Part 25: Turn 22: November 13, 1941

Just because we can build units now doesn't mean our free reinforcements stop completely, we're just not going to get free copies of destroyed counters anymore.



3 new guards this turn, the Rifle is in Leningrad, the Howitzers are in the 29th army defending Moscow and the sappers are attached to the 34th army which is now in reserve on up by the Northern Front.




The leader of the defence of Leningrad gets promoted for his heroic efforts. Unfortunately he's kinda garbage, I'd sack him but there aren't a whole lot of tanks trapped in Leningrad so I'm not very concerned about it. I'll come back for him later.



So, we're going on the offensive in a few turns and we need to be ready. We've already got some armies earmarked to lead that offensive, now we just need the support. To that end I make a lot of support units attached directly to STAVKA so they start getting built up. Once the blizzard hits these will all get sent off to the various armies to add some extra punching power. Each of those tank battalions has about half the tank compliment of a tank brigade and those sapper squads have 1,000 men each equipped like this:



Goddamn terrifying. Sappers lead the charge and they're incredible at reducing fortifications and killing Germans. This in addition to the normal complement of support units I have attatched to basically every army on the map at this point.



Most of the armies look something like this. This is that Shock army we got last turn so I gave it some extra sappers instead of the howitzers or infantry guns some other armies have but you get the idea. I think this is also why we're taking out so many German planes with flak, every army on the map has 2-3 AA battalions ready to be committed to any fight where the Luftwaffe shows up. I don't really enjoy the air model in this game but these AA battalions sure seem to be doing their job.

Our Fronts on the other hand have almost no support units, most have only a handful of artillery regiments. A lot of our front commanders are pretty sub-par right now and almost all of them are catastrophically overloaded. Committing support units to combat requires the leader of the HQ to pass a check and the check gets more difficult if you've got bad stats, an overloaded HQ or a lot of support units attatched. So for now at least fronts just aren't worth the AP to fix, I'll probably get around to them during the spring mud.




Back to business as usual. German CVs are kind of rediculous up here so I don't have much recourse except to dig in.



We give a little land to get away from those panzers and fall back. We've got fortifications for miles up here so I don't feel so bad about giving up a few forts for free when they're as exposed as those.



And the dangerous part of the front. I've highlighted the rail under threat in red here, if that rail gets cut we'll probably lose Leningrad. The rest of the front will be fine, even if the rail gets cut we'll only be on half supply at worst and even then it'll only be for a week or two before I retake the rail. The reason why even a temporary loss of supply up here is if Leningrad is under German control for even a single turn it unlocks the Finns to advance for another ~120 miles and goddamn am I not interested in fighting the Finns.




Our lines look like garbage here.



Here's the bridgehead the Germans made before the mud hit, with the onset of snow they've advanced a little further. They appear to be having trouble getting supply across that huge river they just crossed, perhaps it's the enormous chunks of ice floating in it? I know how to help them.



Now they don't need to try to get supplies across the river, I'm helping!



While reorganizing the front I run into this monster. Holy hell. I immediately stick this on reserve mode, I'll be looking forward to seeing if any unlucky Germans activate it.



Cleaner. There are Germans 60 miles from Moscow.



North of Tula I'm skeptical this will hold. I would not be suprised if I had to rail one of my reserve armies here next turn.




Uh do I have the troops to fix this without using a reserve army?



Yes but just barely. This line is really weak and the germans are probably going to rip it to shreds. Luckily I don't really give a shit if they tear it up, I'll just keep retreating.




The Southwest front is getting battered but the Southern front is doing a terrific job holding off those Romanians. Right now we're getting guard units where the Germans are launching huge horrific attacks where they don't care about losses, namely Leningrad and Moscow. In a month or two we're going to be getting a lot of Guards down here from the Southern front bravely beating the everloving shit out of defenseless Romanians.



The Southwest front pulls back to Kharkov, I have so much room to throw away down here that there's really no reason to stand and fight when I can just keep pulling back. Retreating 10-20 miles every turn will really take the bite out of the German offensive and help prevent any breakthroughs down here.



The Caucasus front mostly pulls across the river, the only forces left on the western bank are the garrison in and around Dnepropetrovsk.




Two new armies form up this turn. The 60th is another cavalry army destined for the blizzard and the 61st is an infantry reserve army.




The drive for the ports continues in the north. Little/no ground is lost near the threatened rail and 1,500 Germans die in Leningrad.



The Germans continue the push for Moscow, they're getting dangerously close in some places.



At Tula the Panzers drive north, taking the southern bank of the Oka in their drive for Moscow.



The Bryansk and Southwestern fronts take a beating but the line holds everywhere with no breakthroughs.



We're almost through the worst of it, just a few more turns. Do you guys want me to go back to posting my evacuations? I didn't think me posting 'well this turn we got 10 more armament factories and a few heavy industry from X and Y cities' every turn was very interesting.