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CMRT - BETA AAR - Soviet Side


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Am I stretching the defenses enough?

Looks like it! I know you were bummed about how the initial action with the ISU-122's turned out. But the Germans will now have to pick their poison.

If they divert their armor from Blau to check the rush of the T-34/85's, it will be time for your SPG to shine blowing stuff up. If they keep their armor in Blau it should make it that much easier for the T-34/85 to run amok.

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Interesting discussion about Patton, tactics, operations and Soviet doctrine. When talking about Patton are we discussing tactics? The General was an operator in WWII, not a tactician. When mentioning Soviet doctrine I'm assuming it refers to tactical doctrine. Tactics and operational art are two very different creatures.

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Thomm, I wouldn't say "walked over".. I took about a half dozen to ten or so casualties spread among 5th company (mainly from 1st platoon) and my support units... and two of those were from friendly fire (in 1st Squad/1st Plt., the flanking force from tank area fire shrapnel).

To be honest, I would have accepted higher losses for this result. I think it is a more important result for me, than the OT34 kill will be for him.

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Excellent, Soviet style, command driven exploitation of a potential defensive weakness, lets just hope there's nothing nasty in Obj Gelb. Any reason why your OT-34 disobeyed its movement path? On the face of it you are taking it better than I would, I hate it when a silly glitch looses you a key asset. I once though, double clicked on a recce unit and gave them a move fast to secure a key objective. I hit play and watched in horror as the dismounted HQ unit and several soft skin vehicles (out of screenshot, when I clicked on the units) also ran off to secure the crossroads. End result dead HQ and burning soft skins, which buggered up my chain of command for a while!

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Bil,

Excellent move. About flanks, you are absolutely correct that if you have sufficient power to keep on the move and compel the enemy to pull back, then flanks are (for a period of time) not very relevant. One has to know when those conditions exist, and when those conditions change. One of our two campaigns takes place outside of Warsaw where the Soviets had, up until then, not worried about flanks too much. They switched over to worrying a tad bit too late for the point of their spear.

In your situation you're doing the right thing, IMHO. This is classic Soviet exploitation. Bust a reasonable hole in the defense and then drive every bit of metal you have to a specific objective to the rear. Since this is a QB you know the only threats to this move are in the objective area itself and from whatever forces Elvis can shift from OBJ Blue. Which you're doing a decent job of thwarting, thanks to your ISU-122s and infantry.

In real life there would be more uncertainty. Though that sort of uncertainty didn't stop the Soviets from doing this sort of thing on a regular basis :D

Steve

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Any reason why your OT-34 disobeyed its movement path? On the face of it you are taking it better than I would, I hate it when a silly glitch looses you a key asset.

I don't know.. it took some small arms hits when it initially backed out and maybe it was trying to get away from that.. totally could happen in reality too so I can't blame the game... C'est la guerre!

You can only get so upset at stuff like this.. and really it might be an opportunity.. if Elvis thinks my assault on Blau is stalled because that piece of equipment is gone, he might go after my T34s up North.. if that happens I am so attacking Blau with 4th and 5th companies and all my support assets (other than the T34s) as the only reason I backed off from Blau was the presence of those tanks (and the impending artillery).

Does he even wonder what became of my ISU's? He can't leave them out of his planning.. and he cannot be everywhere.

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True Steve, the Soviets were notoriously cavalier about their spearheads, but operationally they'd reinforced the flanks and the Germans would dutifully attack them as they had always done.

Bil, I think your ISU pick has been vital for your success, because just their mere presence seems to have forced Elvis to constantly react to them, allowing your more mobile armour to attempt the dash for Gelb. Fixing by intimidation, testament to the power of late war Soviet armour, able to trash armour and fortifications with equal ease, that is when they don't get hit!

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5th Company

1st Platoon passes through the remains of the enemy German platoon... the enemy dead and captured now numbers around 21 in this area. Oh, and the Platoon leader lies dead with his men, his pistol lying next to him.

12802120563_1e94d0e809_b.jpg

The Assault on Gelb

The T34s and SMG platoon will be on Gelb next turn. On the drive up one enemy contact has been spotted.. type unknown. I expect one or two more on the objective so will continue to spread my fire around the objective.

My assault force has received no incoming fire.

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At Blau

I am very curious as to the reaction of the enemy armor at Blau.. the Panther stayed pretty much where it was.. as far as I could tell, but the Hetzer spun around, drove down the road and knocked down the hedge.. obviously taking position to cover the fields to the North in case my T34s next drive to Rot maybe...

The second Hetzer has not been spotted in any fashion in a few turns now.. my hope is that Elvis is splitting his armor.

12802435324_189f8c6635_b.jpg

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So no images this turn, my T34s are almost, but not quite to Gelb.. still pummeling it.. no new contacts.

Other news.. it looks like the Hetzers are moving North.. so Elvis appears to be splitting his armor (which is good news)... the Panther is still sitting in the same exact spot its been in for several turns now.. the ISU-122s are very close to being able to unleash on Blau. Wonder what that will do to his mindset.

Oh.. and I poked out the last of the eyes Elvis had on my far left... the scout team that was sitting on Axis Red.

Moving up toward Blau again with my infantry.. no spotting rounds in several turns now. Not sure what that means, maybe he is shifting fire?

Next turn should be interesting, don't go anywhere.

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Apologies.. I intended to get another turn report up this morning, but my computer was acting up (Windows update screwed something up and I didn't have time to dissect it), I won't be able to get to it until tonight I'm afraid.

Bil

What! Noooooooo…. I have to spend the *entire* day actually working?

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True Steve, the Soviets were notoriously cavalier about their spearheads, but operationally they'd reinforced the flanks and the Germans would dutifully attack them as they had always done.

Vark(and Steve):

von Manstein's backhand blow in winter of 1942/1943, culminating in the lose of Kharkov, was a classic example of the Soviets losing their heads during an (operational) advance, disregarding everything their intelligence was warning them about. Lesser examples can be found in the counteroffensive of winter 1941/1942. In summer of 1944, however, there was very little of that in the Soviet offensives.

What happened at Warsaw was expected since that was part of the main strategic objective of the Belorussian strategic operation (establishing a bridgehead across the Vistula river was the main objective). The Soviets were at the end of their operational tether and it was no surprise that they would be hitting strategic reserves at the Vistula river. As it turned out, elements of both the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian Fronts established bridgeheads across the Vistula which were consolidated and held (between Warsaw and Sandomierz). This bridgehead became the launch point for the Vistula-Oder strategic operation in Jan 1945.

At the tactical level, a Soviet spearhead was known as a 'forward detachment.' It's job was often to advance as far as possible. What was 'possible' was defined in operational terms, since numerous operations were in effect, each one interdependent on the other for success. The benefit of an advancing forward detachment was that it introduced chaos at the operational level. The enemy couldn't lay down a fallback position because its flanks were compromised by the forward detachment(or much more likely, lots of forward detachments). This prompted the enemy to retreat steadily, facilitating the overall operational advance. The last thing a forward detachment wanted to do was get stuck in a battle along the way. If they could bypass without concern of an operational or strategic enemy reserve on the flank, they did it.

What seems to be poor judgement tactically can sometimes be explained at the operational level. Tactics is only as important as the operational impact. No battle should ever be viewed as if in a vacuum.

If I've misinterpreted something, I apologize. My intent was to make the distinction of the hierarchy and their perspectives and interdependence. It's all history now and makes for great reading and study.

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I don't know.. it took some small arms hits when it initially backed out and maybe it was trying to get away from that.. totally could happen in reality too so I can't blame the game... C'est la guerre!

I have a theory! Last night while playing I noticed that there is a bit of sloppiness with some new clicking code. About 1/6 of the time when I went to right click to deselect it did that AND put down a waypoint where I didn't want/expect one. I don't know if this is a Mac only bug or not, but it is possible that's what happened to Bil. It took me a while to notice this because I tend to plot waypoints from high up and directly ahead, which meant I often didn't see the extra waypoint. It will be fixed today or tomorrow, which doesn't help Bil any :D

Steve

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What seems to be poor judgement tactically can sometimes be explained at the operational level. Tactics is only as important as the operational impact. No battle should ever be viewed as if in a vacuum.

Yup. The Western concept was to predict where you'd run into problems and plan on stopping at that point. At least to reevaluate. The Soviet concept was to basically keep going until the enemy compelled them to stop. It's an approach that allowed for the massive Soviet offensives to sweep huge swaths of territory when it worked. But from a Western point of view it was massively risky and too often resulted in what they considered unacceptable losses.

In Bil's situation he's pretty safe because he is operating in a vacuum. He doesn't have to worry about a StuG Platoon showing up at OBJ Gelb, for example. He's recon'd the map sufficiently enough to know pretty much where all of Elvis' forces are. Partly because he knows the artificial parameters that govern a Quick Battle. Thus the deep attack on OBJ Gelb is unlikely going to result in disaster in any real sense.

Steve

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I have a theory! Last night while playing I noticed that there is a bit of sloppiness with some new clicking code. About 1/6 of the time when I went to right click to deselect it did that AND put down a waypoint where I didn't want/expect one. I don't know if this is a Mac only bug or not, but it is possible that's what happened to Bil. It took me a while to notice this because I tend to plot waypoints from high up and directly ahead, which meant I often didn't see the extra waypoint. It will be fixed today or tomorrow, which doesn't help Bil any :D

Steve

I saw something like this also as British(warrior mode) in an H2H of "My Honor is Loyalty." I had finished my move commands and decided to review them before hitting "Go." As I reviewed the move of each unit, I noticed fast or quick move commands emanating in random directions from each move terminus. I deleted the extra moves thinking I had messed up some how, and continued the game. I use a Mac too (Mac Pro). Perhaps it isn't specific to RT.

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It is possible that some of this problem may be emanating from your mice. I got a new mouse a couple of months ago that I like a lot, but it has a very sensitive left button. Combined with the way that I hold it, I find it clicking a lot of times that I don't intend. There may indeed be a problem in the game code somewhere—that should be looked into. But if it doesn't turn up there, you might want to take a look at your mice.

Michael

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