Tomanbeg
Posts: 4385
Joined: 7/14/2000 From: Memphis, Tn, CSA Status: offline
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Col. Mittelberg pulls off his leather mitten. Then he pulls off his woolen mitten. Then he pulls off his driving glove. Next he scratches his nose. His nose doesn't itch, it is way to cold for that. Col Mittelberg is just checking to see if he still has a nose. Although he suposes that if it had frozen off he would have noticed it laying on the map he has been studying so intently for the last hour. With or without a nose lying on it, he doesn't care much for what he sees. But it is December, 1941 and like the rest of the wehrmacht all he really cares about is getting warm again. 'Well' he thinks, 'it will get warm enough soon'. Col. Mittelberg has taken Panzers down more then one dusty road and he knows that battles are always hot. And this one is looking like a hard nut to crack. An Armored spearhead under Koniev has cracked the front around Kalinin and is trying to cut off 3 Panzer group. The good Col has been given his own combat group and ordered to stop the envelopment. It to cold for flying but somwhere along this 12 KM swath of snow and Ice is his enemy. Find them and stop them, his orders read. Mission: control and/or prevent the Soviets from controlling the center of a 5 KM by 12 KM strip of earth. There are 13 v-hexes worth 30 Points per turn. It's a 24 turn game so that makes 9360 points. Each 'home' cluster of v hexes has 4 100 point End of game flags. So that makes 10160 points, give or take a few. At 10,000 points per side it is going to take about 15,000 points to get a victory. That is a lot of T-34's. Which leads me into; Enemy: Col Mittelberg is worried about his troops. He is used to having better quality forces, but the Cold has balanced the scales. Koniev has the Soviets last strategic reserve under his Control. Well trained Siberian troops whose greater experience in cold weather will offset the greater combat experience of the wehrmacht. Plus there will be masses of T-34's and Kv's. The Summer days of light weight BT tanks is over. The Soviets will have the edge in Armor mobility, but their Infantry should still be on foot, or in trucks. I might have gave up to much in the negoiations preceeding this battle. Country training is off and both side have experience set to 81 so the normal German advantage in hit % and command points will not be there. But I did get to keep my Special ops squads and meat bombs. SOP for me in Nazi vs Soviet battles in the early years(with C&C ON) is to manuver the Soviets into command failture. The Soviets nornally don't have the command points for any complex manuvers, so if you can get them rushing back and forth, they will run out of points and get stuck. Hopefully someplace where they are harmless. Can't do that this time. I'm going to have to find and kill leaders to have any chance at avoiding an *** whoopin. Troops: Col Mittelberg is a little thin on the ground. His Armor is out matched. Division managed to cut loose some assets for him in the way of Arty support, but basicly this looks like a pretty hopeless mission. Terrain: 100x240 random map. Snow(december in Russia doesn't get beach bunnies and tropical breezes). Standard 5 cluster v-hexes, with the center cluters at 49,179 51,117 52,63. Woods in the north eastern corner and along the Southern edge. Center e to w is rolling level 1 hills and flat mixed. Unfortunatly visability range is 18, so I can't play the guess which hill has the 88 that is poking holes in you at 40 hexes game. Start lines are set up with the Soviets almost on the North cluster, and equal run to the center and southern clusters. No road net to speak of, A hard road N-S down the center of the map. To close to where the front line will be to help much with lateral movement. A RR E-W in the Center of the map. They cross just West of a level 2 hill mass centered about 48,104. This is inside my set up zone. It might be an advantage, if I can figure out how to make it one. Conclusion: I expect I'm about to get my head handed to me. Victor has all the advantages here. I think he is to experienced to make a mistake big enough for me to take advantage of. So I am going to play to avoid losing. In Soccer terms, I'm gonna play defense as much as possible, and hope to get a free kick in the closing seconds. By playing for the Tie, I might be able to create an opportunity to go for the win. I did my set up and starting mission objectives with that in mind. I won't get into that here since this is a situation where suprise is my only weapon. T.
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"The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead." – The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963. [IMG]http
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