Slitherine

So it was a pretty awesome game, turbopuns tried his tactics of conscripts and cheap Katushas he mentioned here:
viewtopic.php?t=25894

He was playing very aggressively, (he was shocked he didn't grab the Police station right off the bat, which I assumed he was used to always having) and he lost quite a bit of armor fairly early on. All of his T34/85 Lieutenants (Onatop, Marikov, Todovski, and Ivan) were knocked out pretty quick, limiting his ability to control the streets, and Romanov's IS-2 in the South was traded for Wesley's British Comet tank.

Once most of the Soviet armor was cleared out or neutralized (Shapirov kept running out of ammo, poor IS-2) the game became a slugging match for the buildings. He tried a lot of infiltration tactics, trying to find weak points in my 'line' to break through and start back capping flags, but I was able to stop or contain these attempts in pretty short order.


I shoulda taken pics as we were playing, oh well.

This picture and the red line shows the farthest soviet penetrations. Towards the end, you can see he shifted his focus in the north, actually dragging both of his armored trains up in that direction and made some strong gains up there. The British in the south were able to make steady gains pretty much throughout the course of the scenario, but I think the major conflict in the center prevented him from spending prestige to shore up the southern area. At the time of the surrender, you can see the British are 2 conscripts away from making a complete breakthrough. At the time, I figured the British would continue to hit one line after another of conscripts, as they had so far, had I known how little was in the South, I would definitely have tried to hit it harder and breakthrough there.


With the streets cleared of Soviet armor for the most part, the American artillery and infantry assault on the Office Building began in earnest. In the picture below, the office building has a red box around it. Several times I reached the flag to prevent new purchases of reinforcements, and several times I was pushed back out and a new wave of artillery and infantry were deployed. But with the Officer building cut off from outside support, it was just a matter of time before the forces there collapsed entirely. As you can see in the picture, the only units left in there are the Americans, with Shapirov having been forced out to the streets in the south.
Maneuvers:


Final picture, Soviet Surrender on turn 18 or 19. I didn't realize exactly how well I had been doing in the South and Middle, I just assumed there was a never ending wall of Soviet conscripts waiting for me on every block, so I advanced pretty cautiously and slowly, taking my time to reduce the Office Building completely before advancing to the East at all. Had I known what I see in this picture in advance (better recon) I would probably have bypassed the huge battle for the Office Building entirely and just rushed East into all that open space.


Final causality report:

In my current Urban Warfare game with Neccromancer, I was about equal in casualties with the Russians, until my lines started disintegrating. But being equal is no good, since the Russian units are cheaper in general.

I'm curious what you bought in terms of antitank, like the Jackson/Achilles type units? They don't seem to be that great when attacking Soviet armor, but they can defend and absorb damage, and one of those American units has 7(!) move, which is just insane. I did not employ them widely, instead, I used a some Pershings to anchor my lines and bought a lot of infantry. But attrition wore down my infantry units, plus I bought too many trucks. My opponent was very good with his armor, not wasting them, using them carefully in general. He also had better recon in general, which probably helped him figure out what I had and exploit my weaknesses.

I'll play again with him on this map, and should give a better account of myself.

Achilles under performs severely, I actually bought 2 or 3 17 pound guns. Yes the towed ones, they are fantastic. Drop that gun in the middle of a street (Streets in the South where the British are found are VERY narrow) and you pretty much control that street unless the Russian player brings a lot of firepower forward.

As for the Americans, only the M36 Jackson. Sure that M18 moves 7 which is lightning fast, but speed is not important on this map. Except on breakthrough units, which recon cars are better and cheaper at. You can see how unimportant speed is because I only lost 12 trucks to his 27. 90% of my new infantry purchases do not get truck transports on this map. As you said yourself, you bought too many trucks. You don't realize it at first when it seems like you have a mountain of unlimited prestige, but in such a closely balanced game and where the battles can get extremely bloody(10+ units dying per turn), every drop of prestige counts. A truck doesn't seem like a big deal (50), but when you buy trucks for ALL your infantry, suddenly you're spending hundreds and possibly thousands of prestige.

The M36 Jackson does great, but you have to give it mass attack support. Against the Su-100 where there is no initiative penalty though, the Jackson does excellent, and only better with mass attack.

Thanks for the match, it was nice. Although I made many mistakes in the beginning it was useful to understand tactics for allies.
I have played couple of games since this one and I also found 17 pound guns useful. For M36.. I still can't use them properly. I try to buy pershings instead.

Kerensky, what kind of infantry do you suggest to buy for allies? And what for Soviets? I used to buy conscripts from the very beginning but now I turn to conscripts/cavalry 50/50 because of cavalries 3 spotting range and good movement.

Ill be glad to have a rematch on this map when you have time for this.

The Pershing is generally better than the Jackson, but it comes at such a steeper price tag that if you lose it, it's really irreplaceable.

As for what units to buy, that's impossible to say. It largely depends on what your opponent is buying as well as WHERE they are buying their units. It's all about getting recon on your enemy's assets and then countering it. There is no set strategy for victory in these high mystery type games.

The most important thing to have is a balanced force. Even for the infantry, each side doesn't have specific rules. You can't just go all conscripts, you have to mix in some guards and even Calvary in there as needed. For the Western Allies, the standard 43 infantry is the Go To unit, but every now and then paying a little extra for a HW unit is really worth doing, especially when the battle moves slowly and mobility isn't a large factor.