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Sil01, Soviet Centre Commander
During the reception of the Central troops under my command, it turned out that the main group of German tanks was directly opposite the junction of the forces of the Center and the South.
A clearly readable blow was to divide the troops of the two Commanders.
Therefore, the first thing the dividing line was shifted to the South so that the reflection of the tank breakthrough was the responsibility of one Commander.

Sil01, Soviet Centre Commander
Then, in the direction of the main strike (2), the depth of defense was brought to 5 hexes.
The calculation is that the tank group cannot penetrate such a defense (or does not dare to do so).
In the areas of probable flanking breakthroughs (1.3), a thin defense was left.
In the depths of the defense, four groups were created to cut off tanks, partially hidden in the mass of troops.
The defense scheme is simple and there is little hope that the Germans will fall for the bait.
We need to fend off the first blow after winter, the most powerful, the most terrible.
To brake tanks in the Center in any way.

ORIGINAL: Beria

T38 Soviet Centre Plans to React to Axis Advance

Sil01, Soviet Centre Commander
Then, in the direction of the main strike (2), the depth of defense was brought to 5 hexes.
The calculation is that the tank group cannot penetrate such a defense (or does not dare to do so).
In the areas of probable flanking breakthroughs (1.3), a thin defense was left.
In the depths of the defense, four groups were created to cut off tanks, partially hidden in the mass of troops.
The defense scheme is simple and there is little hope that the Germans will fall for the bait.
We need to fend off the first blow after winter, the most powerful, the most terrible.
To brake tanks in the Center in any way.

Mamluke
my Plan for Sevastopol is as fallows.



I will only need 10 rifle divisions. NOT ONE is of Guards.
a - 3 rifle divisions for the isthmus. b - 2 rifle divisions + Brigade for the Marsh. c - Hex facing large river: 3 divisions until the river unfreezes.
the small town of Ishun will have 1 division to Ensure the hex holds in Case of Breakthrough up North.
that is 9 rifle divisions for the main Strongpoints and 1 more divisions to help with Forts and defense.
in addition 4 tank Brigades and 5 rifle Brigades. will be all Crimea will have for defense in all of summer 1942.
the Yellow circles are also important spots to make sure the Axis doesn't get a Good encirclement with minimal Mobile units on the attack.

I think this setup allows us to effectively defend Crimea while minimizing the risk of failure with encirclement.
to send any more troops while the South front is in desperate need of units would be Crazy.
having said that, one Guards rifle divisions will stay close to Novorossiysk in case the Germans attack the peninsula, if not it will go northwards.

Mamluke
in case the Germans Bring in Panzers and lets be real here, if they send 2 or more panzer divisions I could MAYBE only counter that with several Guards cavalry corps. and those will be desperately needed elsewhere.



I will fallow this plan, will try to hold the level 4 Hexes.
and also try to hold on to Kerch but if they are really intent on it, I will fall back to the other side of the strait.

Unless they dedicate an entire panzer corps, I can keep Sevastopol for sure.
I will try to defend the choke points at the Crimea, but if things go bad, I can keep Sevastopol for sure.

as long as the Port is functional, we won't lose any units, they will just rout to the Kuban region if they get force out.
we lose nothing really defending the fortress city

Telemecus, Axis Supreme Commander

Soviet Turn as I can see it before recon
Up and down the line ground bombing of the Finns - not intercepted but they still escorted them fully, very little damage done - but we know the Finns were not taken care of at the start of blizzard
A little bit of airfield bombing - showing their teeth
Two hexes successfully attacked and advanced into west of Tambov - the only soviet attacks
No interdiction whatsoever so no indication of any rear areas movement as many air ranges switch low by @xhoel and probably sensibly
Lines seem weaker and have moved back west of Stalingrad/ boguchar area
Also I see a lot of stacked hexes on the 1st line, but no real further lines except west of tambov. This may be just down to detection levels - but worht checking with recon
Trace soviet recon - not overusing it but does not seem targetted?
A lot of guards in far north still and west of Tambov
No recon of airbases yet- but seems to indicate they have some defence of their industrial cities
Motorised units on front lines from Oka to Voronezh roughly - but also we do not have too much to do anything strategic anywhere, so will be mostly tactical level before mud

Our status
Panzer divisions in Germany to rail plus garrisons - so we are going to be maxing out rail cap for a while
Remember the 1942 summer plan in pdf in dropbox - will be thinking of that for reinforcements and what goes where first - let me know any comments
We are 50 k down on the lorry pool and our units are 20 k short of vehicles too
Nothing is on static - do we need to rethink?
The Finns cannot go static and occupy almost everything down to the no move line
We have 383 points - how did we let that build up!

Rail Repair
We have finished the loop through Karelia and are two turns away from the first lateral line behind the fronts north of Moscow being finished
Apart from the loop up to Boguchar everything else is building branches to the front, or shortucts through the rear
oh yes - Crimea still (relatively) far from rail - we are not planning on advancing there
A lof of construction in the corps HQs should be moved to army group level and above

Priority is first branches up to front line to reduce lorry use
2nd loops for the rail around Moscow which is a bit in danger from partisans for a couple of turns
3rd is a line through the marshes
it would also help to have a line to Leningrad and then Talinn - which is what FBD1 will do if not needed to keep up with front
another thing useful is to get rail lines to cities to help with rotations of units in refits used for garrisons

Rail Capacity {Note we were playing before v1.12 which now allows rail capacity to be varied}
There is going to be a big constraint of rail cap for the next many turns. As well as the normal arrivals, we have the units returning from the Tambov pocket to rail back to the front. As well as the usual unfrozen allies, we will have the 2nd Hungarian Army and the 8th Italian army to rail in. We still have many good motorised and infantry units we want to move from garrisons. To replace them there will be some low morale units we would like to railback for refit more than 10 hexes from the front for rapid morale recovery, and generally allies to take over garrisoning of the south while German security moves to garrison the north. Bottom line we are not going to have anything to spare for many turns. I am going to start making a schedule to plan what we can do over the next many turns. There are possibilities now of railing in motorised units near to the front to help with attacks now (Orel, Kursk, maybe Dtown and Ztown too?).

I have made estimates and a broad outline for now but this is where I think we are at

Free Rail Cap T39-T52 380k
Arrivals and Unfreezes in Home Countries to front 185k (note most will be counted twice as needs two turns of railing)
Combat units currently in garrisons to front 55k
Moving units to replace them in garrisons 21k (Note 7 allied units need to be moved from frontlines to garrisons - I have assumed 7 Rumanian divisions)

This should mean we have about 150k spare. This is much better than I thought - but in previous games this spare has evaporated very quickly! There are many uncounted inefficiencies. I have also made assumptions that some units would walk rather than rail small sections of their journey even though they could be railed.

This spare can be used for strategic movement (e.g. 4th Panzer Army south, Crimea Germans to elsewhere). It can also be used to rail poor morale units to the rear for a refit to build up their morale again. A German infantry division will often cost 2000 rail cap, but that needs to be paid going back again. So if we were to use the rail cap for nothing else, we could potentially rail back and forth 37 infantry divisions.

Boundaries
I am proposing that the north-centre boundary moves to the Oka, but also the Centre-South boundary moves to the upper Don. Essentially we are going to be reorienting ourselves south eastwards.

Joelmar, Axis South commander
@Telemecus: you will have noticed that I took the 2nd pz at Krivoi Rog. If you ask a commander if he wants a panzer division, he won't say no! lol!

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

Joelmar, Axis South commander
@Telemecus: you will have noticed that I took the 2nd pz at Krivoi Rog. If you ask a commander if he wants a panzer division, he won't say no! lol!

In the old days they took it even without the offer! Not mentioning any names ... @Sardaukar!

[:D]

ORIGINAL: joelmar

@Zorch [:D]

@Zorch
Something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuqfKnF ... yt%3Acc=on

Joelmar:

Just a few thoughts: at first, I wanted to push ahead straight away, but I'm not sure about the wisdom of it because after analysing things a bit more, I realized I'm a somewhat short of forces yet in the area north-east of Voroshilovgrad and those at hand guarding the left flank are weak. If I push too fast and too far, an aggressive Soviet might make me pay for it.

That said, I was really surprised there were no Soviet attacks in my area last turn. There were a few hexes where defensive CV was very low and facing strong Soviet divisions and I was not confortable with the situation. I was expecting the Soviet south commander would use the opportunity to farm some Wins, but he didn't.

Joelmar:
I am curious now to see how they will react to the offensive operation I have initiated south-east of Voroshilovgrad. You guys say if you think otherwise, but my main goal for the winter offensive is to get on the east side of the Donets and if I can trap a few Soviet units doing so, all the better. Going over the Don to get ready for caucasus offensive might also be a good option. It will depend on what A21 does.

At the moment I have 6pz and 2 mot divs available. I use 2 for defense south of Boguchar, but the rest is now pretty much ready to jump and in a good supply position, so I should have option either for the pincer, or if he falls back or defend in depth, that should open the way to maybe go for a lunge in the direction of Chernyshkov to cut off the rail.