Part 26: Turn 23: November 20, 1941

I'm beginning to dislike the snow.




The commander of the 24th army army gets promoted. The 24th is trapped in Leningrad with the 23rd but isn't seeing as much fighting since it doesn't have any units in the city itself.



The heavy guns are attached to the 24th and the Rifle division is part of the 23rd, both are trapped in Leningrad.



Now isn't that pretty. I wish I could get some more supplies into the city to get these units built up but we can't have everything.



A new front! The Volkhov front will be taking over some of the armies north of Moscow, relieving the overburdened Western and Northwest fronts.




The slow grind to protect the railroad continues for another week.



Our CVs in the Leningrad pocket are dropping. These men are undermanned and undersupplied and it's going to get worse before it gets better. As the winter progresses ferrying supplies and replacements across Lake Ladoga is going to get more and more difficult until the lake freezes solid. The only hex with a decent CV is Leningrad itself, and that's basically all thanks to the Guards Mountain division parked in the city. The 2 Guards rifles are exausted, low on men and low on supplies.



Near the rail the new Volkhov front takes control of 4 armies, the 52nd from the Northwest, the 56th from Leningrad, the 10th from the Western and the 34th from Kalinin. This instantly overloads our lovely new front, but it's necessary. As an indication of how horrifically some of our fronts are over capacity every single front I mentioned taking armies from just now is still overloaded. I also take this opportunity to move the 34th directly onto the rail where it is most threatened.

That is a lovely shade of purple though.




Well this is a goddamn mess.



I love doing this. The trouble the Germans are having here is these units got across the river before the mud. Now I can just sit here and surround them, the next turn the Germans launch an attack to reopen supply but lack the MP to make it across the icy river to occupy the hex they take.



Down here it's a little more grim. There's a panzer corps pushing directly for the city spearheaded by...



Hey I recognize you, the Leibstandarte makes its return in a rather dramatic fashion by being the closest German unit on the map to Moscow.



South of Moscow we delpy some STAVKA infantry divisions to add some depth to our line. These divisions are all in incredible shape but without any real leadership they won't be as effective in combat as they should be.



Our formations are getting trashed here, this is one of the worst fights in the area but it gives you an idea. The germans around here are rested, well supplied and mad as hell and most of our divisions are understrength with subpar morale. Also that used to be a level 3 fort. Luckily all we need to do is keep buying time for another few turns.




I'm going to have to deploy a reserve army here, this can't hold.



This is garbage, if the Germans push east instead of going for the river I'm probably going to have to deploy a reserve army to stop them.



Further south it's a lot better. Our CVs are much higher down here and I deploy the 18th to bolster the line.



The tail end of the line is also not great since there's a panzer army opposing me down here, luckily there's plenty of room down here to play with. As the 18th finishes deploying from the rail they rode in on we'll get some more troops to come shore this up.




The Romanians appear to be completely flummoxed by the rivers here and there still isn't any armor in the far south so I imagine this will continue for some time. Moving across major rivers in the early winter is difficult, let alone fighting across them.



I love mountain divisions. Fuck rough terrain, stick them in cities. A single mountian division sitting in a level 0 fort at 28 defensive CV, beautiful.



Not much else going on down here, we give a little land and stay glued to the rivers.



These fucking rivers are impossible right now, I couldn't resist the siren song of the 1=1 Romanian Division and lose 700 men for it.




The evacuation of Stalino is nearly finished, all our spare rail cap during the mud turns was sucked up get armaments out of this city.



Ok so what the German AI did this turn threw me for a loop because I've never seen it do this before, but after running a bunch of tests and watching what it's after I think it's actually working correctly. On the plus side I fixed the crashing so I can actually run turns on this computer again.



In the north the Germans pull back out of all the salients they've driven into my lines. They appear to be digging a line of fortifications about ~40-50 miles from my lines while leaving a few units behind to slow me down if I chase them.



More Germans falling back from dangerous parts of the line, leaving behind the crippled Panzer division.



At Tula the Germans evacuate the bulge completely, falling back to the city and digging in.



In the south the Germans parallel my line 10-20 miles away and dig in.



I have never seen the German AI do this before so I figured it was bugging out, but apparently it now knows better than to drive the snow offensive too far.