D21 yet again. A tribute to the community as my thanks

[larryfulkerson]

So um.......hey you guys: I've been testing the new version using D21 and I've worked out everything I can test and it's okie dokie. As a way to thank all you guys for your well wishes etc. I thought I'd do another AAR of a D21 game ( what else? ) as my way of thanking all of you. I had been posting my AAR on the development board since I was using the newest version and nothing from that version is allowed on the public board I'm going to use 4.1.0.40 for this AAR. I'm going to do all kinds of risky stuff and really think out of the box on this one just to see how far I can push the envelope of performance of my units. I hardly ever do that so I thought it was high time I did. Please consider this AAR as yours and post whatever you think is appropriate and or humerous, or novel. And ask a lot of questions. I can answer ANY question. Sometimes I have to answer "I don't know" but hey, that's an answer. Right now it's 11:43 on 17Jan2023 and the adventure starts now. You've all seen the opening positions of all the units so I need something else to post. I've decided to post stuff related to why I'm pushing my units this direction or that direction and what I'm trying to accomplish as a method of fishing for questions from you guys. Let's talk about whatever you guys are interested in, because I love that sort of thing. Stand by for news.

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[larryfulkerson]

My goal is to destroy as many Soviet units as I can as quickly as I can and I believe one way to do that is to capture the river that flows south through Riga before the Soviets can escape east across it. So I need to capture as many crossings as possible to deny them to Soviet units and facilitate the continuance of the advance eastward. INF units don't move as fast as the Panzers so it makes sense to use the INF units as the follow on forces and let the Panzers find a clear path to the NE, if one exists at all.

With the black line I've denoted one possible path for any fast movers I may have to start to isolate the Soviet units west of that path. Likewise for the green line which is to capture the rail line leading to Riga for the supplies my units are going to need. The orange line is the path of my main effort so as to split the Axis front line and trap the Axis units against the west side of the Nieman River. A secondary reason for the orange path is to capture the rails leading NE, again for the supplies it will deliever.

The pink line is mostly the open terrain between the lines of forest north and south of it. I'd rather not get bogged down in the trees and the open terrain is ideal for my fast movers. The brown line is simply to capture the rails.

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[larryfulkerson]

I've placed some yellow circles in those potential places for a Drop Zone for my paratroopers, which are supposed to prevent Soviet units from using that path to escape to the east. I'm trying to trap and destroy as many Soviet units as possible as I move eastward. I intend to bypass a lot of Soviet units in order to reach as far east as possible each turn. Follow on forces will have the task of surrounding and destroying those Soviet units that are bypassed.

The purple line denotes the main effort path to get into the Axis backfield and roll up the Soviet lines north and south of the rail line headed NE.

The red line denotes my idea of breaking through the Soviet lines and immediately moving to trap as many Soviet units as possible before they can escape toward Kiev.

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[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines as of the beginning of T2 round 1. Subsequent posts will go over the details of the relevent sections of the front lines.

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[larryfulkerson]

Here's the difference between game start and T2 round 2. I like movies like this one. Expect more to come in the near future.
EDIT: This image just screams out for some background battle sounds. I've attached a 195KB file below for this purpose.
EDIT: The file name is wrong. It says something about an hour long. That's the original file's name. I clipped off the first 10 seconds and saved that as THIS file. Unfortunately the file name still says something about an hour. Actually, truth be known, it's an endless loop so you can get VLC to play this until you are sick of it. Usually after the second consequtive day of continuous play[ing]. When that occurs I usually go back to MSNBC to see if the king of orange has been jailed yet. I'm amazed that nobody has assassinated him yet so far. I can shit a better AG.

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[ncc1701e]

Great, I am following.

[larryfulkerson]

It's now T2 round 3 and this is the view of the northern front lines. The rails are repaired almost all the way to Riga so the supply levels are good, about 18 at the tip of the spear. My losses are light and I'm still doing airfield attacks to destroy all the Soviet aircraft I can reach.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T2 round 3 and this is the view of the front lines just NE of Warsaw. The supply levels are good and I'm making progress. I've sent all my fast moving recon units way forward to find all the Soviet units so I can better plan how to defeat them. The follow on forces are almost keeping up with the Panzer divisions serving as the pathfinders. I need to replace my pathfinders with follow on force units so that the fast movers can zoom off to the east. Minsk is just offmap to the NE about 7 hexes.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T2 round 3 and this is the front lines down south right now. I wasn't able to get very many units behind the enemy lines in T1 so most of the Soviet units escaped to the SE leaving so many units behind that my progress is bogged down in mop up operations instead of zooming off to the SE. My units outnumber the Soviet side so it's not all that difficult to surround them before I destroy them. It's going to take several turns to clear this area of enemy units I'm afraid.

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[larryfulkerson]

I'm having so much fun I'm neglecting the posting task(s). My bad. Here's what it looks like approaching Minsk from the west. So far the follow on forces are just about able to keep up with the pathfinders. Only an occasional rail needs to be repaired because the rail damage chance is only 25% this turn. I'm still doing airfield attacks to whittle down the air strength of his fleet. After I've dispatched all the Soviet aircraft that I can reach I'll start going after his major bridges.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T4 round 1 and this is what it looks like around Minsk right now. The Panzer divisions are my pathfinders and they have been moving since the start of the game and some of them are running out of gas and need some rest. As a result of letting them rest the follow on forces have caught up and in some cases, have passed the pathfinders on their movement to the east. As soon as my pathfinders are green again I'll put them in motion again.

I'm rapidly approaching Minsk and I expect to have it surrounded by end-of-turn in T5. Mop up operations have been going well and my losses have been light.

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[Cpl GAC]

Larry, what are your main axes(axises) of advance, and which Armies are assigned to each?

Where do you want to be by September?

Also - panzer recon into Courland west of Riga? In 1941? Das ist völlig inakzeptabel!

[larryfulkerson]

It's now T5 round 1 and an enquiring mind enquired about what divisions are in what ARMY GROUP and what's the axis of advance and I thought it was about high time I introduced you guys to the fighting force. This is the Riga area right now and you can see that there are at least four Panzer divisions in the push to Leningrad. In addition to the regular leg divisions clearing the peninsula west of Riga I'm using the services of two security divisions in an effort to convert the enemy hexes ASAP and then they will be bound to adventures in the east. I'm estimating that they will be occupied here for two or three turns and then I'm hope-ing to be able to rail them eastward. I'm still doing airfield strikes in an effort to strip the Soviet side of any useful aircraft. I can't reach them all each turn but Elmer has a habit of moving them toward the front lines to replace those I destroy each turn. I'm soon going to have to give some thought to dropping some of the bridges in the Soviet backfield but for now I've been putting at least 1/3 of my bombers on INT missions because of all the traffic on the Soviet side just now. I need to remember to garrison the ports on the west side of the peninsula so as to twart any Soviet efforts to do an amphibious landing.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T5 round 1 and this is the area just north of Minsk right now. There are three Panzer divisions and at least two Motorized divisions in this image and the whole shebang is pushing east to Moscow. I'll have to subdue Minsk and Smolensk first of course but my ultimate goal for this group is Moscow. Let's call these guys in Army Group AGC.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T5 round 1 and yes I croped this image wrong. My bad. I'll try to do better next time. This is what it looks like west of Kiev right now. There are some units further south but this image was too small to include them. Mea Culpa.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T6 round 5 and this is what it looks like to the east of Riga right now. I've blown across the Dvina River and now I'm pushing NE toward Pskov as fast as my fast movers can move. The supply level at the tip of the spear is 9 which is is adequate but only just. The Soviets managed to install some roadblocks on the western two major roads/rails but so far the bridge at Tartu is intact and unoccupied so the advance may be able to leap across the river at that crossing and get far into the Soviet backfield and perhaps trap all the Soviet units west of the bottlenecked terrain near Narva. I railed in two Security divisions to help convert the enemy hexes. I'm paranoid about enemy units spawning in my backfield. The rails have been repaired to just NE of the port of Riga.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T7 round 1 and I've managed to arrive at Pskov with the 1st Inf Div instead of a fast mover for some reason. I'm not sure how that happened. Riga has a bare port and I need to garrison that port with some cheap unit...maybe one of those DISBAND units that arrive from time to time. I'm hope-ing that a CD gun will spawn in that hex. I'm not sure we get a CD gun at Parnu so I'll have to occupy that one as well. Elmer has been known to float units into those hexes if they are empty. I'm finding out that the Tank units need rest more often than the leg infantry for some reason.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T7 round 1 and I've dissolved the 1st Stalin Line and now I'm fighting the 2nd Stalin Line and I expect it to buckle and crumble. There's still one Soviet Inf division [ 193rd Rifle Division of the 5th Soviet Army ] in my backfield and as you can see the supply levels are collossal. Also, that railhead depicted in this image is incorrect. It's actually supposed to be underneath the 4th Armee's 302. HArKo unit, 5 hexes further east. I didn't catch that error until just now, seconds away from publishing this image, and it's 02:04 local Tucson time and I'm just too lazy just now to correct the image.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T7 round 3 and I'm arriving at Orsha and the Dneper River. I'm planning on using my engineers and pontoon units to leap across the river and get into the Soviet backfield and clear the crossings to facilitate the flow of supply. And the mopping up operations are in their final evolutions and the follow on forces will soon be available for front line duty. I've moved OKH to Minsk to help encourage the repair and refit of the tired aircraft that will soon start parking there. It's only 13Jul41 and progress is starting to slow down due to the sharply increasing Soviet resistance. The rails are repaired to just NE of Minsk.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T8 round 1 and I'm still taking apart the 2nd Stalin Line. Some of the Soviet units in their makeshift front line are very weak and won't hold anything back. Most of my Corps HQ units have been busy repairing rail with the result that supply is great at the front. I'm not quite keeping up with the progress of the front lines as it creaps futher and further eastward. This particular battle is in it's last stages....the phase where I surround the Soviet units just before I kill them.

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