FITE v.5.0 Ian Soviets larry Axis

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 23.....7th September 1941

Although the Germans capture the small town of Shimsk and wreck the industrial areas on the West side of the river Dnepr at Dneprpetrovsk the Soviets have a better turn and most positions hold, even those under huge pressure East of Orsha.

Another destroyer is sunk by American Naval bombers North of Narva but The Dauntlesses take heavy losses.

The air war turns back in our favour with over 450 Luftwaffe planes downed according to our pilots for the loss of less than 300 Soviet.

In the far South the entire German 60th Panzer Grenadier Division is encircled West of Melitopol by advancing units from the Southern Front and Soviet units are now less than 50Km from the front lines on the Odessa isthmus.

The situation around Narva remains difficult with the Soviet Leningrad Front forces struggling to prevent a !ink up of AGN Panzers advancing North and those trying to push East from the Narva bridgehead. Recent reinforcements to the Leningrad garrison provide some hope however.

A helpful development occurs around Kiev where the artillery resources of the Kiev Command are concentrated on German Rail Artillery and manage to destroy many of the German guns. The infantry and armour on the Kiev perimeter remain in good shape.

In less good news there has been a major crackdown on partisan activity behind German lines and most partisan units are now either destroyed or surrounded...

[larryfulkerson]

I got some new moves from Ian and I watched the combat replay and Ian is railing a lot of units up to the front lines

without any rest. He must be desperate for units. I'll have to keep that in mind. Here's the Smolensk area and

we're still shoving and pushing and the front lines haven't changed from last turn but HRS's are getting killed for no

progress. I checked the losses and there's still 39K HRS's assigned so that's a good sign that losses are low.

I'll show you a picture to prove it.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's some of the losses so far. I'm too hard on my scouts and engineers. Too many of them are going lost,

I'll have to adjust my procedures or something. I'm running low on planes all of a sudden. The air war has heated up

considerably in the last few turns. I can't imagine what's going to happen during the Soviet Winter Offensive (SWO)

in turn 62 or so.

[larryfulkerson]

Hey you guys: I lost about 4 hours of work last night when I mis-clicked

on "shut down" instead of "sleep" and so now I'm going to have to re-do

most of my moves again. Please bear with me if the front lines look

different from what happened in the last 6 images or so. Also, the

"destroy bridge" menu choice is the first one on the menu so if your

finger twitches while the menu is open you might accidently bust your

bridge. It's happened about three times now that I've busted my

bridge by accident. Yes, I know I can repair it again but it's rather

inconvient to bust a bridge when you need to use it just now.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a section of the front lines that's actually very interesting in that I have the possibility of squeezing some

Soviet units so that I can turn it into a pocket and kill some Soviet units. Maybe. Ian's probably going to evacuate them

before they are in real trouble. Elmer would leave them there probably but a living breathing human being might want to

save them. Or not. I'm not sure what's the Ian plan for them. But there's a chance so I want to try to see if it's

possible to make some headway here.

[larryfulkerson]

Gorkie is my code name for the location I can't spell and it's where all the Soviet units move from being dead to being alive again except this time with low supply and almost no readiness and not very healthy. Almost good for nothing much yet. But with a little rest, a gain in supply, the filling up of the equipment slots, and voila....a brand new unit...sort of. Probably not a veteran yet ( the first battle will fix that ) and needing an easy combat to maximize the proficiency change.

You can see how far into the interior I have to go to battle the partisans. They spring up mostly around the marshes and move onto my rails and follow it to wreck as much of it as they can. And blowing bridges and generally making a pest of themselves. I'm learning about leaving some units behind, in the interior, for these kinds of intrusions. They are worth their weight in gold, however, because just these three wrecked the flow of supply to the center part of the front lines about 5 turns ago and it hasn't recovered yet. The advance has stopped. No more driving toward Moscow in the middle. His partisans have saved Moscow for this winter.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what happens with the supply level towards the middle of the front lines

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Orsha area right now. I'm about 30% done ordering all my attacks for this combat round and I've been moving units in OOB order and I've come to a formation in the Orsha area and I was looking for a good place to move the selected unit when I noticed the number of scheduled attacks. It's abnormal. It's like I'm giving this section of the Soviet front lines a huge push simultaneously. Most of the attacks will go nowhere but maybe one or two will give up a hex.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's left of a partisan unit that finally got cornered, ran out of ammo, and surrendered instead of being wiped out to a man. They are making their way to the CP in the rear. They will be interrogated and checked for wounds simultaneously to increase the confusion and their anxiety, with lots of encouragement with slaps and frank hits. Eventually they all talk.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the supply situation down in the Crimea and as you can see it's okay in spots and need something in other spots. We're making do and I've got troops streaming in this direction and they will arrive in the next turn or two. Then I can maybe get the advance going again down here in the south. I hope to get through the bottleneck sometime soon so I can start the Sevastopol take-down. I can't remember if I've sunk the Soviet ships posted near here or not.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's me scheduling another probe on a hex where I can get three adjacent attackers on the same target hex. That's the only place where I can get the advantage that way around the entire perimeter. So I've been probing for a long time now, approaching 8 turns or so now and there's been no progress to the naked eye. I suppose I need more arty yet.

[larryfulkerson]

I have attached here below turn 23 just before I do an end-turn event to generate the combat phase resolution of battles. Just download the zip file, unzip it, load the SAL file as if it were a saved game and do an end-turn to watch all the battles, the most exciting part of the turn. I made a special trip to make this file so I hope you guys enjoy it, I did.

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 24.....10th September 1941.

There is a major effort (no less than 85 attacks) launched by the German forces of Army Group Central and Army Group North with some significant success as my defence line South of the River Luga South of Leningrad bends then breaks as it suffers repeated assaults.
I am confronted with a 40Km gap in the lines with the 1st and 2nd SS Reichsfuhrer Regiments poised to race North towards the Leningrad fortified lines.

A further danger is that the forces from the south can drive North West cutting off Soviet troops still successfully holding off AGN troops trying to expand the Narva bridgehead.

In the South a combined Romanian and German assault on the important town of Perikop guarding the entrance to the Crimea is again repelled with heavy German loss but ground is lost from the Odessa perimeter due to sustained assaults by the 3rd and 4th Rumanian Armies.

Sadly most partisans have been eliminated though in Estonia a desperate attempt is made to cut the rail lines to AGN and the important rail junction of Valga is occupied by brave patriots.

West of Melitopol in the far South the Germans send reinforcements to try and rescue the encircled 60th Panzer Grenadier Division but the encirclement holds and more Soviet reserves are committed to try and destroy or at least cripple the Division.

In Army Group Centre the lines around Smolensk and also East of Orsha are also hit extremely hard and more patching up is necessary to buy more time for the defences further east.

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 24 (Continued)

During the Soviet turn in a major change of emphasis the Soviet Bombers along with Strategic Bombers from the US sent as an Expeditionary Force following the entry of Sweden into the war on the Axis side were utilised for the first time in a concentrated attempt to hit rear supply lines of the advancing Germans. As a result half a dozen bridges were dropped and it is to be hoped that supply will be affected as a way of reducing the intense pressure on Soviet lines. Many German bridging units appear to be committed at the front assisting in cross river attacks so this may also serve a dual purpose of diverting them from this task.

The 60th Panzer Grenadier Division was subjected to land and air attack down south near Melitopol and over 50% of the Division has been destroyed with the remainder still cut off in a 5km area. It is to be hoped the blockade holds until attacks can resume in the first Soviet offensive action of the war.

Rudimentary lines have been constructed following the heavy German attacks of last turn detailed in the update above but it is unlikely they are sufficiently strong to halt the German advance. Seven more German turns until the ceasefire..........

[larryfulkerson]

I just now received some new moves from Ian and I want to time it to see how long it takes me to do my moves
and it's 16:07 local and I'm about to click on "play" on the combat replay.

EDIT: I've watched the combat replay and it's now 16:28 local and I'm going to start doing my moves. And then at
19:46 I had moved everybody and was ready to execute the battles. And then at 21:12 local I sent my moves to Ian.

[devoncop]

Soviet Turn 25....14th September 1941

"All seemed quiet on the generally sleepy section of the Front up 20 Km West of Murmansk. Just before 6am reports came into the Soviet headquarters in Murmansk of a major German landing 50 Km to the North in the near deserted port....There is panic as the Karelian Front armies manning the front are forced to frantically redeploy and it becomes apparent the entire 6th Geb Division has landed and is trying to seize Murmansk and also cut off half a dozen Soviet Divisions........ "

This was the most dramatic development of the German turn though an extensive counter attack in the extreme South has also resulted in furious fighting between Soviet Cavalry supported by light tanks and German and Romanian troops to the West of Melitopol.

Elsewhere the Soviet troops continue to successfully prevent a link up of Army Group North German forces around Narva and partisans remain active in Estonia.

The lines along the Dnepr are also just holding with defenders around both Kiev and Smolensk coming under intense pressure.

In the Soviet Turn the Soviet Air force was again the star and more bridges were dropped and in addition Soviet bombers were tasked with attacking the advanced German airfields and a number of Luftwaffe squadrons were wiped out.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it's looking like around Leningrad right now. I've been fighting over the river crossings for about 20 turns now and not much progress is being made although there's been heavy losses in the battles. I've been using direct CS and I think it's helped but I've no proof. I've brought in the Axis ships too and they function as floating arty. I had high hopes of squeezing the Soviet units inbetween two prongs of my advance but it's not happening. Too much resistance and the loss of combat power by my units as they have become worn down by all the heavy fighting. I'll show you what I mean.

[larryfulkerson]

The supply situation to the NE of the marshes has improved a lot over the last few turns. The conditions are now sufficient to continue the advance. Too bad there's not enough time before the mud season to get very far. And resistance is still very stiff.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a typical regiment chosen at random and you can see that it's got most of it's equipment and is missing only a handful of anything but the readiness is lower than usual and despite that the proficiency is still fairly high.

[larryfulkerson]

I was astonished to find out just now that I had lost 2K HRS squads last turn. That's a lot of squads to lose in one turn. I'm going to have to go on an operational diet pretty soon to make ready for the SWO.