Halfway through!

[Foggy]

Hello gentlemen: John & I are officially halfway done. I just sent him turn 20
and forgot to save a SAL. Must be the cough syrup again :love:
The current status for the Russians is so-so. John has linked up to the pocket
but is going to have one heck of a time extracting units - I promise. One item of interest - actually two!
1. My 28th army is almost kaput - John can swing east of the pocket if he has enough combat power - to save the HQ's to the southeast - I would recc.
digging the 28th army in for a few turns.
2. The northern section of the line - my attacks have been selectively better
at producing Axis losses - you really have to be careful not to advance quickly
- I know it's sounds strange but the supply situation is horrible :surprise:
John's northern defenses are getting pretty strung out - I really have'nt attacked hard for approx 5 turns - supplies are getting better - but in a historical game the possibility would exist for trapping the relief effort.
All in all - it's been quite enjoyable :)
How do we want to play this tourney? Do we want various options explored
or do we just want Axis losses - I would prefer to humiliate them!
PS for John - your brandenburghers are going to be dead meat - why Pelle
put them in is beyond me :mad:

[CyberRanger]

1. What caused the 28th Army to go kaput? Was it the 1st Pz Army or something else? (Everyone please note ... in the game discussed here the 44th Soviet Army does not arrive behind the 1st Pz Army ... so the results are much tougher on the Soviets.)

2. On what turn did the 1st Pz Army arrive?

3. Good point about attacking slowly in the north ... 40 turns is a long time in this game and the Soviet supply situation gets better and better. Don't destroy your Army in the first ten turns blindly attacking.

4. and finally ... yes ... total and complete humiliation of the Germans is my goal. I don't think the German side is going to be real happy with us when they start getting forced into historical games ... but we are playing to win!!!!

[Foggy]

You'll have to ask John about the 1st Pz army - I know he was not happy
about not knowing the arrival date or what status/order the units were arriving in! As far as the 28th Army - I did standard russian attacks - not
pretty - basically I've followed what I've read about russian tactics - I know
he sent reinforcements, but it's really a sideshow I thought. If he has the combat power in reserve (which I doubt - long front line!) he can swing east & up thru the frozen conditions - with no flank to worry about. This had never been a possibility in my mind - but here it is! Isn't playtesting great?
Westpointer - do you want us to follow a pattern of options - or can we pick & choose as long as we win? Will the website allow an attached SAL from the beginning of T20 from our playtesting game?

[CyberRanger]

Westpointer - do you want us to follow a pattern of options - or can we pick & choose as long as we win? Will the website allow an attached SAL from the beginning of T20 from our playtesting game?How you decide to play is up to you ... it's your game and 40 turns is a long time if you don't like what you have. BUT ... I hope everyone follows and considers the discussion on which TO's and deployments to pick.

Play how you want ... if you can't decide ... follow the group's suggestions. ;)

[Southern Dandy]

1. What caused the 28th Army to go kaput? Was it the 1st Pz Army or something else? (Everyone please note ... in the game discussed here the 44th Soviet Army does not arrive behind the 1st Pz Army ... so the results are much tougher on the Soviets.)

2. On what turn did the 1st Pz Army arrive?

3. Good point about attacking slowly in the north ... 40 turns is a long time in this game and the Soviet supply situation gets better and better. Don't destroy your Army in the first ten turns blindly attacking.

4. and finally ... yes ... total and complete humiliation of the Germans is my goal. I don't think the German side is going to be real happy with us when they start getting forced into historical games ... but we are playing to win!!!!

Answering these in order....bear in mind deployments were historical for both sides.

1) 28th Army was crushed by numbers...an oddity, I'll admit, but early on, there was little action in the center part of the front, and I had a couple of unemployed Rumanian divisions in that area. I marched them south, added in an ad-hoc collection of cavalry type units and a German infantry regiment or two, and slowly (this was a 10-12 turn process) set things in the south in my favor. When I sent Foggy my turn 20, I was off to a good start rolling up his southern flank, but I'm sure to run into troubles yet that neither of us has foreseen. The fact that I had 1st PzA available (see details below) shortly after this plan was set into motion help matters considerably, but was not a major factor...a contributing one yes, but not the key one. A quiet center section of the front was what made all the difference.

2) 1st PzA began arriving on turn 8, I believe. Because of the variable nature, I wasn't sure what forces were arriving when, making the actual employment of 1st PzA problematic...this seemd wholly unrealistic to me. Honestly, someone at OKW would have to know where these forces were and when they'd arrive in the Rostov area. The unexpected surprise for me-boy, was I glad to get 5th SS PzD- they've pulled my bacon out of the fire more than once in the last few turns!

3) True, but pushing against the Italians, while stressing on the supply situation, yields dividends. It forces the Axis player to divert resources away from other areas and creates a general attritional battle up and down the front. This favors the Soviet side, ultimately....

4) Yes, annihilate the Bradenbergers if you get the chance! My initial complement was split up by combat quickly, and Foggy ate up two of the three sub-units pretty quickly. Since that early bit of skirmishing, I've used them as an MP sponge against a Soviet rifle division that had broken cleanly through the lines (where those Rumanian divisions came from, ironically enough!), and then have sent them on a supply point erasing, bridge busting, airfield over-running raid behind the lines- note to all Soviets...Pelle has included AA units on Soviet airfields in the tourney release edition to discourage this usage. If my plan is still intact when I work on my 21st turn, they'll start the turn on an airfield and my fleets of Ju-52s will lift them to safety just before STAVKA can get to them.

John

[Southern Dandy]

Hello gentlemen: John & I are officially halfway done. I just sent him turn 20
and forgot to save a SAL. Must be the cough syrup again :love:
The current status for the Russians is so-so. John has linked up to the pocket
but is going to have one heck of a time extracting units - I promise. One item of interest - actually two!
1. My 28th army is almost kaput - John can swing east of the pocket if he has enough combat power - to save the HQ's to the southeast - I would recc.
digging the 28th army in for a few turns.
2. The northern section of the line - my attacks have been selectively better
at producing Axis losses - you really have to be careful not to advance quickly
- I know it's sounds strange but the supply situation is horrible :surprise:
John's northern defenses are getting pretty strung out - I really have'nt attacked hard for approx 5 turns - supplies are getting better - but in a historical game the possibility would exist for trapping the relief effort.
All in all - it's been quite enjoyable :)
How do we want to play this tourney? Do we want various options explored
or do we just want Axis losses - I would prefer to humiliate them!
PS for John - your brandenburghers are going to be dead meat - why Pelle
put them in is beyond me :mad:

I think, but won't swear, that the playtest game Foggy and I are playing has gone the deepest into the scenario out of the 3 sets of matchups Mantis originally created. It's been a love/hate experience with the scenario thus far for me.

My early turns would take up to 4 hours to put together, 2 of which was figuring out how and then piecing together a line from where the Soviet Army was ravaging the Italians, at least until 1st PzA came into play. A couple of days later, Matt would send me another turn and I'd have to try and recover the disaster that was the Italian lines again. Once 1st PzA began arriving in strength and Soviet rifle divisions began slamming into armored trains, things got considerably better for me in this game.

For quite some time, my only reserves were those in the "expected reinforcements" dialogue- not a good way to make a living, believe me! As Foggy's advance slowed from supply issues, I presume, I was able to straighten the line out along quite a stretch of frontage, thus allowing me to create a reserve in the northern half of the front. Are things as I'd like? No...I'd like very much to throw the Soviets completely back across the Don, but since that's not a realistic likelihood, I'll have to be satisfied with where things are at, and rest my forces as much as possible before the next Red storm hits. (really bad pun intended) I've managed now to get combat units into the line and HQ units out of the line..easiest way I know of telling how stressed the defense is...see how many HQ and other rear area units are in the front lines!

Foggy...not that I'm trying to lose our game, but have you rebuilt all the bridges over the Don that I demolished with my Italians before your forces got rolling? If you haven't, doing so would likely help your supply situation a bit.

As for my heroic Brandenbergers :love: ....hopefully they're still parked on the airfield they overran last turn, so that they can then be airlifted to safety. Will they do it again? We'll see what happens as the game progresses. I used them initially to try and pre-convert some hexes to speed the advance of LVII PzK, but had a lousy 1st turn of combat...early turn ending had me thinking that all was lost early on. Their employment since then has been questionable, at best, but their latest action is probably a bit more in line with reality than not (them taking on a Soviet rifle division with lots of supporting artillery was a bit out there, I admit!).

This little hit and run action was what prompted the now infamous "intercepted" e-mail to all tourney particpants (sorry guys!) with the advice of garrisoning tempting clusters of supply points and bridges. On the other hand, maybe that bit of advice will then discourage such Axis activity in the tourney....plus, it brought us evidence that most, if not all of their side is planning on the historical deployment for LVII PzK and early release of 1st PzA. A good trade, I hope!

Anyhow, I suppose, since my curiousity is now piqued, I should take a look at Foggy's turn 20...and begin plotting out my my turn 21.

John

[CyberRanger]

...
This little hit and run action was what prompted the now infamous "intercepted" e-mail to all tourney particpants (sorry guys!) with the advice of garrisoning tempting clusters of supply points and bridges. On the other hand, maybe that bit of advice will then discourage such Axis activity in the tourney....plus, it brought us evidence that most, if not all of their side is planning on the historical deployment for LVII PzK and early release of 1st PzA. A good trade, I hope!Yes! John, I feel we came out with much more information. We couldn't have planned it better!