Part 84: Turn 84: January 21, 1943

The guards tank formations continue to roll in. I'd like to get some of the actual counters promoted instead of the support units but I'll take what I can get.




I'm pretty entertained by the fact that the only places I'm in contact with the German army are the tail ends of the line, everywhere else they're giving up ground without a fight.



The Leningrad front cuts off those 3 divisions again, hopefully it will hold this time. This whole front is starting to tire and I'd really love to finally capture those 3 divisions so I can shorten the line and start rotating some of these formations off the line.



More and more corps sized formations are being formed on the Northwestern and Volkhov fronts ideally this is going to allow me to keep rolling forward until I hit the river.



The river in question, the Daugava. I'm bringing some cavalry armies up here to guarantee I can cross the river before it begins to thaw. I'd also like to cut the rails running through Riga but that's 100 miles away so that's kind of a long-term goal.




Minsk has been liberated and the Germans have fallen back again. It'll be another turn or two before I reach this new line, assuming it's as close as I think it is and the Germans don't run away again.




The Kalinin front brushes aside the security division left behind to slow it down and then promptly begins to run out of supply. From here down to the southern end of the marshes is by far the worst area on the map for getting supply with some formations being over 100 miles from the nearest rail.



The rest of the armies in this region push forward and run out of supply. I think we might be taking another few weeks off here.




Much better supply situation here except for the marshes which are awful as always. Unfortunately the Germans have run away again so all this lovely supply is going to go to waste chasing them.



The Don front continues to trudge through the swamp. A lot of these formations aren't in great shape but I don't really give a shit, they can rest when they take Brest Litovsk.



The new German line can be seen pretty clearly about 5 miles ahead of the Soviet line. Unfortunately poor supply and a handful of German formations left behind are going to slow my advance to a hex or two per turn.



On the North Caucausus front I'm able to take more hexes due to there being less Germans and supply being better. I also manage to cut off a German mountain division that was left behind. It's in terrible condition and I can't imagine it has more than a few thousand men in it but taking any German counter off the map is a good thing right now.




Time to see if that German line is as weak as it looks.



Almost out of the mountains, I'm nearly as sick of these as I am of those awful marshes.



The eastern half of the salient into Hungary is collapsing. Multiple small gaps in the line have appeared and the Germans cannot fix them without bringing in lots more troops or falling back again.




And the western half. the last highly fortified hex on the Romanian border falls this turn, now the only thing holding me back is supply and movement points. With luck I'll be able to reach Budapest and the Danube before the spring thaw.





The pocket in the north finally holds with 2 infantry and a panzer divisions. The pocket will be liquidated immediately while the rest of the front continues to push west.




In the south a mobile force swoops in and rescues the mountain division. Unfortunately for them I'm just going to cut them off again next turn, but it's a nice gesture.



And down in hungary the Germans pull back to form a straighter and stronger line. This new line looks like it can slow down my advance, but not stop it.



5 more turns of blizzard before the snow and then the thaw. I haven't been able to do much damage to the German army this winter but I've managed to take a lot of ground. Hopefully I'll be able to turn that into a push for Germany this summer.