Stalingrad 42 Breakout Group Zhuravlev

[Plain Ian]

Turn 11 German



I'll post the map then come back later with some comments. It was an interesting turn from Mike. Either he's decided to coast the second half of the game or he is feeling sorry for me. <g> 

Actually if this was a real boxing match my corner would be looking for a towel to chuck in the ring!



Ok I've updated the map label to show that its Turn 11 German. I'll run over the German moves.

Group Zhuravlev
The 298th Artilllery dissolved after one assault (-4 men/-22 guns). Scratch one more unit from the Russian OOB.
The 88th Rgt group survived heavy artillery and then about 3 assaults. Well maybe "survived" is an exaggeration. There are 6 men left from the 262nd. 
Elsewhere he pushed up all along the west and south west side but was content to use artillery and direct fire. No need to assault. Its in the bag.......
It was good to see that his units do disrupt. Two in the north east and one in the south west from my defensive fire.
He made no moves against me in the south of the pocket. Possibly he is waiting to see how far north I can go with 1st Tank Army so he has held them back?
The number of disrupted units in the pocket in the south west piles up. I will probably have to spread them out and form a carpet and hope his assaults push them the right way. 

Speaking of artillery I was watching some tv program and it showed Nebelwerfers. They don't make whooshing noises as in PzC? They scream as in 'moaning minnie'?

The south
He did pull back so his units are taking a beating. He is making sure that I will have no chance of getting near the 50 VP hex at Manoylin though. He's happy for me to go off into the great wide....Steppe or whatever. 
He has sent a probe down to check my left flank at Kiselev.

Nizhnyaya-Buzinovka
Well he's made defensive moves here. He didn't bother trying to pin my armour. I guess he is conserving his units using just the minimum to hold me? Or he is bored running units past me? Possibly the first one as he can't have that many units. 
He does have the advantage of operating on interior lines and his infantry are more mobile than mine.

East
Another surprise. He has relinquished his Vulcan death grip on my armour at Mukovkin and adopted a defensive posture. He has left one of his companies behind. This is actually a pain as I may struggle to kill it quickly enough before he changes his mind and comes back to finish me off!!! I'll probably let it go. After all its going to take me a turn or two to see if I can make a successful roll to end my Low Ammo?

This is an area of PzC that should be discussed maybe? Should units really go Low Ammo so quickly? In the enemies phase? Even some boardgames allowed a phased or staged graduation of supply loss when units were cut off? Isolation and instant Low Ammo are just too much of a penalty?

Osinovka
I think I'll try fraternisation here. All my units are Low Ammo and/or Disrupted. I can't see me fighting my way in here. But I guess I should fire......to get him to go Low Ammo!

Marders
No sign of them. They must be in reserve somewhere?

Anyway on to my turn.