1.05 PBEM AAR: Another Year at the Front with Field Marshal Noob

[karonagames]

Sitrep End December 1941/beginning January 1942

Well, I think I have dodged a bullet! I have to own up to sweaty palms when opening Turn 26 to see how mauch damage had been done during the first turn of Blizzard attacks. When I saw less than 90k losses and only 20 retreats I breathed a huge sigh of relief. The remaining turns of December looked like this:

[karonagames]

T29: The north is relatively quiet:

[karonagames]

T29: As expected, Rzhev and Vyazma fall and a strong push towards Smolensk:

[karonagames]

T29: the Kursk-Belgorod line holds well:

[karonagames]

T29: As does Kharkov.

[karonagames]

T29: Most holds are in the Ztown region, and the Italians even manage a counterattack:

[karonagames]

T29 OOB: I am less than 2.5m effectives, but Stephane is still under 4.0m

[karonagames]

T29 Rifle squads: I managed to stay above 16,000 squads.

[ComradeP]

Those are some low Soviet CV's.

[Flaviusx]

Yes, the Red Army is in terrible shape. Those CVs are practically preblizzard values. Being as low as 4 million doesn't help, but can be managed if at least you can assemble some kind of rested and trained force out of that to lead the offensive. No such force exists here, it is all uniformly poor.

[karonagames]

There are some 9,10 and 11CV stacks under the battle symbols in the Smolensk screenshot.

edit: I checked back to the T25 turn, and there were several units in the Rzhev to Vyazma sector that had a CV of 7 that were down to 3 and 4 by the end of the month.

[ComradeP]

Yes, but as Flavio notes, those are essentially pre-blizzard values, which ought to be doubled by now.

Admittedly, in my last blizzard offensive vs. the AI, many of my stacks were also at pre-blizzard values by February, but not in January.

[karonagames]

Sitrep end of January/beginning of February.

This month I receive the benefits of reduced attrition and reduced attacks by the Red Army. Weekly losses are no more than 55k per week and the number of attacks dropped from 25 at the beginning of the month to 21 at the end, 10 of which were "Hold" results.

In the far north the Finns carried out their blizzard offensive, but this turned out to severely weaken the Finnish Army.

[karonagames]

T34: I expected the Valdai hills to hold him up more than they seem to have done.

[karonagames]

T34: He continues to push towards Smolensk

[karonagames]

T34: but not much pressure from Bryansk to Orel

[karonagames]

T34: Or from Kursk to Kharkov

[karonagames]

T34: I am actually pushing him back from Ztown>

[karonagames]

T34: And in the Crimea I take advantage of the snow conditions to continue my Drive on Kerch.

[karonagames]

T34 OOB: