D21 yet again. A tribute to the community as my thanks

[larryfulkerson]

It's still T14 round 4 and here's a view of the Odessa area right now. I've been probing the SW corner of the defenders because I can get my units in the three adjacent hexes to impinge on that one target hex. I've built an artillery park to the west of the city with about 8 arty units in it. I need to rail some more RR arty down here to help out.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T15 round 4 and here's what it looks like south of Leningrad right now. I'm slowly fighting my way northward even as Elmer is railing more and more units up here to thwart my efforts. Supply levels are good and the weather is typical of mid-August, 2/10 cloudy with scattered thunderstorms and scattered light rain. The front lines are dynamic and rapidly changing from turn to turn in this AO.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T15 round 4 and here's what it looks like around Kiev right now. I'm fighting over the river crossings again and have captured a couple and I'm feeding my smaller units across the river and into the Soviet backfield. I've decided to rail some divisions to this part of the front so as to accellerate the streaming of units into this part of the Soviet backfield. I want to try to trap as many Soviet units against the eastern bank of the river leading through Kiev as I can. I have railed a few pieces of RR arty to the Kiev campaign and they are coming in real handy.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T15 round 4 and here's what it looks like SE of Kiev right now. I'm clearing out the area between the major rivers and I'm meeting only a few Soviet units in my advancing to the SE. Since there are so few Soviet units in my way progress is especially rapid in this AO. I'm having trouble trying to keep the repaired rail close to the front lines in this area so the supply levels tend to be 10 or less here.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T16 round 4 and here's what it looks like SW of Leningrad right now. I've managed to push a little closer to the city and I've trapped some Soviet units on the roads leading north to the city and I've isolated them from their supply so they shouldn't last long. I have no idea how long it'll take to get up adjacent to the city but I'd guess another 5 turns or so. The supply levels are good.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T19 round 2 and here's what it looks like west of Moscow right now. I've managed to push a little closer to the city and progress is slow as a snail in this AO. Elmer has been getting boatloads of reinforcements each turn and a lot of them are showing up on the front lines. So the Soviet front lines are stout and resistance is heavy. I seem to have blown a hole in the Soviet lines but Elmer will shore up the intrusion easily and quickly in future turns so it's not really a hole into the Soviet backfield. I have 28.1K HRS's assigned and 931 HRS's on hand and I've lost 19.5K HRS's so far.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T19 round 2 and here's what it looks like NW of Moscow right now. I've managed to contain the Soviet units in this AO and I'm attempting to surround all of them and destroy them. The terrain in this AO is making it difficult to run around them easily. The good news is that the rails are repaired almost all the way to the front so supply levels are good.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T19 round 2 and here's what it looks like east of Kiev right now. I'm railing units to near the river crossings just north of Kiev and I'm disembarking them and sending them south along the riverbank on the east side of Kiev and my units streaming south are cutting off the Soviet units along the river from their supply source. Elmer has been watching my movements in this AO and has started moving units away from the river and escaping them to the east. So I'm in a footrace with the Soviets to get my cordon further south to catch the units escaping. Elmer has moved most of the defenders of Kiev out of the city hex and is using them to form a light screen on the east side. My units will brush the screen asside easily. Kiev will soon be mine.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T19 round 2 and here's what it looks like down south near D-town and Z-town right now. I'm fighting over river crossings again. I've gotten engineers on the river hexes near D-town and I intend to move units across them into the Soviet backfield. I intend to move the German units toward Kharkov and the Romanians are to move SE toward the Soviet oil fields.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T19 round 4 and here's what it looks like near Leningrad right now. I've managed to isolate the city from the rest of Russia and the Finns have pushed southward to just north of the Stop Line. The Soviet defenders NW of the city are only AA units and won't stop anything from moving along the coastal road along the SW coast. I have sunk both of the Soviet naval units that were operating near Leningrad so the Soviet CD guns are now the major problem I face. I'm losing a lot of troops and equipment to the bombardment of the Soviet CD guns at least 3 times each turn. So it's important that I do the takedown ASAP to prevent large losses.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T19 round 4 and here's what it looks like SE of Smolensk right now. I've managed to start a surround on a LARGE number of Soviet units. I've got a subgroup of Soviet units on the south side almost surrounded already and I'm in the process of reducing it's size. A lot of the defenders have retreated into the northermost two hexes of the grouping to try to escape before I can finish the surround. As a result those two hexes are densely packed with troops and equipment with the result that those two hexes are red and yellow. I can kill them most quickly by taking down the packed hexes first. I need to move all the arty I can into range to clobber that red hex. Fortunately, I have plenty of arty to use.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T20 round 3 and I've finally captured the last of 4 crossings over the river leading into the Crimea. The Romanians are to head into the Sevastopol area and start operations to take down that port and the German units are to head ENE toward the Soviet oil fields. I especially want to capture Rostov to stop the Soviet reinforcements from using that crossing to get into the fighting. As I recall from previous games this area is especially sparse as far as Soviet units go so progress should be rapid here.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T21 round 5 and I managed to blow through Kiev and I've caught up with some of the Soviet units trying to escape to the east. I've got my engineers way forward repairing the bridges the Soviets broke on their way east. I'm confident that I'll be able to clear out all these Soviet units in the next couple of turns. Supply levels are good since the repaired rail passes through Kiev and there is one repaired rail line that passes south through Priluki that almost reaches the river directly south of there.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T21 round 5 and this is what it looks like near Odessa right now. I finally pushed one of the Soviet stacks out of it's hex at Odessa so I've finally had some progress there. I've been attacking without letup for about 5 consequtive turns and losses have been higher than I was expecting. I moved the RR arty to within range of the hex just NE of the port itself because it's closer to the port than the hex I just gained. There's only two hexes impinging on that target hex but I think with the support of the RR arty it just might be possible to gain that hex before too long. I may need to replace the Italians with some fresh units after just a couple of attacks. The Italians are fragile.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T22 round 1 and this is what it looks like near Odessa right now. I did this image to see what might have changed in this area since the last turn and I don't see much that has changed but this is only the start of the turn so maybe it'll change a lot in subsequent rounds. I'm using 3-dot attacks to make sure I get through the bottleneck quickly. There's a lot of troops and equipment that are itching to get into the Sevestopol area and start making headway.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T22 round 2 and this is what it looks like near Moscow right now. I've just now finished mopping up Soviet remnants in my backfield and now all those units can move up to the front lines and continue the push toward Moscow. The rails are repaired all the way to the front lines so the supply levels are good. It's only early September but the weather is turning colder and the news said that the Germans were experiencing supply difficulties. The supply radius has dropped down to 6 hexes so supply away from the roads and rails is low.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T22 round 2 and this is what it looks like near D-town and Z-town right now. I've pushed through D-town and I'm spreading out north of the river and some units are headed for Kharkov and some are pushing SE to get to the Soviet oil fields. Z-town was being hard to crack but there's only one Soviet AA unit holding the crossing so it shouldn't be all that hard getting across the river there now.

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[sPzAbt653]

Are you experiencing any crashes with 4.1.0.40 ?

[larryfulkerson]

It's now T22 round 4 and this is what it looks like NE of Moscow right now. I've managed to fight my way this far east without much trouble and as a matter of fact the rails have been repaired this far as well so supply levels are far better than they would be without them. It seems to me that the further east I go the fewer airfields there are. I need to do a map study to see what kind of objectives are further east than here this far north because if there aren't any high-point places to capture there wouldn't be much point in pushing further east up here. And I can let these guys rest and regain their strength for the coming Soviet Winter Offensive.

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[larryfulkerson]

Are you experiencing any crashes with 4.1.0.40 ?

Yes I am. But not nearly as many as with 4.2.0.9

I've been saving my game after I move all the units of a formation. That has come in handy at least 5 times now since I started playing the game. Sometimes it CTD's and some other times you can click on the "save game as" panel's "Save" button and nothing happens. You can't save your game when that happens. That's happened twice. But other than that I'm having a great deal of fun.

Oh, and sometimes the Soviet side takes at least 2 full minutes of "nothing appears to be happening" and THEN the Soviet units begin to move. And then after the combat phase is finished for that round we go into another 2 full minutes of "nothing appears to be happening" and THEN the Soviet units start to move again. Doesn't happen all the time...maybe 1/3 of the Soviet turns are that way.

Thanks, BTW, for this fantastic scenario. It's a winner with me.

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