Don Bend Scen. in S42

Boston33 · 04-12-2007, 11:44 AM,

How did you guys approach this scenario? The map is huge and the unit density is low. There is a ton of ground to cover too. Thoughts?

Jazman · 04-12-2007, 02:20 PM,

As thin as it looks for the German, it's thinner for the Russian. Things are pretty wide open, until you get to the Don. The question for the Russian is how to manage the retreat in an orderly way, and not get trapped in the Bend. It's hard, and I found Russians disrupted quite easily.

When there's no real counterattack threat, you don't worry about flanks. As the German I pushed my infantry hard, and my mobile units ran wild in some holes punched open. I was able to surround and destroy Russian infantry piecemeal. The Russian T-34 units are tough, though. The Russian should be careful to try to keep them out of German infantry /engineer reach, because the German armor itself isn't powerful enough to crush them.

This was VM's ALT version. Of course, I offer only one datapoint here.

Boston33 · 04-12-2007, 03:33 PM,

This is the first PzC title that I've played, I played SpWaw for a long time so the operational scale is a little daunting for me at first. In a tactical level game, you are basically using every unit to advance or defend with very specific goals. In PzC I'm assuming you don't usually advance all along the line, as this would be suicide, but rather in certain sectors with the hard hitting mobile units better suited to offense. Can I ignore the Russian center and focus on a pincer movement to link the north and south divisions or do I need to advance all of my divisions in a relatively straight line, engaging Russian units as I go? I know historically an encirclement would be very effective and the pocketed units could easily be mopped up or would surrender by themselves. Whether that's plausible within the game system I don't know, however. It would seem that even if I joined both the north and south pincers somewhere along the Don, there would still be lots of Russian forces trapped behind that I would need to be destroyed for me to receive victory points. Can the thinly spread screening units in the middle acheieve this?

Boston33 · 04-13-2007, 06:43 AM,

Bump.. Any thoughts?

Liebchen · 04-13-2007, 08:05 AM,

Alex, I think that you're going to have to go with your gut on this one. It sounds like you already have the relevant considerations in mind to make a good call.

Don't forget, you have recon units and you have recon planes, too. Use them frequently.

Boston33 · 04-13-2007, 08:51 AM,

Yeah, I've got recon down pretty well, I'm pretty through with scouting key road road junctions and the enemies arty. I just don't have a good feel for how to pace an attack. Is it usually a good idea to rest troops at night? Does this help replacement levels?

Sgt Fury · 04-13-2007, 09:13 AM,

For the Germans I think to win you will need to go like crazy -- I don't think there is anything major the Soviets can do. So my advice is: forget the flanks just go like crazy for encirclement. If you feel uneasy, you should probably keep a small mobile reserve somewhere central to deal with problems that flare up (keeping a reserve is almost always a good idea anyhow).

Fury

Boston33 · 04-13-2007, 09:57 AM,

But when I link up the northern and southern pincers is it feasible to then turn back around and destroy the pocketed units? Or could that be accomplished by the foot infantry?