Part 3
Okay, I screwed up, for some reason the date on this one went in American (7-3-41), not UK (3-7-41), so this is Sundays report, not today’s. But I've changed the date. I've been looking at the first number and thinking, I don't need to post this yet, rather than going “oh shit, I'm three days late”.
On the plus side, You now only have to wait until Sunday for the next update!
This weeks recon reports for AGN show that there is a large area of space between us and the enemy.
The problem being that the forward elements of 4th Panzer Group are low on fuel, especially the lead 3rd Motorized division.
The 122nd Infantry Division, shown here between the recon flights, clear two divisions of Russians up, capturing 11,000 men and nearly 400 armoured vehicles from the soviet 22nd Tank Division.
This clears the rest of 16th Army to advance and cross the Daugava. The lack of transport vehicles and the reliance on marching really slows these units down, but we have secured numerous beachheads over the river now. They also cut off another division of Ruskis, who we can clean up over the next week.
The 18th Army engages in no combat, as they march up and congregate around Riga, ready to strike north in force.
The 4th Panzer group strikes onwards still, the Totkenkoff SS Division and the 9th Panzer discover a large concentration of mechanized Soviet forces south west of Pskov.
The 1st Panzer strikes around from the south east, and the 3rd Mot. And 6th Push back some security forces to cut this large force off. This may not hold, but it is the best we can achieve with the supplies available.
The 38th Mot. Division strikes north, burning most of its fuel stores to secure the northern flank.
The recon reports for AGC show a line forming along the Dnepr.
As before, we clear the rear pockets before moving on with the lead units.
The 9th Army clears the bulk of the central pocket, trying to free up as many units from 2nd Panzer group to move forwards as possible.
Un fortunalty the bulk of this and the 4th Army are to far back to engage the Reds, and spend the week marching forward.
I have concentrated them to help with supplies, once past Minsk, the two forces will spread out to form an advancing line.
2nd Panzer Group is low on fuel, and with no enemy in front of of them begins to move forwards. Hopefully more supplies reach them and allow us to storm forwards across the Dnepr over the next week.
The 3rd Panzer Group are not waiting around.
Storming forwards, 18th Mot. Division clears the enemy from their side of the river, and 20th Panzer crosses the river, securing us yet another crossing over a major river. We are also able to trap some more Soviet units.
The recon reports show that AGS has a strong concentration of Russian forces in front, of it, but they also have a large number of trapped divisions to clean up.
17th Army gets to it.
Tens of thousands more Russians surrender to our men, but many more fall back, we will not be clearing the Lvov pocket in one week, but we should be able to clean up the remainder within the next couple of weeks.
The 6th Army clears some more of the area, and opens up our supply lines more, helping to prevent the Russians from even thinking about a counter offensive to cut our deep penetrating 1st Panzer group off from the rest of our forces.
In the south, the Romanians supported by the 11th Army make some gains, and seem to have the largest open area in front of them.
This leaves only the 1st Panzer group to move.
They close three pockets, which estimates say contains six armoured divisions and two mechanized units.
The Russians moved quickly to reopen the pocket near Pskov.
It is time to introduce you to an unsung hero.
This unit is a rail repair unit. Their job is to convert the Russian gauge railway into a proper German form. This will allow us to move supplies forwards far more efficiently.
As you can see, they have a lot of work ahead of them.
Its tie to have a look at the losses for the previous week.
We have taken nearly 80,000 casualties,of those, 27,000 are KIA. The bulk of these men are wounded, and hopefully we'll be seeing a good number of them returning to the front lines over the coming weeks as their wounds heal.
In fact, thousands have already been shipped back to the front, as well as numerous replacements for the men lost.
Against this, We have taken out over a quarter of a million Russians. Of these over half a million are captured. In fact, only 50,000 Soviets have been killed in the fighting by our estimates.
Overall, our forces are no smaller than they were two weeks ago when the operation began. The Russian forces have also not reduced in size, which is worrying seeing the numbers we have removed. We can only hope that the next couple of weeks will see a massive reduction in their fighting ability.
Looking at their air force, their current strength has dropped from 4,500 planes to 3,000, this reduced them to a third of their starting forces. Their armoured formations have dropped by 5,000 – or a third of their numbers.
Production continues at pace, some of our factories are lacking supplies, but none to many. As you can see, of the units we have in production, we have adequate supplies of everything barring the MK III and IV panzer's.
The overall supply levels are also looking healthy. Continuing the pattern of building stores while depleting the amount in the front line units.
Here is the territory map, again showing our advances for the week.
Click here for the full 1831x1375 image
And here is the overall force dispositions.
Click here for the full 1753x2774 image
So, with things looking good, it is time for you to return to your units before the next update