Part 100: Turn 107: July 1, 1943

3 Guards armies to go, this one is part of the Western Front down in Austria. Not much else going on.





The Soviet line up here is pretty spotty with Koenigsberg sucking up 3 of my fronts. You can see the Leningrad front railing in, once they deploy my density should be back up to normal levels.




A series of battles continues to reduce the pocket further, including what is probably the largest single battle I've launched this game with nearly every counter in the Kalinin front dog piling onto 3 German divisions. The goal here is to take the two hexes marked in that order, if I take the 1 hex it will allow me to get two hex-sides on the 2 hex which will hopefully allow me to take it with some artillery and air support.



Spotty front line from the Germans here. I launch a few probing attacks but they are immediately and violently repulsed by reserve activations from all the mobile units behind the line. I count atleast a dozen mechanized and armored units just hanging out 30+ miles behind the line waiting to ruin my day.



Further south more of the same. A light front line that gets immediately reinforced as soon as I launch an attack. The real question is will they be able to hold up if/when they start the turn already in contact with my counters rather than me having to advance 20 miles before attacking.




I've finally got formations capable of going on the offensive in contact with Germans down here, let's see how it goes.



First attack is a single Soviet Corps vs a severely undestrength German division which is then reinforced by a panzer division with tigers.



Second attack is 2 Soviet Corps vs the same severely undestrength German division which is then reinforced by 2 panzer divisions with tigers. The lesson here is I cannot try to conserve strength for the pursuit, I need to unload everything straight off so I can get results even if 500 tanks scream down to stop me.



Finally by committing all my infantry to the assault with no MP to move forward I'm able to blow 30 miles in the German line and reach their reserves 30 miles behind the line. Most of my armor wasn't anywhere near this area (the blue volkhov front armored formations were up in Danzig when this turn started) which severely reduced my ability to do some damage here. either way the German line is destabilized and they will have to either fall back or commit reserves to bottle me up.



Also I cannot wait for my Tank corps ToE to be upgraded in November because this is what happens every time I commit them to battle right now. Almost all those lost tanks are T-70s which seem to spontaneously combust in the general vicinity of a panzer division and in November all the T-70s are getting pulled out of my corps and they'll be replaced by T-34s and T-34-85s. For now I'll just keep blowing them up by the dozens every time they join a battle, I've got nearly 3,000 spare anyways.




The rest of the front launches a handful of attacks an even manages to win some battles despite panzer-grenadier reserve activations everywhere.




I really need some room to stretch out here, I've got way too many troops and I'm being penned in by all these mountains.



The last German forces in Slovakia. I'm slowly forcing them out of the country but I honestly don't give a shit, all I gain for it is more useless mountain ranges so I'm leaving as few troops here as possible.



Because I need as many troops as possible over here to break out into Czechoslovakia. With my armor across the river and finally in some open terrain I should start making large gains here again as I drive for Prague. I'm still plagued by German mobile units in reserve but it's less of a big deal down here due to the sheer density of Soviet troops down here, if a corps is repulsed by a panzer formation they can just pull off the line and a fresh corps takes their place and launches another attack.



The German withdrawl into the mountains continues and I'm half-heartedly pursuing them. Frankly those mountains are huge and I've got no interest in anything west of Graz.



Seriously, fuck that. The Nazis can keep it for all I care.




The Germans have responded to my breakthrough by pulling back 20-30 miles and reforming the line, basically what I expected but I was hoping they'd try to hold me in place instead.



And they're finally abandoning Slovakia and pulling out of these awful mountains, praise be.



The action is starting to ramp up again and we've got 3 months to pressure the Germans before they get another break.