FITE v.5.0 Ian Soviets larry Axis

[larryfulkerson]

Ian needed something to work on while he's waiting for my moves and FITE2 seemed too big so we've dropped back to FITE and Ian said he'd feel more comfortable playing the Russians so I downloaded the version 5.0 FITE from Rugged Defense and converted it to TOAW IV and the rest is history. Which reminds me about the layman's explaination of WWII: Germany invaded Poland and one thing led to another and we dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.

I think I'll skip trying for Leningrad and instead go for Moscow first of all. We'll see.

[fogger]

Larry for FITE1 you must take Leningrad in 41 if you want any hope of winning.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: fogger

Larry for FITE1 you must take Leningrad in 41 if you want any hope of winning.

Well, if that's the case then I guess I'll try for Leningrad after all. Thanks.

[larryfulkerson]

There's over a thousand units to move around and I noticed when I started moving units that the engineers are grouped together, and the RR arty units are grouped together, the the rocket units are grouped together. I like that. Get all the infrastructure arranged before the ground troops move, that way the supporting units support while the ground troops move. The Soviet air shock is 5 and the Axis air shock is 140 so I'm just about to unleash the aerial fury on the Soviet airfields. I need to destroy the Soviet air force while I still have a chance to do it. This is a once-in-a-game event and I want to make the most of it. I'm thinking of killing all the nearby aircraft units working my way further and further out to try to get them all. IIRC there's about 3K of them.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a shot of my scheduling attacks down south where you can see how the scenario designers have given the Axis some small advantage of having some pre-converted hexes past the Soviet lines and I'm told that it's for a game balancing reason. In previous games the Axis units weren't advancing as fast as was thought historical so some lanes of advance were added and it's making a difference for my units.

[larryfulkerson]

I managed to infiltrate through the Soviet lines and get into their backfield and surround quite a few of them and with the resolution of the first combat round we can see larger gaps in the front lines. I expect the second combat round to see the evaporation of several more Soviet units. I've seen as many as 8 rounds before. Maybe I can do it again.

Oh, and I've shot down about 1K planes I guess. The flyboys always overestimate by a bit. I'm more certain about the number of my planes shot down though, about 22 of them. That's the kind of low losses I like to hear about. Two of my fighter squadrons turned yellow so I'm resting them. I'm making airfield strikes with all the fighters to escort as many bombers as they can. Some of the Soviet fields are further than my fighters can reach and I've been losing a couple of bombers to the Soviet fighters but I feel like it's worth the cost to get at the Soviet airfield and do some damage. This is the last time that fantastic air shock advantage is going to exist. My air shock value is 140 and the Soviet air shock value is 5 which is what is making possible the disparity in losses.

[larryfulkerson]

There are so few Soviet units that there's a lot of gaps in the front lines and I'm able to infiltrate through his lines and get into his backfield and surround and destroy the units without too much trouble and the Soviet units are disappearing left and right. Axis losses are light so far and progress is being made. The Axis obviously outnumbers the Soviets in this image.

[larryfulkerson]

Okie dokie...now I'm in combat round 3 and there's a lot more missing Soviet units. I'm having no problem getting a surround on the Soviet units and killing them. They need a little better front line than they had built. It probably won't be this easy the rest of the game. It's my shock bonus that's paving the way for me.

[SpicyJuan]

ORIGINAL: fogger

Larry for FITE1 you must take Leningrad in 41 if you want any hope of winning.

Why is this?

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

Well, if that's the case then I guess I'll try for Leningrad after all. Thanks.

Larry if in FITE the German win condition was to take and hold Moscow in 1941, if you had to guess, what would you rate the German winrate be? 50%

Also, would be cool if you pros played an alternate history scenario such as the war in the East without Lend-Lease or if Britain made peace with the Germans in 1940: the Soviets would be better prepared but the Germans would be much better geared towards a war of attrition.

Anyways, good luck!

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: SpicyJuan

ORIGINAL: fogger
Larry for FITE1 you must take Leningrad in 41 if you want any hope of winning.

Why is this?

I'm guessing that the objective value must be pretty high or the penalty for the Soviets on the fall of Leningrad must be pretty severe.

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
Well, if that's the case then I guess I'll try for Leningrad after all. Thanks.

ORIGINAL: SpicyJuan
Larry if in FITE the German win condition was to take and hold Moscow in 1941, if you had to guess, what would you rate the German winrate be? 50%

I'd be speculating no matter what I said but I'm guessing that if ALL the Axis player had to do to win is capture Moscow I suppose he could ditch all other objectives and use everybody on the Moscow project and he would probably win every time.

ORIGINAL: SpicyJuan
Also, would be cool if you pros played an alternate history scenario such as the war in the East without Lend-Lease or if Britain made peace with the Germans in 1940: the Soviets would be better prepared but the Germans would be much better geared towards a war of attrition.

That sounds pretty cool. Might be fun.

ORIGINAL: SpicyJuan
Anyways, good luck!

Thanks for the good luck but I don't want to accept it if Ian doesn't get some too.

[SpicyJuan]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: SpicyJuan
Larry if in FITE the German win condition was to take and hold Moscow in 1941, if you had to guess, what would you rate the German winrate be? 50%

I'd be speculating no matter what I said but I'm guessing that if ALL the Axis player had to do to win is capture Moscow I suppose he could ditch all other objectives and use everybody on the Moscow project and he would probably win every time.

Maybe I should rephrase: what would the German winrate be if he had to take Moscow in addition to Tallinn and Kiev by the end of 1941?

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: SpicyJuan
Also, would be cool if you pros played an alternate history scenario such as the war in the East without Lend-Lease or if Britain made peace with the Germans in 1940: the Soviets would be better prepared but the Germans would be much better geared towards a war of attrition.

That sounds pretty cool. Might be fun.

I would volunteer to create it but alas I haven't even figured out how to delete units in the editor yet

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
Thanks for the good luck but I don't want to accept it if Ian doesn't get some too.

Sure he can get some, just not as much[:D]

[larryfulkerson]

Maybe I should rephrase: what would the German winrate be if he had to take Moscow in addition to Tallinn and Kiev by the end of 1941?

I really have no idea. I myself have never won a FITE game and I don't remember ever getting close to a win. I'm guessing the percentage of winners would be low. Maybe 20% or so.

[devoncop]

Spicy Juan

Thanks for the luck...even if it is only a minority of it [:D]

To be honest Larry could write a book on this scenario and I have never played it having only started with TOAW on the release of TOAW 4 so you may need to rethink the % of luck each of us needs....[;)]

[devoncop]

22nd June 1941

This initial account with be edited in phases as I go through the position after the first German turn so please hear with me ....there is a LOT to take in !

Firstly the brutal facts....

Unsurprisingly given air shock values in the first couple of turns of 140% for the Luftwaffe and and 5% for the Soviet air force half the starting strength has simply disappeared in a maelstrom of Luftwaffe attacks. Not all units have gone and I will urgently relocate those survivors that are not in reorganisation ....(not many) but the Soviet air capability will be negligible for some time.

By the end of the German turn on the ground Army Group North is already within 100Km of Riga and has reached Kaunas and has overrun Lvov in the south.

The delayed attack by the Rumanians and Hungarians in the deep South has given the Odessa front some respite but Soviet troops are very thin on the ground and of poor quality.

I should mention straight away in trying to bring order from the chaos I find German air interdiction is heavy and effective. This immediately restricts rail movement though rail capacity is very restricted initially in any case.

[larryfulkerson]

I should mention straight away in trying to bring order from the chaos I find German air interdiction is heavy and effective. This immediately restricts rail movement though rail capacity is very restricted initially in any case.

IIRC I have half the fleet on CS and half on INT. I thought it just wouldn't do to put everybody on INT. Nothing Soviet would be able to move. So I took it easy on Ian.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what Ian did in his turn. I see at least three furballs so I'm guessing that my three-dot fighters are taking Soviet planes out of the sky left and right. I see multiple instances of him trying to disengage units to retreat and being thwarted. This is going rather well so far.

[devoncop]

22nd June 1944

I just finished my turn...

Talk about fire and fury from the air [X(]

Bridges over the Dnestr are blown as the 9th Army struggle to form some sort of coherent defence in the south whilst along with most of the army the Black Sea Fleet spends the turn in reorganisation.

In the north the Baltic fleet in an attempt to at least do some minor offensive actions sallies out from Leningrad and bombards Kotka airbase in Finland and manages to destroy 31 Fokker DXXIII's and a couple of Hurricanes. To put this in context the Germans only lost about 100 planes in total this turn whilst Soviet losses were 1650 ! Three Soviet Armies dig in facing the Finns as offensive actions are really not an option at present.

In the three rounds of bombardment by the Soviet navy I counted no less than 140 interdiction strikes across the Soviet Union by the Lufwaffe....movemnet really does need to be kept to a minimum.

A stream of armies are making their way north and west from the south and east of the Soviet Union in an attempt to get a defence line worthy of the name well east of Minsk but it is unclear yet how practical this will be.

German Supply issues and the vastness of the motherland are our only hope at present.

As Cornelius Ryan in his superb book "A Bridge Too Far" said about the Germans in 1944 in Holland, and the Allied supply issues ........"the problem for the Allies was that the Germans were losing faster than the Allies could win"......I hope Larry has the same problems soon !

[larryfulkerson]

T2 June 25, 1941
This is the T2 front lines and the first line of Soviet defenders has melted away and the Germans are on the move. I'm going to try to get to Riga before the end of the turn. I'd like to get Minsk as soon as possible because there's a Soviet penalty for losing it. AGN's goal right now is Pskov.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the Riga area right now and I hope to be at Riga by the end of the turn somehow.

[larryfulkerson]

I've run into some Soviet strongpoints near Kaunas and Wilno. It's taking more than one massive attack. I see myself laying siege to them and I can't do that...I'm in a hurry. So I thought I'd bring in some arty and leave a follow-on force to deal with them and everybody else will zoom on to the east.