I hadn’t planned on starting my offensive until turn 162. However, my unexpected break in central Finland has caused me to reconsider. Larry has responded aggressively and unless I call his raise I’ll quickly lose the initiave that I have (at least temporarily) gained in this sector. So I accelerated my preparations and launched the offensive on Turn 153, 12/6/42, about a month early.
My plan was for a large pincer movement to eradicate the bulge in the Donetz bend. If you'll look back a page or two in this thread you'll see that Larry had correctly predicted my objectives, although he probably didn't know exactly where the blow was going to fall. The northern hook will strike out towards Krasny Liman’, mainly due to the three rail lines that exit the city and cross the Donetz. If I can capture those bridges I’ll be able to threaten a lot of real estate. The southern hook launches out of Shakty. I had wanted to use Rostov as a base and follow the coast but Larry has insisted on keeping up insane pressure on the city. There’s no point in attacking his strongest concentration of units. The 2 pincers will meet in the vicinity of Stalino.
Although you don’t see it in the picture there is some serious hardware gathered for the northern pincer. I had to keep it dispersed until the last minute so as to not give away my plans. I couldn’t hide the southern concentration but since Larrry was used to seeing a lot of troops down there maybe they wouldn’t draw much attention.
The first week of the offensive went well. Both my pincers achieved good progress. In the north they entered Krasny Limon and even captured an intact bridge over the Donetz. In the south the spearhead kept kareening northward due to the heavy concentration of enemy troops across from Rostov. I need to get it back on line otherwise the 2 pincers might miss each other completely.
Central Finland is also creaking under the weight of the offensive. Bolstered by my shock bonus even the lowly NKVD divisions are gaining ground. I’ve got an army in reserve there. If I commit it at the right time and place I might be able to drive the Finns back across the isthmus.
Elsewhere my attacks are constant, if unspectacular. I am attacking literally every point along the line. For every attack that succeeds four will fail. But that 1 success is all I need to rush some armor into the breach and start wreaking havoc.
As of Turn 157 I have a bridgehead across the Donetz. Both spearheads have been reinforced with fresh armies. I might have to take a turn to swap out the tired units for fresh ones. There’s a few other places on the line (see Larry’s diagram) that I’ve also had some unexpected success so I’m rushing reinforcements to those areas to take advantage of the breach.
Updates to follow.
