Part 21: Turn 18: October 16, 1941
In the big map you can see the current state of supply across the front now that the mud has set in. Germans that have outrun their supply so dramatically that they cannot even be supplied by trucks are outlined in red, Germans receiving partial supply are outlined in yellow. I doubt my partisans blowing the rails last turn contributed to this, this looks about right for how far the Germans have advanced. The thing that is going to suck for the Germans is they need to send rail repair units back to fix all those rail lines that got blown instead of extending them further east and getting all these units back in supply.
When Kiev fell the Kharkov Militray District fled to the Urals and became the Southern Urals M.D. This M.D. has no units attached to it besides a single airbase that I've left back in the Urals with no planes on it so I'm not really sure what cause Stalin had for sacking this guy. Maybe he's mad at me for sacking the commander he promoted last turn?
3 new guards units this turn, all 3 of them in the 34th army outside Moscow bringing this army up to 4 guards rifles and a guards artillery. If this keeps up the 34th HQ might get promoted to Guards status which gives an additional 5 morale for all units in the army, including Guards Rifles.
As for partisan attacks I'm not really sure on how to show them off anymore. We're getting more and more every turn and I don't really want to paste in half a dozen pictures of counters standing next to blow up rail lines so instead I think I'll just post this from the CR to give an overview of how the partisans are doing. Partisan attacks aren't really interesting on the turn they happen anyway, it's the next turn when a huge chunk of the German army goes red from lack of supply that's the fun part.
With the Germans stopped dead by mud I have time to fix my armies and get ready for the offensive that's coming up in a few weeks.
Overloaded army HQs are bad news, I can (and have to) deal with overloaded fronts but the Armys are what commit most of my support units and I can't have them being overloaded and failing checks. This also ties nicely in with my desire to pull a lot of units on the line to act as reserves against the coming German snow offensive, and to get some units rested and refit for the blizzard.
Much, much better. I'm going to be spending the rest of the mud turns trading units with these armys, giving them infantry brigades in exchange for rifle and cavalry divisions. I want my cavalry off the line and I need a reserve of rifle divisions refiting so they're in top shape come the blizzard. Rifle Brigades on the other hand are kinda useless in reserve and I've got a ton of them. I want them in frontline armys holding hexes in the rear of the formation. You don't have to be a strong unit to hold a hex against a Panzer army that's already blasted through 30 miles of rifle divisions, you just have to be in the way.
Outside Moscow the vast reorganization project is starting to form up. I don't technically need to bring all these units to the same place to reorganize them into armies but it helps me keep it all straight in my head without having to resort to making spreadsheets. It also looks neat.
Beat up infantry divisions, cavalry divisions of all qualities and a handful of armored divisions full of 100+ T-34s and KV-1s that STAVKA hasn't gotten around to downsizing and redistributing yet. Over the next few turns these units will be organized into armies and railed out to their staging areas for when the blizzard starts. I'm also planning on quickly throwing an army together next turn that is going to swap with the 34th, who are going to pull off the line completely and refit. They're going to be part of the blizzard offensive in this region and I want those Guards in fighting shape.
Two attacks on Leningrad and one on its neighboring city of Pavlovo accomplish nothing but getting a lot of Germans killed.
Near Tula the Germans launch a single attack and drive a single division back.
Mud turns are pretty boring.
