Part 104: Turn 111: July 29, 1943
No promotions this turn, to the front!
My pocket finally held so now it's time to see what we've won.
Most of the divisions surrender without a fuss, a handful require a follow-up assault but in the end they all give up. The pocket contained 18 divisions with 121,506 men, 1,957 large artillery pieces and 12 tanks. All of the tanks and most of the equipment was destroyed so I only come out with 120,000 PoWs and a few dozen smaller artillery pieces, primarily mortars.
With the pocket now basically reduced to the city of Koenigsberg itself I'm going to send 2 of these fronts off to rejoin the line while one stays here to contain the pocket and cause casualties. Defensive CV in the city itself breaks 200 if there's 3 divisions in the hex and it's impossible to cut the city off from supply so these Germans might hold out until the end of the war if they don't evacuate by sea.
The Leningrad front captures another 20,000 men while the rest of the forces in this region reorganize and move up to engage the Germans, nothing really exciting going on here. I also finish forming up a new tank army, the 64th, attached to the Volkhov front. This satisfies my desire for more armored formations for now and I'm going to concentrate on getting more on-map artillery out to my frontline armies.
I'm very rapidly running out of Poland to liberate so I might have to change this tag.
Re-engaging the Germans wherever possible but I'm not able to launch any attacks. There are a handful of units with the MP to attack but attacking with only 1-2 corps is just asking for some panzer-grenadiers to swoop in and butcher 5,000 men. You may also notice all my cavalry is coming off the line to refit, most of them have been through a bad couple weeks and have eaten the brunt of the German armor so a week off the line will do them all a world of good.
Further south I'm in the final stages of my re-organization, I should be done re-organizing my divisions into corps by the end of August and most of my armies should have some on-map artillery by October.
Back in Warsaw a new air army is forming up with the purpose of allowing me to easily shift a large bomber force to wherever I need extra force. When this is done it will be able to put ~3,000 bombers in the air on a single target in addition to the air forces under the command of each individual front.
Definitely shipping a front down here from Koenigsberg, I'm really stretched thin right now and it's not going to get any better.
I take attacks of opportunity wherever I can get them. Without much armored support down here the Germans are easy pickings. I simply lack the troop numbers necessary to really get an offensive rolling so for now I'm reduced to this.
Further south the slow, slow push for the western edge of the map begins. The Germans are stripping divisions from down here and I might as well cause some casualties.
Germany... Germany stop that.
This AI is baffling/annoying me, it's acting like it's still got 800 miles of Steppe to give up when I'm 150 miles from Berlin. It didn't retreat everywhere this time and only gave up some of Moravia but it should be fighting tooth and nail for every inch no matter where that inch is. Maybe the German army is a lot weaker than I think it is? They've got a lot of tanks and the panzer-grenadiers are hell on wheels but most of the infantry divisions I'm seeing are in really shit shape and aren't fit for frontline duty. Oh well, if I continue my current rate of advance I won't have to play any more mud turns! I also think the Luftwaffe is falling apart, interdictions of my ground forces are becoming more and more rare and I'm able to bomb at will without any organized response.
