Part 14: Turn 11: August 28, 1941

Not gonna have a chance to post this later so this is going up a little early today.





Ah look at that, new units are coming in at a much better rate.




Slowly getting pushed into Leningrad, time to shift the lines around a bit.



Shifting our lines around to try and get higher defensive CVs where we're likely to be attacked.



South of the no-attack line we start digging a line of fortifications to protect the port up here should our line further south fall.




We're getting slowly pushed back here, we've got to dig in and hold on wherever we can to buy time.



Up near the northern front the 13th army deploys to stop this unopposed German advance. Honestly all we have to do is put bodies in the way up here and these lone divisions won't have the MP to attack and move in this awful terrain. I'd love to throw some brigades up here since an entire army seems like a waste but all my brigades are busy doing even more useless jobs.




Outside Moscow we attack and defeat a German panzer division that was unsupported. It might look like we came out worse for it in this engagement but I'll gladly sacrifice a hundred of my useless tanks to kill nearly half of the highly trained actually useful tanks in this panzer division.



South of Moscow we reinforce our lines by adding depth.



On the southern tail of this region the Bryansk front continues to dig into Orel.



With reinforcements picking back up we've got more and more armies like this waiting behind the lines for enough troops and equipment before they go to the frontlines. In this shot we've got the 48th and 49th armies waiting to be redeployed to the front in the next few turns.




Time to kill some Germans.



First up we rout the SS motorized brigade that used to be in the northern pocket. I'm not sure if the ToE on these things calls for afvs but this formation certainly doesn't have any anymore. They lose over 2,200 men and over half their guns before the rout so they're not going to be in shape to do anything for awhile.



According to the manual a formation will surrender under two conditions. If it's isolated and it's retreat path has it ending up ajacent to an enemy unit the game rolls a d50. If the result is higher than the morale of the retreating unit it surrenders. Since the SS division has a morale of around 90 that isn't going to work, so instead we surround it. If a unit has no valid retreat paths and loses a battle it will surrender.



Lets see what the other divisions in our pocket think about this rule?




They're huge fans apparently. These three formations will be reformed near Berlin next turn where they will be locked in place for 6 turns while they rebuild. After that they'll be free to redeploy to the front. These replacement units will never be quite the same though, they'll have 60 morale at best and less experience than these two. Shame I didn't capture more tanks, I could use some decent tanks.



The only units to not make it completely out of the pocket. Some may be rescued next turn but probably not.



The southern half of the front continues to play keep-away, we also start digging some fallback fortifications.






All armament factories must go, we evac all the armaments we can from the frontlines.




There are tanks 40 miles from Leningrad.



Something broke through my lines but what is it?



The reserve front holds strong outside moscow, barely giving up any land.



A huge concentration of force outside Tula.



Army group south doesn't move a whole lot as they blast all my formations out of the way. I wonder if Hitler sacked anyone?



And the slow grind of the far south, how dull.




I cannot believe the Germans let me bag the Leibstandarte, this will blunt the hell out of their offensives in the south. We get a lot of guns off those formations but only 2 tanks, one of which is kinda garbage.