Part 43: Turn 40: March 19, 1942
Second to last turn of snow and the Guards keep rolling on in.
The 42nd army is part of the Moscow Defense Zone and is hot pink. Their commander is also pretty good.
The Leningrad and Northwestern fronts have ground to a halt but the Volkhov front might still be able to gain some ground. I'm really looking forward to the mud up here for the chance to refit and rest some of these formations that I'm having difficulty getting off the line.
The troops in the city itself are in absolutely awful shape so I'm slowly shifting more and more troops into this area. This turn the 1st shock army has taken over a hex from the exhausted 24th and next turn the 13th might be able to take over another hex. This will let me pull way more troops off the line here and get them back up to strength.
The Volkhov front continues to make steady progress which is nice because the Northwest front has been stopped dead.
The new armies are still forming up, they're going to spend the spring mud behind the lines training and refitting for the summer.
One of the two areas in which the Germans are launching large numbers of attacks and the area where we're lightest on reserves. I'm going to be forming another two or three armies here during the mud turns to use as reserves in the summer.
In the Moscow defense zone we're swapping out a beat up cavalry army for a rested one to put a stop to this armored advance. If the Germans don't reinforce this area next turn I'm going to get some good cavalry corps attacks in.
The Western front has been taking it easy the last few weeks and they're now rested enough to begin launching a lot of attacks again. They're helped in this because the southern end of this front is still covered by very weak German formations that are easily pushed back.
The Bryansk front covers so little ground right now that I'm going to report the Southwestern front under this banner as well.
It's been awhile since we've managed this but 3 German infantry get cut off near Orel. We lack the MP to actually encircle them so they're just going to miss a turn of supply.
Down the line a ways we force a panzer division to retreat. These guys really aren't in great shape, a full ToE for a panzer division right now is something like 170 tanks.
In the south I'm trying to check this panzer army's advance. If they continue to gain ground I've got 2 cavalry armies in reserve here that will stop them dead.
The
Slow progress up by Kirovograd, there's more Germans up here than there are further down the line.
Like here, here there are no Germans and the line evaporates. Romanians are no longer sufficient to hold the line alone and they need some German counters to strengthen up the line.
The push for Odessa is slowing down. With the Transcaucasus front running out of steam the 1st shock joins the line to keep the pace up. With a little luck I might be able to take the city next turn and then spend the mud turns entrenching it.
A bunch of mostly unsuccessful attacks around Leningrad, including one on the city itself.
A ton of German motorized forces show up outside Moscow and make a dent in my lines.
The panzer army down south continues to make ground, I'll probably swap that cavalry army in now and stop these tanks dead.
A German counterattack pushes me away from Odessa, defensive CV is climbing rapidly down here as more and more Germans show up.
This turn we launched 43 attacks with 36 victories and the German responded with 38 attacks and 14 victories. The mud is rapidly approaching, in some areas I'm looking forward to it and in others I'd love to have another month of snow.
German losses break 2 million and both our OoB's continue to grow.
