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The final Crimea situation. The SS Division that had led the assault has withdrawn. The 2 Panzer divsions are also leaving the area to head to the Moscow offensive and refit. For the first time we have located a Soviet Rifle corp.

Recon shows that the area around Stalino was weak and the cities of the Don Basin are held by 1 unit each. Rather then let another opportunity go to waste the Moscow operation is put off for a few weeks and 1st and 4th Pz are unleashed for a strike at Stalino and perhaps more. 2nd Hungarian army opens a hole and the breach is widened by 2 corps from 18th army and 6th army. 2 full Panzer armies pour through the breach and find the Don Basin cities defended by mere fortress units that are quickly overrun. Rail,HQs and airfields are also overrun.

Due to the fact 2nd and 3rd Pz armies have been sent north the whole southern part of his line cannot be pocketed. Perhaps a strategic mistake on my part but at least I will have forced him to either withdraw or risk another large pocket as my Panzer troops did very little fighting after exploiting his weak spots and are still in good shape. I also moved forward with 11th army and assaulted his front. For the most part he had brigades along the line so the Italians got some nice morale boosts for little loss.

In the long term its probably more important that I sent the other two armies north and started the prep for the July jump off. He seems to be moving a lot of troops south so this operation may be just enough of a distraction to make Moscow a tad easier.

In the Kharkov area the front was smoothed out and the river line occupied. About a dozen divisions were pulled out of the line and sent north while the Panzers went south. Several other divisions were pulled out for refit.

In the Moscow area things are gearing up. I have tried to hide the build up as much as possible but his recon is getting better and better so its just a matter of time before he sees it. Hopefully it takes him a few turns to reorient his armies form the south as thats where he seems more dense. I also kicked up interdiction to slow him down.

Kills this turn were 30 units and over 200k. Loss ratios are very much in my favor with about half of the losses I had Axis allied units.

His air force continues to get beat up. He loses a lot of airframes with interdictions and of course airfield overruns.

OOB wise I seem to be in good shape. At least his army is not growing for this turn anyway!

LOL

Both PDH and me tried to convince 76mm to get rid of the carpet defence and try a DEEP defence: successive lines... just like the Soviets did.

He did not listen. And here go his carpet things. Destroyed [8D] The successive defensive lines will be destroyed TOO. Ok... but no matter what, you would have faced fortified units 10 or 15 hexes behind the front-line... Rinse and repeat [;)] It's what I will be using during the '42 defensive campaign.

I am not sure what his defensive philosophy is but it clearly is not keeping me from tactical success. Strategic success? Not sure yet.

You better not try any of that attacking malarkey in our game because I will be most annoyed [:D] just for your info real life has got in the way but I hope be able to finish my turn either tonight or tomorrow.
Manstein63

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Nice opening!

This is one of the few AAR's that has gotten to 1942 with what should feel like a "traditional" 1942 campaign for the Axis, so I will be interested to see how it all turns out.

Yep, this is very interesting and a good AAR! Please keep it up!

Woow great AAR...hard to see a winner yet in the balance...

Not much to report this turn. He withdrew in the South to keep from being pocketed but I managed to pocket around 8 or 9 units.

In the center the build up continues and the first line of forts was dented in.

Air losses 10-1 in my favor this turn.

More action to report!

When the turn was returned I had an interesting development as 76mm had done some attacking. He had actually opened up a corridor to the Mius river pocket using some high quality mountain divisions.

While he did open the pocket what he did not realize (I do not think anyway) was the 3rd Pz army had been rerouted off the railheads where it had been lurking near Z and D town for a month and was hiding under the Italians. Before the final commitment to Moscow I wanted to wait 2 more turns to see if he sent reserves north. The result of his attack actually put several more quality divisions in a potential pocket that were weakened from attacking. There were 9 Pz Corps in Position to take advantage of any situation that presented itself.

Here is 3rd Pz after moving the Italians out of the way. Maybe I am just dreaming it up but I seemed to have achieved
operational surprise to an extent as his defence seemed a little off as he had a few weak hexes behind his main line containing airfields, brigade only defenders and HQs.

That does look promising. Do you have enough inf strength to bust a hole north of Gorlovka? I think with 18th (11th?) you might. Send 1st and 4th north and there's a nice bag of good Soviets to pocket.

After some fighting and exploitation the final result was the Mius river line cracked and major bridgeheads established as well as now 13 units in a pocket. This time if he chose to relieve the pocket all of the Panzers were much better organized and stacked together.