The front here has pretty much stabilised as von Leeb has the choice of sending in the panzers along with the infantry into Leningrad and taking high losses, or using them further south to ultimately become part of the assault on Moscow. I've decided on the latter although, once again, my relationship with Hitler is causing all sorts of problems with this and there will be the PP penalties for any Hoepner PzGrp units that stray into the AGM theater. Verdammt noch mal!
Once again I am seeing the Soviets recover quickly from a huge defeat with fresh units, including many more tanks than we thought it possible for them to marshal at this stage of the campaign. AGM was witness to a gigantic Soviet defeat with the huge Smolensk pocket, the scale of which would have brought any European state to its knees. But now with Guderian's PzGrp off to the south and only now making its way back, the Soviets have launched a powerful offensive south of Smolensk with numerous cavalry and infantry formations. Hoth and 9.A are containing this from the north, while 4.A is endeavouring to contain the south of the Soviet expanding salient which has alarmingly reached the outskirts of Mogilev and Orsha.
Guderian has persuaded von Bock not to have him send any units to directly help, but to continue his drive north to the Vyazma area and cut the entire Soviet Group off, assisted once again by Hoth's 3.PzGrp to the north; Hoth however, feels he can deal with the immediate threat on his own. Guderian's planned offensive is indicated on the map. I in turn had to persuade my direct superior Brauchitsch of this and finally both Hoth and Guderian are given the go-ahead. It was not easy. Once again all eyes seem to be on der schnelle Heinz and 'Papa' Hoth.
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AGM Sept 22 - 30.jpg (197.39 KiB) Viewed 1133 times
The huge Kiev pocket is finally vernichtet and huge columns of Russian POWs trudge westward. Reichenau's 6.Armee is now free to march east and they have a long march ahead of them. Kleist's PzGrp intends to take Kharkov and then head south close to the new FSB being set up in Krivirog and engage in some long overdue rest & refit. From there it will be on to Rostov once 6.A arrives. One hopes...
Further south an unexpectedly very strong Soviet defense has thwarted 11.A and the Romanians from gaining a foothold across the lower Dnepr. I have discussed with Rundstedt the possibility of sending AG heavy artillery assets to 11.A to assist in this. Kleist's group was diverted north for the Kiev battle before it could complete unhinging the Soviet front on the lower Dnepr and we are paying the price for that now.
In AGN Hoepner is building up his PzGrp in rough terrain to support a drive by 16.A into the Valdai hills and ultimately cut the Moscow-Leningrad RR and support an offensive on the enemy capital.
Hoth's PzGrp 3 managed to deal with the Soviet offensive SW of Smolensk aided by elements from 9th and 4.A. The forward end of the enemy salient has been chopped off and pocketed.
Guderian was slowed to a crawl by heavy rains and mud but things have dried out and he is on the move again. It is clear his units need rest & refit badly. For example, 17.PzD is down to 38% of it's strength and has only 10 tanks operative.
For both PzGrp 2 & 3 there are a total of:
Panzers: 250 runners, (20% operational)
Transports: 3900 runners (49% operational)
Total division Mileage: 3165/3003 km (total/refit)
This is approaching catastrophic levels and a rest & refit will take place as soon as the front is more or less stabilized.
I am engaged in constant wrangles with Wagner about our supply lines. Wagner wants captured trucks given over to him as all armies, especially the PzGrps, want more truck columns. He wants time to refit trucks as well and it's a balancing act. Although he is a schmerz im Arsch, often daily, he does have my full support and sympathy for his difficult task.
And who says a wargame can't have a (black of course) sense of humour? Brauchitsch was complaining indignantly about the ineptitude of my Chief of Staff, wondering if the man was ill or should be given leave. In my Decision choices, one option was "Send the man for involuntary shock treatments."
1.PzGrp captured Kharkov and has headed south behind the Soviet HKL along the Dnepr bend. In conjunction with 17.A the Soviet 38A and it's divisions were completely destroyed and Dneprpetrovsk taken. Although his group is scheduled for a desperately needed pause to rest and refit for a week or so, Kleist and Rundstedt decided to take advantage of the good weather and firm ground to drive straight south for the Sea of Azov NE of the important port of Melitopol. With this accomplished I agreed with Rundstedt to order a total truck refit for AGS. Needless to Say Wagner was pleased with this and my stock has gone up with him.
For PzGrp 1 there are a total of:
Panzers: 320 runners, (23% operational)
Transports: 5800 runners (54% operational)
Total division Mileage: 3288/2005 km (total/refit)
It is hoped this will finally crack open the Soviet lower Dnepr Front which has succeeded in continually frustrating Schobert's 11.A and Dumitrescu's 3.Rom Armee in their attempts to get across the river. The swampy terrain here is a major hindrance, and of course a large river crossing. There have been problems with the Romanians resulting from cultural differences and I had to assign some liaison officers to a few Romanian divisions.
Staggered rest & refit orders were given for most armies throughout October with the exception of 16.A and 18.A in AGN who have been static in their trenches around Leningrad and along the Novgorod front to the east. These are the first armies on the Ostfront ordered to assume a defensive posture and the fact that Hitler is not keen on this is reflected in the high cost in political points I am forced to pay--10 PPs each. Keep in mind I have begun many turns with 20-30 PPs available. But we cannot risk a strong Soviet attack succeeding in relieving the city.
As if to prevent us from even thinking about assaulting Leningrad, the Russians are preempting Hoepner's intended drive through the Valdai Hills and are attacking with strong forces south of Lake Ilmen and Hoepner will have to break off to deal with this I expect. Soviet attacks shown on the map.
Heeresgruppe Mitte is once again on the attack and both PzGrps are back on Blitzkreig posture while the infantry armies (9.A, 4.A and 2.A) are on Sustained Offense in order to have better defensive values guarding the flanks of the expected panzer advances.
The timing of the attack (called Operation Taifun as one might expect) is fortuitous as the muddy terrain in front of us has been rendered solid by the new frost and snows, while the terrain to AGM's rear is still covered with the verdammte Schlamm (mud).
Incidentally, re the mud and snow appearing, this game has about the best Ostfront weather modelling I have seen. Many things were done right with this game and I will surely recap them all at the end of the AAR. Top of the list perhaps is the first-rate AI in this, part of the entire intelligent design decision to avoid a proliferation of sub units (called "ants" by my own team when I was still designing years ago) allowing for an incisive AI and it has been a challenge, even at this moderate setting.
The attack plan's pincers for Hoth and Guderian are shown on the map and as usual the breakthroughs, aided by intense Luftwaffe support, were conclusive and by early November the new Vyazma kessel is almost completely closed, but not quite. IF this can be sealed off rapidly intelligence estimates there are over 50 Red Army formations in the cauldron about to get cooked. Gott im Himmel, how do these Russians keep fighting and losing like this?? Their tenacity and courage is certainly remarkable... but their almost insensate willingness to take astonishing losses is, in a word, erschreckend ("frightening"). And not a good omen for things to come as winter sets in.
Alfred Rosenberg, Reichminister of Occupied Eastern Territories, wants all able-bodied peasants to be sent to the Reich to work as slave labour. None of my senior fellow officers are in agreement with this as it will certainly exacerbate local conditions with the civilians the Wehrmacht has to contend with. I chose to ignore this matter.
The troops are starting to suffer with the effects of winter and I am making efforts to get proper clothing forwarded but this is proving very difficult, in spite of the fact that I have lobbied for winter clothing and equipment every chance I got from early in the campaign.
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AGM Oct 28-Nov 5.jpg (227.5 KiB) Viewed 1133 times
In this time period AGS took the time to finally rest & refit most of its armies and so only the final positions on Nov 5 are shown.
The exception to this is 11 A, the only infantry army still set to Blitzkreig posture. This army is inexplicably still commanded by von Schobert. Historically, Manstein took command of this Army on September 17th and I do hope this can be corrected, not just to correct a historical omission, but to give 11.A a much-needed boost with commander benefits. And this is not to insist upon Manstein's talents in retrospect (he had yet to prove himself in the east) but certainly to reflect Hitler's obsession with the Crimea he termed "an unsinkable aircraft carrier," which of course would be used to bomb Germany's critical oil resources in Ploesti Romania. As well, Sevastopol should definitely be in contention to be a major priority in Führerbefehle 35 once the Wehrmacht approached the Crimea. Both would be great touches to add to an otherwise superb Barbarossa campaign game.
In any case, 11.A under von Schobert finally managed to get across the lower Dnepr. The divisions of Kleist's PzGrp, resting and refitting to the east, are rejeuvenated, set to Sustained Offense, and can be expected to assist soon.
AGN will be treated as part of AGM for as long as the main action continues south of Lake Illmen and not in the Leningrad area, and especially as I am determined that 4.PzGrp become the northern wing of Operation Taifun.
Kuchler's 18.A launched an assault on Talinn supported by AGN heavy artillery assets making small gains. Hoepner has managed to contain the Soviet offensive south of Lake Illmen and has received the go-ahead from myself to attack towards Kalinin with 3 of his divisions, SS Totenkopf now some 40 kms from that critical RR city. I''m prepared to take the flack for this from Hitler, as well as pay the PP cost for this theater transgression: Moscow or bust!
As expected the Soviets mounted furious attacks to escape the kessel and broke through at one point (indicated on map) and a few divisions managed to escape. This was rapidly closed again by Guderian and other breakout attacks around the cauldron were likewise defeated. Radio intercepts indicate there were some 53 Soviet formations trapped and the task of eliminating the pocket is almost complete with huge amounts of equipment and prisoners captured. This is another great victory for Heeresgruppe Mitte and the main advance on Moscow can continue.
Eisenbahn units are badly affected by freezing winds with wind chill of -6 C and made little or no progress in this period--current rail conversion is within some 40 kms of Orsha. Two truck columns were destroyed by partisans and I have promised Wagner more security for his units. Gercke has allocated more trains with artillery ammunition as the recent offensive for the pocket has badly depleted stocks. The good news in all this is that the new FSB at Smolensk is up and running and performing well.
Once again I will point out the curious repeats of history occurring in this campaign:
Bialostok and Minsk pockets reenacted; Smolensk pocket reenacted along with the Uman pocket in AGS; the great Kiev pocket reenacted on time coordinating Guderian in AGM and Kleist AGS; The AGS pocket trapping Soviet forces west of the Sea of Azov; and finally the huge Vyazma pocket at the beginning of Operation Taifun. As a scenario designer it's true, I like to playtest to see if a model can recreate the historical viably because then you have the confidence in the design to try out 'what-ifs'. Perhaps I was doing this all unconsciously; in any case, at the time these seemed to be the logical operations to enact. This has been an impressive run-through so far in terms of replicating the historical.
This theater was fairly quiet as most armies engaged in rest & refit and the conditions on the ground were terrible with the rasputitsa in any case. But Kleist's PzGrp sprang into action again on Nov 17 over frozen ground and has finally broken the back of the Soviet front facing 11.A and Romanian 3.A. Some 11 divisions are eingeschlossen and can be expected to be removed from the Soviet order of battle soon, but not without putting up a stubborn resistance as they almost always do.
Romanian 4.A launched a bloody assault on Odessa making little progress.
Although Reichenau's 6.A troops are fatigued from their long marches, he is pushing into the Donbas and attempting to surround Stalino with the help of SS Wiking on loan from Kleist. North of this area Stülpnagel's 17.A, also suffering from long march fatigue, has managed to capture Voronezh and intends to engage in rest & refit along the upper Don R. for at least the next week. Although the Red Army opposition facing him seems almost non-existent, his army is furthest away from the nearest supplyhead than any other army on the Ostfront. As I explained to my superior von Brauchitsch--Es ist nicht zu erwarten, dass er im Winter weiter in eine endlose Leere vordringt! ("He can't be expected to keep advancing into an endless void in winter!"), with which he could only agree.
Engineers report the main bridge over the lower Dnepr SE of Nikolaev cannot be repaired until the river thaws. Inefficient loading practices have become an issue with Gercke's trains and he has promised to correct this, as well as expedite more trains for ammunition. Our main FSB at Krivirog is well-established at this point and is being improved daily.
Following the reduction of the huge Vyazma pocket Hoepner's 4.PzGrp and Guderian's 2.PzGrp drove on Moscow with orders to ignore their flanks. Hoth's 3.PzGrp pressed up the middle while 9.A surrounded 6 Soviet divisions fortified in the city of Rzhev. behind these advances. 4.A captured Tula with help from SS Das Reich division.
The overall plan was to capture Moscow and surround yet another huge Soviet pocket west of Moscow (as shown on the map) but 5 Soviet armies fighting to the death in heavy snowfalls and poor visibility stopped us in our tracks. Generaloberst Hoepner ("the old cavalryman") and Obergruppenführer Eicke commanding 4.PzGrp's SS Totenkopf division have both complained to me about Hitler meddling with their dispositions and orders (in game terms this is manifest as -30 Action Points). The Totenkopf division is at 28% of it's original strength, advancing in blizzards with zero visibility and with a temperature of -11 and windchill -16. Das ist Wahnsinn ("madness").
But once again Guderian won the laurels as his 29.mot and 4.PzD charged into Moscow to capture the city in a coup de main--Moskau ist gefallen! If anyone could pull that off der Schnelle Heinz could, and I have had his full and passionate support for Moscow first since the beginning. It is rumoured that Stalin escaped the city using a secret underground rail line but we have yet to ascertain this. Huge plumes of smoke hang over the burning Kremlin as the Soviets had torched their government papers before they left, and they are popping the champagne again back in the Wolfsschanze but I'm not, not while I know how much our forces have been seriously degraded even before these increasingly desperate final battles, now being fought in heavy snow storms and arctic conditions. I have a very bad feeling about all of this.
The winter clothes and equipment are arriving in dribs and drabs back at Smolensk and Wagner is having trouble getting them forward on top of everything else. I am furious about this as I have been pushing for serious winter preparations to be undertaken since July. Numerous cases of severe frostbite are being reported. As well the Luftwaffe has hardly been active due to the weather and the fact they are shifting their main base forward to Orsha. Partisan attacks against trains and truck columns are increasing exponentially. Ammunition shortages are being reported from every Army in Heeresgruppe Mitte. In addition to his main task of moving regular army supplies forward, Gercke is reporting that his train capacity is struggling to move up the 320k replacements we so desperately need at the front right now--at the present rate it will take 3.5 months! No champagne in my HQ danke!
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AGM Nov 29-Dec 3.jpg (255.28 KiB) Viewed 1147 times
17.A is guarding what appears to be a huge void along the Upper Don and is engaged in much-needed rest & refit. Further south Reichenau's 6.Armee is slowly advancing into the Donbas aided by only a few mot. units including SS Wiking. They are preparing for an assault on Stalino. It is planned that Kleist's Pz.Grp return to this front to drive on Rostov, but not before he assists 11.A in breaking through into the Crimea.
North of the Crimea the entire Soviet front was collapsed from behind, most Red divisions prevented from retreating south through the Perekop peninsula. Kleist's group will assist 11.A in breaking through the formidable fortified lines on this peninsula, which is a good thing as this brings Luftwaffe support as well as AGS Focus (representing Army Group support elements like assault engineers, assault guns, nebelwerfers etc).
High -20 Low -28 windchill -40[/center]
I've caught up to where I am in the playtest, just before the impending drama of the Soviet winter counter-offensive in front of Moscow. At least I now have a slightly "positive" setting with Hitler and I took the opportunity to finally have PzGrp 4 operate in AGM without penalties. Two decisions made early in the campaign are paying dividends with increased oil supplies on hand: the Ploesti oilfields were expanded to increase production and more German locomotives were converted to coal-burning.
In the north Mannerheim has finally relented and allowed Finnish units to advance beyond their 1940 borders. The main benefit of this for us will be the ability to launch concentric attacks on Leningrad and possibly capture it at last. But below this area a major Soviet offensive has broken out south of Novgorod across Lake Peipus with over 200 tanks. With great effort this breach was sealed and other units are en route to deal with the surrounded tank and mech units, distinct echoes of General Vlasov's doomed offensive. The other Soviet offensive out of the Valdai Hills is also continuing.
They're no longer celebrating at the Wolfsschanze as a series of sledgehammer blows have come out of nowhere as dozens of fresh Siberian divisions, all in white camo smocks and effective winter clothing and many on skis, tore into our lines and drove us back. Moscow had to be abandoned. I've argued with von Brauchitsch, supported by von Bock, that we pull back to a more rational front and go on the defensive but the Führer will have none of it. We were barely able to talk Hitler out of sacking Guderian on the spot. And so, quietly, I have informed all Armee CO's to pull back in small increments and to assume a defensive posture as they see fit. Most divisions are being driven back by force in any case, with many positions completely overrun. The meteorological report for this area: light snow, poor visibility, temperature -20 C with windchill -40 C. In game terms many units were paralyzed and fixed in place, unable to move or attack and with degraded defense suffering -130 APs and -65 morale (!).
[From my own experiences, in general Canadians are more accustomed to super cold winters than most, along with Russians, Scandinavians and Alaskans. Even so, it was not until I worked north of the Arctic Circle in the Yukon one long winter in my younger years that I got a full taste of what the Germans went through near Moscow. When it is that cold (we are speaking about a windchill of -40C) it is all you think about if you're not in a heated room. It's a constant aggressive assault on body and mind, and if you are in fierce winds to boot things will quickly get desperate. Fall asleep, collapse from exhaustion, or get drunk and pass out in this, and you're a goner. If you have facial hair your face will become a frozen mask from breath condensation instantly freezing, and in any sort of wind your cheeks, nose and ears if exposed will get frostbite rapidly; however your extremities are the biggest vulnerability and no amount of insulation is ever really enough. Even the best state of the art insulating clothing will just delay the inevitable for only so long as high altitude climbers know and understand very well, especially those missing fingers and toes.]
A breakthrough at Bryansk has been sealed off. The Russians are adept at moving cross-country, even with snow storms raging. My forebodings have been borne out. Game-wise I will be setting all armies in AGM to a defensive posture asap. My goal has been "Moscow or bust!" Ja! und so we got Moscow and bust: last turn we had a taste of Moscow and this turn we're busted!
Note that many darkened German units are in fact immobile given the extreme winter weather.
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AGN & AGM Dec 7.jpg (252.73 KiB) Viewed 1146 times
Things have gotten so dire on the Leningrad-Novgorod front that Hoepner's 4.PzGrp has been ordered to exit AGM's theater and return to AGN and this truly marks the end of Operation Taifun. The main FSB of AGN at Luga has had it's RR link cut by roving "pocketed" Russian divisions and so the PzGrp's return is now urgent. Even "der GRÖFAZ" understands this.
Our Armies in AGM are ordered to hold their positions but are being violently pushed back in blizzard conditions and taking more and more losses. Hitler orders German soldiers to fight bis zur letzten Patrone ("to the last bullet") but we are losing as many men to frostbite in this severe winter as enemy action. Man kann kein Gewehr schießen, wenn man keine Finger hat! ("You can't shoot a rifle if you have no fingers!") I wrote over his telegraph in large letters and my Chief of Staff wisely burned it shortly after. The Soviets are launching ferocious assaults on numerous fronts and they are certainly looking like they are geared up for a prolonged winter offensive. The ground is so hard engineers are using explosives to dig trenches. Tanks and trucks need a fire lit under their motors to start them as our lubricants are not graded for these low temperatures. Telescopic sights are rendered useless and metal parts like rifle bolts become brittle and break. Winter clothing is still in short supply and ammunition supplies are inadequate. "Es ist eine Katastrophe!" I exclaimed to my Chief of Staff (whose performance is much-improved since the shock treatments). The full scope of the Russian counter-attacks are indicated on the map. It is clear we have lost Moscow and won't be getting it back anytime soon.
Our armies, the best the world has ever seen, now look like a failed and marooned Antarctica expedition. Once again I can't resist quoting from the Introduction to my Drang nach Osten (DNO-TOAW) scenario here:
That first bright summer seemed to dangle palpable victory within reach, even after it had passed as they staggered forward through an abyss of mud in the autumn, only to finally see it recede into the swirling snows like a glimpse of Kremlin spires from Khimki. The long winter was an underworld passage for the Germans, the waves of Soviet attacks breaking against thin frozen lines of desperate infantrymen, and rumours of Dovator’s cavalry, and partisans, in the rear. They would reap the whirlwind attacking the bear in its winter cave.[/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]Poetry aside, the tank engines couldn’t take it. Equipment losses to mechanical failure and combat casualties were to grind the Panzer divisions to mere remnants by the time this showdown at Moscow took place. 10.PzD indicated below is at 32% of it's original strength, along with it's attached Grossdeutschland Rgt.
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AGN & AGM Dec 11.jpg (287.74 KiB) Viewed 1145 times
Kleist and Manstein launched their assault on the heavily fortified Perekop peninsula against fierce Soviet resistance behind minefields and AT ditches that were part of three fortified lines. The Luftwaffe had a field day on such a narrow frontage and by day 7 the northern Crimean city of Dzankoi was captured after very hard fighting. At this point Kleist's panzers disengaged and his entire PzGrp started heading east to support 6.A which was stuck west of Rostov. Reichenau's major attack on Stalino in this period failed owing to fanatical resistance by the garrison and two rifle divisions heavily dug in inside the city.
I'll be depicting things in broad strokes and fast-forwarding the sprint towards the finish line as there were few dramatic turn by turn things to point out. The Red Army basically pummeled the Wehrmacht into a hex by hex retreat on the central front, as well as unexpectedly going all-out to crush the Finns in the north. It is to be noted that I was seriously setting up a final assault on Leningrad but the actions of the AI in the vicinity preempted me and I was never able to launch the assault.
The Finns in the north are retreating across Karelia in the face of powerful Russian attacks. In the center Red Army continuing assaults are causing various withdrawals by our units in order to maintain some kind of strong line. In the south Kleist's group takes Rostov at last. There is no organized Russian front here to speak of and we're content to establish a large perimeter around that city and order rest & refits for 1.PzGrp and 6.A.
Sevastopol and Odessa are both assaulted but hang on, inflicting large losses.
More of the same and the impression I have is that the Red Army simply took too many losses to put a coherent front together south of Voronezh, and are otherwise focusing on the Moscow and Leningrad axes, as well as pushing the Finns back out of Karelia.
AGM Jan 28
High -20 Low -28 windchill -40 - END GAME
One last very impressive historical parallel as Zhukov attempts a grand encirclement of Heeresgruppe Mitte. As happened historically, I was able to fall back and hold off both Soviet pincers by playing out one additional turn beyond the actual game end just to see. The game could have profited by extending it through February a bit to let the Soviets get into full swing with their counter-offensive. If the Red Army had not been so decimated during this campaign they could have done much more. That said, they recovered Moscow, Tula, Kaluga and Kalinin, prevented the intended assault on Leningrad, recaptured Novgorod SE of Leningrad, threw the Finns back out of Karelia, and hung on to Sevastopol in the south. They're on the verge of taking back Vyazma as the game ends and threatening to pocket three German armies. The Wehrmacht is in deep trouble, on the ropes in fact in front of Moskau, and this is clearly a German loss, the question is--how badly?
[Note: In fact even with the arrival of the Siberian divisions (now that the STAVKA was convinced the Japanese were not going to attack in the east), the Germans were not outnumbered--both sides were on par on the Moscow front. But the Wehrmacht after a 6-month campaign of full-on blitzkrieg, and with tenuous supply lines and without proper winter clothing and equipment, were exhausted and suffered from the death of a thousand cuts, whereas the Siberians were full strength, completely fresh and quite habituated to winter warfare. They pushed hard (goaded on by Stalin and Zhukov) seeking to inflict a total defeat on Heeresgruppe Mitte but they failed, and the costs were high for their advances (Germany had suffered close to 775,000 casualties. More than 800,000 Soviets had been killed, and an additional 6 million Soviet soldiers had been wounded or captured). Hitler was credited with his stand and no retreat orders and there is truth to it. But in the larger scheme of things it's clear the Germans pretty much lost their Ostkrieg in front of Moscow in the winter of '41-42. Hitler's egregious mis-directions and meddling in their Fall Blau 1942 campaign merely underlined this fact.]
