Red stacked units

[Tiberius]

The only tinkering I've done is to set up the theater options for our most likely matchup: Germans: deploy south, early Panzer Army and save the other one for the breakout operation. Russians: deploy north, Don front reserves elsewhere and save little Saturn.
Then I set up some attacks as Germans: I didn't do anything with the main front but in the pocket I split up some of the little btn sized aTs etc. and did the ole min. losses limited with two artillery units per attack on all the red stacked hexes and the damage was attrocious! I think the skilled German players are going to be able to do some real damage and it makes me wonder if a southern, defensive deployment wouldn't be better.

[CyberRanger]

I think the skilled German players are going to be able to do some real damage and it makes me wonder if a southern, defensive deployment wouldn't be better.
Excellent points! Don't view the 6th Army as a passive defender. It has some powerful artillery. I'll post more screen shots tomorrow from my game as the Germans.

[Southern Dandy]

Brent is absolutely correct here....6th Armee can lie dormant and do nothing the entire game, but is much more suited to at least harassing the forces beseiging it. In my ongoing game, 6th Armee has, at the risk of overextending its frontage, expanded the pocket outside the original fortified line terrain. Despite its supply woes, there's still a number of mobile formations in the pocket that can pack quite a wallop when combined with all that artillery.

Something to watch for...on or about turn 15, the super rivers (as well as shallow water and frozen marsh terrain) will freeze solid (frozen 3 in the weather briefing). There's 3-6 hexes on the NW border of the pocket bounded by super river terrain. IF operations have been active enough to force the Axis player to commit reserves elsewhere along the front of the pocket, it is entirely possible that this limited frontage will be stripped, possibly completely, of units. That's a big mistake ripe for Red Army exploitation- at least one line of fortified line terrain will then be outflanked, and quite possibly a huge bite can get taken out of the pocket very quickly.

John

[CyberRanger]

...did the ole min. losses limited with two artillery units per attack on all the red stacked hexes and the damage was attrocious! I think the skilled German players are going to be able to do some real damage ....
an important moral of this story ... try to get those hexes out of the red zone!

(BTW --- also one of the problems with the southern deployment. The 2nd Gd Army doesn't have the room to flex its muscle in the south without risking a lot of red stacks.)