t53 May 1942
An offensive from Kharkov
With the fine weather coming back, so has resumed offensive operations. Specifically, the German has massed several panzerkorps to breakthrough our defences South and West of Kharkov, in the general direction of Voroshilovgrad, supported by operations in the infantry armies from the Azov sea up to Belgorod.
Our answer is 1/ to retreat a bit and create a buffer zone controlled by rifle brigades. 2/ to redraw the main line of resistance and get its armies on full refit, 3/ to move 3rd and 4th Shock armies to backup the line and 2/ to insert the newly created Voronezh Front armies between Bryansk Front and South Western Front in order to strengthen the defense in the area. We'll see if it can absorb the shock.
Rifle corps and tank corps are created at a steady pace now (two of each or so each turn) to beef up some selected armies.
On a minus side, we experiment some shortages in heavy bombers (IL-4) : the production of the evacuated factories won't peak before t60 and has some trouble coping with the losses induced by our aggressive air campaigning. It is not a huge problem though - we have plenty IL-2 and Pe-2 to do the job.
