City Upon the Volga - NOSB (Sov) vs. Pitaman (Axis)

[Pitaman]

NOSB,

Yes, good game so far. The new number you gave is correct. The damaged factories are already included in your total column. The damaged total is to the right of the total factory column. I hope to capture some more before the year is over.

Pitaman

[NotOneStepBack]

I think I'm OK on the factory situation, nothing unrecoverable. Hopefully this game goes the distance to '45.

You did destroy all my BA-10 factories, might put a dent in my Cav units in the winter.

[sillyflower]

Pitaman should take L'grad's port on T13 or T14 at the latest so he will be able to reinforce AGC in good time if he goes for Moscow.

BA10 factories are no great loss - they stop producing anything after a whie

[NotOneStepBack]

Personally, I don't think Moscow is in the cards here in '41. T14 and Leningrad is surviving via port supply.

[ericv]

Factory evac shouldn't be a problem at all for you. Key is moving all units by hand, which is cumbersome and can result in more territory loss, but it is doable. This will yield up until turn 8 (around which leningrad will be cut off) 144.000 Rail points per turn. And after that it will drop first to around 128.000 until around 105.000 on turn 16, when you lose the other Cities with Rail capacity.
(Keeping units on rail, will result in less rail capacity the next turn. 3-4 Tank division kept on rail until the next turn, results in large rail capacity loss. I am guessing you already know this. )

Even against opponents like Sillyflower losing leningrad, moscow, rostov, vorshilovgrad, kharkov and stalino and surroundings, BUT not losing Tula and Kalinin (look at silly vs briang) it is actually doable to evacuate all the important industry from turn 3 up until and including turn 16, except for 15 to 20 vehicle factories, and even these can be saved, if you don't evac as much KV-1's and T-34's. Which seems to be the way to go, focusing on late 1942 for the red army to rise.

You end up with 200 HI, 300 Arm, around 120 Veh, including evacing all the li-2, half of the Mig3 (Which turn in Il-2), half of the KV-1's (I've read from walloc that one should be more then enough, an extra 9 vehicle factories saved in that case!) and half of the T-34's (again, just a couple is apparently enough for the factories to repair and expand to full capacity, before the t34 m1942 comes in production), all the T-50 and T-40's, and the remaining aircraft as you see fit.
In my games, i choose to evac 1 Lagg 11, 4 Yak 7a, 1 pe2, 1 il4, 5 Il-10, 1 yak 6, 2 pe2R, 1 pe3, and that was it I thought. Focus on the Il-2's and not the vehicle hungry Level bombers(thnks to chaos45). I also had the rail cpcty to move the U2-s to exposed cities for the enemy to capture somewhere around tunr 10.

Losing the vehicle factories isn't as bad as you might imagine, if you calculate it through, even losing the 40-50 (at work now,haven't got the exact figures), vehicle factories in these cities you are going to lose, will only result in a 6-7% total loss of vehicle production. Just losing 20 Veh, will only result in 3 % total vehicle production loss.

Turn 17 and the mud can then be used to evacuate all Il-2 factories from Voronezh and the HI and Arm from the other remaining endangered industries.

Just on an unrelated sidenote, the soviets have 2 problems they can actually adress in the first year:
1. factory evac
2. AP crunch


The evac problem was solved satisfactorily, even against monsters like sillyflower and if you play intelligently, you get to spend 2500 AP's on unit creation (Cav div and Rifle brigades) up until June 1942. That's including raising 20+ Cav Corps, raising Sppr Rgts for the Cav Corps and raising Air rgmnts (Li-2, Recon and Il-2 and sparing 500 AP's for Tank Corps creation).

The Germans appear strong, but when the soviet side plays intelligently, the german seems still a bit underpowered, even with their minimal losses these latest patches

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: ericv

monsters like sillyflower

That's not a very kind thing to say [:-] [;)]

[NotOneStepBack]

Turn 14 and I open to see this in the south:




...

[NotOneStepBack]

Going out with my wife tonight, but hopefully the southern front can cope from this mess! Until tomorrow...

[charlie0311]

Silly is not a monster..

He is THE monster, until the other bad boys return..

[NotOneStepBack]

Now on a 3 turn delay, here is turn 15:

North:



Leningrad is nearly kaput.

Center:



There is a big push towards Voronezh.

South:



This intense battle continues, open pocket, pocket closes again. That small port to the bottom left kept this battle going. I'm going to lose a bunch of divisions, but not as bad as when I initially saw this.

It looks like Pitaman is going for the '41 auto-victory with Leningrad, Moscow, Voronezh and Rostov. Hopefully the weather turns soon enough to help me prevent this.

[NotOneStepBack]

(Now on a 3-4 turn delay)

October 2, 1941

Turns 16-18 were tough. However I think we made the best of a bad situation. More to come as the game progresses, but here is what happened on 16.

Turn 16:

North:



Leningrad falls. Comrades everywhere are in mourning. We will begin to immediately pull back and shift forces to anticipate the Finns. However in the fight we gained several Guards units.

Center:



Pitaman is going for the classic double pincer on Moscow. His plans are very clear now in the center and south. The line held, barely, in the southeast of Moscow. In the northwest of Moscow, he broke through, but didn't push any units through, just cut the rail. I'm going to fill that gap in immediately. I begin taking extensive actions in order to shift enough forces to hold the flanks. Massive amounts of reinforcements will pour in.

South:



In the south, the pocket is closed and I managed to save a few units. I fear that he is going to be able to roam freely into the Caucuses so I begin to make the south the utmost priority.

[sillyflower]

If you had fixed weather, I would say that both Moscow and Rostov are safe as long as you make the effort. No reason to assume random weather will make a difference unless you are very unlucky.

You just need to pray that .09 comes out before the blizzard starts [&o]

[NotOneStepBack]

Turn 18

Mud, glorious Mud.

I still hold Voronezh, Rostov, Moscow, but barely.

North:



Center:



South:



Factory situation is so-so. I have 314 ARM remaining and 190 HI. Would've preferred to save more HI, but it's gonna have to do. Losses are about 2.5M. Overall, I think we got off to a fairly equal start. Problem is that ARM is gonna start being tight.

[RKhan]

What is your OB at? Things always look bleakest at this point for the Soviets, but many have come back to win from this position so steady on!

I would worry most about him getting into the Crimea early in '42. Perhaps the winter offensive can make some ground back in the south.

[NotOneStepBack]

Turn 20 OOB:

[NotOneStepBack]

No photos yet of Turn 21, but Pitaman broke through the center line of AGC, and came within 1 hex of Moscow. Completely threw me off guard. I had the flanks of Moscow held up, but over the mud turns he switched it up and hit the center once the first snow came. Now I may lose Moscow, but he sure made things interesting fast!

I should've carried out more recon and not pushed my forces out to the flanks so heavy....but that's where his panzers were headed initially. Now the battle for Moscow starts as the snow falls, just hoping to hold out until blizzard.

[RKhan]

Time to live up to your nom de guerre. [:)]

[sillyflower]

He only has 2 turns left, he's still not adjacent to Moscow and panzers can't take properly defended urban hexes. Moscow will hold. If he pushes too hard he risks leaving himself too exposed on December 4.

[NotOneStepBack]

Turn 21 situation....It's 23 right now and I still hold Moscow FYI.

[NotOneStepBack]

In real time, I have made it through the snow turns holding Rostov and Moscow (T25). I wonder if he will pull back in the blizzard or keep attacking. I haven't played under this version's mild blizzard.

The north is static at this point.

However, here is the Center and South of Turn 22: