TGW v1.8 playtest

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Kherson area now. I'm just about to enter the Crimea. Sevestopol is just a minor goal overall.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Kiev area in T12. Slow progress is being made. The Soviets are backing up and giving way. But a hex at a time.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Sevastopol area in T12. I'm pushing my way into the peninsula. The fighting is terrific and bloody but the
Soviets are slowly backing up and giving way. I've seen units evaporate by trying to defend at a three-dot setting.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T12 front lines. Most of the movement is taking place in the deep south where the Axis is overrunning the Crimea.
Movement is a little slower around Kiev and there's almost no movement at all anywhere else. Once in a while the Axis will
gain a hex around Leningrad. The slash and dash of the early game is gone.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how the air war goes in T13. Much the same as last turn and the one before that. Etc.

[larryfulkerson]

My Rifle Squad losses have been remarkably light due to my one-dot attacks ( for the most part ). But the Romanians are
catching the brunt of the losses in the deep south. More than their share to say the least. The truth is that the Romanians
have the better army when compared to the Hungarian Army. So they get used more. There's only two Slovakian
ground units and one Slovakian air unit so they almost never have losses even though they are on the front lines.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a section of the front lines just NE from Kiev. This is typical of what's going on all over the map. I'm getting into the
gaps that Elmer is leaving in the lines, surrounding a few units at a time, destroying them, rinse and repeat. The bad news
is that the Axis formations are already past the start of the single-digit-supply-level area. The operational tempo is going to
slow down considerably if not halt altogether in select places. It's late fall and winter approaches bringing the mud and all
the bad weather. D'oh.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's Leningrad in T14. I'm running into low supply areas so the operational tempo is slowed down remarkably but we're
almost there and I'm getting to the hardest part of the process.......the last few hexes.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Kiev area in T15. I'm actually checking each unit each round to determine if they should move/attack. I'm trying to
maintain a proficiency level of about 50% in the units and that causes them to sit for prolonged periods of time. Several turns.
But I'm thinking that they have to have about that much to be able to defend themselves and fend off desertion.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Sevastopol situation in T15. Progress is being made but slowly. Supply is low and operations are necessarily
low tempo right now.

I'm using the three RR engineers as a group to do the same section of rail so as to accellerate the repair rate and I'm thinking
that maybe I should split them up instead. But I'm lazy and haven't done it yet. I really like to be able to extend the railroad
"manually" so to speak

[larryfulkerson]

Here's Smolensk in T16: I've finally got a surround on the city and I'm besieging it now and expect it to fold sometime soon.
Then on to Moscow. I'm thinking that Moscow will have to wait until the spring because of the mud season and the low
supply situation. I may have built some rail out this way by then.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T16 front lines. I'm spreading out and flowing from the river crossings into tank country. I'm thinking I need to
get the Panzers disengaged from where they are and bring them down here to do some broken field running. Although
the supply situation is single digit and worse and any broken field running would just have to be out there and back.

EDIT: I'm speaking above about the southern open streaches of terrain.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's how the air war is going now ( T16 ).

[Michael T]

I hope this scenario works out ok. As I really like its time/map scale and unit density. The FITE and D21 scenario's I think have way too many units for my taste. Good luck guys

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Michael T dude: I'm attaching the TGW scenario to this post so you can download it and load it in TOAW and
take a really good look around or maybe you'd like to playtest it yourself. There's no Axis PO yet but there is a
Soviet PO so you can play as the Axis and see how it feels.

As to the file itself just truncate the dot txt off the filename to make it a zip file again and unzip it. I'm including
the equipment file with this download.

[larryfulkerson]

NNNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnooooooooooooo. The supply system collapsed and now there's no supply at the front at all. D'oh.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's Leningrad now. I've just got to make a huge stack of Soviet stuff leave the hex, that's all.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines in T33. I've had a policy of no move and no attack unless you have the supply for it and as a
result there's been few moves or attacks. It's early '42 and I expect the weather to get better soon.

[sPzAbt653]

So that everybody interested is aware of the theory here, the original Barbarossa '41 ended in December 1941, and used only low supply as a way of slowing the Axis [no negative shock, no ceasefires]. Barbarossa '41 had low supply levels that dropped lower as the scenario progressed, and formations had low supply delivery percentages, so that past September a unit would get like 1 or 2 supply points each turn if it did nothing.

So we are trying to keep with the original in this respect, while expanding the scenario out to 1945. The difference in TWG is that we start supply out a lot higher as the Germans weren't having 'catastrophic' supply issues until October. Then, as was seen above, the supply level drops. As we are using New Supply Rules, a unit will still get at least 1 supply each turn [if it does nothing] even though the circles show nothing.

Then, around March 1942 the supply recovers to a modest level of 12. In May 1942 supply recovers to a normal higher level, although not as high as June 1941. This cycle repeats [except for the 'catastrophe'] as each October supply drops, and each May it recovers [the recovery is less each year reflecting Axis woes].

The Soviet side faces similar supply issues but different from the Axis as it was the Soviet lack of a decent supply network that prevented them from enjoying good supplies all the time.

Lest anyone complain of us being too harsh, I've played thru the first four winters and have had no issues. It's not that you have to cease all operations, it's that the player has to be careful or else risk ending up like Hitler did [getting beaten every winter]. Currently I'm in May 1944 and I've got the Soviets in hand, holding a line along the Volga from Tivkin to Astrakhan. [For playtest purposes I didn't want tu press on to the Urals as I want to see if Elmer can do anything with me.]

Also, Mr. Fulkerson is in charge, and if he feels we need to change the supply settings, we will.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

So that everybody interested is aware of the theory here, the original Barbarossa '41 ended in December 1941, and used only low supply as a way of slowing the Axis [no negative shock, no ceasefires]. Barbarossa '41 had low supply levels that dropped lower as the scenario progressed, and formations had low supply delivery percentages, so that past September a unit would get like 1 or 2 supply points each turn if it did nothing.

So we are trying to keep with the original in this respect, while expanding the scenario out to 1945. The difference in TWG is that we start supply out a lot higher as the Germans weren't having 'catastrophic' supply issues until October. Then, as was seen above, the supply level drops. As we are using New Supply Rules, a unit will still get at least 1 supply each turn [if it does nothing] even though the circles show nothing.

Then, around March 1942 the supply recovers to a modest level of 12. In May 1942 supply recovers to a normal higher level, although not as high as June 1941. This cycle repeats [except for the 'catastrophe'] as each October supply drops, and each May it recovers [the recovery is less each year reflecting Axis woes].

The Soviet side faces similar supply issues but different from the Axis as it was the Soviet lack of a decent supply network that prevented them from enjoying good supplies all the time.

Lest anyone complain of us being too harsh, I've played thru the first four winters and have had no issues. It's not that you have to cease all operations, it's that the player has to be careful or else risk ending up like Hitler did [getting beaten every winter]. Currently I'm in May 1944 and I've got the Soviets in hand, holding a line along the Volga from Tivkin to Astrakhan. [For playtest purposes I didn't want tu press on to the Urals as I want to see if Elmer can do anything with me.]

Also, Mr. Fulkerson is in charge, and if he feels we need to change the supply settings, we will.

I'm in complete agreement with all that Steve has said. I understand now why Barbarosa '41 ended when it did. There isn't
much to do when the supply net collapses besides repair the railroad and maybe fix some blown bridges here and there. And check
the health of the planes. During the bad supply phase I've had the aircraft on INT missions because of the lack of combat and
I've had good results with it. I've used the interlude to repair the rail almost the length of the map with the railhead close to the
southern front. I intend to extend the rail all the way to the front in as many places as I can so that the supply is maximum when
it comes back. Which will be sooner or later.