Part 75: Turn 75: November 19, 1942
No new guards or new troops this turn but one important thing did happen before I started pushing troops around.
This guy, this fucking guy. That hex he's standing on is the last one I need to hook Romania up to the rail network and he just ran out of MP so it's going to be another turn before this finally gets finished.
The Germans have fallen back again. This picture is before air recon but it looks like they've pulled back all the way to the Baltic states.
Up on the Finnish border the AI railroad-repair units finish repairing the rail lines, good job guys. This is what I spent 10 AP to get, working rail lines into Finland.
The Leningrad front fails to make contact with the Germans. They' definitely fallen back into the Baltic states which means I'll need to push them back across that landbridge north of the lake.
The Northwest front is stopped by a weak picket line. It looks like these guys are just here to slow me down while the primary German line entrenches another 50 miles back.
The Volkhov front forces 2 panzer divisions to surrender and then pushes forward in search of more Germans. I nearly encircle 2 more panzer divisions here but these guys are going to escape unless they are completely out of gas.
The Moscow M.D. is squeezed off the line entirely. With the frontline shortening faster than I can convert to rifle corps this is going to be happening more and more, there's simply not enough room for all my armies. I've already pulled every STAVKA controlled army off and the next to go will be the military districts.
What a messy front, I wonder how far the Germans have pulled back here.
No contact is made at all until down here on the Bryansk front where I run into 2 German pickets. I can't attack them this turn and I doubt they'll be here next turn so bleh.
Behind the lines I finish liquidating those pockets. Not many tanks to be had but any mobile division surrender is a good one. The Western front starts refitting in earnest as I begin to attach the artillery and support units to the armies. A week or two on refit while I finish attaching the last few units and then they'll be good to go. There's really no rush because my armor isn't ready either and it's going to be 2 weeks minimum before they're set.
Almost ready
Speaking of my armor this is what they're starting to look like. Once I'm done re-organizing I'm going to have 4 tank armies, each one consisting of 2 tank corps and 2 motorized corps. The tank corps all have 2 extra tank battalions and a sapper attached for staying power and the mechanized corps have a tank battalion, a heavy tank regiment consisting of 21 KV-1s and a sapper regiment for punching power. I should have 3 armies ready by the time the Western front deploys and another 1 before '43. I've got the ability to make another 2 before spring but I think I'll hold off on that and instead concentrate on making more rifle corps, I desperately need to increase density on the frontline.
Every one of these armies looks something like this, low on manpower but high on tanks. For comparison the average army in the western front has more than twice as many men as this and 3 times as many guns.
The German line appears to get stronger the further from the marsh it gets. I'm curious to see how many units are in the marshes themselves.
The answer is too many, all it takes to bring the whole front to a halt is a handful of regiments. This is why you normally wouldn't send 3 armies through the swamp but if I didn't stick them in the swamp there would be literally no room on the line for them so whatever. 1 hex per turn is good enough here.
The Voronezh front makes a little progress but is hamstrung by lack of supply. I'm simply too far from my railheads to launch real attacks.
And the Crimean front is stopped cold by a minor river. Decent German divisions on the opposite bank means crossing this is a non-starter. Things might improve down here once the Romanian rails come online but I doubt it, it will be another few turns before the supply situation here improves. This river will also freeze over instantly when the blizzard starts if not before, so that will also help.
Supply down here is shit and it looks like there's a very large German force in Romania, perhaps 2 entire armies.
Yeah that's a bunch of really strong German divisions. I'm pretty outclassed this far south, making any progress is going to be difficult without spending a lot of AP bringing some rifle corps to bear.
There's an entire German army in the Carpathians and there is no way I'm ever going to budge them. Gonna see if I can bring a Romanian army or two up here so I can rotate these cavalry out into clear territory.
On the Hungarian border I run into what looks to be another army. Figuring out exactly what I'm up against is difficult because I don't have any planes this far west. I'm going to be getting the Transcaucasus front's airbases over here eventually but not until the rails are fixed.
A panzer corps materializes to rescue those 2 panzer divisions I had been threatening before running west. A shame, I was looking forward to capturing more armor.
In the Swamp my partisans blow up the rail lines directly in front of my line for no reason. Thanks guys.
Progress in the south has ground to a halt but it should improve as the rails begin to catch up. Plane losses are kind of spiralling out of control but the blizzard will put a stop to that since almost no planes fly in weather that bad.
