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In the south, heavy fighting continued in front of Dnepropetrovsk. I managed to re-open the pocket that the Germans had formed in their turn, but couldn’t return the favor by pocketing the German armor in its turn. I really wanted to have a pocket of German tanks at the beginning of the mud, ah well. I kept my positions this time, counting again on that mud to stall our lines where they are for now and give me the time to withdraw or prepare a counter-attack.

The methodical German assault on the Odessa pocket continued, gaining another hex. At this rate, they’ll have cleaned me out of there by February.

I’ll sure feel like an idiot if it doesn’t rain next turn.

And I took a screenshot of my air force at the end of the turn. I started out hoping for a respectable number of air units with experience in the 80’s by the end of the summer, and I got six, with a page of units in the 70s. This is a respectable outcome, in my opinion, though not overwhelming. I think the Germans still have the upper hand in the air:

Resuming our game after a hiatus of about two months, and my reaction to seeing my position again was “Jeez, what a mess!” Guys out of position, armies overloaded, fronts really overloaded, poor generals in charge of important fronts, good units relegated to rear area positions and untrained idiots up on the front. I guess I have learned something about playing this game. My first mud turn took about eight hours and the work is nowhere near done.

The first priority area is replacement of underperforming officers in command of armies and air HQ’s. The commander of Black Sea Fleet – soon to be the Trans-Caucasus Front air HQ, had a 3 morale and 4 air level. There were a few other very poor officers who had for some reason not attracted the attention of the NKVD. Fifty AP doesn’t go very far, though.

The next priority was to arrange supply delivery for four armies in Leningrad Front that aren’t likely to be fully supplied. These are the 7th Independent, up at the north end of Lake Ladoga, the 55th around Sviritsa, and the 8th and 23rd in the Leningrad pocket. I need many more Long Range Air HQ bases and regiments in the Leningrad region to fly enough supply to keep these guys running. Also, my priority for the winter offensive has to be the northern front, specifically the town of Volkhov. If I can clear that hex, then repair the rail lines, I will be able to supply the Ladoga Front. If I can advance beyond the Volkhov and open the two smaller Ladoga ports, so much the better. No sign so far of German bombing of the ports; I have assigned two air bases to the Sviritsa region with about 100 fighters, and next turn I’ll get a bunch of AAA assigned to the city.

Here’s a shot of the situation on the northern front. Not much change since last week:

In the center and south, there are small salients on both sides. In both cases, Twig withdrew a bit from the front of his salient and I from mine. Unlike the historical armies, we appear to have no interest in holding useless penetrations into the enemy’s lines. Especially since in a few turns it will start snowing and the German tanks will get a couple of turns to play, and then our boys will have several months to return the favor. And there are a lot of us.

Here’s the central sector, around the land bridge:

I really need some new army HQs in there. I’m tempted to create a few using AP’s.

And here’s the far south:


I shipped a couple of new brigades into the Odessa region and have a pair of divisions set up to join them next turn. We’ll see if we can break out of there, link up with forces coming from the southern Dnepr bend region, and put some hurt on the Romanians.

In the south-center region, around Kiev. there were a couple of German air bases with planes on them in range of my fighters. We only managed to get 22 German fighters this turn, though, meaning a net increase of the Luftwaffe. There are a significant number of Luftwaffe aircraft on the map, more than I have in my own game as the Germans. Twigster’s withdrawal of the air force for the last couple turns of summer apparently permitted a more or less complete rebuild – his squadrons are all showing in the 30’s for numbers of ready planes.



Pretty soon, I’m going to get two new front HQ’s, which is good, and I already got one army HQ from Trans-Caucasus. I committed most of my army HQ’s to fronts already, so I have to figure out what to do about rear area refit and dig armies – I may just end up having them be part of the fronts and too bad about the fronts being overloaded.

Oh, and we are apparently playing with non-random weather, which I didn't realize before. Makes all that sweating I did about the weather seem rather silly.

anyone seen Twigster? I started a game as the soviets against him, but after sending back the first turn, I never heard from him.

It might have been just a terrible turn, i don't know

I was also about to start a game with Callistrid, but he also vanished.

I am suspecting a conspiracy.

90% of conspiracies are actually cock-ups .... but even hypochondriacs get ill!

One never knows for sure!

As I say, he returned from the hiatus in our game and has sent me two turns. I think life was getting in his way.