ORIGINAL: hfarrish
I am playing a 42 campaign for the first time (and for the first time as the Germans overall as well). Did you move all your armor up north immediately? Seems to have paid dividends - I went for pockets in the South and then pulled out and refitted armor before sending it north to try the same thing. Had to settle for attempting to pocket part of that salient, and the end result is still to be seen.
Interested to hear how you set up the panzers for the pocketing operation...
I had visions of the strike towards Leningrad as well, but your result is looking like what I feared...may just be too far from the salient to pull off. Hope you can make it work!
Hugh
Since every wannabe historian would expect a strike south, I gave my opponent what he wanted. I assaulted south the first turn with all of my infantry, supported by 2 panzer divisions. My opponent took the bait and moved reserves behind the river line, anticipating my remaining armour to make a debut.
He would see them soon enough, however not in the South. The first turn I had already begun relocating 4th Panzer Army, reinforced by 2 more Panzerkorps and the Wiking SS mot division from 6th Army, 1st Panzer Army and Army Group South reserves. I was able to pull 4th Panzer army away because by then I had straightened my lines enough to fill the gap with infantry from 2nd and 6th Army. 11th army, with it's essential infantry that would have to keep my flanks secure, had just finished capturing Sevastopol and would be railed towards Smolenks from turn 2 onwards.
In turn 2 my lines were straightened enough to merge my regiments into divisions and create a cohesive line. By then, most of my armour had been gathered around Smolenks, and I used them to eleminate the pocket north or their location, before gathering a few miles behind Rzhev. This was all in the same turn, so perhaps I should have waited one more turn, before gathering around Rzhev. It might have prevented my opponent from discovering me 1-2 turns too early.
The key in this scenario I find is to strike hard and fast at unexpected locations, or risk getting bogged down. For example, he managed to gather 3 guard division and raised his defensive value from around the 10 to 40+ at the spot chosen for the breakthrough. That was in the same turn when he discovered my mass of troops around Rzhev, and he could probably send more reinforcement if I allowed him.
Although 11th army was still too far away to make the opening assault, I decided to go ahead with the operation 2 turns earlier then planned. Since 11th Army was still 1 week away, I had to use part of my armour from 4th Panzer Army to make the breakthrough. Because of that, I did manage to reach the Valdai hills, but didn't have enough mobile troops to get close enough to Moscow to prevent him from building up meaningful defensive positions there.
Still, all was not lost. I had hesitated from the beginning between capturing Moscow and swing north towards the Fins and 18th Army. Now the choice had been made for me. I chose to cross the river at a weakspot and managed to penetrated 70 miles northwards during the first week of fighting. Although I did encounter several entrenched units, their was no real cohesive defensive line that could stop me.
I tried to keep my flanks secure, and every hex of my flanked was filled by an infantry division. However, I underestimated my opponent, and he had gathered 5+ tank corps that managed to sweep away my infantry and cut off my spearhead.
Luckily I had a reserve that had enough combat value to drive them away, but he had cost me the turn. Still, I used that turn to HQ build up. So you need not to fear, I anticipate that I will reach 18th army by turn 9
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