Dog Fight - Ostkreig Tournament Round 1

[von Nev]

German turn 18.

Although it is dark, there is no rest. Only eight turns left.

Progress was pretty good this turn. The Germans are now only 4 km's from the 300 VP hex. This is good news as last turn VP's spiked to over 1000 which now gives me a minor defeat and also nearly ensuring that the 300 VP hex will give me a Draw as the threshold is 1300 which is 270 points away. The question now is a minor victory possible? It is a stretch at 750 points away, but with 300 nearly coming from the VP hex it is not impossible.

Up north the left axis pushed two km's forward and importantly the Russian units are now nearly pushed entirely out of the forest around the Dnepr bend an into the open where they can be pounded. Also, I am finding fewer units dug in. This is a wonderful sight as now Russian units are easier to damage and thus disrupt which keeps the offense going.

The right axis, with panzers in the lead, pushed aside several weak Russian units to keep the advance going. I am also planning the next mini-encirclement. The stack circle in blue may be able to be surrounded the next turn(s) if conditions set up correctly. I need to capture the hex southeast of it and assault any unit that is directly north of it. Both of these are doable since I am already adjacent to the southeast hex and the northeast hex is open steppes and any unit there would not be dug in. If I can do this and my opponent does not have any unit northeast of it the hex will be surrounded. If this works, it will be a repeat of the successful series of assaults that occurred on turn 17 and which yield over a 1,000 Russian prisoners.

I also decided to do maximum fire on two Russian units that are not in the direct path of the attack instead of assaulting them.

Way up north, on the far left flank I have three A morale AT units guarding the flanks for a possible Russian crossing. Down south I have three more A morale AT units doing to the same thing on the deep right flank. With it being so late in the game I imagine my opponent knows that I have committed with nearly all my forces along the current attack axis and he may try something. In playing PzC PBEM for several years now things like this are not out of the question when playing human opponents. Heck, I would consider it and uncertainty such as this makes PzC so much fun and so much better than playing the AI. It is like a big chess match. You have to anticipate your opponent's moves.