The last turns i always had time constraints so i didn't write further aarposts. I just finished the 13th axis turn.
Now i have some time again so it's a good opportunity for a review of the 41 operations from the axis viewpoint.
AG North had to cede her Panzergroup in the first turn already to AG Center, so AG Center could also cede Panzergroup Guderian to AG South in turn 1. So my operational planning put the Schwerpunkte on the Center and the South.
AG North, stripped off her fast forces had as minimum goal for 1941 thus only to advance to Pskov and Veliki Luki. These goals have already been achieved. Russian resistence seems rather low in this sector though, so AG North will continue to advance until severe russian resistence is met. This way we either gain more ground or tie some russian forces which will be missing on the other fronts.
The finns do hit and run tactics. Unfortunately their forces are not strong enough yet to try a major offensive vs. Leningrad on their own. But they suffered nearly no casualities so far while damaging a few russian units and tieing up quite a few in Leningrad.
My goals for AG Center have been:
A. Quick advance to Smolensk, ignoring Minsk with the fast troops in the hope of overrunning a potential russian line there before it is too heavily fortified and guarded. This has been very successful and the russians also lost lots of fighters there in vain attempts to contend for air supremacy in the center. This has granted me complete air supremacy in the south from turn 1 onwards.
B. After the situation around Smolensk is mainly cleared do not wait for the infantry to catch up but immediately advance southeast, main goals the factories in Orel, Kursk, Bryansk and Voronesh. I could have tried to go for Moscow instead, but chose the above plan in advance already and sticked to it. My reasoning has been:
-The surprise moment. Moscow looks like the next logical goal, so russian defenses in the southeast direction are most likely rather thin and thus easy to overrun.
-Northern Pincer in case the soviets put a major effort into trying to hold Kiev or launch a counteroffensive there (since i ignored Kiev as operative goal for AG South).
-For some time, roughly till the infantry advances near Smolensk my Panzers threaten Moscow nontheless, tieing down soviet forces there. When this threat is gone because they are too far south the infantry most likely has arrived and can keep the threat on Moscow alive and maybe try to capture the city if the russians do not keep enough forces there. So either way i profit from the situation, whereas a classical operation typhoon is risky because the soviets tend to defend moscow best.
And finally the South. There i ignored Kiev on purpose and decided to head into the donetzk and kharkow area instead. Only an infantry army (Reichenau) has been assigned to the Kiev area with the goal of "kampfkräftige Aufklärung" (is there an english term for this german military phrase ?). Eventually thanks to my northern pincer from AG Center and the option to start a southern pincer from the kharkow area Kiev would be doomed anyways. In Case Arch had tried a major offensive there i would have let him gain some ground probably and then depending on his success either made my huge pocket with the 2 pincers or if it would have been weaker likely immediately stalled it with directing some new production to the area in combination with some tactical bombing.
I have 2 more turns of good weather for sure but Arch has two quite powerful armies around Kharkow and Stalino. I underestimated his forces there, so it might turn out as a mistake that i splitted my 2 panzer groups in the south a couple of turns earlier. I am worrying especially at Kharkow, there the supporting infantry divisions are behind some turns.
Strategically the soviet union is quite damaged, they have been at 15-16k pp since some turns while the axis has gained some pp every turn so far and is currently at about 22000 pp.
