Well, no one is yet interested enough to get involved so I played the turn sans sound advice, and this is what I came up with.
I’m only showing Moscow’s area this turn – you can tell how everything else is going well comparatively. I’m a little worried about the northern flank of my Southwestern Front because the gap between SW and Western Front is held by the pink Bryanks units, and they are relatively weak in number, if not capabilities (a lot of cav and no real casualties yet).
I decided it was more important to hold on to units for the next 6 turns than to keep trying to mess with his supply. I could have cost him a turn, but it would have cost me a lot of reasonably good units.
I simply tried to extend the line to the north along the rivers around Moscow. For the long term, I’m concerned about loss of MP via city capture, and Moscow’s industry. I moved most all industry out of N. Moscow and W. Moscow. Unless he has a very good turn, I should be able to get the rest out next turn. No other industry got moved.
This turn I also noted the artillery in the pool for 152mm and 122 mm howitzers, and seeing a few hundred of each in pool, I finally turned my howitzer SUs up to 75% TOE (up from 50). Will be checking that next turn to see how the pool is, and see if combats go my way a little more.
I was able to put a lot of aircraft back into front-line units (mostly bi-planes, but they have good experience). I put some IL-2s up in Northern Front’s area. I also decided to try some Airbase Attacks against AGN and AGC. I’d like to know if that’s unfair. I managed a kill ratio of about 1:2 (in favor of Axis) during the turn, with few bombers getting shot down. I didn’t hurt many German AC, but I damaged some. I’ll keep that up for the turns through Mud, unless I hear from readers that it’s too gamey. I’ve heard it is, but damit, I have a heavy handicap and I’m losing badly. Time to accept gamey might be necessary for a few turns!
I spent my Admin on the following items:
• Moving AA battalions to STAVKA (where hopefully they end up on airfields) or disbanding them.
• Re-aligning divisions in Northern front (movement is tight up there, and I ensure no stacks are mixed if they’re going to be attacked – I do not want the combat penalty).
• Ensuring HQs have good mixes of artillery and sappers to throw into combats, especially in Northern, Reserve, and Western fronts.
• Placed Eremenko into command in an Army in Northern Front (was in pool with 0-2 combats, don’t know why).
I finished with 1 AP remaining (started with 48).
My hope is that the relative ease of moving North and South around Moscow, as opposed to east, will give him some incentive to disperse his units in those directions. I’m also hopeful that the surrounded motorized division will throw off some organization and maybe get an over-reaction (but I doubt it).
In the south, I did have to throw a couple divisions away simply because they couldn’t get out of the encirclements. But I did open pathways to all but 1 division down there, so maybe some of them will be routed rather than re-encircled.
I doubt Moscow can hold, but as I said, it will come down to the debate over which is stronger, the hammer (axis) or the anvil (Soviet)…
