Race for Rostov

[Spooner]

I hit hard in the South and centre, while allowing my Northerly force to mainly block. Unfortunately, the Nazis broke through in the centre and rushed to block my supply route (they do love to do that!), leaving 3 strong enemy units in a solid position behind my line and most of my army out of supply! Realising that I couldn't pull enough people back to actually dislodge the blockers, I pulled back an equivalent force near them, but able to keep themselves in hot coffee and potatoes. The rest of those central troops continued to push forward and secure the bridge, hopeful that their comrades would be able to clear the route for supplies before they all froze to death!

Race for Rostov 1.jpg
In the mean time, the Northern units took a battering, but they'd been told to hold the line and were keeping several strong units occupied, so that was fine. In the South, strong mechanised forces, and infantry willing to sacrifice themselves, meant that all opposition was being swept away at quite a speed. In the centre, my rear guard just waited for the supply-blockers to run out of bullets and food, then demanded their surrender...

In a lot of ways, the central battle was the most interesting, but ultimately mostly irrelevant to the result, but I suppose it pulled a lot of forces away from the defence of the objective.

Won in Turn 8 (although a silly mistake, forgetting to clear the undefended rail lines in the far SW corner in turn 6 so I could bring supplies in, prevented my winning in 7 and scoring a brilliant victory ). I think this might be a bit easy, since I very nearly won perfectly, in spite of the fact that I let the Germans through to sit on my supplies for several turns!

[Tomislav Uzelac]

Thanks for that. I am wondering if other testers also find this scenario (too) easy. Please post...

I had relatively poor references for this scenario, and I am worried that I made the Southern Front mobile forces (tank and mechanized) too strong.

[ComradeP]

I got a brilliant victory by turn 6, it's probably possible by turn 5 if you're lucky. This is the first scenario where I haven't felt the time pressure for a brilliant victory. I did lose a Tank corps, as there was little I could do against the Germans ganging up on one of my units on turn 1.

Due to the many rivers, I'm afraid this scenario will be very difficult to win for the Soviets against a human player.

I don't think the Soviet mobile units are too strong, the Germans have a fair amount of strong units of their own and the Soviet mobile units are in many cases understrength at the start.

Another, in my opinion crucial, thing to keep in mind is that Soviet infantry formations, by themselves, are weak. Average estimated losses are 3:0 against a 5 step German infantry division, so the Soviets need mobile units or strong Rifle formations with artillery or Tank specialist steps to get somewhere.

Cavalry corps are also rather weak (but good for hex conversion), so you're forced to rely on Tank corps and mechanized corps.

The units in the center can't win the scenario by themselves, a lot depends on the units in the south, which will more or less by default be close to their supply lines due to hugging a railroad. In the end, the key to winning was moving units across rivers to get behind German lines.

[ComradeP]

The saved game.

It was kind of a mess, but I did have a plan. Aside from the Tank corps that got hammered on turn 1, I didn't lose any whole units.

[SiTheSly]

[SiTheSly]

As can be seen I managed this in five turns and to be honest I was lucky in the beginning when I attacked the unit with the attached Tigers at an expected loss of 1:1 but actually got 2 for no losses. This really propelled my drive along the southern supply railway.

The plan involved absolutely no attacks anywhere but the south and each turn an effort to transfer my entire command eat of the Don river. All mobile units especially armour was sent to the spearhead while the infantry manned the river line.

The AI will push towards the northern supply point but since the key one is protected east of the Don and has the super advantage of being on a railway meaning while your supply extends south the German supply is retreating at the same rate.

As ComradeP says a human would see this a mile away so its somewhat gamey but hey its the only way I ever get brilliant victories.

EDIT: The screen is just before turn 5 starts and as mentioned the AI made the mistake of not swapping its green unit for one of the newly arrived standard infantry which would have been a lot harder to shift.
EDIT2: Actually swapping the defending unit would not have made much difference since the green unit was entrenched the result would have meant 1 extra step which would not have held since I took it with three armour yet had five available.

[ComradeP]

Interesting strategy. I moved some of the mobile units that start in the center across the Don, but still kept a presence in the center.

[Tomislav Uzelac]

Yep, interesting... ante and I talked about that this morning precisely. It's nice to see players come up with things we never thought about.

[Spooner]

Found the Southern rush tactic a bit dull when I played it last, so I tried a central push instead! 435/500 Brilliant (7th turn, but so, so close to making it in 6th). Quite surprised, since I assumed supply would cripple you anywhere but along the railway line. Lovely to see the scenario is completable in two quite different ways

[willard]

First time I was able to get a brilliant victory. The Germans did threaten my supplies in the centre, but by the time they got to the river, they'd been out of supply for 2-3 turns and therefore no threat. I kept my composure and resisted the urge to send frontline units back to deal with the threat, and focused on getting Rostov with southern force. It worked perfectly...