FIFTY SHADES OF WiTE: SILLYFLOWER V BRIANG

[sillyflower]

Chaos, you may be right but I have no idea. This game is unique, but the great new casualty report system will make it clearer to work out what I need to do to attrit him to death. At the moment, he can stop me only where he chooses to concentrate, but I can only attack in 1 place at a time. Attacking him head on for the sake of it is futile at best as the casualties are about equal and he outnumbers me. Attacks have to have a worthwhile kill ratio and that means pockets. Even his relatively weak rifle xxxs en masse can break pockets in clear terrain with ease. My job also gets harder every month due to NM changes.

[chaos45]

Well in Steleckts game vs Pelton you can see he is only getting like 58k soviet manpower a turn....and that will down turn again in 1944 if Brian doesnt retake a bunch of manpower....as Brian should be about the same or less I would think.

Should be some smaller dot locations you can hunt down to slower lower his manpower and there are a couple cities close to your frontlines.

[sillyflower]

Based on my earlier calculations and known losses since then, I reckon that Brian has about 1800 manpower centres or possibly slightly fewer. 1800 produce 63K p/w. To get 60K p/w he only needs 1715 functioning baby factories. From my correspondence with Stelteck, his number excluded the trickle back from the disabled pool - worth about 12.5K per turn to Brian. I can't kill that many per turn without losing similar numbers myself, unless B does a lot of attacking. I tried taking Penza at the end of the summer but it was futile. The first time in the game he stopped a major effort.

[sillyflower]

T92



I take advantage of the Bolsheviks' cowardly flight to herd 4 more rifle xx into kessels. The highlighted combat is to demonstrate the weakness of Brian's units. A full strength rifle xxx should be about 29K men IIRC. His rifle divs in the pocket were all only about 6K strong.

[chaos45]

Should allow u get some more small town Manpower points to.

[Disgruntled Veteran]

This is interesting. Apparently robbing manpower centers is now a viable strategy for a long term win. This could force some Russian players to fight for their cities.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: chaos45

Should allow u get some more small town Manpower points to.

Indeed. I've captured 5 in this area

[Tollwut]

It's beautiful. Essentially, you're nibbling him to death...

[chaos45]

Its not just the continued manpower center losses...its also the fact Brian has taken very heavy losses on top of that...so he actually needs the new men to keep his army in the field....if the soviet player runs enough to avoid alot of losses to the point they bank manpower....then the manpower points from towns/cities might not matter as the bank could tide them over till they retake locations.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Tollwut

It's beautiful. Essentially, you're nibbling him to death...

And Brian seems to be enjoying the game. After all, he's the one who wanted to continue. Getting a bit too like '50 Shades of Grey' for my personal taste

[M60A3TTS]

A Soviet spokesman said today that the Red Army was running "like a fine-tuned machine."

[sillyflower]

T93



Brian ran away quite a bit, so I decided to pursue as it's all good defensive terrain. I was able to get a small pocket, but it could and should have been bigger if I had been more careful at the planning stage.

The Finns take advantage and sally forth. There are a few baby factories up there [8D].

[sillyflower]

THE BIG MUD T94-99

Took out the tiny pocket on T94, but otherwise very little activity on either side. My only entertainment was flying fighter sweeps east of Moscow, which on average took out 8 Bolshevik fighters for each one of mine. OOBs at end of T99 were 4.33 G and 5.63 R. Will have to do something about those hordes and the Finns make their contribution:




During the mud, the irrepressible Finns captured the remaining 5 baby factories in the far north as the cowardly Brianites run for safety.

I have done my T100 and await Brian's response to the first turn of my little spring O.

[sillyflower]

T100

The summer O starts




The worst terrain on the map looked like a good place to send all the panzers - a trick that, if successful, may be copied by the Fuhrer if any allied landing in western Europe is successful. A nice little pocket which is as secure as I can make it. I will continue to nibble away at his units wherever the opportunity arises.

The Red Air Force continue to struggle as best they can but proves no match for the LW. In their last turn they lost 450 machines (mainly B25s and UVS's in various futile bombing attacks on airfields and units, and another 170 in my turn for the loss of only 14 axis aircraft.

[sillyflower]

T101

The lucky Bolsheviks manage to open the pocket after (from memory) 13 attacks so there was no action to speak of in another mud turn.

The Brianites did, however, manage to lose 450 a/c mainly from B25s and UVS2's doing suicide bombing runs on my airfields.

[sillyflower]

T102





The pocket is resealed as the SS push north to meet up with Finns coming south. Not so much in the pocket this time as a couple of the the rifle corps had split up to fill the hexes so that his troops would not retreat back in the pocket. Still, a good haul and next turn is clear for mopping up.

OOBs now 4.35 to 5.72M

[sillyflower]

The big picture in the south/centre

[sillyflower]

T103



I seem to have lost my notes for this and the next, though next turn was mud so probably nothing to report. Here I did little more than clear the pockets. From memory, total R casualties for the turn were about 115K, and that caused a 50K fall in Brian's OOB.

[sillyflower]

T105 -Brian currently has this turn so no leaks please.

Giving the Brianites something to think about



10 corps (1 cav) and 5 divs (2 rifle, 2 cav + 1 mtn) isolated but I could not close the pocket.

I had to do something, and all the offensive capabilities were here and would take a long time to shift. At this stage in the war, it is much easier for me to attack in this sort of terrain as it makes it probably impossible for Brian to c/attack successfully and to cut me off in return. German armour in open terrain can't stand up to Russian rifle corps.German armour in open terrain can't stand up to Russian rifle corps.

Recce (largely covered up by combat signs) showed nothing in the rear areas and I thought I would/could reach the rail junction marked as the objective. However, there were lots of Bolsheviks hiding under trees. If I had found them before I was committed to this plan, I probably would not have bothered [:D]. Oh well, I hope I can close it up next turn with only 1 stack escaping. My rails are converted right up to the front line apart from in the north where you can see the FBS. I will have v good fuel if the armoured wedge does not get squeezed. Having STAVKA and the Front HQ going on a trip to the far north won't help any C/O which is good news. I might even have killed Stalin ............If not, another Pz xxx (the rest of 4th Panzer Army have arrived to join the search for Stalin next turn. HQ and 2 divs are off-rail just below screenshot.

Casualties very low all round; 4.5K G to 4,8 R. LW did much better: 24 to 300 over the whole turn cycle.

[M60A3TTS]

Brian may still refuse to say "no mas!" but if you digest this bit, I'm not sure that this flank isn't irreparably breached.