Part 97: Turn 103-104: June 3 - June 10, 1943

A new month and it's a clear turn. Back to back clear turns is very handy right now, I'll get some good work done on my rail lines and it will speed up my re-organization of the front considerably.




New unit this month is on-map heavy artillery divisions. I won't be building many of these, I much prefer the breakthrough ToE for my divisional size artillery.




Clear weather and a German force in contact with a Russian line, am I dreaming?




All along the line the guns open up and pulverize the German fortifications. The Germans aren't able to hold onto any hex that I want to take and there are no reserve activations by mobile forces. Recon buts most of their armor on the western bank of the Vistula so I think this is just a stalling force, albeit a large one.



This becomes even more apparent down here in the south where there aren't any Germans to slow me down. I'm working on re-deploying some armor here but it's slow going with the poor rails and worse weather. I should be in position by the next clear turn.




The difference in force density between the north and south is striking now that I look at it. From Warsaw to Koenigsberg there are 6 fronts at very near maximum capacity squeezed onto the line. South of Warsaw to the Slovakian border there are only 3 with another 2 in Hungary. To balance this out the Leningrad and Central fronts are in the process of redeploying south, both fronts are going to join the line somewhere between Warsaw and the North Caucasus front.



My line may be weak down here but so are the Germans. The difference is I don't think the Germans have a ton of reserves while I've got the Leningrad front with 650,000 men and the Central front with another 520,000 arriving here in a few weeks.




Even without those reinforcements the fronts down here are still able to make some progress against the anemic German formations down here. I hope to have all these divisions converted by the end of the mud in July.




I've nearly driven the Germans out of Hungary and Slovakia but they're slowing me down to a crawl with the amount of armor they've deployed down here.



Nearly out of these godforsaken mountains.



I attempt to break through the German line near Vienna but repeated reserve activations burn too much MP and prevent me from exploiting the 30 mile break I made. I'm curious to see how the Germans will respond to this, whether they'll try to bottle me back up or just abandon the Southern bank of the Danube to me. Either way troop density is rising as the more and more troops from the Transcaucasus front arrive in the west.



And on the tail end of the line my STAVKA armies try to simply stand firm. I'm not interested in dedicating any more troops to this region unless the Germans force me to.




Another week, another mud turn. I can't wait for July.




The only real activity along the main front is this force beginning to hook around Koenigsberg. I would love to cut the city off from the rest of the front and just bypass it if possible. I've got the troops to do it and if I can catch 20+ German divisions on the coast here it will dramatically weaken the amount of German troops available further west. Forcing their surrender would be difficult since Koenigsberg is considered a permanent supply source so any pocket I form containing the city will not count as isolated.



Down in Hungary my cavalry cuts off a handful of German formations and captures the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. Now it's just a matter of pushing west for Vienna then hooking north through what used to be Czechoslovakia.



The last major German forces in Hungary. This section of the front is basically useless to me and the Germans and I would not be surprised if all these troops just packed up and left. The Germans could hold the mountains here against me with half as many troops as they've got.




2 cavalry corps are cut off by the German attempt to save the pocketed formations near Bratislava. Saving the cavalry won't be a problem but re-encircling these Germans could prove difficult.




A bit further south the Germans launch a pair of attacks to push my line back a little but make no progress. They're just not able to commit the amount of forces that actually breaking my line would require.



The German OoB is scary looking but I think it's a paper tiger that will collapse as soon as I'm able to begin forcing more battles. That's assuming they even have the gas to run all those tanks.