Thunder in the East - GC41 NEE K62 (A) vs AtAtack (S)

[K62_]

AGN at Pskov is in a bit of a pickle. Supply is not great, PG4 is rather weak, and recon reveals a 3+ units deep line on the Velikaya making good use of terrain and entrenchment.

Fortunately there is a weak spot in the Velikaya line. Let's take advantage of it.

Pskov phase 1.JPG (106.74 KiB) Viewed 1302 times

Pskov phase 2.JPG (130.06 KiB) Viewed 1302 times

Pskov phase 3.JPG (129.78 KiB) Viewed 1302 times

Pskov phase 4.JPG (112.2 KiB) Viewed 1302 times

[K62_]

Judging by the required MPs to cross the river, the enemy line extends well into depth. Closing the pocket will be unachievable this turn, so I'm aiming for a decent ZOC lock instead. A frontal attack on the southern side proves a tough battle, with Vatutin on the defense committing a reserve division. But Hansen has good air support and prevails despite the marked numeric inferiority:

Pskov phase 5.JPG (230.98 KiB) Viewed 1301 times

I can set up the ZOC lock now:

Pskov phase 6.JPG (243.05 KiB) Viewed 1301 times

map Pskov.JPG (221.88 KiB) Viewed 1301 times

[K62_]

A couple of Soviet divisions get ZOC locked at VL. The Vitebsk pocket is cleared. At Smolensk, I finally manage to isolate the city.

map Smolensk.JPG (141.46 KiB) Viewed 1300 times

[K62_]

In the Bryansk area, the Soviets commit additional forces but they are no match for the combined strength of PG2 and PG3. Guderian closes a decent pocket south of Bryansk and advances to the next objective, Orel. The city is flanked to both north and south and should be indefensible at this point. Hoth creates a ZOC lock for some Soviet units north of Bryansk.

map Orel.JPG (201.34 KiB) Viewed 1299 times

[K62_]

In the Kiev area the Soviets seem a bit stretched. Part of the line is at Cherkassy, which is within easy deliberate attack range for German infantry:

battle Cherkassy.JPG (116.86 KiB) Viewed 1298 times

Combined with a weak point north of Kiev that was defended by just an NKVD regiment, this leads to a decent pocket:

map Kiev.JPG (182.4 KiB) Viewed 1298 times

[K62_]

Further south, Kleist advances to contact at D-town and also finds an undefended spot on the lower Dnepr where several regiments manage to cross the river:

map D-town.JPG (167.55 KiB) Viewed 1295 times

[K62_]

loss ground end.JPG (152.4 KiB) Viewed 1292 times

loss air end.JPG (136.26 KiB) Viewed 1292 times

OOB end.JPG (51.58 KiB) Viewed 1292 times

[EwaldvonKleist]

Nice pockets+ZOC locks. I assume for the Kiev pocket, temp motorization was used on the splitted purple infantry division?

[K62_]

Nice pockets+ZOC locks. I assume for the Kiev pocket, temp motorization was used on the splitted purple infantry division?

Yes, it would have been a ZOC lock instead. Generally temporary motorization is becoming less useful than in the first 2-3 turns but still comes in handy sometimes. Of course, if I could motorize 1-2 korps instead of only one division it would be a very different matter.

[K62_]

Light mud across the entire front slows down operations and creates supply difficulties, especially for AGC:

weather current.JPG (99.34 KiB) Viewed 1124 times

It looks like a respite next turn, but not for AGN:

weather estimated.JPG (100 KiB) Viewed 1124 times

[K62_]

The lower Dnepr bridgehead is opposed by a swarm of Soviet cavalry. This is a dangerous adversary, hard to pin down and easy to slip through any cracks in the front:

ADs Kleist south.JPG (128.32 KiB) Viewed 1121 times

I play cautiously, deepening the penetration while avoiding gaps in the front. The only gap left would require the enemy to cross a minor river into ZOC and make two ZOC-ZOC moves before disrupting supply. This is practically impossible for the Soviets at this stage in the game.

map z-town.JPG (158.69 KiB) Viewed 1121 times

[K62_]

The Kiev pocket has held. I start reducing it while taking up empty space north of the Dnepr and pocketing some stragglers:

map poltava.JPG (192.67 KiB) Viewed 1119 times

The city of Poltava is captured and apparently it held Southwestern Front HQ. Mikhail Kirponos is killed in the battle:

logi leaders.JPG (38.63 KiB) Viewed 1119 times

[K62_]

Guderian pockets Orel along with a few tank divisions that tried to come to the rescue:

map guderian.JPG (129.11 KiB) Viewed 1117 times

[K62_]

Hoth makes a modest advance through the mud with some ZOC locks and getting close to Kaluga:

map hoth.JPG (121.49 KiB) Viewed 1114 times

[K62_]

In the Pskov area, the Soviets are trying to make an escape from last turn's ZOC lock:

ADs AGN.JPG (210.94 KiB) Viewed 1113 times

However one of the regiments of 1st Panzer can just barely make it to close the pocket. Across river, into swamp, ZOC-ZOC etc. the last move costs a massive 25 MPs:

Aschevo pocket closing.jpg (165.6 KiB) Viewed 1113 times

Tidying up the rest of the front I count 9 divisions in the main pocket plus 4 in smaller pockets for a nice total of 13 divisions pocketed by AGN this turn:

map pskov.JPG (211.68 KiB) Viewed 1113 times

[K62_]

loss ground.JPG (127.32 KiB) Viewed 1112 times

loss air.JPG (129.43 KiB) Viewed 1112 times

loss destroyed.JPG (123.71 KiB) Viewed 1112 times

oob end.JPG (49.42 KiB) Viewed 1112 times

[K62_]

The only notable battle this turn is the fall of Smolensk:

battle smolensk.JPG (128.61 KiB) Viewed 1111 times

Overall I'm staying on top of Soviet manpower so far:

metrics total men.JPG (54.46 KiB) Viewed 1111 times

[Zebtucker12]

Defenders of smolensk did not feel like putting up à fight it seems

[Jango32]

Has AtAtack counterattacked any regiments at all this game?

[K62_]

Has AtAtack counterattacked any regiments at all this game?

Good question! The short answer is yes. The longer version is that I've put a lot of effort each turn into making it difficult for the Soviets to attack my regiments and/or get away afterwards. Here are some of the tools I use for the job:

1. SUs
Every exposed regiment will get a strong SU attached at end of turn. The best are the StuG battalions, followed by SP Panzerjagers and the mixed flak battalions. Here is a battle where AtAtack did attack a motorized regiment. The attached StuGs provided a 60% increase in CV and firepower, which successfully repelled the attack:

stug defense.JPG (110.47 KiB) Viewed 1062 times

2.Terrain
The end turn deployment of the regimental screen is strongly influenced by the defensive terrain available in the area (forests, rivers etc.). Here is an example from the advance to D-town on T5. The regimental screen is using the Dnepr river for protection. Any attacking Soviets would have to incur the cross-major-river-into-ZOC MP penalty, which can leave them unable to conduct a DA afterwards and/or stuck on the wrong side of the river. Next to D-town itself, where there is a strong garrison, I have a full division, not a regiment:

dtown advance.JPG (44.04 KiB) Viewed 1062 times

3. Recon
I will advance aggressively into areas shown empty by air reconnaissance. Of course, it is possible the recon was a little off and there are actually strong Soviet forces just outside the spotted area. But this hasn't happened to me yet in this game.

4. General strategic considerations
You can see in the T6 update that I've advanced very aggressively in the Kiev-Poltava area this turn. This is because it seemed unlikely to meet a strong Soviet presence here. There are no VP objectives, while further east multiple VP locations are under threat (D-town, Z-town, Kharkov, Kursk, Crimea). I took a calculated risk that the Soviets would rather defend these objectives, instead of the Kiev region where the main objective has been pocketed already.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of available means as the situation changes from turn to turn and region to region. But I've found it generally possible for the Axis to provide adequate protection for advancing units, if enough thought is put into it. The only successful Soviet attack so far has been against the Romanian tank division. It caused low casualties and I was able to easily pocket the attacking unit the next turn.