Part 65: Turn 62: August 20, 1942

No guards this turn for a change.






The 21st and 26th are on the Bryansk and Southwestern fronts while the 37th is on the Crimean front. I should really go through my armies and cull some of these really bad commanders before they get promoted this high and become expensive to replace but



I also wanted to point out that I'm rapidly outrunning my supply in the south and I'm going to have to slow soon to allow the railheads to catch back up. Luckily the mud is coming in October which is a perfect opportunity to get a few rails out to the frontline.




More and more hexes up here are creeping into range of my offensive CV.



The 7th independent army fuses its rifle divisions into corps in preparation for a new offensive operation up here. I'm going to be railing up another army or two from Moscow to assist them once they get into position.




Progress at Leningrad, the German line is starting to give way up here and it's only a matter of time until I push the Germans away from the city completely.



The Northwestern front switches a ton of counters to refit mode in preparation for going on the offensive. The German line is weakest here but I need a turn or two to get into shape to exploit it.

I noticed this turn that I've got waaaaay more tanks up here than is strictly necessary. I'm thinking that during the autumn mud turns this year I'm going to strip a lot of the tanks from this front and replace them with another cavalry army or some rifle corps. Either way those tanks brigades will be much more effective on the Kalinin or Western fronts.




The Volkhov front begins to fuse some of its counters into corps to increase troop density on the frontline to break this stalemate. I think this is the most tanks I've seen in one German counter in quite some time.




With the Leningrad front picking up this is rapidly becoming the least exciting area on the map. I'm going to have a new infantry army ready for this front in a few turns which might be enough to get things rolling again.




Nothing much happens on this front until this southern area where I drive back several German units including another tragically understrength panzer division.



My Volga cavalrymen continue to do good work, pushing the German line back 20 miles and undermining the German position in Bryansk. Now that I've been able to loop around behind the Germans I should be able to finally take and hold the city and push all these Germans out into clear territory.




Progress should start to slow down here now. The further I get from the river the worse my supply is going to get, I really need to get a rail repaired across the river so I stop paying a ton of MP to move across it. Unfortunately my closest rail crossing is 3 hexes from being repaired and non of the AI controlled RR repair units are anywhere near it. The crossing at Kiev is 7 hexes from being repaired so it's going to be ages before the AI fixes that.




The Bryansk front continues to make great progress, most of it directed towards the front swinging north to assist in taking Bryansk. The combat report also shows what is the first of many Romanians failing morale checks with a security division surrendering.




Another Romanian counter gone forever and the Southwestern front claims the eastern bank and gets more divisions on the western side of the river. The 1st Guards Army also manages to retake Chernigov by routing its Romanian defenders



The Voronezh continues to pour across the river, cutting off a German division and regiment.




Time to capture some counters and try to seal off that northern pocket.



Sealed off again. I divide the pocket into several smaller pockets, this way if the primary pocket breaks I can still force the smaller pockets to surrender. The weak link here are those STAVKA tank corps, they're low on fuel and won't do very well if a strong German unit tries to dislodge them. Luckily I think all the strong German units are inside of the pocket so they won't be any help.







The southern pocket gets cleaned up and the cavalry advances another 30 miles.




My new tank army joins the war, forcing a Hungarian surrender and joining up with the 1st shock to encircle another batch of axis allies.



Finally down in the far south I move across the river in force, encircling a Hungarian and routing some Romanians. This is another area where my rail lines are falling far behind, the closest rail is 20 miles from Odessa which is 30 miles from the front which is on the other side of a major river.




I'm posting this screenshot because of that partisan attack on the rail, that partisan battalion basically snuck into the German front line, blew up the rail and then escaped.



The Germans are evacuating the bulge in my lines here which is prudent, but doing so means they're surrendering the west bank to me.







Southern pockets hold and the Romanians are retreating again, perhaps all the way back to Romania.



Army Group south ceases to exist and German tank numbers jump by nearly 100, the first rise in months.