Vark

If you turn of the gas for the Ukraine aren't European users affected, which if true might make them think again. Also the turning of the gas gambit did not work against the Ukraine in winter, so doubt it would do so in spring and a tit for tat denial of energy would cripple Crimea, unless Russian can fly in or ship electricity!

Steve, how effective are Bil's infantry, by 44 I'd expect several crates of RPG's being dished out to each company, or are their specific tank hunter teams, as in CM1? Filtering troops down to try to take Gelb will surely leave them vulnerable to Bil's fifth company hitting from the rear, if they begin to sweep the woods. To make the attack work Elvis will have to deploy his armour and Bil is anticipating this, with his flanking run and ISU move.

A well trained uber tank, however cannot be in two places at once and over engineering is NOT a good thing. Ten years working with machines taught me that the three most important things for a machine are reliability, reliability and reliability. The Germans could have been far smarter when it came to production, good job their industrial organisation was as shambolic as their farming. Unless the Soviets significantly out number the Germans, then I'd expect the majority of wins, assuming equal player ability, to go to the Germans, who were still tactically dominant. If you do loose as the Russians, content yourself with the thought that the victorious German player is probably going to have to retreat in a couple of days time!

Yup, even when they were losing they still stuck to that timetable and it did it make a hell of a difference, the Soviets won! Tanks like men are merely there to be used to achieve a mission, a Spartan like insistence on lengthy training, allied with over engineered equipment plays into the hands of good enough. Bill has infantry to spare so he can rush things a bit, one thing he is doing is setting up a potentially brutal, one two armoured punch, which will end the scenario.

Two problems with hoping for cooler heads to prevail. a) Putin is trying to save face from the ham fisted Russian gerrymandering in Ukrainian politics, which partly led to and certainly exacerbated the crisis. So its ego time, which rarely turns out well Crimea has virtually all its domestic electricity supplied by Ukraine, so if it cedes then its highly vulnerable to any Ukrainian interference. I do think calling Ukraine a Kleptocratic regime richly ironic, given some analysts call Russia a mafiocracy. A plague on both their houses perhaps.

Set Colt 45's for punching big holes in people. Reminds me of the story of the 2 Para radioman who was heard to broadcast, during a heavy firefight at Goose Green, 'for f's sake beam me up!'

Kirk's beaming down with a survey team, in another time travelling caper!

Given the cannon rounds were not walked onto the target but fired during a 40 degree dive for four seconds, one wonders what altitude the pilot pulled up at? Perhaps any damage was caused by the propeller hitting something.

Good luck with bringing down an Il-2 with a single 2cm flak gun. Would Bil have spotted the skyward tracer do you think? The Panther is a good tank, for frontal encounters, but I always found its 40mm side armour a pain to be honest, even a 45mm AT gun can kill it.

Thought the Soviet method, espoused by Zhukov, was to push through the field, accepting the resultant casualties as similar to those they would have suffered if it had been defended by troops. Surely mines spur your troops on, c3k, as they are enraged by the unmanly cowardice of the enemy using such underhand devices.

The ISU's are a pretty big hammer to hit the anvil of T-34's, even if one is half-crewed. In reality the precious German armour would withdraw, but this is a BF AAR so look out for the different diameter hit decals on them.

Elvis could have made Bil play a far higher blood price, placing an SFMG, with mines in a wood guarding a VL is just a waste of an asset. They also had no covered routes to alternate fire positions which are essential in CM2 to keep your support assets alive. His obstacles were not covered by fire and his fire support was not integrated into his defensive scheme. As I said before, in CM1 these faults would have lost Elvis the game but not so quickly.

I think you might be right about revenge being a motivator. I remember a game of Warship Commander, where I foolishly used a flight of S-3 Vikings to attack a Soviet corvette. I lost two of the precious ASW assets and only lightly damaged the vessel. I then used a strike package of Harpoon armed F-18's to hunt down the offending vessel and blow it to pieces, but my obsession had totally dislocated my original strategy and I deservedly lost the game. There could also be, for BF, a potentially more worrying explanation, CM1 allowed amateur gamers and professionals to fight on relatively equal terms, CM2 now brutally punishes that disparity, as we are witnessing at the moment.

Yup, in reality Bils T-34's and tank riders would clatter away from Gelb and see how far they could get and what mayhem they could cause. The Soviet doctrine has always believed that such actions can generate massive returns, which outweigh the risks and attendant losses and crucially can generate exploitable opportunities of their own. As Glantz used to warn, in Military Review, believing the Soviet Command system lacked initiative was a dangerous and potentially costly mistake. I do think that this engagement has answered a question, posted on the old CM boards, who did borg spotting help the most? The answer seems to have been the defender, as the variable spotting seems to have helped Bil the most, especially shielding his main force. Final question, why didn't Elvis integrate his mines with his defensive fire plan, ditto the fire support, and why not leave his armour in reserve, until he was certain he could ascertain Bil's real intent?

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!

Careful Steve, Vladimir might take offence at your description of his government. I believe the Russians thought their home grown trucks inferior to LL ones if on roads, but theirs were superior for extreme conditions and cross country performance.

If BF do an earlier Mediterranean module, you could have them for the planned Operation Hercules.

Steve, I lived next door to a guy who'd been a ships doctor on a small destroyer escort, on the Arctic convoys (some of his tales were utterly chilling, literally), he said that the Russians in Murmansk were extremely grateful for all their efforts. So don't worry about Russian internet blowhards, some of their comments on tank forums are comical, but there are plenty of Russian posters who are very balanced, when viewing their countries military history.

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!

I'll second Armstrong's book, excellent view from the other side of the hill. It certainly shows how far the Soviets developed their operational art, also fascinating to see how a commanders personality quickly made an impression on the capability of his command.

Sped it up considerably, literally in the sense of all the automotive transport supplied, and in the sense that the Russians could concentrate production solely on key war machines. Was it essential is really irrelevant as both the Eastern and Western Fronts successes were inextricably linked, let the revisionists carry on fighting, if they must.

They shouldn't have celebrated the torching of the Fritzes by passing the vodka around. Looks like it should be ok, for now!

Bil, do your troops have any hand held antitank weapons (molotovs, RPG's etc)? The German armour will find it hard to contest any of the objectives, unless it has infantry protection, and you seem to be steadily whittling those away. Shame you didn't bring any ATR's, it would have been nice to see how they performed, given the more attrition-based damage model. I once had 100 ATR's firing at a solitary Panther in CMBB, to no effect, but watching the shower of ricochets became almost hypnotic!

But Bil still has 3 T-34 85's and an IS-122, plus the OT-76, not an ideal force to take on Elvis' armour, but not to be sneezed at either.

At least you can't smell the charred bodies, or will BF be soon foraying into 4th dimension gaming?