BrubakerII
Posts: 538
Joined: 9/15/2002
From: Adelaide Australia
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Turn 9. I am beginning to feel my brave Soviet Comrades are finally making headway against the dreaded Hun invaders. Despite an extraordinarily good defence, sheer weight ofnumbers (and artillery) is giving me an advantage that can only have one conclusion.
The latter (artillery) is a huge factor here. Although I have many of the mobile rocket brigades, they have relatively low attack factors. The larger artillery units based well to the rear hoever have quite massive strengths. The cath is that they can only move by using advanced movement ie. use their combat power for a turn, to move. This makes for difficult decisions as in order to get them close enough to the front to use they have to sacrifice their power for that turn.
At any rate they are creeping closer and closer to the front and providing more support all the time. They will end up being a deciding factor I feel...
On the Eastern front I have made huge gains in the north. My cavalry units have successfully forced Josan to begin an almost panicked retreat toward the river that will be his saviour. HAving said that, he is still conducting a clever tactcial withdrawl inplaces, using detachments to slow me troops (detachments have no combat power but large movement penalties to e hex. They do however use a unit's combat power for the turn to create one.)
Here is a screenshot of the eastern front. I actually took this screenshot partway through they turn so some of the units are not where they ended up. Which brings up another point.
[IMG]http://users.esc.net.au/~ooyeah/Forumpic/Korsun/Turn9a.gif[/IMG]
I have been wastfully flinging my troops against the armoured wall around Shpola for too many turns now, and this one was the final straw. In this turn I stacked massive strentgh and artillery against a single German Rocket unit tenuously holding a point in the line by iteself in front of the town. It required every bit of shock value and tactical advantage I could muster to get even a reasonable chance of success. The die roll was lucky and I succeeded, buit it made me wake up to some serious tactical errors I am making.
The screenshot below shows a closeup of the area straight after the die roll. At initial glance it looks ripe for a classic exploitation along the southern bank of the river by some of the many armoured units poised behind the battle awaiting such a chance.
[IMG]http://users.esc.net.au/~ooyeah/Forumpic/Korsun/Turn9b.gif[/IMG]
But it was at this point I discoivered I couldn't get anyone through the gap. :mad: And here's why.
This screenshot shows the exact same are but with the units removed.
[IMG]http://users.esc.net.au/~ooyeah/Forumpic/Korsun/Turn9c.gif[/IMG]
The German unit was defending behind a river! (Barely discernable amongst the flotsam and jetsam but there). This means that all units attacking it did not receive any Tactical shifts at all and actually have their attack strengths halved. I cannot believe I didn't check before committing. And it gets worse.
Both sides of this German unit are heavy stacks of armour. This means that there is a strong zone of control into the hex that slows movement. This in addition to the shocking ground damage the battle caused. All in all, a huge effort for absolutely nothing.
Well not nothing. This actually caused me a rethink. At this point I had already moved the 20th Tank Division from this area to the rear for a rest. I decided to recommit it in the clear terrain to the north of Shpola and the first screenshot shows that. What you cannot see is that after the said incident described above I removed both other aroured divisions from the front line and thrust one each north and south respectively (indicated by yellow arrows). From this point on I am not going to let them become stuck in any one place but constantly push them forward, and withdraw them, and push them forward again to keep Josan off balance and also to make best use of their power.
To the west.
This screenshot show the southern portion of the map where I have also been held up. This has mainly occurred because each time I break the line and move through it, Josan's strong armour units reclose the line often trapping my people on the wrong side.
This time I have taken precautions. The line broke easuily due to the massive artillery and strong mechanised forces available to me. I didn't use any armour in the battle and when the line broke I then shot the armour (yellow arrows).
Although I could have done same with the mechanised infantry, I decided to use them to 'thicken' the weakest point and left them to defend against counterattack (outlined in blue). Josan will have great trouble cutting off this spearhead now.
[IMG]http://users.esc.net.au/~ooyeah/Forumpic/Korsun/Turn9d.gif[/IMG]
Finally this last screenhsot shows the very northern sector of the battle. Korsun looks ripe for the taking but don't be fooled into thinking there are no German defnders there. They have retreated from the line(leaving minefields) and are no doubt blowing bridges to the south as we speak. I am in no great hurry to close with them as yet ans you can see my forces in the north are very weak. Instead I am concentrating on clearing the minefields to ensure adequate supply.
[IMG]http://users.esc.net.au/~ooyeah/Forumpic/Korsun/Turn9e.gif[/IMG]
Brubaker
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Korsun Campaign Turn 9 AAR - 
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