I will conduct Operation Welcome to My Parlor in the North.

[Baelfiin]

-- Turn 3 Center --

Germans look to be concentrating in the center, I am wondering if there is a build up going on. Phase 3 of MUM is complete, Hopefully that massive carpet will blunt any German drive without getting a bunch of my guys surrounded. Im feeling pretty good abouot the middle at the moment. Its amazing how liberating it can be to just not worry about one section of the front [:D]

EDIT-- Why does the screen shot sometimes show up as the attachment and not the picture itself?

[Baelfiin]

Turn 3 -- South

Carnage continues to clean up the pockets..... I resupply 2 INF divisions in the pocket for the loss of around 20ish bombers. Just having some fun with it to see what can be done. Next time I will leave the Tanks farther away, because you cant set the air resupply range to same hex only.
I continue to back up in front of the Rumanians. German Infantry seems to be lagging behind, I will stand and fight this turn. I ain't afraid of no 5-point LAH =p
(hope i dont get crushed)