T15 - Soviet Perspective
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Disaster has struck the Soviet forces. The encirclement of Leningrad is complete with the lifeline across Lake Ladoga now closed. I was able to open it in my turn but it will be shut again in the Axis turn which means another turn with no supply (including replacements for my VSS which I need to contest the air war here). I was only able to put up resistance to the naval indirection if my aircraft in Leningrad were able to be replenished each turn but they didn’t this turn due to being cut-off. There are now ~270k brave souls now isolated. A few turns ago there were ~500k units in the pocket but standard battle losses as well as Osinoverts port evacuations means the overall losses from encirclement is now lower a few turns later. Each turn I was able to move ~2 units out via naval transport so an unmitigated disaster has been reduced to marginally smaller unmitigated disaster. This is a less successful Soviet Dunkurk moment!
On reflection there are a few lessons I’ve learnt here. Be extra vigilant on protecting the double rails to Leningrad. On turn 7 my double rails were broken from a suicide motorised regiment that just had enough MP to reach the rails (literally 1 less and it would have fallen short!). This created a challenge in keeping the Leningrad front going as there was never any surplus supply in the area including Leningrad city. When it is clear Leningrad would fall as I had expected many turns ago, plan ahead on which units (if any) you are happy to let be encircled in defence. I’m glad I was able to get some units out but there will still be ~270k losses which is much higher than it should be. The lack of supply meant from the double rails being cut meant that my troops were never able to entrench as there was no spare supply to do so.
Not much action happening across most of the AGC front. Axis forces are well entrenched and only making minor attacks west of Vyazma every now and then. My recon shows there are still some motorised elements around the area but I haven’t scouted any Panzer divisions so perhaps they have been moved south to help with their advances there.
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Another huge battle around Stalino this turn. I surrounded a hex from 5 sides, 3 divisions stacked on each hex in order to concentrate 200k troops, 2.3k guns and 800 tanks in this battle. The VSS continue to contribute to battles around Satlino uncontested by the LW. Despite winning the battle, Soviets incur losses of 5-1 in manpower and 10-1 in AFVs. Despite the heavy soviet AFV losses, many were on obsolete models with the T26-M1937 and BT5 M1934 making up ~300 of the losses. There was still ~50 T34 losses and ~10KV1 losses which are my modern AFVs though.
Axis losses weren’t as high as I would like with most AFV models being destroyed 38(t)e or Stugs. Some good damage on enemy artillery and infantry guns though, especially the 150m howitzers given Axis only produce 15 per turn. The two Axis infantry had high CPP so at least that’s all been wiped back to 0 following this attack however my forces are in turn also weakened so hopefully my counterattack doesn’t result in a breakthrough of my lines next turn. On the whole I still think it was worth it as my AFV losses were obsolete models that aren’t used in the Tank Brigade TOE and Axis will have a hard time supplying those units (refits + supplies/ammo).
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Sevastopol had fallen with only a token force holding the fortress (~20k). Unfortunately, these units were not routed and instead retreated so they are now isolated and the remaining units will be destroyed next turn. I pulled out most units from Stevastopol to reinforce my fortress as Kerch. I was a little late in setting up my Kerch fortress but luckily I was able to leave some units at Foedosyisa to buy me time whilst I built up a fortress at Kerch. 2 turns ago I created a fortified region and attached 2 construction units to it to build up fort levels asap and that worked as 2 turns later, I have a lvl 2 fort. There are a lot of axis units here including a panzer corps so Kerch is still likely to fall but hopefully this can slow it down. In hindsight, I should have set up this strong point a few turns earlier.
Lastly, with the process of Guard conversions starting sometime shortly and the aggressive defence I’ve done so far this game, i have a number of units already eligible for guard status. I have 2 rifle divisions with 7 wins, 2 with 6 wins, 1 on 5 wins and a further 12 on 4 wins. I need to be extra careful not to get these divisions pocketed and destroyed as their win counter will reset if that happens.
, what a blunder on my part. This fortified zone looked lightly defended, and I might have just had the MPs to slip one of my motorised regiments into the hex if I had captured it. Something tells me that it won't be so lightly defended next turn.
Check the odds before launching the attack (something I failed to do with the LAH in the north too)
