WAW6T- Axis GrumpyMel and Lunaticus

[GrumpyMel]

You can see my ending positions for this sector below:

[GrumpyMel]

Russis Central Sector:

Two armies advance on Moscow from the South and West. 7th Armies guns bombard the outer fortifications. Meanwhile the guns of 2nd Army rain shells down upon the Kremlin itself as my lead panzergrenadiers reach the outskirts of the city! Though the enemy has plenty of air here, I am covering my approach well with air assets and flak. There is a serious line of defence around the city and the Soviets have plenty of thier own artillery. A pretty serious battle could be shaping up here.

Far less dramatic, but perhaps more important, recon elements of 2nd Army reach and capture Saratov unopposed. This effectively cuts Russia in two! It's difficult for me to understand the Soviets allowing this to happen so easly. They've no way to reinforce Stalingrad without this rail link. Do they intend to abandon all of southern Russia without a fight?

It's cleary to my benefit to try to exploit this move. Perhaps I can start to move some forces north from Saratov to threaten the rail line between Moscow and the Urals. Even if it's unlikely I can cut it...threatening it is going to cause the Soviets some sleepless nights.

[GrumpyMel]

Russia Southern Sector:

Little action here, Soviet forces sortie from the Crimean forts to maul and throw back the 5th Hungarians, but I have plenty of units holding the Isthmus behind them. The Soviets are contained for now, and I'm content to let the artillery work away at them. Elsewhere I capture Grozny unopposed. A lead 6th Army unit probs toward Stalingrad. I wonder what sort of defences it has? The Soviets don't seem much interested in defending Southern Russia.

[GrumpyMel]

Med:

Even the Med starts to see a little action as I snuck an Italian Artillery unit onto Sicily and in bombardment range of Malta. They start lobbing shells at the island. This is really just a side show, but it's certainly worth taking some free shots at the Malta defences.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

GrumpyMel,
did you actually send the turn to me? Have not received anything yet...

[GrumpyMel]

Resent it this morining. If you still haven't got it. Let me know

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

September 41:
While the Germans are busy laying siege to Moscow here is an update from the Chinese/Japanese front.
We are happy to report that the Imperial Japanese military was able to repulse the initial Chinese onslaught and in a counterstrike we took the Chinese centers of aggression in Sian and Kunming. This will hopefully prevent further offensive military operations by the Chinese or at least make them more difficult. We are also advancing in the center but due to terrain this seems to be more difficult. The biggest challenge is to get our troops on the Northern front supplied.
Also all preparations for a top-secret surprise attack have been finalized.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

Additionally our troops report that the total loss ratio of the whole war so far is much in our favour.
If we keep this up the Chinese army will become depleted soon.

[GrumpyMel]

Sept 26, 1941

The days begin to shorten as summer turns to autumn and the chill creeping into the air lends a sense of urgency to Axis operations. Our forces step up thier attacks as we know all too soon Winter will be upon us again. Below is pictured a screen giving a sense of losses for the turn as well as the campaign so far.

[GrumpyMel]

France:

The Western Allies maintain thier foothold in Bordeaux. During the Wests turn, air strikes manage to knock out the bridge leading toward his beachead as well as damage some of my reaction forces, however this comes at a cost to his aircraft. My engineers successfully rebuild the bridge and we reinforce the reaction forces. The word of the day is containment. Our response to the allied foothold in France is measured as we need to be carefull not to allow it to impact operations in Russia. I do not need to destroy the allied foothold in Bordeaux, simply contain it. This requires a much more conservative deployment of forces. The West should have little luck advancing beyond this pocket without a significant increase in his own commitment, and simply maintaining it places some toll upon him, particularly his air forces.

I modestly increase my reaction forces to the invasion and place pressure upon the beachead by bringing my artillery into bombardment range. Artillery and air strikes hit the city. Pictured below are the results of the air battle over the beachead. We can see that the Allied has commited a decent number of forces but not nearly enough for a full scale offensive. Keeping these forces in Bordeaux while they are hammered by Artillery and Aircraft should produce a steady stream of casualties and make it difficult to build up enough for a breakout attempt.

The key will be what happens in skies, as an offensive without local air superiorty should proove very difficult and it will be hard for my enemy to achieve that while the city is within bombardment range of my guns.

[GrumpyMel]

Russia - Northern Sector:



The most significant news comes from this section of the front as Lenningrad falls to our forces! After several turns of bombardment by air and artillery, the city falls to the first round of ground assaults by German and Finnish forces attacking from both the North and South. A huge number of Russian forces are captured in this operation at relatively moderate cost to my own ground troops. Losses to the Luftwaffe from the air campaign leading up to this attack have been significant and my fighter forces in this sector along with my ground assault craft and long range bomber forces have been significantly weakened. However the capture of the city before the onset of Winter is a critical factor in the campaign against Russia.



Pictured below is the ground assault capturing the city.

[GrumpyMel]

Elsewhere in the Northen sector, Soviet attempts to push back 1st Armies flanking of his river line defences fail with significant losses to the attackers. This leads the Russians to fall back from the river line and presents 1st Army to advance in force across the river and mobile elements to engage the retreating Russians. This area of the enemy front seems ready to crumble as we push in the direction of Murmansk with only the Russian Winter holding the possibility to hinder our gains.

In the southern portion of the front, 7th Army forces advance into heavy forest, threatening to flank Moscow from the North.

[GrumpyMel]

Russia - Central Sector:

The Soviets have established a solid defensive line at Moscow, using the city and the river line as protection. Thier position is well supported by artillery and air defences and will likely proove very difficult to assault directly. I expect these defences may hold into the Winter and will require a major effort to dislodge. I may attempt to flank them to both north and south and establish a pocket around the Moscow defences, we'll see if this looks to be a possibility. With Lenningrad captured, there are plenty of forces, particularly artillery which I can shift to this sector from there.

My capture of Saratov has elicited a response from Soviet tank forces. Unexpectedly my light recon elements holding the city repulse this counter-attack and I send one of 2nd Armies panzer divisions to embroil the Soviet force in a tank battle (one of the few of the campaign so far) north of the city with losses on both sides. It will be interesting to see if the Soviets have built up much of an armored reserve and have been holding them back from the campaign so far. I haven't seen much evidence of such forces in the fighting up until now. However it is possible my enemy has them and has been saving them for a counter-offensive....it's what I would have done in his place.

2nd Armies mobile elements probe northeastwards toward Gorki and Kazan. If I can capture either, I'll isolate the Moscow defences and cut his lines of communication. My panzers and motorized divisions are wasted when deployed against a well protected static line such as that which the Russians have at Moscow..it's much better to bring my infantry to bare against that instead and allow my other forces to take advantage of thier mobility to threaten the cities to the east.

[GrumpyMel]

Russia - Southern Sector:

Not much activity here. 6th Armies forces are spread over a very wide area, which has me somewhat concerned. However the Soviets don't seem to have many forces present in the sector themselves and as I've cut the rail line at Saratov, this part of the country is isolated from the rest. I have not made much of a move against Stalingrad as I lack sufficient forces to do so. Instead I have finnished capturing the Caucus oilfields and my artillery has nearly reduced the Crimean forts. I have moved one of 6th Armies panzer units to that area to prepare for the possibility of a ground assault once it falls.

Winter will be here soon and I'm honestly not sure what more I can accomplish in this sector before it's onset. If the operations in the North allow for it...I may be able to bring in enough reinforcements to attempt a move against Stalingrad or capture of Sebastapol. That would be my hope, at least... we'll see what opportunity is allowed. Likely it will be spring before I can accomplish both of those goals and have the sector completely cleared.

[GrumpyMel]

Oct 24, 1941

The leaves of the trees of Europe turn blood red as autumn slowly fades toward Winter. Is this an ominious fore-shadowing of things to come for the Axis ambitions of world domination? We hope not, but the reports from this month may begin to proove us wrong.

First to the Med., a Theatre that has seen little action so far. Our U-boats roaming the Western Med spot suspicious signs of carrier air in the region as they probe to see if the straights of Gibraltar might be breached. We spot a significant Western task force steaming north of Algeria, 2 Carrier Task Forces and a Battleship escort force. All of our submarines and the entire Regia Marina which had sortied last month in hopes of catching a destroyer picket near Gibraltar. It is a huge risk, but this is likely the last chance our navies will have at engaging the enemy at anywhere near even odds before the might of the US Navy can be brought to bare upon us. We estimate the battle is near even odds... we take a huge and ultimately ill-fated gamble.

We surround the Royal Navy Task force on all sides and attack. If we are lucky enough to force them to retreat it would mean a complete loss of thier fleet. However the battle turns disasterous for us. We sink the Illustrious and her full compliment of planes along with a few escorts, but the cost is litteraly half the Regia Marina. Clearly the Italians have no fight in them...either on land or at sea... we are best leaving them employed at making meals for our hungry troops. The counter-strike by the West next turn against my crippled fleet may be the end of Italian sea power. If luck holds with me, I may salvage something of this debacle....as the Wests Fleet was at least somewhat weakened by my attack.

[GrumpyMel]

France:

The enemy continues to reinforce his beach-head at Bordeaux. It looks as if he intends to stay, but he has made little attempt to break out so far. It's possible he may even be considering a move against Vichy. His positioning of the RN Task Force in the Med could be indicative of that. We continue to shell Bordeaux with our artilley, but the effects so far ar not significant. At least by damaging the city we are reducing the effectiveness of the planes and ships based there.

We avoid an air-strike on Bordeaux this turn as the West has brought his fleet into shelter of the port and I do not want to deal with the AA fire from his Cruisers. Rather my planes will take a turn to rest and recover strength. The West continues to knock out the bridge leading to the invasion site and I rebuild it just as quickly. I am bringing more flak into the area to deal with this, as he is striking just beyond my CAP cover. I've also reinforced my forces in France...the West may be building up for a push...and if he is...I will stop it cold.

I would love to get some U-boats out into the Atlantic to intercept supplies and reinforcements going into Bordeaux but it is impossible....the Allies have DD pickets bottling up all access points. I decided long ago that I would not invest much resources in contesting the Atlantic so that I could focus on ground forces for Russia....and this is the price I must pay for that choice now.

[GrumpyMel]

Russia - Northern Sector:

The Soviets withdraw eastward toward Murmansk as we press thier defences to the breaking point. My own forces follow and engage as quickly as thier movement allows them. I am able to stage some attacks with my mobile forces to decent effect, although the foot troops lack the speed to join battle against the retreating Soviets. I am able to continue to break open any line the Soviets try to establish nearly as quickly as they form it....but I'm beggining to worry about my troops getting over-extended with Winter nearly upon us. I come very close in some cases to cutting off units, but the Soviets are always able to withdraw in time. If I can keep up the pressure here, I may be able to throw a wide pocket around Moscow from the North, but I'll have to be carefull of over-extending and wearing out my troops.

I have a surplus of forces from the Finn Army that are now free after the capture of Lenningrad. These are mostly SMG's, mortars, infantry guns and Artillery...in other words perfect fortress busters. I am transfering the bulk of them down to 7th Army to help deal with Moscow.
Meanwhile 7th Army is trying to sweep around Moscows strong defences to the North in the area near Yarslavl. If I can push through there I can threaten to pocket Moscow.

[GrumpyMel]

Russia - Central Sector:

Not much to report from here. The Soviets seem to have thrown up a solid defensive line, using the rivers from Moscow to Gorki and possibly beyond. They are starting to hit my panzer forces probing to the east as the wide plains deny me much opportunity to keep under CAP. I lack the right forces for an assault on the Soviet line....I need infantry in numbers for this...which I am bringing into the sector...but no offensive will be feasable until Spring as the Winter will favor the Russians. I'm using my air and artillery to soften up the defenses here at bit. At least by capturing Lenningrad and the Caucusses, I've reduced Soviet production a bit.

[GrumpyMel]

Russia - Southern Sector:

Mixed reports from here. In the Crimea, our artillery knocks out the Crimean forts but the intial ground assault against the defenders is bloodly repulsed. I couldn't really expect more, it's a choke point with a huge garrison. I traded one for one in the attack. Sebastapol is isolated though...so I can replace losses here much better then the Russians....but the size of the garrison means it's going to be a knife fight. At least he needs to worry about feeding them.

Further East, Soviet forces seem to be probing toward Rostov from Stalingrad. I don't know how strong the enemy is in this sector but I am moving to deal with the potential threat as I don't want to risk getting my forces cut off in the Caucuss. The initial Soviet vanguard here is pretty weak and we give them a bloodly nose...we'll see what kind of follow up troops he might have to commit.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

October 41:
In Asia Japan launches the Pacific Blitz against the West.
We sink the complete Western fleet at Pearl and successfully invade the Philippines, Borneo and Brunei to keep supplies flowing. Our attempt to sink the West Carriers in Port on the West Coast was repulsed however and we will likely loose a lot of submarines there.
Next target is Singapore....