Murmansk Front HQ

[Henrik]

As the General of the Leningrad front (and the cause of your loss of some valuable units ) I must say you're doing very well Comrade, General Yopov.

[Shaka Naldur]

Originally posted by yop73
Why is everybody complaining about what I did with the front???
I moved practically my entire army towards Leningrad in the south, and the north will be held.
I did it because the marchall gave me explicit orders...

I'm not complaining, your situation is really bad and I think you are making an excellent job
I read you story at civfanatics and I know you are good enough to handle this situation
but I'm just saying that I would had done it in a different way, but it is your front not mine,
and I trust you comrade

[Ben Kenobi]

Is the road still open?

Good job handling my old front.

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Is the road still open?

Good job handling my old front.

On and off, all the cities are being held but occassionally the Facists get a unit on the road.

If we can survive this winter of Finn attacks we will be home free I think.

[yop73]

Dear comrades,
First of all, I'm proud to report that this turn only 1 casualty has been reported in the North.
Therefore, I present to you my plan for this month. It will be hard to execute, but our troops in the North are motivated so I'm sure they will do their job.

*I'm planning on occupying all the forts that are now in Finnish territory. So the Finnish have no safe place to go to ...
*I'm also planning an assault on the fort right next to Helsinki.
*For the rest, just staying on the defensive and building defensive stuff.
*I also request, again, that a KV-1 or T-34 is airlifted into Murmansk this turn. If not, we could lose the city in the summer.

Here you see some pictures from the north of the Kola, with the red arrows as soon to be made offensives.

[yop73]

And here are my plans for in the south of the Kola.

[Shaka Naldur]

nice job yop, I like your plan
next time post the pictures in gif or jpg, please, it is easier for us

[yop73]

sorry

[conmcb25]

Yop

For some reason the Website isn't "showing" .bmp files. I dont know why. I converted to a .jpeg with paint. Here it is:

[conmcb25]

This looks like an ambitious plan.

On the Arty units I would wait till they move next to a city and then hammer them. That way your units that attacked can remain in the city and heal up.

If you let the units finish a turn outside of the city then they are vulnerable to counterattack.

With the pilaging of roads the only thing that can move and attack in the same turn is the Finn Infantry. If you can hold out against them this winter I believe you will have survived the immediate threat.

In the mean time, IF I remain as Marshall we will finance rush builds of units and get you some Siberian reinforcements eventually. I only have one airport in the Urals right now but a second one is planed for Chelybinsk soon.

[conmcb25]

Think about this:

Somewhere in the Orange Circle is a facist City that is usually lightly garrisoned.

We could build you several Red Guards who are very mobile in the winter, as you know, in Murmansk, and they could advance on that city and storm it. That would go a long towards eliminating the air threat from Norway to our precious convoys.

You must stay at least one Hex away from the Facist Crusier that is now landlocked in the lake by where Petsamo used to be. If you end a turn next to that lake the cruiser will attack and probably destroy a Red Guard.

Something to think about comrade taking the war to Axis territory and liberating our Norwegian brothers!

[conmcb25]

BTW I would attack and eliminate the facist plane near Kandalaksha, ground units can attack aircraft in winter!

One less facist plane to worry about next summer!

[H Tower]

Anadvance into Norway? are you quite mad? Not only will the Germans be at our throats again in the coming summer, but our commander is fearing the loss of murmansk, we do not have the resources to go on the offensive here, we need units more on the belorussian, baltic and northwest front.

Plus, any norweigan city we might capture would be on the water, which would put it within the sites of german naval guns, any unit that remained there would be dead by end of the month

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by H Tower
An advance into Norway? are you quite mad?

Well yes I guess I am crazy as a Fox comrade!

Originally posted by H Tower
Not only will the Germans be at our throats again in the coming summer, but our commander is fearing the loss of murmansk, we do not have the resources to go on the offensive here, we need units more on the belorussian, baltic and northwest front.

They will be down south, you worry about the Finns in the winter! In the summer Finn attacks are manageable. The resources needed will be minimal. A couple of Red Guard Units don't cost all that much.

Originally posted by H Tower
Plus, any norweigan city we might capture would be on the water, which would put it within the sites of german naval guns, any unit that remained there would be dead by end of the month

This maybe true but the capture of that city would disrupt Facist planes from attacking our convoys for months perhaps the entire summer. Or we might be able to starve it to death before the facists can counterattack.

Do you not want the Capitalist Convoys to get in comrade? Do yoiu have some deal with the facists? Is that why you insist upon this political struggle?

I hope you are enjoying the Gulag!

[yop73]

The turn was rather passive. I moved all units who attacked last turn back in the cities to heal. I just killed 3 Feldhaubitzes near Viipuri, 1 plane near Kandalasha and 1 Feldhaubitze near Tampere.

[Henrik]

I must say I agree with former marshal Tower on this one...

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Henrik
I must say I agree with former marshal Tower on this one...

How do you stand politically comrade? Is this a precursor to you making a choice?

[The ANZAC]

I don't think we should waste time on Norway. Make Finland impotent, yes, and eventually conquer it, but not now. Let's just hold our ground now.

[conmcb25]

This was originally posted in the "The Ball has dropped" thread:

Originally posted by The ANZAC
2. The current plan to launch an offensive into Norway is folly and detrimental to the Rodina! This must be stopped!

I would be carefull Comrade before you call this plan folly. Have you actually looked at this front and the current situation? I dont think so.

With Petsamo destroyed the major threat to Murmansk is greatly diminished and there are no ground troops for 100's of miles around Murmansk.

My spys tell me the nearest town is called Hammerfest and it is usually lightly garrisoned. Spending the resources for a few Red Guards and sending them to assault is not much of a risk and could pay big benefits in greatly diminishing the threat to our convoys of capitalist goods and weapons to fight the Facists.

Even if we assault the town and then evacuate before the Batleship attacks it will be months before the Germans can get land troops that far north. In the mean time we can sell all the improvement for much needed cash.

In the mean time his planes from Narvik and the battleship are trying to get at a couple of Red Guards INSTEAD of our precious convoys. (thats known as a diversion comrade!) Considering that Red Guards cost 120 rubles from scratch and one Trade unit homed in a major city and sent to the Caucass can get us over 1000 rubles in a turn (not to mention the huge amount of trade arrows every turn probably 30 plus), I would say the benefits greatly outweigh the risk.

So Comrade before you make such bold public statements I suggest you actually study the situation first. If we dont want to risk this as a group then so be it. But calling it folly without studying it is a bit rash.

Im putting this back in the Murmansk thread where it belongs.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Comrades:

As a former GOC Murmansk, I offer this advice. If we wish to safeguard our convoys, capturing cities held by the Boche in northern Norway can only help us. But this approach will take time, and units. It is now January. We have 4 months until spring, at which time any Red Guard units caught in the open will be helpless against Stuka attacks. So we need to effect the conquest within 4 months. I'm not sure we can gather enough units in time to do this.

There are a few other ways to safeguard our convoys.

1. Build the Convoy System wonder (as opposed to the Civilian Donations )

2. Use Shturmoviks, come spring, based in the UK, to kill German submarines. Also, Shturmoviks can do a good job on any Gneisenau-class battlecruisers within range... but it'll take a few of them

3. A bit of a dirty trick: Build a Pe-2 bomber in the UK. Once spring comes, fly it out 8 squares, to a point between the UK and Norway. Stack it on a Cruiser, or ideally, 2 Cruisers or Cruiser/Destroyer. The Germans will send Destroyers and U-boats out to sink the Cruiser, but the presence of the Pe-2 will keep them from attacking it. Instead, the German ships will stop adjacent to the Cruiser. When our turn comes, our Cruiser should be able to kill any adjacent German ships.

(I killed something like 11 U-boats in 1 turn this way; after that, it was a lot easier to shipchain Freighters all the way to Murmansk)


Let me add my congratulations to the current GOC Murmansk, who has done an admirable job driving away the craven Finns The nerve of them, trying to retake the lands we righfully seized in 1940!

[PinkyGen]

Knowing the benefits of those convoys, I have little doubt that at least temporarily seizing them from our occupied Norwegian comrades would be of great benefit to us. But what would be the cost to the Murmansk front?
If we send these Red Guard north during winter, will we have enough forces to safeguard the area from the now very mobile Finns? If not, then the Red Guard would be better employed counter-attacking the Finns, particulary since those units will lose their home if the Murmansk front collapses.

It seems to me that for this attack to suceed, unless Yop's forces are larger than I realize, outside funding to build or replace the Red Guard will most definetly be required.

PS: Message to Yop. The Rodina of Iron Curtain #1 needs their commander as well.

[H Tower]

the finns have been beaten back greatly in the previous months, such an attack will not reduce the defenses of the rest of the front too much, especially if we rush buy the units instead of using existing ones

[conmcb25]

There are two key points here to remember:

1. The threat right now in the middle of winter when the Finns are of course very mobile is minimal to Murmansk.

2. I believe this operation can be carried out with three Red Guards. (One is already built.)

[conmcb25]

Current Status of Murmansk, notice the minimal threat in the area.....

[H Tower]

minimal threat that we can see anyways, do we have some aerial recon assets in the area by any chance?

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by H Tower
minimal threat that we can see anyways, do we have some aerial recon assets in the area by any chance?

No that LA-5 will only go so far. But think about it comrade, no cities are that close and land units have to cover some pretty tough terrain. The Germans already sent over there land units from Northern Norway (they were destroyed with Petsamo.) Any significant land force will take at least several turns just to get into position.

I think its minimal but yopov could take a peak with an aircraft.

[greeny]

I think this is a good proposal, it's a risk but we are not risking much (we can spare the cash for a few red guards) and the pay off could be big (make it easier for the convoys to get through). However I think the final decision should be made by the man on the ground (Yop) he knows what defences can be spared from Murmansk and how badly the Convoys need assistance.

[Shaka Naldur]

well, it is a little bit risky can we do it before summer comes??
let's wait to see what Yopovs says about it

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Shaka Naldur
well, it is a little bit risky can we do it before summer comes??
let's wait to see what Yopovs says about it

I agree Yopov is the man on the ground fighting the war.

This has to happen in the winter that is the only way it will work because:

1. Red Guards have 4 movement no matter what the terrain in winter
2. Facist planes can not attack in winter and are vulnerable to ground attack in winter.

Once summer comes comrades we lose this advantage!

[yop73]

I agree with Steve. If the economics minister can manage to RB those Red Guards, I'll send them to Norway and attack Hammerfest with them.
It will indeed lower the risk of a plane attack. (it were planes from Hammerfest who sunk our last 2 convoys)
Btw. There is a convoy on only 5 squares of the Murmansk coast. If we have a little luck, we'll have our first convoy next month.