T49 Axis - The plan ahead
With the first part of the spring offensive completed (the destruction of the Russian forces in my AGCS zone, i.e. NE of Gomel region), I now have some better clarity of the battlefield so we take some time out for strategic thinking.
Thanks to my manoeuvring, most of my panzers have yet to be committed into battle and remain fresh from their winter in France. As a result, my panzer replacement battalions are becoming trained and are being attached directly to motorised infantry and infantry divisions. These provide a nice little extra 'punch'. Note that replacement panzer battalions will not be auto assigned to a battle by an HQ like a normal SU might be, so they must be manually assigned to a division. This is something that I worked out in my previous game against MSAG.
This review produces the following short term plan (my longer term aims remain under wraps for OpSec reasons)
- T49 AGCS start of turn.png (3.77 MiB) Viewed 1419 times
Starting in the south, 11th Army (purple) will attempt to force an enclave to the south of Stalino. At the moment, this single army (plus some ragtag allies who aren't worthy of mention) is advancing across the entire width of the Donets Basin. Thanks to our earlier subterfuge operation (once the rains had lifted, I had split down panzer and Hungarian divisions to represent a show of force to Soviet air recon), I seem to be getting away with a cautious advance despite facing a materially larger Soviet force. I shall need to concentrate 11th Army southwards, near the coast of the Black Sea to make such a salient. My allies can occupy the central zone west of Stalino, they are better than thin air but not by much.
1st Panzer will crunch eastwards from Karkiv along the Donets River valley, slaying Russian formations where it can contact them. It will then thrust south, threatening to join up with 11th Army and encircling Stalino. Vet seems to hate losing formations, so I expect to capture the city without a fight.
17th Army (olive green) will support 1st Panzer with its infantry and protect its flanks to the north.
2nd Panzer (light blue) will thrust northwards, bypassing Kursk and join up with elements of 4th Panzer (pink) heading eastwards between Kursk and Orel. Again this should ensure the fall of Kursk without a fight.
From there, 2 Panzer will join forces with 4th Panzer to charge northwards, bypassing Orel to the left. 4th Army will display in front of the woods around Bryansk. An assault will hopefully not be required through this filthy terrain, as once again the panzer armies' flanking manoeuvrings should force the Soviets to abandon their positions.
Voronezh is a target of opportunity, but it is fairly easily defended and it is awkward to attack from the SE. Most likely we will not try to take this city at this juncture.
3rd Panzer (not shown on the map) will continue its operations around Smolensk and threaten Vyazma. The Soviets are entrenched and have some of their best troops in this region. It is tasked with keeping the Soviet formations committed and give them a bloody nose when we can. We are not expecting it to advance for this phase of the campaign.
For this phase, we are focusing our efforts on the central regions of the map. This should make our supply easier and operate with interior lines of communication. In contrast, the Soviets will be forced to defend exterior lines, which will make it harder for their armies to act in concert and oblige them to defend a longer frontline than our own.
But before we can get underway, there is some irritating admin to be seen to
- T49 Tedious.png (815.12 KiB) Viewed 1419 times
That tedious little man in his bunker has put this clown in charge of one of our key armies. Normally, I'm not too bother about army generals but a 3 for mech is not acceptable for a panzer army. He will have to be replaced, which will mean switching 4th Pz to Army Group Antones. Antones is pretty useless but has an excellent 9 political rating which makes it very useful for switching army commanders. Changing a panzer commander will not impact its assault bonuses as long as you meet the usual criteria.
Opps, I got a bit cocky there! Anyway, those Huns did a marvellous job over the last few turns in masquerading as something that they are clearly not, that is a fighting unit as Vet has just brutally demonstrated
.