XXXXVI Mot Corps expands its bridgehead over the Dnepr River and then crosses south of Zhlobin and captures Gomel on the march. XII Corps secures the western bank of the Dnepr while helping pocket two Soviet divisions still on the west side of the river. XXIV Mot Corps captures Mogilev and crosses the Dnepr River. XXXXVII Mot Corps penetrates the Soviet land bridge defenses to a depth of 30 miles.
XIV Mot Corps completes the northern, pockets another Soviet division and advances to the outskirts of Berdichev. III Mot Corps captures the area around Kalinovka and forms a pocket there. XXXXVIII Mot Corps is heading southeast to help on the drive on Odessa. The two infantry corps (XXIX and LI) move up to help eliminate that new pockets next turn.
Unfortunately I can no longer capture ready rails so the 1st PG FBD is going to be busy this game. But there is a pretty good rail net already formed from Riga throughout the Baltic States. I create a depot at Valmiera for the air base there.
I create depots at Pukhovichi and Bobruisk to support the 2nd PG and 2nd Army. The 3rd PG FBD has switched over to the double rail leading to Polotsk and created a depot at Krivichi.
The Hungarian VIII Corps moves up near Brest Litovsk to start working on the double rail going southeast from there. The Rumanian FBD is working its way north towards Proskurov. The 1st PG FBD continues working the double rail to Proskurov from Lvov putting Tanopol now on the rail net.
I air supply Nadiymanske, Proskurov, Gomel, and Ostrov. I build some more Hungarian and Rumanian garrison depots. I handle the Reserves. This turn I got a large number of LW Light Flak units. I only put three of them on REFIT figuring there is probably a shortage of equipment for them. I have already moved up the HQs.
I just thought of it and double checked but this is the first game I have played in a loooonnnnggg time that von Manstein has not died by turn 5. He is still alive! In fact I have not lost a single leader at all. Very unusual for me.
Soviets have bounced back up to 3.3M. This is going the wrong way! All branches of the Soviet Union (manpower, guns, afvs, and aircraft) are definitely increasing faster than I can destroy them. Hopefully this is just their activation bounces and not a long term trend.
All of the supplies are now being routed through new depots. Note that Parnu is routing supplies that came in by rail not by sea. So Parnu is connected to the rail net already. That bodes well for 18th Army supply. I am changing my strategy and building new depots on the furthest dot on the rail that I make it to. I will allow that a railyard > 2 will be the depot instead. This will cut down the use of trucks without being as many depots as I have build in the past.
Tarnopol is definitely online and going strong as a supply depot now. I balance the depots - those that supply combat units are set to 4 the others are reduced to 1 if they are far to the rear or 3 if there are nearby airbases. Ports are always at 3 if they import supplies or 1 if they export. I have also reduced Warsaw from 4 to 1 as the start of my 'pulse' tactic.
AGN and AGC have advanced pretty far from the bomber bases. The other AOGs on ADVANCE have advanced along with the armies they are following as the supply net has improved. I set the rest of the AOGs in Luftflottes 1 and 2 to ADVANCE to keep them up with the front troops and decrease the range to the targets. Everything looks good in the Air Directives (other than the SUPERIORITY Directives) and the air losses are low.
3rd Rumanian Army continues to collapse the pocket and force trapped Soviet units to surrender. One 11th Army Corps isolates Odessa by land while there is an attempt to force a hole in the Soviet defenses to allow a panzer thrust and cut off the main line north of Odessa.