Part 99: Turn 106: June 24, 1943
Nothing much going on in the pre-turn phase this turn so lets take a look at how our logistics are doing.
First off the motor pool. This is finally starting to recover in earnest with the amount of trucks available rising steadily and the number of trucks required dropping as the rails catch up. When the supply situation was at its worst I had less than 100,000 trucks available and required over 200,000 so this is a dramatic improvement.
And the rail network as it stands right now. Having 2 rail repair corps has allowed me to keep this mostly under control, the only area that desperately needs closer rail lines is directly west of Warsaw, and I've got a RR unit heading there right now to patch that up. With the front condensing further and further and a third RR unit showing up in September this is only going to improve.
Air recon is showing I've got more troops trapped in Koenigsberg than I initially thought. I think I'm going to dedicate 3 fronts to containment here while the rest of my troops push west.
Before any of that though I force the surrender of the 2 divisions that have been trapped up in Estonia for the past 2+ months. I'm not sure how much food was on that island but I really doubt it was enough to feed 16,000 men for 2 months.
The reduction of the Koenigsberg pocket begins with 3 rather bloody battles. The goal right now is to condense the pocket while trying to concentrate enough force to take the hex southeast of the city. If I manage to take that hex then the majority of the pocket will be cut off from supply and become isolated.
To the west the 65th Tank army liberates Danzig and prepares the river crossing for the Volkhov front, which will be taking over the northern flank of the line next week.
The Bryansk and Steppe fronts deploy against a curiously weak looking German line. Air recon isn't showing it but this line has to be more solid that it appears, those 3 million Germans have to be somewhere. Either way this is the flimsiest looking stretch of line I've encountered and I'm going to concentrate some armor here and see if I can punch a nice big hole in it to destabilize this German line.
I continue to dump most of my AP in this region to try to bring these fronts under control but it will be awhile before I'm done.
The Central front continues to join the line and discovers that this line is as weak as it looks. Theres a 50 mile stretch of line held by nothing but regiment sized counters. The only conclusion I can come to is that the Germans really need those counters trapped in Koenigsberg, there's 17 hexes there stacked 3 deep which means there's something like 40-50 divisions trapped in that pocket. The line from Slovakia to the Baltic Sea is less than 50 hexes right now so those divisions could be put to very good use.
More of the same down near the Slovakian border. If my line down here was as dense as it is up north I would be advancing 10-20 miles a week.
Vienna held and the Germans fell back 30-40 miles into the mountains. Time to pursue them and see if I can punch a hole into Czechoslovakia.
Not much exciting going on down here. Mostly I'm just trying to work out this huge roadblock as my forces here begin to swing north. I'm less than 150 miles from the western edge of the map down here so I need to swing up and begin pushing for Germany in earnest.
In the far south the lines into Czechoslovakia get reinforced and a reserve starts to form up behind the German lines.
And even further south the Germans continue to withdraw into the mountains as this line is stripped of divisions to reinforce the line further north.
The next phase of large-scale assaults is going to begin soon, my logistics are better than they've been in months and my army is stronger than ever. Now it's just a matter of probing for the weak point and taking it.
