From: Pietro Cremona Subject: Battle for Moscow To: Multiple recipients of list CONSIM-L Thank you to Doug for his interesting posts about those old games and minigames. I appreciated the review of Battle for Moscow but I do not think that the German have a challenging game to win : we made a PBM "triangular" tournament in Italy were each player had two matches going together : in the first he was the German agains opponent A and Russian against opponent B (and the same or the other two players). Thus each competitor played at the same time the two fields. The first round was quite balanced, with Germans wins at 55%, but a player discovered a winning strategy for the German, placing his units in such a way that the initial russian first line (around Smolensk) was blown-up on the first turn. Then the panzers exploited the breackout arriving at Rzhev/Vyazma and cutting the defensive lines for the russians. Usually on turn 3 the Germans were already on the Moscow Defense Line and had only to way for turn 5 to pass the river and surround Moscow, that usually falled on turn 6 or 7 without any hope for the russians unless a very very bad sequence of BAD ROLLS for the Germans. We used to resist with the Russians untill turn 6 or 7, it is true, but with NO HOPE of winning the game. The "hole" was on the path south east of Smolensk that allowed for a strategy of cutting a russian unit, advancing and cutting the following one, and so on. It would be nice to know if some of you experimented the same frustration (the Tournament was won by the Player who performed best with the Russians : I mean that all the games were won by the Germans in the second and third round, so we wer obliged to compare the best performances on the russian side in order to solve ties..) Thank you and Ciao Pietro From: Pietro Cremona Subject: Battle for Moscow Well, FIRST let me say that I did not founf personally any FANTASTIC solution nor MAGIC formula. I was simply smashed by my opponent who was able to destroy my first (russian) line reaching Moscow Defense Line by turn 3. Then he waited for the Mud to go away and he took Moscow with a pincer attack. SECOND I have to admit that I am always UNHAPPY when a winning strategy can be found, as that game is lost forever. Now I felt so "guilty" after having read Lou and Doug messages that I sorted the old gaming records and ... here I am to give you a short report of that game, hoping that you will be able to find a fault in that strategy and that the game can be palyed again in a competitive way. Anyway thank you for your coolaboration. Numbering system for BATTLE FOR MOSCOW Look at the map taking Moscow on your right side. Than number A1 to A10 the first column on your left. Proceed from left to right with column 2 (B1 to B10) etc. until the last column that is P1 to P10. Please note that the Italian alphabet has no "J" or "K" so we passed directly from "I" to "L". If everything was well done you have now : - B4 - Smolensk - E9 - Bryansk - M3 - Moscow, etc. THE MOVES I do not have the original EXCEL 4 file with all the units, so I have to list them here in a more disorganized way. I also lost the combat results (the tournament was played on 1989...) so you have to undersatand from the followinf moves what happened : (a) - GERMANS Nr - Unit - Set-Up - Moves 1 Pz XXIV B1 C2/H1 I1/L1 L1 L2 L2 2 Pz XLI B3 C3/H2 H1/I2 I2/L2 L3 L8/I4 3 Pz LVII C5 D4/F3 H3/I4 L3/M4 M4 4 Pz XLVI D6 E7/F6 G6/M6 M6/N5/O5 N4 I9/L4 5 Pz XLVII B5 C5/D6 F8/N6 O6/P5 elim 6 Pz LVI D8 E9/F9 H8/I9/M4 N4 N5/M5i M5 7 Pz XL B2 G3 H2/I3 L3 L2/L1 L3 8 Pz XLVIII C7 D7 E5/F5/L6 M6 N5 O5 elim 9 XXIII C6 D5 F3 G3 L1 10 XXXV A4 E3 H3 H4 I5 N5 N5 11 VII B4 C4/D1 G2 G3 H3 G4 12 VIII D9 E9 I8 L7 M7 M10 13 IX B6 D3 G3 H3 M6 N6 14 V A6 C3 E6 F6 H4 M7 15 XIII D7 E7 F7/L8 M9 M8 M8 16 XX C9 D9 G10 G9 H4 G5 17 XXVII C10 D8 G6 G5 H4 G5 18 LIII D10 D10 E10 E9 F9 G7 19 VI A7 D4 E4 F4 F3 F3 20 XII B9 C7 F6 G6 F5 21 XXXIV A3 B1 C2/E5 F4 E4 22 XLII B10 C8 D5 E6 E5 E5 RUSSIANS ("i" means inverted : "*" eliminated) 1 3 E10i F10i F9 i G10i G9 i H9 i* 2 5 E9 i* I2 i M2 i M2 M2 O3 i 3 10 E8 i F7 i M1 i M1 M1 M1 4 13 E7 i I3 i N3 i N3 N3 O4 5 16 E6 i F5 i O4 i O4 i O4 O6 6 19 D5 i* L2 i L2 i O6 i N6 i elim 7 20 C4 i* I6 i L5 i L5 i M5 i M9 i 8 24 C3 i* I9 i N7 i N6 i N7 i N7 i 9 29 C2 i* elim P4 i P4 i P4 i O5 10 30 C1 i C2 i elim P6 i O6 i elim 11 32 E5 i E6 i F5 i F5 i F5 i F6 i 12 33 E4 i F4 i G4 i G4 i G4 i F4 i 13 40 H3 i L3 M3 M3 M3 N3 14 43 repl. P6 i N6 15 49 repl. O8 i N8 16 50 repl. O2 i M2 17 1S repl. O3 i M3 Ok, I made en effort but I cannot guarantee that I copied everything correctly. If you are able to extract some useful informations, let me know if and when I (the Russian) was wrong. I was out of the competition after the first round, but on the second and third rounds the Germans won all the games ... That's all Ciao Pietro