Old Dog v Young Pup Sillyflower(G) v Fiva(R) GC41 (no Fiva)

[Baelfiin]

I bet those guys on the point are going to get gobbled up.

But having been on the receiving end of some of Sillyflower's HEAT rounds, that may be exactly what he wants!!

[delatbabel]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Random weather needs some fixing, IMO; it should be a bit less random. It shouldn't snow in May, for example.

Why shouldn't it? I was in Moscow in May 2009 and it snowed quite heavily, and the 1941/42 winter was quite a bit harsher than the 2008/2009 one.

Believe me, weather in central Russia is a lot more random than you think it is.

[sillyflower]

Puppies have sharp little teeth and Fiva is no exception so he did give me a bit of a kicking in the South as you may be able to see on his AAR or not. I can't look to tell you!

Work commitments mean I've just come on to say I won't be finishing or posting my T11 until next weekend.

I did do AGN a couple of evenings ago though, but you, gentle reader, will have to wait to discover whether his decision to put his rail efforts into the southern counterattack at the expense of moving factories out from Leningrad paid off. Fiva is also taking a couple of weeks off from gaming to concentrate on work stuf too so there won't be much for the next 2 weeks I'm afraid.

[sillyflower]

Back from 2 weeks leave in Berlin to find that time on the Eastern Front has stood still

Sharp little teeth Fiva may have, but I have bigger teeth

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

Back from 2 weeks leave in Berlin to find that time on the Eastern Front has stood still

Sharp little teeth Fiva may have, but I have bigger teeth

So how many of you, dear readers, thought the SS were doomed? I did at first............

All arched backs and fluffy tails down here. Let's see if he has the stomach and resources for more counterattacks. I was not expecting to do so well after opening my turn ( hopefully Fiva has a pic on his AAR) but I had a lot of strength in the region + good fuel supplies. 1 mot div did go to Kharkov but sadly he had a real combat unit there so I went for Belgorod instead. He had 2HI + 19veh +SU2 factories in Kharkov still. I thought of just planting myself next to them but I would rather he spent his rail points getting them out than on other things next turn, for reasons I will explain in a later post. If he doesn't rail them in his turn I will get them anyway. Slovak mot div apparently in the middle of nowhere cleared out lots of routed units + HQ.

A lot of his units were very brittle with many routing on 1st attack so hopefully he's shot his c/attack bolt. If not he will be nice and close for another mauling next turn so I don't really mind either way.

Out of shot further South, germans and Rumanians have lined the loer Dnepr and I have crossed over it right at the bottom.

[sillyflower]

AGC



The march to Moscow continues. Only 50 miles away in many places with 6 turns of clear left. Nothing special about the featured combat - put in as a typical one. Fewer routs than down South.

As highlighted on map, I hope I have dealt with his evil attempt to narrow my advance. Out of shot I advanced towards Bryansk (30 miles to go) routing his 1st line of defence.

I did do a bit more moving after this shot taken.

[sillyflower]

Last but not least AGN



Probably the best of the AGs this turn. His infantry fled from my assault on Pushkin despite the presence of an NKVD div which probably spent more time shooting their own side rather than my assault troops led by General Model. Leningrad still has all its factories who are not going anywhere now, assuming he can't dislodge Totenkopf and an inf div.

This is perhaps a sign of Fiva paying the price for railing too many troops around last turn in the south. At least, I think that's what he did with his rail points. The 8 arms points NE of L can still get out this turn, hence my giving his Kharkov factories a chance to get out in the hope he moves them instead.

[sillyflower]

sorry -duplicated below.

I was never going to be able to post a whole turn without mishap

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

Casualties for the turn

I believe the highest Commie losses since the 1st 2 turns, and I remain on schedule for my goal of 3.4 million inflicted before the mud. I also continue my crusade against his cavalry with relish (horseradish in fact). For the non-English/British reader, horseradish is a relish often accompanying steaks.

Heavy artillery losses on Russian side due to displacement of several HQs I suspect. Nice.

[sillyflower]

Dead units back in double figures which is good.

[sillyflower]

ORBAT

[Baelfiin]

Are you guys planning to update to 1.05.32?

Watching you crunch things is giving me nightmares about our game...... all this rejuvenations from the old dog is goinig to make it hard on my russians.

[sillyflower]

latest beta used throughout -as per our game. I have no idea how to run WiTE in different versions ( and do not want to know in case any techie person was thinking of being helpful)

Keep those nightmares coming Baelfiin.

[sillyflower]

A la recherche du turns perdu

Having read through my old posts I thought I would reflect on progress to date following my T11. Views of readers most welcome

Part 1 -progress

Objectives: Leningrad and Moscow offensives on target despite slow progress with former earlier until I got round the top on T9. South has slowed down a bit and I don't think I will hit stretch target of Rostov - unless perhaps in the snow.. I remain uncertain about Crimea - it will depend if Fiva wants to hold onto it strongly enough.

Re losses hairy arsed Russians are becoming casualties at just over 200K per turn so mathematically on track to cause 3.4M by end of clear.(Editor's note: per my army instructors in mid '80s all russians were hairy arsed. I do not know if this also applied to their women soldiers but never got round to asking. I suspect the answer would have been yes. Perhaps others will know better than I do). Anyway, I hope to be pretty close be end of clear weather - perhaps 3.3M which is fine if I've depleted his manpower taking L, M and donbass.

My own casualties a bit higher than I would have liked due to increased attrition rules and Fiva's excellent counter-attacking which has cost me a lot of AFVs.

To be continued ................

[sillyflower]

Part 2 -economy

On the economy I got off to a cracking start - 13 each of HI and arms factories in 1st 4 turns.

Nothing since then though I have locked down 9HI and 16 arms in Leningrad and Kaluga + all the other factories in L including the KV 1 factories. Will be an interesting contest to see how many more I bag given that there is still more than a turn's worth in Kharkov and he hasn't begun to evacuate Moscow, Bryansk area or Donbass cities yet. With the significant reduction in Russian arms point production losing only 80 may now be a very significant blow so there is a lot to play for here.

I have to say I have no idea how many HI factories Russians can lose without ill effect, especially if he isn't going to be making as many KV1s. Has anyone got a clue?

[sillyflower]

Part 3 - tactics.

Hard for me to judge my own, so yor comments, gentle reader, particularly welcome. I know many will say I don't use HQ build up enough. I don't disagree but I don't like the rule so it feels a bit dodgy to me to use it routinely. We lawyers are well known for not doing anything we don't think is right. I remain of the view that its the infantry arm that destroys the russians more than the sexier panzers ( even the especially sexy panzertruppen Redmarkus posts pictures of). Obviously the real trick is to use both arms so they become greater than the sum of their parts.

Re Fiva, not much chequerbarding since an early unsuccessful attempt in the South. I think I was right to think he would not have enough units to do it properly as I took out so many in the early turns. He has defended quite linearly and forward ( less so in the south wher he has had more retreating room)which has been the cause of his high casualty rate despite his being generally good at avoiding pockets.

He has been v. good at repulsing armoured thrusts by chucking a lot of troops at them and doing multiple attacks. This has alleviated 1 of the major drawbacks of a forward defence: vulnerability to mobile breakthruoghs. However, there is a price to pay for everything and I think his price was lack of factory railing. This has resulted in high factory losses in early turns (see previous post) loss of Leningrad factories ( I trust) and an awful lot more at risk over the remaining 6 turns of clear weather. His railcap is probably down a bit now, and he may well feel the need to continue to rail a lot of troops around to maintain his defences. For example he may prefer to cut some of his losses around Leningrad to bolster other areas even if not to the degree Baelfiin did. Do read B's and Carnage's AARs, BTW if you haven't already.

[sillyflower]

Part 4 - psychological metagame

I'm not quite sure what this means, but I've been accused earlier of writing about it more than others so I will plough on.

I continue to try to grind Fiva's morale down but the boy is young and resilient and probably not afraid of death yet. The British army has long believed that 25 is a crucial age. Younger and soldiers don't expect to be killed or wounded. Older and they expect it more and therefore become more cautious. I believe Fiva is on the young side. Maybe I'm trying to beat up a 10 year old which would be a bit embarrassing; if I fail anyway.

I try to provoke crises on at least 2 of the 3 fronts each turn, or a continuing feeling of inevitable doom at least. Hopefully, my rescue job and more in the South last turn will dispirit him especially if he feels unable to spend very many rail points on troop transport so he can't repeat what he did last turn. This at a time when his northern front took a serious turn for the worse and the advance on moscow continued relentlessly, with his efforts to get round or constrict my flanks getting a beating.

My watchword is no mercy - at least unless it furthers the cause of oneupmanship when it then becomes compulsory., and then not real mercy anyway.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

A la recherche du turns perdu

Your sentences are too short for that, man [:-] And you need to upgrade 1.05!

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
Having read through my old posts I thought I would reflect on progress to date following my T11. Views of readers most welcome

Part 1 -progress

Objectives: Leningrad and Moscow offensives on target despite slow progress with former earlier until I got round the top on T9. South has slowed down a bit and I don't think I will hit stretch target of Rostov - unless perhaps in the snow.. I remain uncertain about Crimea - it will depend if Fiva wants to hold onto it strongly enough.

Re losses hairy arsed Russians are becoming casualties at just over 200K per turn so mathematically on track to cause 3.4M by end of clear.

I got a question for you silly: why did you choose, of the two or three possible avenues to approach Leningrad the easiest for fiva to defend the city and the hardest for you to bag a lot of Red Army soldiers? I think the most cost effective, and hardest to defend from is to do a hook north from Novgorod all the way to the Achilles Heel hex. You're cutting rail as you advance and have the Volkhov river to anchor your flank. Nearly unstoppable.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
(Editor's note: per my army instructors in mid '80s all russians were hairy arsed. I do not know if this also applied to their women soldiers but never got round to asking. I suspect the answer would have been yes. Perhaps others will know better than I do).

1980's British Army was really f*cked up [:D] No hairy asses in the British Army? Really? Not even on a Highlander Regiment?

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
Anyway, I hope to be pretty close be end of clear weather - perhaps 3.3M which is fine if I've depleted his manpower taking L, M and donbass.

My own casualties a bit higher than I would have liked due to increased attrition rules and Fiva's excellent counter-attacking which has cost me a lot of AFVs.

Your losses don't look to me that bad, yet. But upgrade to 1.05 ASAP. It's really a more enjoyable game for both sides.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
On the economy I got off to a cracking start - 13 each of HI and arms factories in 1st 4 turns.

Nothing since then though I have locked down 9HI and 16 arms in Leningrad and Kaluga + all the other factories in L including the KV 1 factories. Will be an interesting contest to see how many more I bag given that there is still more than a turn's worth in Kharkov and he hasn't begun to evacuate Moscow, Bryansk area or Donbass cities yet. With the significant reduction in Russian arms point production losing only 80 may now be a very significant blow so there is a lot to play for here.

Losing 80 ARM is a huge blow. At what turn are you right now? He should have depleted his ARM pool at some point in September, unless he took emergency and draconian measures in August.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
I have to say I have no idea how many HI factories Russians can lose without ill effect, especially if he isn't going to be making as many KV1s. Has anyone got a clue?

No idea. Losing 1/3 of the total more or less and I haven't noticed any obvious ill effects yet, besides certain facilities lacking supplies in the first blizzard turn.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
I'm not quite sure what this means, but I've been accused earlier of writing about it more than others so I will plough on.

I continue to try to grind Fiva's morale down but the boy is young and resilient and probably not afraid of death yet. The British army has long believed that 25 is a crucial age. Younger and soldiers don't expect to be killed or wounded. Older and they expect it more and therefore become more cautious. I believe Fiva is on the young side. Maybe I'm trying to beat up a 10 year old which would be a bit embarrassing; if I fail anyway.

I try to provoke crises on at least 2 of the 3 fronts each turn, or a continuing feeling of inevitable doom at least. Hopefully, my rescue job and more in the South last turn will dispirit him especially if he feels unable to spend very many rail points on troop transport so he can't repeat what he did last turn. This at a time when his northern front took a serious turn for the worse and the advance on moscow continued relentlessly, with his efforts to get round or constrict my flanks getting a beating.

My watchword is no mercy - at least unless it furthers the cause of oneupmanship when it then becomes compulsory., and then not real mercy anyway.

My take is that each turn that the Axis doesn't put the hurt on the Soviets is one turn less until you find yourself fighting it out at Unter den Linden boulevard against IS-2 tanks, your AT equipment being bricks from a ruined building.