Re: Axis Turn 151 / 17th May 1942
I'll let the L'zard and the other experts chime in with specifics. But if you want to hear from a complete dunce at EA --
1) I'd take some heart from that ETE -- usually with a good proficiency force, that's because of morale check failure, and that's usually the air force. I'd guess Telumar has been working the air units very hard, and hence your remarks about butter,knives, etc. Which also means this is the best he can do -- I know that is no comfort for you, but this is his best shot. And he's got what ? almost a few hexes from Izyum ? He's broken through the Causcaus hills and threatens - what, exactly ?
Easy for me to bluff and blowhard, but look at the map/setting from Telu's side -- he's got a looooong way to go, and his forces are degrading. Okay, at 45% levels, most of his units are a wee bit better than yours, but they're burning eqp and supplies he cannot replace.
Speaking of which -- can you blow bridges, destroy RR hexes, set in the roadblocks @IL to hold him for a few rounds in the critical points ? In the Ukraine, he's only got that bulge going. He either has to a) reinforce those forces and sweep them to corral a huge chunk of yours, or b) wait for you to open the gates.
Sorry to sing the same old song but it is 1942 - probably the best you can do is chew him up with lots of speed-bumps, hoping to trade losses with him.
I hope you read about the AAA problem in 3.4 -- the Matrix board has a thread where Bob admits that any unit with AAA equipment but without the AAA icon does not participate in anti-air. AAA units do okay and of course figther units. So if you can spare AAA units to critical chokepoints, I'd sacrifice them there. As for Soviet fighters, well, er, um... One trick I use with weak fighter units is to set them at ML; they will not hang in for long, but they show up for most air battles. And when they do go into re-org, and bounce back out in the middle of the next turn, they are at ML, so they may actually not return right to re-org. May or may not help you here.
2) Yeah , that was a looong #1.
I would worry about Telumar's strategy. What are his goals with this effort ? Why his focus in the Ukraine and south Caucasus ? What's going in the other areas - central USSR, Leningrad, far north ? What's going on around the edges of the map ? Telu is a honor graduate of the Willie Keeler School of TOAW -- no link, sorry; you'll have google Willie - it's safe for work. He does work at keeping opponents off balance and out of synch.
With the focus on south USSR as it should be, I wonder about that bomber force of yours... and how's his navy ? If AAA is fluky, this may be the time to check out heavy bombers against pocket battleships.
3) Enough with my wild-eyed ideas. Have you ever read that FitE AAR Telu and Pio are doing over at SI ? From what I can gather, each of them are playing rope-a-dope with various sectors -- Kamyshin and Saratov. I'm going by the pictures, if you had the time you could actually read the last few pages of each. Might give you some ideas for later.
If you can, keep this up. You've lasted longer than many, many players and while things look bad (and are probably worse than they look), I encourage you to keep at this as long it's sort of fun.
