Willie ( Axis ) plays Larry ( Soviets ) in FITE2 contest

[larryfulkerson]

Willie has modified FITE2 and now needs to test it and he invited me to be his opponent. He's playing the Axis side and I've played him before and have gauged him as one of the better players so I have a good game ahead. I just now received his first turn moves and opened the game and I've gotten 1575 events into the replay when it occurred to me that you guys might like to watch the playback as well so I've posted it here below. Give it whatever password you'd like to get past the password screen.

I haven't watched the whole playback yet so you guys are seeing it almost as soon as I am. I've decided to keep you guys in the loop so you are hereby invited to post your questions and comments freely ( please ).

There's a lot of units that have equipment I've never seen before and I'd like to share with you those that I found interesting so standby for that. Here's the battlefield as Willie moves his units. I'll keep posting updates as they happen.

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[larryfulkerson]

Well, we found out how big the playback is. 12K+ events is a lot. Now I need to do my moves and I think the first thing I should do is move all the aircraft that can move eastward to at least Moscow. Just to get them out of harm's way.

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[larryfulkerson]

There were 250+ Axis attacks and most of them, about 200 of them, were airfield strikes. I'll see if I can't find some data about how many aircraft were lost.

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It appears that almost 3400 of my aircraft were destroyed and less than 100 of his. I definately got the worse end of that deal.

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[larryfulkerson]

I was surprised to see that a lot of the equipment is going to go out of production in T405 so I guess that the game doesn't go much longer after that. I looked into it and it appears that the game thinks there are approx. 500 turns yet to go. In addition I found out that there are about half a dozen aircraft models that I'm no longer building and I need to move those bad boys way far south or somewhere else where it'll be safe for them. I might need them in a future sometime. Part of the last stand or something. Plus they need to fill out and refit, badly.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's now T1 round 1 and inside the yellow circle depicted on the map all the Soviet units are gone, destroyed entirely. This is Willie's MO alright. I expect this will be the result for the next several turns. A lot of my units are in reorg and garrison mode and can't be moved.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T1 round 1 and this is the shape of the typical Soviet aircraft unit of those that are still in the game. A lot of Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground in the first Axis turn and only about 1/3 of them still exist, most of them unable to move. As you can see from the number of aircraft in the unit that it only just survived destruction. This aircraft unit is based just north of Leningrad.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T1 round 1 and this is Soviet aircraft unit was based near Leningrad and wasn't touched at all and this could be because Willie didn't think it worthy of an airfield strike or he missed it entirely. I flew it to Moscow, where I'm moving all the existing aircraft units that can move. As you can see it has no offensive capability to attack ground targets and it's almost worthless as a fighter. I'm not building any of these any longer and there's only a little over 300 of them left. I'm planning on using them for point defense someplace on the map where they won't be in harm's way. Maybe down south to guard the oil fields and industry.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T1 round 1 and this is another Soviet aircraft type and as you can see it has little or no offensive capability to attack ground targets and it too is almost worthless as a fighter. I'm not building any of these any longer and there's only a little over 1K of them left. I'm not sure what good they will be in combat and I suppose I can use them as bait for CAP traps or something.

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[larryfulkerson]

I saved my game and zipped the save up and posted it here below in case some of you might want to take an extensive lookaround.

[larryfulkerson]

It's still T1 round 1 and this is another Soviet aircraft type and as you can see it is one of the better Soviet fighters but has almost no offensive capability to attack ground targets. I'm going to build these until T48 and there's only a few of them left. I'm going to let these guys rest and refit for several turns to make them more combat ready. Their proficiency is depressingly low.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T1 round 1 and this is another Soviet aircraft type and as you can see it is one of the better Soviet fighters and has a small offensive capability to attack ground targets. It's actually one of the better Soviet fighters. Unfortunately there's only 8 in existence and they all live in this squadron and I'm not building them very fast. It's probably going to take until early August to build this squadron up enough to be combat ready. It's proficiency is alarmingly low.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T1 round 1 and this is one of the more numerous Soviet bombers, the SB-2M103, and I'm not building these any longer and there's only a little over 400 of them assigned but I have 2.5+K of them on hand. They are listed as a fighter-bomber but I hesitate to thrust them into combat in a fighter role. They will probably be more useful as a Close Support bomber. Or maybe for an INT mission. I'm relying on the IL-4 as my long-range strategic bomber but these guys might be best for just behind the front lines type of targets. I'm especially going to target enemy HQ units, arty units, and engineer units.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T1 round 1 and this is one of the better Soviet fighter-bombers, the Il-2, but there's only 64 of them assigned and they all live in this unit. I'm building them faster than any of my fighters and that's a good thing because these guys can be used as a fighter as well as a CS king. In my previous East-Front games I found this plane is one of the more useful types, the Swiss Army Knife of my aircraft fleet.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T1 round 1 and I've been moving units for a while and to keep you guys in the loop I thought I'd post an update. Before I did anything else I flew all the planes that could be moved to the Moscow area for rest and refit. The first land group to move was the RR engineers and I put most of them on the rail and moved them to a spot that needs their attention and there are many. The second group to be moved was the arty and since their supply level is 50% and that's my cutoff level whether or not to dig a unit in and don't move it, or use that unit like any other. They have too little supply to be moved or used defensively so most of them I just (1) dug them in where they were, (2) moved them to a rail hex and then dug them in, or (3) if they were in harm's way I railed them to Smolensk. About a dozen of them as I recall.

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[larryfulkerson]

It's still T1 round 1 and I'd like to point out that a lot of my units are in reorg or surrounded by Axis units or in contact with one or more Axis units and therefore are constrained on how far they can move, sometimes only a single hex. Those I can't move I'm just digging them in where they are and setting them for 3-dots. Unless I have a chance to drop a bridge. In that situation I'll do what I can to drop all the bridges I can get to. The theory is that the more bridges I drop the more it will hamper the Axis side. For curtailment of movement and supply flow.

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[Cpl GAC]

Thanks for all that, Larry. The Soviets had some real clunkers for aircraft from the 30s, but that IL-2, the Sturmovik, was a winner. It's the most produced military plane in history because - as you said - a swiss army knife.

[larryfulkerson]

Thanks for all that, Larry. The Soviets had some real clunkers for aircraft from the 30s, but that IL-2, the Sturmovik, was a winner. It's the most produced military plane in history because - as you said - a swiss army knife.

You're absolutely right. I'm going to see if I can't use them correctly. I found a couple of YouTube videos:

The History of the Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik │ The Flying Tank │ WW2 Plane History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxEG9w__Y9E


Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik: The Flying Tank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpWG4_Kdhbs

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[loveman2]

Russia June 1941 Hitler is confident of victory over the Russians " you only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down".

The Wehrmacht's morale is at its height and the Germans are drawn eastwards ever eastwards to the boundless mother lands of Russia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Operation Barbarossa is underway!

3 vast army groups will seek out and destroy all Soviet armies before them ?

[loveman2]

A view of a small battle in Army Group North

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[loveman2]

The battle For Bialystok

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