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Heh heh, like it comrade, but no, I fear we'll be digging in and trying to guess where the 10 missing mech divisions are going to show up. Once the German show their hand, I may (or may not) have more offensive options, but my main priority is expanding the Red Army in time for the summer, which suggests a boring force conservation posture, as they say.

Turn 37

The final turn of the blizzard.
I finally spring my surprise on the Finnish armies, after three months of preparation ....

On the NW Front, the armies adopt a defensive posture, and some of the front divisions are set to static to minimise attrition losses

As does the Moscow front. To the east of Moscow, 60 Army has been pulled out of the Vyshny Volochek sector to refit and form part of Stavka's strategic reserve.

One last victory: after the usual reconnaissance in force by brigade sized units, Tula is stormed.

To the east we can see another army in the strategic reserve, the first combined arms army I've created myself, temporarily placed under the command of the Southern Urals MD, just in case that helps in any way. In the south a Moscow Defence Zone army, temporarily lent to SW Front for the attack on Kursk/Kharkov heads back to the Capital, where it now falls under the commend of Bagramyan, the battling Armenian.

In the south, Crimea, Trancaucus and Southern Fronts begin to pull back from their exposed positions, the curses of abandoned villagers ringing in their ears. The Transcaucus army, which is the 44th under the demoted Popov, will be another Stavka reserve army, well to the south east of Kharkov. I'm not sure how seriously I take the threat of a drive to the Azov, as mentioned by some of my commentators.

So, now we await the Germans snow offensive. I can detect, but not identify, units in reserve to the north west of Kharkov, so one possibility is something like this:

The difficulty with that move, for the Germans, is that I now control Kursk,* and the north side of the Kharkov salient forms a kind of support pillar. I'm not sure he has enough room for the attack. Other possibilities are an uppercut against the long, exposed and relatively weak NW front, although my own offensive against the now isolated Finnish army might dissuade the Germans from that option. The Germans have retained their position around Vyshny Volochek and Moscow, so a resumption of the drive on the Capital is not out of the question, and two armies are being sent there as deep reserve. An attack in the south is unlikely before the summer, as the Soviet controlled territory will slow up German forces and the armies of the south have very good morale after kicking seven shades of sh*t out of the Romanians - the average is greater than 50. That just leaves the line between Kursk and Tula; I have no reason to expect and attack here. I'm looking forward to getting the next turn.

* I forgot to mention this in my situation report! The Germans pulled out. 00000436.gif]

Turn 38
The German's strike back. I wasn't sure how much of a push Bomazz was going to give his strategic counter attack - quite a lot, going by his previous playing style. As it turn out there are only to relatively modest advance, and neither were where I was expecting them. The first was at the hinge of the NW front.

The second was at that section of the line in front of Orel where I had "no reason to suspect an attack was imminent".

Soviet responses.

Despite the fact that almost all of their elements are unready for combat, 7th and 55th armies are sent to hunt down the Finns.

Elsewhere it is a matter of strengthening the join between NW Front and the Moscow MD with Western Front's 60 Army

Despite the loss of blizzard bonuses, it is possible to open the mini-pocket before Orel.

It seems that Bomazz has not committed his reserves, so it looks as though there will be a bit of an anti-climactic end to the fighting. I'll post updates from time to time, but I'm not expecting great events until the summer. Back with more in a week or so. If anybody wants a closer look at anything, I have a lot of screen shots that I haven't posted.

One Question . Why chase the Finns ??

One request. No Soviet AAR has really talked about the mechanics of constructing a deep fort belt with screen shots to show it's formation . It would be interesting to see what you specifically do (and don't do), SU's, HQ's, stacking, etc.... I would love to see screen shots (like the above one at Orel) to see your game plan. I think this may be one the most important skills for the Ruskies to have (and many don't.)

On the whole, the geometry of the front suggests that Kharkov will be important in the summer, either as the base for an attack south to the Sea of Azov, as in Terje's astonishing offensive in his game, or east to Stalingrad, or north to meet another pincer from the Tula area. I took the advice of another poster (apologies, I forget who it was) who suggested using the paratroop brigades to dig in on the river line. These were supplemented by FZs with attached sappers. (This help the zones to dig, and means that there are experienced sapper brigades around when you're creating your armoured corps in April.) Finally, each army lends two divisions to the back line. Towards the end of the blizzard, when the Red Army has a breathing space you can create a reserve army from each front, and two or three freshly raised ones to man the lines.

In the screen shot I've marked down three possible tries by the Germans in the summer. The lines, in yellow, are meant to defend against them, either by making pockets harder, or by giving the front armies something to fall back towards, as in the defence of Moscow. The east west yellow line at the bottom will be manned by Southern Front's 38th Army, released by the shortening lines at the front.

I'm listening and learning.

I raised my question above about chasing the Finn's when I saw Bomazz's foray north of Moscow.

It seems that the space you regained in AGS creates a buffer zone that if your southern fort line traced Rostoz-Stalino-Kharkov, Bomazz's "red" and "blue" options would offer little in turns of isolating units. It would be a nightmare to plan such a huge withdrawal and to give up so much territory that Bomazz can use to his ad when he falls back to Berlin, but it's a change in the front line that you control and force him to face, probably unexpectantly, particularly if you can mask it's withdrawal. Bomazz's loss of many dependable Axis allies units during your blizzard offense will make it difficult to cover the front . This may make the tough decisions he has for his summer "O" even harder to make.

The real threat axis from the 'Red Arrow' attack is towards Rostov, bypassing Stalino fortifications to the north instead of scrubbing west of them. Combined with a race for the Crimean neck a lot of troops could be trapped if you're not careful.
I'd put a fort in the port just west of Rostov now and start entrenching the swamps and south side of the river. Make him pay if he wants to get across the lower Don and unlock the new Army Group.

Hitman: the Finns are isolated, so I'm trying to get some at least to surrender, which would have a big effect on the strategic situation in the north, imo.
Seminole: Good advice, and I will probably take it. All the same, I don't think a drive like that would succeed, given the present balance of forces.

An update on this game. We have reached turn 47 with one more mud turn before the summer campaigning season. The Red Army has laid down a 50-70 mile carpet across the front, despite having only a little more than 6 million soldiers under arms. Intelligence reports two concentrations of German armour, well behind the front line, one vaguely north and the other vaguely south. The implication is an attack on a wide front. Natually, Soviet dispositions are top secret, but I will post screenshots once the German's have shown their hand .....