Persistence is a virtue - Encircled (sov) vs Kamil (Axis)

[KamilS]

Crimea (17 start)

[KamilS]

Turn 17 - movements

Not much happened. Velkie Luki pocket was reduced, other parts of front saw little action.

Only notable event was assault on Rostov - I tried twice, without success.

[KamilS]

north (17 end)

[KamilS]

centre (17 end)

[KamilS]

south (17 end)

[KamilS]

Crimea (17 end)

[KamilS]

casualties (17 end)

[KamilS]

casualties part 2 (17 end)

[KamilS]

order of battle (17 end)

[Encircled]

Basically, I'm happy enough with the situation.

My aim was always to hold Leningrad as an absolute priority, and attempt to minimise the advances in the centre and the south.

My strategy in the south fell apart on Turn 8 though, where a combination of poor use of air recon, over confidence in Russian 5th Army (my failure to make sure that the Dnepr line was secure) and an unpleasant shock on finding the effectiveness of HQ build up resulted in the collapse of what had been up to then, a textbook Russian defensive strategy.

Opening the turn 9 up to find Panzers in Poltava, and across the Dnepr had me massively concerned for a mega pocket from his forces west of Bryansk to Poltava, and I had to use far more of my rail capacity than I wanted to try to evacuate what was pretty much of all of SW Front, included all my remaining decent tank divisions. That put a dent in my industry evacuation, and more importantly, he was threatening several major industry centres at once.

I got away pretty much of the Donbass but I lost Kharkov (got the T-34 factory out though), Poltava, part of Dneprovotosvosk, Z-town, Taganarog. At one stage it looked like he was on the verge of taking Voronezh and Tula, and I was seriously considering pulling troops away from the north

I'm not sure Kamil will agree, but my offensive in the North towards Riga had one aim, and one aim only, force him to move Panzers and Motorised units from the centre and the south to the North, and it basically worked.

I'm now in a position in which he has very stretched supply lines in the south but a lot of territory to abandon if required, he's fine in the middle, and I'm very happy with the North.

Winter should be interesting, but its clearly going to go into '42, and I need to make sure I'm prepared, as he's got lots of Soviet territory.

[KamilS]

I haven't managed to achieve my objectives for summer campaign.

Not enough divisions were destroyed, not enough industry captured.

I am not regretting abandoning Leningrad, because it was in the south that I managed to achieve any considerable successes.

Since turn 5 I was fighting (and loosing) battle with time. AGN was extremely weak, AGC crippled and creating pockets there was very problematic. AGS for long was in great shape, but constant HQ built ups wore it down eventually too.

I always tried to have at least one corps using that option. Usually it was more, as many as gained AP let me.

I was really thankful for Encircled's offensive in the north - to be such strong there he needed to stay weaker elsewhere, and it let me advance fast, even in the centre. I switched my pz forces north when chance of capturing Tula and Voronez started to drop to 0. Moreover I managed to create two medium sized pockets, what brought me to inflicting 3M casualties. Absolute minimum.

My forces are in tragic conditions and winter will be hard.

[KamilS]

Turn 18 - end

Summer and Indian summer are over and so is fighting. Weather didn't disappoint and across whole Russia we got snow. Not bad begging of mud period.

I used favourable conditions to adjust my defensive lines. Nothing major, I didn't want to commit to much forces, because trench digging got absolute priority.

Other busy department is chain of command. I finally can do it - no more HQ build up for a while leave me with nice pool of AP.

I don't show effects of Encircled's actions, because they are as impressive as my, and it practically would have been spamming.

[KamilS]

centre (18 end)

[KamilS]

south (18 end)

[KamilS]

Crimea (18 end)

[KamilS]

casualties (18 end)

[KamilS]

Turn 19 - end

Second turn of mud has came and gone. It was snowing, so both sides were able to attack were possible and dig everywhere else. Not much happened overall.

[KamilS]

Turn 20 - end

Finally mud arrived, and normally I would have not made single attack, but I got pleasure to be assaulted by sea - north shores of Azov Sea. I got enough mobile reserves to react react fast. Thrown forces were sufficient, because it was only probe - 4 brigades overall.

[KamilS]

casualties (20 end)

[KamilS]

Turn 21 - end

3rd turn of rainy weather (2nd of mud). Only fighting that took place was in far south - south west of Stalino, against remnants of Encircled's amphibious assault.