Part 42: Turn 39: March 12, 1942

More guards cavalry, I'm curious how long we can keep up this rate of promotion now that we're not launching 100 combats a turn.




I haven't gotten around to microing all my army commanders and I doubt I ever will. There's too many of them and they're too expensive to fix so unless it's an important army or a really bad commander I'm just leaving whoever happened to get stuck in charge in charge.




The shorter front doesn't mean we're going to be able to make much progress here unfortunately, we simply don't have the equipment we need to budge the Germans after they've entrenched.



The 13th army arrives and joins the line but with our depleted forces near the city launching attacks of any kind is impossible. I'm refitting my cavalry in the hopes that they'll be able to make some headway in this region.



The northwest front makes a single attack this turn, assaulting a French regiment that I hadn't noticed was on this front until just now.



The Volkhov makes a better showing of it now that they've moved up to the new line, knocking back several German formations. If the Vholkhov front can push our another 20-30 miles it will free up an army from the Northwest from to pull off the line and refit.



Behind the lines I'm gathering up counters to rebuild the 7th independent and fit out a new army, the 59th. Right now I'm thinking of using one of these armies to bleed the Finns while the other acts as a reserve for this region but I'm not sure yet. Right now this front is without any reserves since I've shipped the 3rd and 4th shock off south so that's the highest priority right now. Since I'm not using real defense-in-depth along most of my lines it would be very easy for the Germans to punch a big hole through my lines anywhere they sneak a panzer force. To that end it is essential I keep large armies in reserve to immediately plug up holes or cut off any breakthrough forces.




Still not in great shape here but the Germans are just as bad. Hopefully this means I'll be able to get local superiority in some places and launch more attacks than I can up north.



The Kalinin front takes some attacks where they can. It's getting very difficult to get decent odds, the only places I can manage it are where the Germans are laughably weak or I can bring an overwhelming number of counters to bear.



I guess this is the week for foreign regiments serving in the German Army.



The Western front starts burrowing into the gap between the western and Bryansk fronts. The Germans here are laughably weak, a few Luftwaffe regiments and a handful of understrength divisions are all that's 'holding' the line. I might commit a cavalry army here if I can find one that's up to strength.




The German line here looks spotty as all hell.



To take advantage of this weak-ass line I deploy the 44th cavalry just behind the line. The Bryansk front does it's part and pushes around the understrength divisions and regiments that are manning the line here.



We launch an attack on a unsopported Panzer division a bit further down the line. Of note is the fact that this one actually has tanks unlike the last few I've attacked. That said it takes pretty horrific losses in comparison to what it manages to inflict on me. I'm curious if this is one of the Panzer divisions I captured earlier in the game which would explain its poor performance here.



Where's the line?




4 fresh armies have been railed down here in preparation for starting an offensive. I'm going to hold most of them in reserve for now, there's no reason to commit all my best troops to the front just in time for the mud to freeze them in place.



The southern front opens up and routs a bunch of Romanian forces, the Romanian morale has to be bottoming out, a stiff breeze is causing their formations to rout.



The trascaucasus front joins in the fun and routes another set of Romanians and Hungarians while brushing aside the Luftwaffe regiments. This front is reaching the edge of how far I can push it, without fresh troops or a few weeks off they won't be able to keep up this pace.



Near Dnepropetrovsk the Coastal and 3rd Shock armies are waiting behind the lines refitting. I probably won't get a chance to commit them before the mud hits but they're here if I need them.



And near Odessa the 1st and 4th shock armies are getting ready to pounce. These armies I really want to get on the line before the mud sets in, the German line down here is garbage and the 1st shock will cut through it like butter. I cannot assault Odessa directly because of the terrain so the plan is to loop up around the city and cut it off from the rest of the line.




I'm getting pushed back into the city and there's not a whole lot I can do about it right now, our troops in the city are in awful shape.



West of Kharkov a huge panzer army is slowly pushing me back. Luckily I've got 2 cavalry armies in reserve here so I've just got to keep an eye on it to make sure nothing dangerous happens.



We launched 57 attacks this turn with 37 victories, honestly that's a lot more attacks than I thought I launched. The Germans responded by launching 46 attacks, 15 of which succeeded.

The Bryansk, Southern and Transcaucasus fronts are tearing up the Axis on their fronts but the appearance of that huge panzer army on the southwestern and the continued German aggressiveness near Leningrad have me a little worried.

Our armament pool bottoms out again as the cavalry armies pull far enough behind the lines to suck in the maximum number of reinforcements per turn. I also reworked the airforce again this turn so hopefully that will curtail our air losses, or at least raise the German losses.