Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain)

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Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/18/2013 11:21:02 PM

vicberg

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Jaiman and I are doing the Barbarossa Scenario. 2D10, etc, standard options. 5 turns to take more cities than my opponent.

We've got a way to make it work like a PBEM. We are playing solitaire, but transferring files back and forth when needed. We are using ACTS for dice rolling and entering the results into the game. It's working quite well actually.

Starting at Ground Strike

2 ground strikes in north attempting to pin down 6 units. No ground strikes in the south. You'll see why in a bit. I won't be able to mount attacks against either hex this impulse so want to capitalize on the surprise and keep them in place. Only 1 ARM/MECH and MECH Div in the north. You'll see why in a bit. Bock and Dweeb (Leeb) are spearheading the charge in the center and north.

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< Message edited by vicberg -- 12/20/2013 9:17:32 PM >

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/18/2013 11:25:37 PM

vicberg

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Here's the situation in the south. I wasn't expecting this. I guess he may try to charge through Romania. I've set defenses accordingly and will use my final two air missions to rebase a 6 FTR and LND3 down there to help. Also will be railing 2 corp and an ARTY(5) into Bucharest.

The bulk of my armor is along the Southern Polish border ready to push in and cut off this large force if it decides to push into Romania. He does have supply sources where the red circles are, and put a CP into Black Sea for Odessa (or a Romanian port).

We'll see how this plays out.

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< Message edited by vicberg -- 12/19/2013 1:23:15 AM >

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/18/2013 11:28:09 PM

vicberg

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Here are the attacks. Numerous to clear out any ZOCs on rail lines. I'll be doing a right flank in the far north. Finns will be aligned next impulse. I could have taken a 3-1 against the forest hex southwest of Vilna. I chose not to. It's too high a chance to flip my units and I don't want that first impulse.

The ground strikes flipped all units in Kaunas and 2 of 3 units in the forest hex southwest of Vilna (flipped INF and 1 DIV and there's another DIV in that hex).

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< Message edited by vicberg -- 12/19/2013 12:31:07 AM >

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/18/2013 11:32:07 PM

vicberg

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Attacks went off perfect. No flips. Had major high odds everywhere anyway. Here's the situation at end of impulse. I rebased the FTR and Bomber down into Romania, just in case.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/18/2013 11:58:17 PM

vicberg

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1st air battle. Russian attempt to disrupt Dweeb (Leeb).

Ended in both fighters aborted and bomber getting through, which did indeed flip Leeb.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/19/2013 1:20:38 AM

vicberg

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MJ41 3rd Impulse

Weather is great. Hungary and Finland aligned. Far North.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/19/2013 1:32:56 AM

vicberg

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Situation in the Center

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/19/2013 1:33:36 AM

vicberg

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Situation in the South. He pulled back just a bit.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/19/2013 3:17:31 AM

vicberg

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In the north, I'm taking a pop at Leningrad. Only 1 unit defending and it's a reserve and disrupted. Doing HQ support with Mannerheim. It's a -3 hex with a city and 2 factories. Mannerheim and the disruption will counter that. +2 on dice roll. Need a 13 or higher to kill the unit and take the hex. Worth the risk. Finns are beautiful in snow, but I'd rather take a 40% chance right now.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/19/2013 3:19:27 AM

vicberg

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Here's the center. Leeb is flipped. Going after the 2 hexes I ground struck during the opening of the war. If this goes off, the hex in between with 2 Russian DIVs is OOS.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/19/2013 3:22:56 AM

vicberg

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Army Group South has only 2 more hexes of forest after this attack and then it's clear sailing. We are playing with unlimited breakdown, so I'm sure after this turn is over, I'll see more of these divisions.

I moved a GE inf into the swamp and disrupted him in order to secure that rail line and put the CAV OOS, circle in yellow. Those CAV can move around the swamp without flipping. Now I can bypass them or them move and are disrupted for the rest of the turn.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/19/2013 3:24:59 AM

vicberg

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Rumanian Front.

I'm taking another risk and pushing forward and attacking a single corp. He has an ARTY next to it that can combine in but if he does, the ARTY will flip and I doubt he wants to stay around much longer. We'll see. I haven't seen anyone play this scenario like this. It's a 6-1, 3-1 if he commits his ARTY.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/19/2013 4:21:06 PM

Jaimainsoyyo

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Hi Victor , excelent work.

< Message edited by jaimain -- 12/19/2013 5:26:29 PM >

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/20/2013 2:19:23 PM

vicberg

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Hey, you're not supposed to read this.

No worries

MJ41 3rd Impulse Attacks

Leningrad fell with a monster 20 on the dice roll! This was a very risky attack. If I had rolled a 12, the entire Finish stack, including the HQ, would have been lost. If I had rolled low, I would have lost multiple units. Because it's only defended by a single unit, I needed a 13 or high to take the hex. I used HQ support and the unit defending was a reserve (disrupted, +2 to dice roll) so the pluses took away the minuses leaving +2 to the dice roll.

Leningrad is a swamp, double on defense, with a -3 dice roll modifier for a city and 2 factories. If defended by 2 white print and a div, it's a very tough nut to crack, especially if the div is a ski troop. In good weather, there's only a few hexes that can attack it. In Snow or Blizzard, the lake is frozen and the swamp is considered forest, so it's possible to get a multiple hex attack against Leningrad without the double defense.

Seems like a good attack in snow or blizzard, right? No. It's -3 for the city/factory. -2 for each white print corp defending in snow or blizzard and -1 if there's a ski division there. Throw in -4 for snow or -6 for blizzard Even if all unit in Leningrad are disrupted, it's still a very difficult hex to take. So I jumped at the chance to take on a single unit. A 13 or higher is much better than ANYTHING I'll see in the future. A 20 was quite nice as I didn't lose a Finn and now he's going to have to contend with a few Finish corp in the north. The Finns flip when entering the swamp hex, so they are done for the turn.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/20/2013 2:26:47 PM

vicberg

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Center attacks

Mixed Bag. Kaunas fell with no disruption. That was a +10 on the attack and rolled a 13. The forest hex, rolling a 9 on +7, so that was full disruption with a single loss on both side. So that group is done for the turn.

It's always a tricky determining how aggressive to attack and when to just move. With ZOC, I could have just continued by single hex movements forward and then attacked later. I was hoping to blow out that center, but that forest attack was a risk at only +7. I'm never going to roll high every time. That attack could have waited and I made a mistake by not moving an ARM or MECH div into the attack to make it a blitz. Leebs thrust is now halted and Bock's units will continue the pushing towards Smolensk.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/20/2013 2:39:04 PM

vicberg

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In the south, Army Group South continues it's crawl. He's out of Divs, so we'll see if he wants to continue pushing units forward like this into the remaining two forests. I'll attack anything in either forest hex in the way of Army Group south and obviously any city that he may be using for supply.

In Romania, the attack was successful with a +16 to the die roll. I elected to not to take the hex. I'll decide what to do with them based on his moves. If he continues hanging around Romania, I'll tie as many units in the mountains up as I can with this force. Army Group South will soon have clear terrain to blitz through. The longer he stays this far forward, the more dangerous his overall situation will become.

Next Axis impulse weather will determine a lot of what happens.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/20/2013 5:49:32 PM

Klydon

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Nice AAR. Thanks for doing it.

Scoring Leningrad is big since it anchors the Russian defense in the north, has a couple of factories, and also counts double for victory purposes. Nice job.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/20/2013 8:09:07 PM

vicberg

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There's a reason why Leningrad held throughout the war. WIF has done a good job representing that. It can be taken but it requires a large commitment on the part of the Axis. Being able to take it with the Finns enables the GE HQs (and they only have 3 for the duration this scenario), to focus on the Soviet interior rather than having to commit a GE HQ to Leningrad.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/20/2013 9:40:24 PM

Pax25

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Great AAR. You guys aren't using NetPlay correct?

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/20/2013 10:09:06 PM

vicberg

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We are doing PBEM (in essence). Setup the game up as solitaire and then transfer the files at critical spots. Do you wish to intercept or fly ground support, for example. If the answer is no, then continue on. If yes, send the file and he does his stuff and then sends file back.

We are rolling using ACTS, an online dice roller that maintains a complete history of the rolls, and entering the rolls into MWIF. So far, it's working quite well.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/21/2013 12:42:48 AM

vicberg

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MJ40 4th Impulse - The Russians Attack!

It's getting interesting. Looks like he's making a push for Ploseti. I played into his hands coming out of my defensive positions. It will be a race now to see it Ploseti be taken before his supply is cut. He doesn't have enough units to push and defend his supply sources defend everything. Next turn, I'll be transferring a HQ from the center down to south. In a couple of impulses, GE should be able to break out. With only 1 HQ there now, how far that the armor push inland while cutting off the Russian Armor. RU Armor is the priority. If they are OOS, that's pretty much it for the Russian defense

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/21/2013 1:55:34 AM

vicberg

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MJ41 5th Impulse - Germans drive toward Smolensk

The weather is fine again. The offensive continues.

I'm really regretting that risky attack last impulse. If Leebs units were not disrupted, things would be worse for the Russians in the center. There's one attack. if this is successful, I'll overrun the artillery and force the FTR to rebase. There's only a MECH, HQ and a couple of div remaining that are not disrupted.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/21/2013 1:57:06 AM

vicberg

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In the south, I'm not going to do risky attacks on the forest hexes. I'm going to continue to push through into the clear terrain.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/21/2013 12:13:01 PM

vicberg

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Stalled in the Center

The attack on Vilna in the center succeeded, but disorganized the entire force with a +12 but a roll of a 6. So the center is now stalled until next turn. That's very unfortunate as there was major opportunities to push in this area and remove virtually all defenses of Moscow.

Bock was used to reorganize the ARM and MECH corps and MECH Division. If I play this scenario again, if faced with this type of defense, I'd be opportunistic on attacks, but do a maneuver war. Keep moving in a hex at a time rather than lower odds attacks.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/22/2013 2:30:32 PM

vicberg

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MJ41 7th Impulse

The weather turns sour. Rain in the Artic and fair in the Temperate. This weather helps him even more as most of Russia is in the Arctic zone, but Romania is not.

The center is mostly disorganized. I moved the Arm/Mech stack forward a bit.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/22/2013 2:31:20 PM

vicberg

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Army Group South inches along. Next impulse, if there is one, I should have something to do with them.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/22/2013 2:33:46 PM

vicberg

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Romania is getting dire. He attacked again last impulse and is poised to take Ploseti. If this happens, I have 1 turn to take it back or it's pretty much game over. Germany can't run it's machine on 2 oil. I made a huge mistake coming out of my defensive positions and attacking. My hopes were to scare him back to the Denpr, but I ended up disorganizing my troops in clear terrain and enabling him to have easy attacks.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/22/2013 6:25:11 PM

Orm

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I would say that you can continue this war even with Ploesti lost but you must then focus on higher odds attacks. With much of the Soviet army in Romania then there is a chance that the German army can break free and run havoc in the Soviet rear areas. Focus next turn should be on getting past the Pripet Marshes.

Do not forget that USSR has a offensive chit. But if he uses his chit to capture Ploesti then I should consider using the German offensive to cut off the forces he has in Romania and bypassing them in a run for the interior of USSR. It is a short campaign so the lost oil might not hurt as much as you think. His armour, and HQ, trapped in Romania might hurt more.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/23/2013 12:17:33 AM

vicberg

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With only a single HQ in the south, it's going to be at least an initial choice which direction to go. I'd love to start pushing to the factory line, but first priority will be cutting off the Russian ARM, With good positioning of the HQ, I might be able to do both, but there's the back units pushing through the marshes I also have to keep in g supply. Definately, Leeb will be transferring to the south next turn. Bock will continue the push towards Smolensk and Moscow. Mannenheim will be pushing down from Leningrad. So all isn't lost, but it's not good. My opponent plays much more aggressive than I expected and I played into his hands.

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RE: Moscow or Bust - vicberg vs. jaimain (no jaimain) - 12/23/2013 5:33:28 PM

vicberg

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MJ41 9th Impulse

The weather is clear again. Most of the center is disorganized. I pushed a Mech and Mech Div forward a hex. The GE MIL is moving up to claim Estonia and destroy the Soviet Navy based there.