Day 6 ends and a Refit Festivus:
Hi all
Another CG day comes to an end with our game ending on turn 5 (yes I rolled a 1!) To add insult to injury, the Russians actually won this CG date, which Bob was none to heartbroken about since it took away the CG balance drms from the Russians but on the other hand this little trick Bob thinks he pulled on the Russians will unfortunately back fire in the refit phase...........
Purchases for day 6 are as follows for the Russians:
Full Rifle company
Full Rifle Company
San
Rocket OBA
80mm OBA
MOL-P
FPP 1 (Mainly used for HIP and dummies)
Russian loses amounted to
40CVP in infantry and including I think the loss of two leaders. German CVP loses came out to
33 CVP (19 CVP infantry and 14 CVP in SMC's). So Bob did not lose a lot of squads but took a serious hit on SMC's on day 6. It still gets me laughing that when we started out on this CG day, Bob was saying how he was swimming in leaders, well I fixed that problem with a combo of booby-traps, Snipers and good old firepower. Still, Bob did take out a lot of Russian infantry as well as conscripted quite a few of my squads. BUT the refit phase was very good to the Russians.................
As for the last few turn we played, at the start of Russian turn 4, I rolled a wind change 2, this ended up shifting the already layed in smoke on the commissars house to the northwest and with smoke now blocking the German infantry's LOS or severely hindering german LOS, I decided to shift my attack away from the X17 area and instead try to retake portions of the commissars house.
In the middle of the map, the battle around the J21 multi-hex building was starting to go Bob's way, so knowing this building was going to fall, I set it on fire and just preyed to the RNG gods that it would not go out. The flame ended up blazing on turn 5 and thus I was able to deny the Germans a 2nd level MG perch. I can not emphasize just how important it is for the Russians to burn these upper level buildings down, if they don't, they will be getting dinged by German heavy weapons on a near consistent basis. Although at one time, I used to never burn stuff down in RB, either I thought it was gamey or I was too lazy to go through the motions and all that ended up happening in those situations was the Russians surrendering due to not being able to maneuver around the map and getting gunned down trying to hold back the German hordes. This tactic I think gives the Russians a chance to fend off the Germans without worry of upper level deathstars staring you down.
By the end of Turn 5 the Russians had lost building J22 and could not hold on too building GG21, the Russians ended up getting routed out of GG21 by the Germans. On the other hand, my Russians were able to take BB19, BB18 and CC19 of the commissars house, though I did know that I probably will end up getting booted out on turn 6 but I had to take this crazy gamble and lo and behold the game end on turn 5. Thus denying the Germans a chance to crush my weak toehold back in the Commissars house.
So with day in the can, the lines have shifted slightly with Germans gaining in the middle and the Russians once more creating a bulge on the German east flank. So now lets talk refit phase, here will be a very sore point for Bob because his ELR went down to a 2 and mine stayed at 2. How did this happen? Well I rolled boxcars on the ELR table, I had just enough negatives (due to winning the CG date) to stay at ELR 2, on the other hand, Bob lost the CG date and had no negatives to roll back the 12DR and thus the 6th Army went down in ELR. The battle hardening roll was also very kind to the Russians as I rolled a 3 and thus was able to BH 5 guys with one more due to a hero surviving the battle so now I can BH 6 conscripts back to 447 quality. A very good refit indeed for the Hero's of Stalingrad.
So what does day 7 look like for bothsides? I'm not going to deny it, I am going to get rockets again to plant on the heads of the attacking Germans, This has really helped in keeping the Germans slowed down and spread out in their attacks, granted I have only three more RG's left of Rockets but if I can keep the Germans slowed up for a couple of more CG dates, then life is good. But I also get the feeling that Bob might take an idle day to recover his ELR and thus it gives me thoughts on mulling over a possible night attack. Below is a map of the perimeters drawn out.
Scott