Reconvet
Posts: 355
Joined: 1/17/2011 Status: offline
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Turn 2 - May 14 1942 / Weather: Clear The map below shows Bonners turn 1 moves (red of course) and my turn 2 actions/reactions/panic moves in yellow. Yellow arrows pointing west/south are not - repeat NOT - to be mistaken for cowardly routs, but heroic moves to utterly confuse the red hordes and ultimately destroy Stalins formations with any means available (which may include lethal cramps after prolongued laugh attacks due to axis planning failures). To the situation I had to swallow after opening my turn 2: I have to admit that I had underestimated what the red army is capable of, early in Trappenjagd. I really had given Bonners an easy time early in our first match (well, mud in turn 2 there wasn't very helpful to encourage soviet attacks all across the map...). In this one he has dished out and taken about 10k casualties. Now I had quite a few holes to plug, some I had to leave open. South of Kharkow I traded space for time. My Romanians there took quite a beating, their spirits are down by 4%... Good thing about that is that I can delay building the necessary HQs for them a bit. My two tank divisions near Kharkow were sent to the east bank of the Donetz river. I will fight to deny him the railline Balakleja-Kharkow to supply his 6A and to keep a bridgehead on this side of this major river. Nice open panzer terrain once/if I can assemble the necessary forces to exploit it, which means Bonners can grab more real estate elsewhere in the meantime. Worst case scenario is that I might have to bury several german divisions while trying to hold Balakleja, I can't be sure that I'm not biting off more than I can chew there, and I will have to swallow more losses than I'd have to if I had retreated over the river towards Kharkow. What I can't really read are Bonners intentions south of Kursk. My forces facing his 21A are quite weak, and he may have been tempted to bash on some german and hungarian regiments there. Afaik the soviet player should get no offensive minor orders this soon, so this real estate can hardly be worth fighting for. But maybe this is a pure attrition strategy, a low-risk preemptive strike on divisions which might bite him harder later on if they are left intact.
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