Slitherine

Manstein - imported core

Bought another FW 190, bringing prestige down to 26k - will switch it in for one of the He 177s, otherwise same fairly light on infantry core as before - I dread to see the repair bill for still fielding tons of Tigers (12 units, likely more than the entire Wehrmacht fielded at this time)

Heavy concentration of the less mobile artillery on the center/left flank along with infantry while the more mobile units are a bit more focused on the west in order to respond to the expected Soviet armor. I will use the aux AAA to guard my units this time, lets see if this helps in keeping my repair bill down a bit.

During the T1 attack on the fortifications I compared a 15STR +1 ini +2 attack Pionier unit to a 13STR Tiger I -2:12 (Pioniere) vs. 0:10 for the lower XP/STR +1 attack SE Tiger for attacks on a STR16 strongpoint. Somehow this feels wrong, I understand that the units stats (in this case mainly the Tiger's heavy armor) leads to results like this, but it still feels wrong.

4 Soviet planes were shot down using most of my FWs and MEs + the 8,8.

Moved 6 Tiger and 1 Elephant west in order to deal with the expected attack and met the first armored units south of Vyshniye-Peny, 2 Ju 87Gs move in for killing blows.

It looks like 5 FWs, 3 MEs and the 8,8 are just about enough to deal with a airforce wave unless the RNG-gods hate me.

Kochetovka is conquered at turn 3 as is Noven'koye and I have units in front of Pokrovka. Meanwhile the Soviet armor appearing in front of my Tigers seem to be too afraid to attack, but still move right up to their line. With the help of the Ju 87Gs 4 Soviet tanks are destroyed each turn often without taking any damage myself.



Pretty much like flies getting squashed on the windscreen while driving on the highway... enough for today, more tomorrow...

By turn 4 most of the armor south of Vyshniye-Peny is destroyed and I start moving towards Syrtrevo which is defended by a 20STR M3 Lee. Pokrovka and Kochetovka are occupied and the first bridge across the Psel is reached - looks like there is some armor to the west of it.

Syrtrevo is conquered by turn 5 and with the help of Brückenpioniere the Pena is crossed to the north of Vyshniye-Peny - trying to go after the airfield there. Overall airfields are a fairly rare commoditiy on this map - which is good since it limits the effectiveness of my strong Luftwaffe. Got a captured Sherman from Syrtrevo and a new wave of Soviet planes arrived at the end of the turn.

Lost one of the aux Brückenpioniere while looking for a way across the Psel and my other aux Brückenpionier is under heavy attack as well (3STR left). Due to slightly bad rolls the Shturmovik is left with 2STR, but the other planes are destroyed. Vyshniye-Peny and the airfield are conquered and most of the Luftwaffe has gathered here to either destroy the latest wave of Soviet planes or secure the Pena crossing. An armored spearhead reaches Zorino.




And as can be seen, I really need an airfield here

Verkhopenye is taken at turn 7, the bridgehead expanded and the Shturmovik is destroyed while it tried to run to an airfield for repairs.

Another La-5 is destroyed on turn 8 amd the defenders of Ivnya are destroyed. At the end of the turn another La-5 appeared and is brought down to 1HP during turn 9. Zorino and Ivnya are conquered.

At turn 10 the attack on Knomuttsy is started, but only a fairly light on since most of my Tigers have to refuel. The airwave was left with a single Pe-8 at 11HP. In the NE I start to move forces across the Psel and outflank the forces/fortifications there.

At turn 11 Knomuttsy is conquered and the forces to the south of Oboyan are engaged. The La-5s appearing in addition to the normal waves are fairly bothersome, but the Luftwaffe still is strong enough to deal with them for now. Pavlovka is undefended, but I lack the units to occupy it at the moment - the units guarding the south of Oboyan are fairly numerous.

The bridges at Oboyan are reached at turn 12 and most of the units to the south of the city have been destroyed.

Stroming the city was fairly ugly due to the tons of AAA, I started my move across the river at turn 13 with lots of artillery and air support and took some serious losses (no units), but managed to establish a bridgehead.

At turn 14 the bridgehead was expanded with units reaching Bobryshevo and Pselets in the east. Since it looks like I will not be able to get to the NW in time (spotted a large number of reinforcements at the northern edge of the map) I start to bomb the positions there, hoping to be able to sneak the Sherman across the river.

At turn 15 the SW airfield of Pselets is taken, heavy fighting around Oboyan (on my part, the AI will still not attack the Tigers - running into fuel problems again.

Got a SU-122 at Pselets and took a closer look at the positions around Dolzhenkovo, no way that I will be able to cross there, way too much armor which would kill the Sherman.

It took till turn 17 before I was able to take out the last AAA in Oboyan and engage the remaining forces (about half the city was already mine) with bombers.

The last defender of Oboyan fell at turn 18 and armored spearheads reach the defenses of Bashkatovo. In the end 4 units are left defending Dolzhenkovo and the bulk of my forces was about 6 hexes away.

DV at 20/20 - 26.8k prestige and unless there is a lot of scenario prestige here this will be a loss again due to repairs.

Nice scenario again (disregarding that the Tigers are pretty much untouchable for most AI units) - in the middle I got the feeling that it needs more armor, but the armor waiting in the north did make up for it. The threat from Soviet planes became more managable, but they still inflict some damage on the turn they spawn - should be a fairly high repair bill again. And I really liked the defenses of Oboyan, very hard to crack especially due to the tons of AAA there.

Edit: After repairs and selling the Sherman I ended up with 23.4k prestige, so a loss of 2.6k, largely due to the Soviet airforce again and some from the storming of Oboyan.

This is starting to be one of my favorite scenarios--a total slug-fest! I call it OH-BOY Oboyan! One of the challenges of this scenario is trying to capture the airstrip on the opposite side of the river in the middle of west side of the map. Without that airstrip, it is hard to continue a sustained air-campaign after the first five turns or so. In future games, I will direct a strong attack to try and capture it earlier. I can't recall offhand if anything about the airstrip is mentioned in the intro instructions for the scenario, but it might be worth adding a note about trying to secure the airstrip as soon as practicable.

Love to compare DLC/GC maps with Google Maps to orientate on the battlefield. Just started this next episode and looking forward to it!
Minor details:
-Zorino (25,11) lies north of the Psel river, not south.
-I was not able to find the following towns: Kochetovka (32,18), Pavlovka (13,9) nor Knomuttsy (6,12). Were the names of the towns perhaps changed after the war?