Part 5
Here are the weekly Recon reports.
As you can see, there is a large concentration of Enemies around 4th Panzer group, and another near Lenningrad. But there seems to be large open areas still. Lets see if we can exploit these.
The 18th army moves north, the 11th infantry division, seen here as the north easternmost unit, clears on enemy force from the area, while other units move to secure the areas ports.
To the south, the 16th move forwards.
The 32nd Infantry division clears out three other enemy units and advances twenty miles into enemy territory. Unfortunately the rest of the army can only move into contact with the enemy.
in the 4th Panzer grp, the 290th Infantry Division moves forwards and clears three enemy units north of Pskov.
The forces swarm forces, cutting off two more units, while the 3rd Motorized division moves to capture Novograd, but fails when it runs to two reinforced Soviet Divisions.
The rest of our forces swarm forwards into the gap, and a nice 100 mile penetration opens up, I could have gone further, but this is as far as I wish to go without opening my men up to being cut off – even now, this is a risky move.
The breach is held by two units, and those these units on the Velikaya are now securely cut off, but we will have to wait on the Russian response to see what happens.
The Finnish forces push forwards, and as elsewhere, the Russian forces collapse as they come under attack.
A new Corps is being dispatched to support this push north.
The recon reports for AGC show that the enemy are building up a large number of forces near Smolensk.
There is a weak spot in the north, an the 9th Army moves forward to try and split it.
They can only reach the line, but only engage one or two units – they police up a security unit, but that is the bulk of the damage they inflict on the enemy.
The 4th Army moves up as well, next week they will be in position to push forwards quickly.
The build up of supplies has left a large number of 3rd Panzer group unable to move (I did it a bit late and forgot it would pause them) – but they can still secure the Dnepr crossing.
2nd Panzer is in the same situation, and can only cause some minimal damage on the enemy with their infantry units.
Its been a poor week for AGC, but they are now in a good position to surge forwards over the next week.
As normal, I start with the recon reports for this sector.
We have a great number of enemy formations trapped behind our lines, and the Ruski's have once more fortified the line in front of us.
17th Army moves to clear a few more of the enemy forces in the area.
This pretty much goes as you would expect.
To the north, the 6th Army does the same in their push forwards.
They clear out a few more divisions, and only those units surrounded last week remain behind our lines.
The 11th Army and the Romanian forces push forwards, clearing the line and pushing a huge hole in the enemy lines.
The 1st Panzer Group is also on the move. These are moving south to avoid the bulk of the enemy forces, most of their units not having the fuel or are to fatigued to mount heavy combat operations this week.
The Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler push do move forwards – these men are very tired however, and will need to rest.
In fact, all of its support armour is out of action now, and they only have a few armoured cars left. Of course, not engaging in heavy combat operations does not stop us from punching deep into this new hole in the enemy lines, we now have a good number of Panzer and Motorized Divisions in play, ready to move depending on the enemies reactions.
At this point, we could try and swing north, bagging the large enemy concentrations, or south for a smaller but much more likely pocket. What I am assuming will happen is that the enemy will give up a fifty to a hundred miles or so of land to reform their line near the Tikich river.
This is where I have some thinking to do – there is a chance of doing a monster pocket.
2nd Panzer group would strike south, 1st north, and both forces would meet at Chernigov to create a massive pocket. I doubt that Stalin and his cronies will allow this to happen, but I can at least plan for the operation.
God dam it! These three units are a constant thorn in my side – once more they stop me from cutting them off, and while they don't manage to cut the supply lines to 4th Panzer Group, they get a lot closer than an unit not engaged in active combat should.
We hold in the centre, the bridgehead is imperative for our continued advance. The south in the interesting place this week.
As I guessed, the Russian response seems to have been retreat, giving us more land without a fight. How far they have retreated is still to be seen.
The losses for this week are staying steady for us, while the damage we have done to the Russians has dropped somewhat – we only managed to destroy 23 units this week – but as we have taken out 173 units since the war began, this is a small quibble.
Our forces have maintained their strength over the last week.
Unfortunately, the drop in tempo has lead to the Red Amy increasing in size by over one hundred thousand men. Their armour is still dropping in number, and their guns and air force are recovering at a slow rate. Lets hope we can punch forwards next week and cause some more serious damage.
Repairing and refitting an army at war is never done.
The cogs of war continue to turn.
The Supply situation is looking a lot better. We have more stores than before the war began, and the amount of fuel and supply depots is back to the pre war numbers. The other unit stores are holding steady, we're now resupplying as quickly as the front lines deplete them. I doubt that this situation will continue much past a renewed offensive, but I can dream.
Now look at some maps – because who doesn't like maps.
Click here for the full 1753x2774 image
As you can see, we're nicely ordered, and while I would love to identify every unit – sod you, thats not going to happen.
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Some more gains, after a week of pause, its nice to see them, and next week should see some more.
Now for that all important historical comparison line.
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Not bad, we're ahead in most places, and the main lag is the unpopulated marshes. Only time will tell if we're far enough ahead.
At some point, I may go back and make up some more of these for the previous campaign.