Stalingrad 42 Breakout Group Zhuravlev

[Plain Ian]

Thanks Comrade P and Xaver. Good comments as always.

I probably put more into the AAR than I do playing the games. I'm still looking for the perfect way to show moves and results in PzC.

Mike played a pretty straight forward game with no gamey tactics. My plan was ok I suppose but I carried it out badly. The attack up the Liska valley did eventually pay off but only late on near the end of the game. I should have started collapsing the pocket more quickly.

I think what killed my game was not strategy but tactics. I did not advance quickly enough and play ruthlessly enough at the start. As Xaver says the Russian must eliminate whole German units at every opportunity and I didn't do that. 

The one strategic mistake I made was not subordinating everything to 62nd Army HQ on the first midnight turn.

The talk about allowing the Russian to breakdown was interesting and early to mid game I was in total agreement. How can you advance and cover flanks with 9-12 mobile units in a Tank Corps? 

The Russian KV1/T-34 units in the Tank Bde's are actually quite large and breaking them down into half sized units would be nice. However that would make them too flexible and the Russians could run these things all over the map as long as they weren't Low Fuel. So I would rule this out even though that would level out the size of armoured units on both sides. I would consider allowing the Motorized rifle Bn's in the Tank Brigades (only) to split so that theoretically they each can support one of the armoured units in the tank Brigade? 

However......by game end I'm coming around to the idea that the Russian shouldn't be allowed to break down. I eventually did manage to a significant advance north and west with the resources I had. A better player probably could have manged quicker and better?