Spring-Summer 1942
As in the regular reports, that has been grim. On a few turns I felt the Germans had overwhelmed my ability to refit/reinforce but in part by running down quiet sectors, I just managed to repair a front line. By about August, I was regularly having to place the Gds Rifle Corps in the front just to block off certain approaches. The fear was of the Germans managing to turn that into a pocket.
Trying to use the VVS in this phase is a disaster. I often had plenty of bombers, but almost no escorts so had to rest the entire air force for multiple turns. Its not just a matter of having less good fighters, its that you can't build experience. By contrast my U2s have bombed their way to high experience:
Leaving them on auto for upgrades has seen a number of formations swap to Sturmoviks over time. When the airgroup size expands, I'll disband a number of these and allocate the high experience pilots to the Il-2s.
Layout of the fronts has become much as expected. However for some time Voronezh Front was actually holding Stalingrad and the SW approach, its redeployment is recent.
Clearly at the moment, the axis are attacking on 2 very narrow sectors, I think I can hold both. Earlier in the Summer this sort of hex by hex battle would have been a disaster but I now have enough 50+ morale/exp formations (supplemented by Gds) to actually win defensive battles – and not to have to immediately pull that unit out for a refit.
In turn, this creates the basis for a plan. No gain any more to isolated attacks, they were useful to divert and slow the German offensive but I still lose a lot, and they are costly when that happens. Need to force a major retreat.
As a gamble, I've really weakened the Stalingrad defence, the Germans haven't really pushed there and I doubt they will this late in the year. Equally the E-W rail link there is limited. If I can break out around Voronezh, anything to the south has to retreat. So Voronezh and Don Fronts are starting to build up. Central, West and Kalinin Fronts are already relatively strong – with my best formations.
OOB for the northern tier, at the moment configured just to defend. The better elements are clustered around Vyazma where they are operating with Kalinin Front but under the command of NW Front.
The Coastal Op Grp at Osinovets is my best hope of breaking out – the Germans at the moment just have a regimental screen but I need to be able to put the wider sector under pressure before that is worthwhile.
Along the Oka, since for some time the various Tank Army HQ had very low TOE used some normal commands to hold the bulk of the armour. Of those 30A, 57A and 52A are essentially tank formations, 5A and 24A are probably the best formations in the Red Army.
Will allocate Malinovsky to a Front command soon.
Of those Bryansk and SW Front have been the main forces holding the line behind the Don and defending Tambov. Voronezh Front has the potential to be a powerful mobile force – just it needs time to build up and improve its command structure. As maybe clear, it doesn't have much armour despite the notional designations of some armies.
Don Front is another in transition to being an offensive force. Stalingrad Front will remain essentially defensive – my expectation is it will advance slowly as the Germans retreat,
N Cauc has had a massive build up to try and cling to Grozny – I never expected the Germans to move so far, so fast and still have high mobility so was almost completely overwhelmed. This has messed up other build ups but no choice. T Cauc is 2 armies clinging to the Black Sea ports, 31A is almost all mountain divisions.
Clearly neither of these has any mobility – I will try to improve the situation for N Cauc.
As predictable, no real supply problems.
Slowly building up a stock of Corps. On map have 22 Rifle (8 Gds), 13 Cavalry (5 Gds) and 18 Tank. In the reserve have 6 Mech corps fitting out and will start to generate a few more Tank Corps – they will fill out the obvious gaps in the OOB but will need a few more turns to reach a decent level of experience.
Outside the Corps have 3 Gds Rifle divisions, 2 Gds Rifle brigades and 11 Gds artillery formations (excl Rocket units). Should see some of the armour convert to Gds once that becomes feasible.
Now starting to convert formations to Corps far more often as the fronts settle down.
So, just, have survived this phase, but will need to start regaining territory fairly soon.
