Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

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vicberg
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Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Jaiman and I are doing the Barbarossa Scenario. 2D10, etc, standard options. 5 turns to take more cities than my opponent.

We've got a way to make it work like a PBEM. We are playing solitaire, but transferring files back and forth when needed. We are using ACTS for dice rolling and entering the results into the game. It's working quite well actually.

Starting at Ground Strike

2 ground strikes in north attempting to pin down 6 units. No ground strikes in the south. You'll see why in a bit. I won't be able to mount attacks against either hex this impulse so want to capitalize on the surprise and keep them in place. Only 1 ARM/MECH and MECH Div in the north. You'll see why in a bit. Bock and Dweeb (Leeb) are spearheading the charge in the center and north.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Here's the situation in the south. I wasn't expecting this. I guess he may try to charge through Romania. I've set defenses accordingly and will use my final two air missions to rebase a 6 FTR and LND3 down there to help. Also will be railing 2 corp and an ARTY(5) into Bucharest.

The bulk of my armor is along the Southern Polish border ready to push in and cut off this large force if it decides to push into Romania. He does have supply sources where the red circles are, and put a CP into Black Sea for Odessa (or a Romanian port).

We'll see how this plays out.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Here are the attacks. Numerous to clear out any ZOCs on rail lines. I'll be doing a right flank in the far north. Finns will be aligned next impulse. I could have taken a 3-1 against the forest hex southwest of Vilna. I chose not to. It's too high a chance to flip my units and I don't want that first impulse.

The ground strikes flipped all units in Kaunas and 2 of 3 units in the forest hex southwest of Vilna (flipped INF and 1 DIV and there's another DIV in that hex).

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Attacks went off perfect. No flips. Had major high odds everywhere anyway. Here's the situation at end of impulse. I rebased the FTR and Bomber down into Romania, just in case.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

1st air battle. Russian attempt to disrupt Dweeb (Leeb).

Ended in both fighters aborted and bomber getting through, which did indeed flip Leeb.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

MJ41 3rd Impulse

Weather is great. Hungary and Finland aligned. Far North.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Situation in the Center

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Situation in the South. He pulled back just a bit.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

In the north, I'm taking a pop at Leningrad. Only 1 unit defending and it's a reserve and disrupted. Doing HQ support with Mannerheim. It's a -3 hex with a city and 2 factories. Mannerheim and the disruption will counter that. +2 on dice roll. Need a 13 or higher to kill the unit and take the hex. Worth the risk. Finns are beautiful in snow, but I'd rather take a 40% chance right now.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Here's the center. Leeb is flipped. Going after the 2 hexes I ground struck during the opening of the war. If this goes off, the hex in between with 2 Russian DIVs is OOS.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Army Group South has only 2 more hexes of forest after this attack and then it's clear sailing. We are playing with unlimited breakdown, so I'm sure after this turn is over, I'll see more of these divisions.

I moved a GE inf into the swamp and disrupted him in order to secure that rail line and put the CAV OOS, circle in yellow. Those CAV can move around the swamp without flipping. Now I can bypass them or them move and are disrupted for the rest of the turn.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Rumanian Front.

I'm taking another risk and pushing forward and attacking a single corp. He has an ARTY next to it that can combine in but if he does, the ARTY will flip and I doubt he wants to stay around much longer. We'll see. I haven't seen anyone play this scenario like this. It's a 6-1, 3-1 if he commits his ARTY.

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Jaimainsoyyo
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by Jaimainsoyyo »

Hi Victor , excelent work.
vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Hey, you're not supposed to read this. [:)] No worries

MJ41 3rd Impulse Attacks

Leningrad fell with a monster 20 on the dice roll! This was a very risky attack. If I had rolled a 12, the entire Finish stack, including the HQ, would have been lost. If I had rolled low, I would have lost multiple units. Because it's only defended by a single unit, I needed a 13 or high to take the hex. I used HQ support and the unit defending was a reserve (disrupted, +2 to dice roll) so the pluses took away the minuses leaving +2 to the dice roll.

Leningrad is a swamp, double on defense, with a -3 dice roll modifier for a city and 2 factories. If defended by 2 white print and a div, it's a very tough nut to crack, especially if the div is a ski troop. In good weather, there's only a few hexes that can attack it. In Snow or Blizzard, the lake is frozen and the swamp is considered forest, so it's possible to get a multiple hex attack against Leningrad without the double defense.

Seems like a good attack in snow or blizzard, right? No. It's -3 for the city/factory. -2 for each white print corp defending in snow or blizzard and -1 if there's a ski division there. Throw in -4 for snow or -6 for blizzard Even if all unit in Leningrad are disrupted, it's still a very difficult hex to take. So I jumped at the chance to take on a single unit. A 13 or higher is much better than ANYTHING I'll see in the future. A 20 was quite nice as I didn't lose a Finn and now he's going to have to contend with a few Finish corp in the north. The Finns flip when entering the swamp hex, so they are done for the turn.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

Center attacks

Mixed Bag. Kaunas fell with no disruption. That was a +10 on the attack and rolled a 13. The forest hex, rolling a 9 on +7, so that was full disruption with a single loss on both side. So that group is done for the turn.

It's always a tricky determining how aggressive to attack and when to just move. With ZOC, I could have just continued by single hex movements forward and then attacked later. I was hoping to blow out that center, but that forest attack was a risk at only +7. I'm never going to roll high every time. That attack could have waited and I made a mistake by not moving an ARM or MECH div into the attack to make it a blitz. Leebs thrust is now halted and Bock's units will continue the pushing towards Smolensk.

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vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

In the south, Army Group South continues it's crawl. He's out of Divs, so we'll see if he wants to continue pushing units forward like this into the remaining two forests. I'll attack anything in either forest hex in the way of Army Group south and obviously any city that he may be using for supply.

In Romania, the attack was successful with a +16 to the die roll. I elected to not to take the hex. I'll decide what to do with them based on his moves. If he continues hanging around Romania, I'll tie as many units in the mountains up as I can with this force. Army Group South will soon have clear terrain to blitz through. The longer he stays this far forward, the more dangerous his overall situation will become.

Next Axis impulse weather will determine a lot of what happens.

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Klydon
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by Klydon »

Nice AAR. Thanks for doing it.

Scoring Leningrad is big since it anchors the Russian defense in the north, has a couple of factories, and also counts double for victory purposes. Nice job. [:)]
vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

There's a reason why Leningrad held throughout the war. WIF has done a good job representing that. It can be taken but it requires a large commitment on the part of the Axis. Being able to take it with the Finns enables the GE HQs (and they only have 3 for the duration this scenario), to focus on the Soviet interior rather than having to commit a GE HQ to Leningrad.

Pax25
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by Pax25 »

Great AAR. You guys aren't using NetPlay correct?
vicberg
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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

Post by vicberg »

We are doing PBEM (in essence). Setup the game up as solitaire and then transfer the files at critical spots. Do you wish to intercept or fly ground support, for example. If the answer is no, then continue on. If yes, send the file and he does his stuff and then sends file back.

We are rolling using ACTS, an online dice roller that maintains a complete history of the rolls, and entering the rolls into MWIF. So far, it's working quite well.
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