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What is the secret to reaching the objectives in 16 turns? I always come close, but wonder if it's even possible?

Are you playing Campaign or Road to Leningrad? Against human or AI?

Playing against the AI. I get the impression that, unless you meet certain objectives according to their ideal capture dates, the game is unwinnable. There should be several options for success, or a general strategy that works, no?

Playing against the AI. I get the impression that, unless you meet certain objectives according to their ideal capture dates, the game is unwinnable. There should be several options for success, or a general strategy that works, no?

It depends on which difficulty you're playing. Against the AI, I would recommend using the morale setting set at least at 120, to give it a fair chance in combat.

Reaching Leningrad is definitely possible by T16, capturing it it's a different story though...

It can be done, there are some threads by Seminole on the AAR forum.

From memory I think you can also get a minor victory without taking Leningrad itself if you take enough of the other VLs.

It's been a while but I think it took me three attempts before I was able to take the city on the last turn. I had to be aggressive and focused on taking the three eastern Lake Ladoga ports to isolate Leningrad first. I think I tried Naval interdiction (patrol) but wasn't successful. Thinking about it, if I were to try this scenario again, I'd try Naval interdiction again. I probably just wasn't doing it right. Good luck!

Playing Road to Leningrad against the AI on 100% you should be able to take Leningrad, sometimes with a turn or two to spare. The secret for me was to learn how to conserve and regain CPP. It was very strange to stop for a complete turn and recharge rather than batter through mud, but the improvement in German units performance was remarkable.

My RtL Strategy:

Turn one, use the panzers in two groups, one north, the other due east. Drive deep and open up the key railways lines to Riga and the dual line via Vilnius to Pskov. Encircle Russian units in the middle but you wont get that many. Use 2 regiments of the SS to grab Riga. Get the ports in west Latvia to isolate units there if you can.
Now keep the panzers in the two groups, one moving up to Pskov, the other along the coast. Clearing the pockets but prioritize getting the dual rail fixed and moving the infantry up while conserving/rebuilding CPP (don't use every movement point and end in a friendly hex were possible). Let the Russians make a stand in southern Estonia, it won't go well for them.
Send the coast panzers north heading to break across the Narva river. You can usually create a pocket against Lake Peipus, maybe a smaller one against the Gulf of Finland. Then get over the Narva, push east through the good terrain and crush the Luga line from the north and south (the Panzer reinforcements will help here). BTW This wont work against a human as they wont leave the Narva line without a garrison (unless they are suicidal).
If you can, keep an infantry corps as fresh as possible to use it to drive on the lake ports east of Leningrad and isolate the city. You will need to use panzers as well.
Then mop up and man the Volkhov line. Game over man!

I played that numerous times following different approaches. Leningrad is quite reachable, but the real problem is taking it.

Remember you won't serious opposition until you reach the PSKOV region. So, you can hasty attack and use armor and mech/mobile infantry to advance deep via hasty attacks. It is not just that you will encounter prepared defense around PSKOV, but any axis by which advance turns out to be hard for infantry and horrible for tanks/mech for as you reach the Leningrad region. This will not stop you, but eats up time and resources.

Even assigning SUs with Leningrad surrounded, deliberate attack, reserves, and air support; it can be a hard nut to crack.

Axises which will work:

* Narrow advance. Up the main rail line, but spreading at least 5 hexes from the bases, because they will cut your line.

* Broad advance. This has the advantage of not have to guard flanks, and the your auto rail building units get cracking which doesn't really happen in narrow advance. This can end up bringing a lot of supplies along minor rail and particularly supply forward airfields needed by fighters and TAC air.

* Up the coast. Here take the ports and protect shipping. Ports provide a short route to huge quantities of supply.

I haven't played much since June. I still love this title and WITW as much as ever. But I was using a PC from 2015, and just built a DYI: i9-13900KS + RTX 4090. So, I love this title, but it doesn't need my new hardware and I just went off to play titles where my money and time investment are rewarded due to their CPU intense nature. (nothing is GPU bound on a 4090 at 1080p/60 as I play on a 32" SONY TV to get big text/pixels for my old eyes)

BTW, in the early push, I try to use infantry to make holes to save armor's MP for movement.

In mid-game, look to have your armor/mech spearhead take airfields by turn's end. Then, even if you cannot get supplies to them at a close rail head, you can fly in supplies.

I also try to keep reserves who are fresh CPP for Leningrad. Remember combat engineers are key lowering fort levels ... numbers alone will not do it. But a lot of arty will help, and manually put SU-pioneers into the units on the line.