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viridomaros
17 Mar 04, 06:08
i'm on the point to begin to play
my overall goal is to reach the 6th army, so i give up for a northern deployment of 57th korps, i also give up for the 19th pz division release.
i plan to choose first panzer army early release and operation thunderclap
but i'm still hesitating for the deployment of the 57 panzer korps, both options have advantages and inconvenients
southern deployment: you have a lot of hexes before you can reach the pocket 16 hexes = 80km i plan to follow the improved road going through shestakov and abganerovo (-) the russian don't have much forces there (+) : 4 cavalry korps is really and can be easily pocketed and destroyed
126 rifle division is has to move to go for action and it is not in a good supply situation (38%) the best russian formation is the 13th mech korps which is in an average supply situation (62% supply and 60% readiness) the best thing russian can do ( for me) is to dig in their mech korps along the river wadi north of Shestakov, Kargata so i think it is important to put a foot in the north of the river before turn 2 so that russian cannot prevent you from crossing the river which is the only natural difficulty before stalingrad pocket héhé :p , if i use southern deployment i will also make an attack from the center towards Chir sta against 33gds rifle division and 4 mech korps, the idea is to regroup at Tinguta. even if the central push is not a succes it is important to attack to prevent the russian player to send the 4th mech korps to the rescue around Shestakov, furthermore this is an important area to prevent him to send reinforcment from the north to the south, to end this first option i'd like to say that using brandburg unit to blow up the bridge at 69,30 is not that great since it can be easily cross even without penality movement ( i made a try using hotseat :mad: ) at least by infantry unit ( tank units cannot cross) so it is important to hold the hex and the ground south of the bridge ( destroying the engenering unit should be a priority as you said this is the only unit which can repair the bridge ( i mean in this area) so if you destroy the bridge and that you can kill the engineering unit ( which is not going to be easy i think :dead: ) you will be in a good position to prevent him from sending reinforcement to the south and so in a good position to reach the 6th army
i just made a test: reaching Shestakov on turn one is not so easy but possible if you can have 6 or 7 rounds, some units of the 4th mech korps and the 13th mech korps are on local reserve which is not that good for us, because that means some units of the 13th mech korps can reach Shestakov during our turn, so it can prevent us from taking this town, on the other hand unit on local reserve in the center (4th mech korps) come directly into action which is good because you can tied up a lot of units using supply drain attacks on a red stack :D. For this i used two pz division for the south attack and two for the center attack ( only the 11th panzer is ready for action on turn 2, 17th panzer is too far away from the front but it is ready to taker part to the fight for turn 3)
bad news of this test is that it's quite impossible to destroy the engenering unit and quite difficult to have units south of the bridge, all you can hope is that your brandeburg unit will last long enough to prevent him from crossing the bridge on turn 2.

center deployment: there is only 50 km to the pocket ( Ostrov-Kalach road)but soviet have a lot of units there : 5 tank korps and five infantry divisions, furthermore there is a risk that you will be flanked when you will attempt to reach the pocket, there are three rivers to cross ( one major) to make it short, the way is shorter but more risky. for this tak you can use 4 panzer division

i would like to have your opinion guys, which option do you prefer :) ?

Bruce
17 Mar 04, 09:34
The central deployment looks attractive because it is so close to the pocket. The problem is that it is very constrained terrain with the super river cutting up the ground you are having to fight in. Also, as soon as forces external to the pocket land in or cross one of those hexes with the asterix, all of the Russian Don army will be able to move. Going for central deployment only allows your Panzer troops to move a few hexes before this happens.

A Southern Deployment coupled with a probe in the centre is my prefered option. The 57th Pz Corps will slash through the cavalry units in front of them. Several of the Soviet Mech units are on local reserve - they will start moving south as you attack, but this is really good as it depletes their movement for the Soviet turn.

I plan to move the 17th Panzer division into the centre to try to form an anvil and then use operation Thunderclap to break thorugh the pocket in two places - the west to link up with the two Pz Divisions coming through the centre and the south east to link with the two Pz Divisions coming from the south. I'm going to try to centre the advance of the southern units along the railway line. My aim is to relieve the pocket and also pocket a slice of the Don units along with the various odds and sods in the South.

Don't attack the bridge hex!!! MikeJ pointed out that it has an asterix in it. If you attack it with ground troops from outside the pocket, or drop paratroops on it, all the Don units can be used freely by the Soviet player.

viridomaros
17 Mar 04, 09:55
well ok i'm going to use south too, for the paratroops i think i will use them for other duty: for instance dividing them in three piece then paradrop on 72,39 ; 73,39 ; 74,38 i will gain control of Shestakov on first turn and with a bit of luck local reserve unit will come close and furthermore will suffer disengadgment penalty why going through the front
here i go, so 1 pz army release and southern deployment

did any of you make any test to see how 6army resupply once we have opened a corridor? because on normal conditions ( i mean inside the pocket) it takes 18 turns for restoring 6army's supply. i hope 6army will resupply better if we can reach it

Becker
17 Mar 04, 10:56
the tactic of Bruce is superior,the best tactic you can use whatever the opponent chooses