Comrade Goofski - Barbarossa vs Isokron (No Isokron)

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This is the second of the games with Isokron. This time its me as the Soviets. Here are the options in play. Version 1.02

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Pre-Start Turn

Decisions taken:
- Save Moscow!

All others - Finland, Purge, Stalin Line and Japan are maintain the Status Quo as agreed with my opponent.

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Northern Front

This is the starting line-up given to the Soviets for this game:

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Central Front

This is the starting line-up given to the Soviets for this game:

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Southern Front (Northern Sector)

This is the starting line-up given to the Soviets for this game:

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Finland

This is the starting line-up given to the Soviets for this game:

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22nd June 1941
Aide De Camp

So what have I been given?

Well a quick glance at the report tells me its not good.... not even one partial activation anywhere.....

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22nd June 1941
Decisions

I use my 15pp to replace Timoshenko and fortify Lvov.

I send Zhukov south and Krushchev north.

I create partisans from the surrounded division west of Kaunas.

I create a garrison in Ostrov

I start fortifying the Mogilev Delta

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22nd June 1941
Northern Front - Finland

The order has gone out:

RUNSKI!*


*That's Russian for get the hell out of here....

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22nd June 1941
Northern Front

For those Russians with a nervous disposition, look away now....[X(]

Nothing to do but wait and run with as many units as possible..er 3.

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22nd June 1941
Central Front

Sadly things are even worse in the centre. 3rd Army HQ decides its unable to move at all, none of 10th Army can move, ditto 4th Army and Western HQ can not move sufficiently far to avoid getting gobbled up.

Dire.

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22nd June 1941
Southern Front

Same story here. Only a couple of 5th Army units can move and just one of 6th Army... Unfortunately I press the wrong button and send a 26th Army division from the high ground to the plains...[8|]

Usual problem with 12th Army - insufficient AP to clear the water. 9th Army try and put space between themselves and the enemy but obviously do not get very far.

That leaves Southwestern HQ who try and find the safety of Kiev...

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26th June 1941

Wow! Incredible play from my opponent - just two attacks where the defender held firm!

Once again activations are a killer. Just one army - in the south - activated.

Only one reinforcement army too. Minsk is almost taken so no real choice but to place in Smolensk - even that might be too close the way things are going.....

I release another Tsarist to try and get some sort of activation going.

There are very few units left to move - even if they could!!

A Paranoia episode awaits having lost Riga and Brest-Litovsk. I need MUD!!

[olivier34]

hi,
just lost my very first pbem vs Isokron. I was playing the soviet, 1.02 version. A very bad soviet starting position and like you, not a single partial activation.
My strategy was to fight forward (even if I knew that the best choice is to run with this current version). I had to spent my first pps to fortify Minsk, Odessa otherwise those citys would have fall without a fight. I have made a lot of attacks, even at 1 vs 3 with the tank brigades, the mech divisions, hoping to grind down the APs of the german panzers. I have sacrifice armys with the goal to slow down the german advance or to stretch the front line. I thought that pushing the panzers to do a lot of miles would create a fuel shortage at some point...it did not happen.
By the end of July I had 700 000 soldiers on the field, by the end of September I had to surrender (Moscou, Leningrad lost, Rostov would have before middle of October). Anyway, a fun game but I think that the next updates are required when you play vs an experience opponent like Isokron.
Look forward to see if your strategy will make you survive until October ! [;)]Good luck, I will follow this with great interest.
Olivier

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: olivier34

hi,
just lost my very first pbem vs Isokron. I was playing the soviet, 1.02 version. A very bad soviet starting position and like you, not a single partial activation.
My strategy was to fight forward (even if I knew that the best choice is to run with this current version). I had to spent my first pps to fortify Minsk, Odessa otherwise those citys would have fall without a fight. I have made a lot of attacks, even at 1 vs 3 with the tank brigades, the mech divisions, hoping to grind down the APs of the german panzers. I have sacrifice armys with the goal to slow down the german advance or to stretch the front line. I thought that pushing the panzers to do a lot of miles would create a fuel shortage at some point...it did not happen.
By the end of July I had 700 000 soldiers on the field, by the end of September I had to surrender (Moscou, Leningrad lost, Rostov would have before middle of October). Anyway, a fun game but I think that the next updates are required when you play vs an experience opponent like Isokron.
Look forward to see if your strategy will make you survive until October ! [;)]Good luck, I will follow this with great interest.
Olivier

warspite1

October!?!? I was hoping to hold on until the end of July....

Isokron is very good indeed. I understand what you mean about fuel. When I play the Germans I get into difficulties with fuel allowance. I will keep plugging away and just hope that mud, fuel, divine intervention or whatever comes to my aid [:D]

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30th June 1941

A Paranoia attack already....No cards possible other than the reinforcements - well just one reinforcement army actually. I place this in Vyazma as even Smolensk is not safe such is the progress of the Nazi horde.

Northern Front
Finland

All surviving Soviet units that can move are now this side of the pre Winter War border.

Northern Front

4 divisions of the BMD have little they can do so try and get back to Windau to at least divert 18th Army for a while. Trouble is they are unlikely to get there before the Germans....

The only other units capable of moving are the remnants of 27th Army. They try and leg it to Ostrov but with the 4th PzG over the Dvina this looks unlikely at best.

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30th June 1941
Central Front

There is literally not one single unit that can move - although there is only 12 divisions in any case. Good job I put my reinforcement in Vyazma....

Southern Front

Similar story here too, although a few divisions of 12th Army are able to get across the Dneistr and into the mountains south of Proskurow... where 14th Panzer Division and chums await... Further south 9th Army and Southern HQ try and stop more Axis forces from crossing the Lower Dneistr - which has been breached by just the Romanian armour at present.

Kishinev is all but abandoned as whatever can make it across river does so - except one sacrificial cavalry division.

That just leaves one desperate attempt at throwing the Romanian armour back. 9th Army provides three weak tank divisions and southern HQ a cavalry division. The 47th Tank Division tries to seal off any escape route by occupying the crossing south of Kishinev. Its 95:48 +40% modifier.... The attack works but sadly the Romanian armour is able to escape. At least the bridgehead has been - at least temporarily - extinguished. I cannot get anything into Odessa though due to the Paranoia event.

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4th July 1941

This has been an incredible display from Isokron and the game is almost over. Orsha, Lvov, Minsk, Mogilev, Vinnitsa all fall. The Soviets have nothing left.

All 20pp are spent on reorganising the army. A replacement army is sent to Vyazma and the second to Moscow.

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8th July 1941

Well I've been well and truly beaten by an incredible player and the gulf is such that all the luck in the world wouldn't have saved me - but I have to say I feel very cheesed off with the activations here. I have an army surrounded in Smolensk and two armies in Vyazma. But the thin German panzer forces are potentially in a bit of trouble - like mine were in AGN and AGS in the other game - but.... yep, not even a partial activation from any of the three....

Ho hum, as I say, that sort of thing simply amplifies what would have in any case been an incredible victory. Well done Isokron [&o].

I think I need to play PBEM a few more times to try and understand how such advances are even possible.

[Isokron]

GG warspite.

Well the key to conserving fuel is to try to do as little attacking as possible with the panzers and use the motorized infantry instead. Most of the panzers just follow after on a long straight line to keep the route open from the bypassed soviet divisions. Also helped that I got the decision that allows you to reduce static fuel use to 1500 per PG early.

I guess I was a bit lucky with the encirclement of smolensk, but worst case scenario you would have battered down one motorized division while if you didnt get activations as happened I got a whole army for almost free.

Maybe it was slightly early for you to give up, against a good opponent I think one have to expect to lose nearly all of the start armies and any that gets out like your SW army is just a big bonus. Of course the game is maybe not winnable for the soviets after that but thats just the balance being off in 1.02 rather than that game going badly.