Drive To The Caucasus - A 41 Campaign

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AG North & Centre Turn 86

With Yaroslavl secure another Guards unit finds itself trapped against the Reservoir, its tempting to push immediately against both Kostroma and Danilov, but I will hold and see what the enemy does.

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Army Group Centre Pz Armee's keep the pressure on the Russian defenders as mobile units consolidate ground taken.

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Gorky, Arzamas and Saratov are not to far away even at this late stage of the war.

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Army Group A Turn 86

Not certain whether how far I will push with my Infantry, many units are very under strength and suffering fatigue, some are really low.

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The mud season is not far away and my rail lines in some areas are well back.

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Good news in the Stalingrad sector, the city has fallen, another major prize for The Fuhrer , also 3 Russian Corps are trapped East of the City.

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AG South Turn 86

OKH has decided to withdraw Army Group B and Army Group Don is re-designated Army Group South with command of the Southern Caucasus forces.

Romanian Forces begin to fortify as Russian a Tank and Mechanized units begin to arrive.

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1st Pz Armee is at the gates of Baku, facing 1 Infantry unit while another is encircled by the Hungarians.

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Not long now as The Black Sea forces link up with Panzers.

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Losses And OB Turn 86

Even though this weeks losses never reached 70 thousand and just under 50 thousand Red Army troops went into captivity, the total enemy captured has now past the 8 million mark.

How the hell am I suppose feed all these prisoners !

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Almost pushed the Russian OB to below 2 million combat ready men.

I have nearly 10 thousand more Field Artillery pieces and a thousand more AFV's combat ready.

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AG North & Centre Turn 87

The Guards Airborne Div is destroyed and other Soviet forces are driven back by 16th Armee, there is not much the AI can do even at this late stage but it keeps throwing its remnants at my lines.

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In the Centre the Soviet forces are scattered all over the place and count mount any real heavy attacks, of course if they had substantial forces I could be concerned as have noticed that now in 1943 what attacks they did mount against Inf is getting better, certainly there Tank units now pack a bit of punch.

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But they just don't have numbers on the field, I guess its about how far I can reach before the last Axis automatic deadline.

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Army Group A Turn 87

This week not much movement its more or less just keeping the Russians away and preventing them from building the forces up.

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With the destruction of the trapped units I am more or less going to settle into a defensive posture and any fool hardy enemy unit comes to close, trap it and destroy it.

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AG South Turn 87

Had to break down some Romanian units to cover the line, given that there facing Soviet Corps level units it might be risky.

These guys are not that strong at Division level and given that Russian Corps in 43 are pretty powerful I maybe a bit overconfident here.

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The last piece of the puzzle is about to be placed, Baku is encircled and isolated.

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Supply, Leaders And Production Turn 87

Well I have not showed a screen shot of this for a while and all things considered it not bad, and this far into the game it wont matter.

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Looks like our Romanian Allies generals are being promoted but I cant recall one German General in this game getting a promotion, had a number of Generals being upgraded in various speciality fields.

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Honestly still trying to work out these facts and figure in the manual on various things including this production screen, however as long as I am either close to the bracketed figures or in front its fine by me though trucks still seem to be big issue no matter what I do to try to fix it.

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Losses And OB turn 87

Another good week for The Axis, almost 470 AFV's lost by the Soviets along with over 2500 Artillery pieces.

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Just wondering now if I should have went with the NO automatic victory threshold format as if I went 1944 I may have actually brought the Red Army down below the 1 million mark.

AS it is there barely keeping the head above water at 2 million.

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AG North & Centre Turn 88

Since this campaign is in its last weeks I intend to make a land grab of Russian territory and destroy as much of the Red Army.

In the North 9th and 16th Armee's push forward trapping a small number of enemy units and Vichuga is taken.

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The enemy just cannot stop my Panzer's.

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On The Central Front both Pz Armee's move deeper into the Russian interior, brushing aside the Red Army remnants.

Intel reports enemy Cavalry units to the rear of the soviet front line but they seem to be unwilling to engage my troops yet.

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Army Group A Turn 88

Here to attacks along the entire Saratov front continue resulting routing by the enemy.

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In the Stalingrad sector it quiet, with just some sporadic fighting.

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For the time being it seems the Russians are reluctant to through there troops into battles they cant win.

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AG South Turn 88

Along the Caspian Sea the Romanians are bracing for attacks as here seems to be really the place The Russians want to fight.

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Further South the Italians have almost linked up the with the rest of The Caucasus Force at baku.

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And speaking of that city 1st Pz Armee has capture The oil Producing Port.

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Now all we have to is repair the oil facilities and the rail link back to Germany.

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Supply, Production and leaders Turn 88

Well supply is looking real good at this time considering how far we have envaded.

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Production does seem to look bad looking forward to seeing how much more fuel we will get now that we control all the oil fields in the South.

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This week the Russians lost 4 Army Commanders, not that they have any Army left.

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Losses and OB Turn 88

Well a modest amount manpower losses but huge losses in AFV's and Artillery, something I like to see.

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Good figures all round for the OB, they cant mount any real offensives as the front line is to long to concentrate a big force.

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Turns 88 - 91

So After looking at the game and seeing for the past 40 or turns it just seems to basically a rinse repeat scenario where we just wait till the Soviets attack and then I encircle and destroy them and take more and more territory, which can be quite repetitive I decided to skip the next 3 turns and begin with the last two turns, in hindsight could have done this a while ago and saved every the boredom of this one horse race and just got to the last turn then published it, oh well.

Anyway

AG North & Centre Turn 92

18th Armee pushes forward to take Vologda against no real opposition while 9th and 16th Armee's head towards Kineshma taking it without a fight.

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In the centre the Panzers advance and pocket small numbers of Soviet units in the Gorky and Saransk regions, Stalin's Army is shattered and demoralized.

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Army Group A Turn 92

Heavy attacks against Soviet units inflict big losses with the enemy routing, I wont reach Saratov that chance has past but that is OK.

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More encirclement's in the Stalingrad sector as the AI gets desperate and tries to flank the city and pays the price.

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AG South Turn 92

Complete Victory in The Caucasus, whats left of The Trans Caucasus Front flees through Iran and across The Caspian Sea to safety.

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Panic sets in with the Western Allies as they realise Stalin has not been truthful with the military situation in his country.

The British 9th Army stationed in Palestine and Transjordan will now have to face Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist's Victorious 1st Pz Armee which is now tasked with orders to link up with Rommels PanzerArmee Afrika.

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The British dig in and wait for Army Group South to attack

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Losses, Production and OB Turn 92

Well under 50,000 in manpower losses but there AFV's took another beating.

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Production figures look healthy, well they have been for a long while.

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OB, well for the first time my Axis Allied comrades are below the 1 million mark in troop numbers.

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Still the Soviet figures look sad.

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AG North & Centre Turn 93

The advance continues as both 9th and 16th Armee's secure the Yaroslavl rail link with 18th Armee.

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The Soviets have some Armoured units here but being the last turn of the match, its just a formality now.


In the Centre 3rd Pz Armee destroys the pockets, while further South 2nd Pz Armee drives off the enemy.

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While there is some gaps here and there and with units leaving I have still managed to have a solid front line.

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Army Group A Turn 93

Its here where most of the combat is, with the Russians massing the last remaining forces they have in front of Saratov.

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Unfortunately they too took a beating by 2nd , 4th , and 6th Armee's .

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Around the Stalingrad area those trapped Russian units were eliminated, pity I didn't have 2 or 3 more turns, would have liked to have captured the 2 tank Corps and the 2 Guards Rockets brigades.