The Zhukov-less Memoirs - GC41-45 M60 vs smokindave redux

[M60A3TTS]

Turn 161 OOB

[M60A3TTS]

20-26 July 1944 (162nd week of the war)

Soviet intelligence reports that certain German officers attempted and failed to eliminate their supreme leader. Meanwhile Rumania totters on the verge of collapse as the Red Army cavalrymen of 8th Guards Army have surrounded much of Rumania's army.



Troops of 3rd Belorussian Front are now only 20 miles from East Prussia.



The Lvov Offensive continues. Now only 20 miles to this important objective.



5th Mechanized Corps of 5th Guards Tank army finds one of the rail lines through the Carpathian Mountains virtually unguarded so it attempts to force its way through.

[gingerbread]

Any chance of getting an Axis T160 after movement save? I want to run the logistic phase for the Soviets. The -21819 disabled in the losses screen shot is very strange.

[M60A3TTS]

Sorry, server game and currently Dave has T169.

[M60A3TTS]

27 July - 2 August 1944 (163rd week of the war)

Leningrad Front has only the port of Kuressare on the island of Saaremaa to liberate before Estonia is free. Riga is liberated as a lone security regiment is driven back.

Troops of the 1st Baltic Front have the honor to be the first to enter East Prussia.

In the south, a major Axis pullback makes the surrounding of Lvov and Stanislav simple task for the Red Army.

The attempted crossing of the Carpathians by 5th Guards tank Army has been thwarted by the arrival of two German divisions.

In Rumania, a period of quiet has largely replaced the sound of the guns. The Rumanian government sees there is no longer any point in fighting along side the Axis and surrenders. Her armies are to be quickly reorganized largely under Soviet leadership.


Estonia



Riga



Into East Prussia



Lvov



Stanislav



Rumania



OOB now over 11 million

[M60A3TTS]

3-9 August 1944 (164th week of the war)

The Red Army continues to surge forward in mid-summer. Third Belorussian Front to date has focused it's advance due west according to STAVKA directives. Comrade Stalin now insists it is time to accelerate the timetable for the re-occupation of the remaining territory in Latvia, Lithuania and the easternmost part of East Prussia now abandoned by the Germans. He orders General Armii Chernyakhovsky to send 1st Guards Tank Army and 1st Shock Army in the northwest direction to seize Insterburg, Tilsit and the port of Memel. This will facilitate the advance of Marshal Timoshenko's 3rd Baltic Front to the west.

In the south, the Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive continues as 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts head for the Vistula. This in turn should force the Germans to abandon their positions along the River Bug opposing 2nd Ukrainian Front.

The Transcaucasus Front under General Polkovnik Kirponos begins its movement north through the Transylvanian Alps with our new Rumanian allies.

[M60A3TTS]

10-16 August 1944 (165th week of the war)

38th Rifle Corps of Leningrad Front's 28th Army moves into the port of Kuressare which formally clears Estonia. In the area of the Courland Peninsula, 6th Cavalry Corps sweeps by the port of Liepaja and heads for the remaining Latvian port of Ventspils.

To the immediate south, 3rd Baltic Front makes considerable progress westwards, demonstrating Comrade Stalin's keen insight into military affairs (even if there are those in STAVKA that will not acknowledge it) [;)].

In sun-baked Galicia, the Lvov-Sanomierz Offensive continues to gain ground. STAVKA has identified possible crossing points as our rifle corps continue their relentless march to the Vistula. Lublin is now a front line city.

Along the Carpathians, the Hungarians and Germans have brought up sufficient divisions to block immediate progress to the west. The North Caucasus Front of Marshal Shaposhnikov provides a partial screen of these forces, allowing General Armii Eremenko's 4th Ukrainian Front to move more easily to the north.

In the far south, first contact with Axis troops has been made by VII Rumanian Corps. Elsewhere movement continues through the Transylvanian Alps.


Courland



East Prussia



Lvov Sandomierz Offensive (numbers are the count of cross river hexes it can be attacked from, 3 being ideal)



Carpathians



Advancing through Transylvania

[Mamluke]

This is getting Intense! you think you can get to Berlin before winter?

a question for all the veterans, don't you think a 10 MILLION MEN RED ARMY is very Overkill!? does he have NO problems supplying such an Army? even the Allies must tremble in Fear of such a Force!

[M60A3TTS]

I won't make it to Berlin until 1945. Too much of an army in front of me.

Comrade Stalin does not have "overkill" in his vocabulary. Ten thousand guns firing at the enemy hex is good. Twenty thousand is better. [:D]

I could kick the OOB up to 12 million in theory by cutting back the tank forces and replacing it with mass infantry, but there is little point.

[Peltonx]

Nice AAR M60, very nice read.

[M60A3TTS]

Thank you sir.

[chaos45]

ya Im amazed at how quickly the game turned around you were on the strategic defensive against a huge german army for a long time. An now its just an unstoppable tide even against 3.5M germans.

[M60A3TTS]

17-23 August 1944 (166th week of the war)

The capital of Prussia, Koenigsburg, is defended only by a single German division which is driven from the city.

The Germans abandon their positions on the River Bug and flee to the Vistula in the vicinity of Warsaw. 5th Shock Armies advances 60-70 miles this week to occupy the eastern bank of the Vistula opposite the Polish capital.

Farther south near Sandomierz, final preparations are made for the storming of the Vistula in this region by 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian Fronts under Generals Vatutin and Konev. To their left, 2nd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts advance 30 miles to the west in the direction of Nowy Sacz. Directly to the south lies the strategic Dukla Pass, an area of rough terrain that separates the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia from the Carpathian Mountain Range of Hungary.

In Rumania, the armies continue to work their way through the Transylvanian Alps.

[M60A3TTS]

Breakout

24-30 August 1944 (167th week of the war)

Fyodor Ivanovich Tolbukhin had commanded the 31st Army of the Kalinin Front in the early days of the war. In mid December 1942, General Maior Tolbukhin was transferred to the Stalingrad Front to assume command of the then 63rd Army. By mid March of 1943 he had been promoted to General Leitenant for his work in the Stalingrad area of operations. Three months later, the 63rd Army was awarded the title of the 6th Guards Army in recognition of the Stalingrad Offensive. Tolbukhin's 6th Guards Army fought well during the Summer 1943 campaign, and he was promoted to General Polkovnik in mid-November. During the drive to the Dnepr, his army continued to battle the Germans to such effect that in late March of 1944 he was promoted General Armii.

Tolbukhin had been passed over for assignment to a front command mainly due to the need for expert commanders of rifle armies, of which there were few. He had accepted his situation without complaint as he now found himself in the hot summer of 1944 advancing in Galicia north of the Dukla Pass which served as the far left wing of Hungary's Carpathian Mountain defensive network.

On the 24th of August, Tolbukhin turned his army towards the pass and encountered surprisingly little resistance. Only two Hungarian divisions were assigned to this area, the 7th and 121st Divisions. Within two days, the Hungarians were forced from the Dukla Pass, and the entire 2nd Ukrainian Front quickly followed. With news of this success, Vasilevsky quickly gained Stalin's approval to supplement the advance with Pavel Rybalko's 4th Shock and Aleksei Rodin's 5th Guards Tank Armies. Hundreds of T-34s raced through the pass, over the River Tisa and across the eastern Hungarian plains. On August 29, the 4th Tank Corps of 5th Gds Tank Army captured the city of Nyiregyhasa. (enables the surrender threshold for Hungary. The escape routes of almost all the Axis forces in the Carpathians by way of the Hungarian rail network were soon severed.

Panic gripped Budapest. The Carpathian Mountains which were to have been a bulwark of defense against the Slavic hordes had been completely outflanked in the north. In the south, the Transcaucasus Front of General Kirponos was advancing to link up with Rodin's troops. The bulwark was about to become a giant trap, with almost the entire Hungarian Army and a half dozen German divisions threatened by encirclement.

To the north, and south of Warsaw, the Germans abandon the Vistula defense around Sandomierz, thus formally ending the Lvov Sandomierz Strategic Offensive. STAVKA planners now worked on the next phase in this area, the Vistula Oder Strategic Offensive



The Carpathian Line




The breakout




Rumania




Over the Vistula



OOB

[chaos45]

that breakout into Hungary looks like game set match....as it will remove basically an entire Axis Army to encirclement. An hasten the remainder of the hungarian armies exit from that game....plus expose a huge flank to the German MLR in Poland/Germany. That pass looks to have been one of the most critical in the game.

[M60A3TTS]

31 August - 6 September 1944 (168th week of the war)

The three Baltic Fronts and 3rd Belorussian Front advance towards the northern Vistula. Once the limit of advance has been reached for the summer campaign, these forces will occupy positions on the east bank and tie down German divisions while the area south and west of Warsaw is cleared. The operations south of Warsaw are the beginning of the Southern Vistula Offensive, the first phase of the Vistula Oder Strategic Offensive. As the name implies, the STAVKA's strategic objective is to reach the banks of the River Oder.

In Hungary, the Eastern Hungarian Offensive progresses without difficulty as the encirclement is complete. Nine German divisions are included in the pockets both east and south. Recriminations and accusations of betrayal fly between Berlin and Budapest.


Vistula North



Vistula Oder Strategic Offensive



Eastern Hungarian Offensive

[STEF78]

What a killing summer 1944 campaign!!!!

Congratulations!!

What about Tolbukhin's memoirs???

[timmyab]

It's inexplicable to me why the door to Hungary was left wide open. A terrible mistake I think worthy of a court-martial.

[loki100]

certainly seemed to go badly for Dave in the south - at the start of the summer perhaps too much protecting the direct road to Romania and then later too much on the upper Vistula? In either case the central route across the Carpathians seemed to be left open.

I'd credit M60A3TTS with exerting a lot of pressure across the front, ever since he forced the Dneipr he's been causing serious problems for the Germans every turn

[STEF78]

I lived 3 times summer 1944 as german, it's a very difficult period to handle. Soviets army is huge, you have to prevent encirclements and you cannot be strong everywhere....

It's a very stressfull period. [:(]

Hold on Dave!