Part 51: Turn 48: May 14, 1942

Ugh more mud.



No promotions for once, just a few skill increases.



Organizing my spare divisions and brigades into armies, there's 4 complete armies here and about 3/4 of another one just offscreen. The problem is I'm only getting 1 HQ counter in the next 2 months so I need to build the HQs myself. Between the HQs themselves and the support units I'll need it's going to run me over 100 AP, ouch.





Nope not this week. I wish these guys would just escape or give up, I'm sick of throwing away men at this.



Our fresh armies down here continue to make progress, Axis allies unsupported by Germans are easy pickings even in the mud.

Along the rest of the front I rotate rested divisions in for battered ones so our line will be as strong as possible when I hit end turn and the mud goes away.




The pocket holds this turn, the first time we've held onto this thing in a clear turn so maybe we'll finally capture these guys.



A large German force is beating up my line near Orel. Nothing I can do but continue to dig in and make them waste time.



It looks like all these interdiction missions are being flown against a panzer army that's railing in here, neat.



A well rested German army shows up and pushes the 1st shock back.



I don't think I've ever shown why this city is so hard to take so here it is. Those dotted blue lines are impassable hex-sides so you need to take a pretty large swath of territory to get decent odds on the city itself. Ideally I would push to the river and cut the city off but 4 hexes is asking a lot right now.



The German OoB scrapes its way above 3 million men for the first time since I think December and the Soviets break 8 million men under arms.