Telemecus -> RE: Brief Encounter, Telemecus (Axis) (6/6/2019 11:04:48 AM)
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Rational Comparison of South Openings quote:
ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist I think the Southern pocket can be broken at the Zolotya Lipa river with one unit from the inside and the the 15th Tank division from Stanislav. Throwing away 400 tanks and 1k trucks is a difficult decision though. A bait? You will lose quite some units from the classical Lvov pocket to rail-outs and disbands. I think I counted the unit kill win/loss from the Lvov pocket and Bessarabia when we discussed this earlier, need to find it again. Edit: Haven't found it :-( I think you should air transfer a Security Divison to the Rumanian border to lock the rail [:D] I think this is it? quote:
ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist A major learning point for me is that Rumanians do not unfreeze until T3, always thought it will be T2 at the latest. I have done some counting: We assume the northern pockets (Kovel, Rovno, maybe even Zhitomir) as fixed and compare your opening with one where the Lvov pocket is closed/the railway blocked, assuming a runaway opponent who rails out/disbands everything he can. You for sure lose: 4 Mnt. Divs 2 Tank Divs 2 Sec Regiments Assuming the area directly west of Galati (called Bessarabia?) isn't encircled, you for sure gain: 1 Mnt. Div 3 Inf. Divs (mid to low quality) 2-3 Sec Regiments 1-2 Kav Divs The interesting question is whether the units in Bessarabia can escape or even encircled with some lucky MP rolls, that would change the calcualtion, but requires a test game to find out. There is at least a chance you come to disband or evacuate them to Odessa if the city is defended, which most players will do anyway. Why do you assume that Odessa can not be fortified before T4, at least that is my understanding of your post? The Front HQ in Odessa can be relocated and the FZ disbanded. On top of this, your rail is delayed by one turn. This is definitely an opening that surely can compete with other optimised ones and a good out-of-the-box-idea. I think on a strict static comparison of this versus the normal Lvov opening fewer and less units/manpower/equipment are trapped. As a result it is unlikely to be used by others (much) in future games. My challenge of course is that pocketing more units may not always be the best thing to do.... However we are comparing the modern incarnation of the Lvov opening that has been optimised incrementally over generations of players. If this alternative were taken up by other players I would expect to come back in a years time to find it had been optimised by others to include an "extended Zhitomir" and a "Super-Besarabian" and God knows what else. So the comparison is between a very developed opening and one without any development at all. An alike comparison might be more favourable, but from these starting points that will just not happen. I do not have screenshots of other games where I tried this. But capturing Odessa on turn 4 and rolling up along the southern coast was the result. It is possible that on the only turn that Odessa was unfrozen they could have better deployed units to dig in to hold on to Odessa, or even railed/shipped in units to do it while the area was still frozen. Some units in Besarabia did get east of Odessa - but were just trapped in another pocket to the west of Nikolaev. Trying to outrun Panzers without rail is always a race Soviet units will lose. Fundamentally it is about positioning - for the whole of the far south the Soviet side side starts of with 1st Panzer Group well to its east and with no easy way to recover from being so out of position. So fewer pockets at the start are being traded for better positioning and more pocketed later? [image]local://upfiles/53894/3C29B2C2BE9F4F35AC0DD3899214A6E8.jpg[/image] The delay on starting in rail repair in the south, unless something as good can be done elsewhere, is a serious downside to this opening though. However there were other less rational things to consider ...
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