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Our response in this sector was to strengthen our lines and prepare for winter. In the words of our north commander Elloboloco, “The goal of North Command has been to preserve the major industrial and population center of Leningrad for the Soviet Union. Now, at the end of the Axis opening campaign, we have been successful in achieving that goal. Due to good defensive terrain, stubborn resistance, and the continued movement of 4th Panzer Group to the south and east, we have been able to establish strong defensive lines well forward of what is normally expected. That trend continued this turn and has enabled us to prepare several important units for winter combat. The situation in the Leningrad front shows continued stubborn resistance along the Narva river and in the forest area just north of Pskov. Movement has been slow for the Axis, with one hex at a time changes and occasional counter attacks from Leningrad Front's 23rd and 28th armies. To the east, the situation has been the same in the North West Front area. This front extends from the Shalot river to near lake Seliger in the Valdai Hills. Again, small one hex at a time combat has characterized the fighting here. The swamps and hills make great defensive terrain. Further east, from Lake Seliger and south along the upper Volga river is the area of Stavka armies under North Front command. These armies are destined to become the core of the new Volkhov Front when it arrives next month. Meanwhile, they are opposed by AGN's 4th Panzer Group. This group has made a one hex penetration across the Volga right at the junction of our North and Center fronts. Hopefully, considering the lateness of the season, we can contain this penetration. And who knows? I feel a chill and dampness in the air.....anything can happen!

In the central sector, the Axis made two major thrusts, with 4th Panzer Group across the Volga north of Rzhev and 3rd Panzer Group supported by 9th Army along the Volga to the south of that city. Meanwhile, 2nd Panzer Group pushed forward on a broad front in the land bridge region. Our forces were powerful and strongly dug in and offered stout resistance but were driven back in several places. Third PzG managed to drive a one hex wide salient 50 miles into our lines. Meanwhile, 2nd and 4th Army’s infantry pushed forward against the weak screen offered by our 3rd and 10th Armies to the south of Vyazma, capturing the major city of Bryansk. We evacuated all factories a couple of turns ago, but it is still unfortunate to lose something like 6 manpower centers. A German FBD is moving forward along the rail line leading to Bryansk, suggesting that 2nd PzG might shift its line of attack southwards for the snow turns. Tula and Orel are lightly defended and Tula still has its very large armaments complex.

In this sector, we at first considered a flexible defense to withdraw before the Panzer ball but decided on a counterattack instead. In two steps, Rudolf Schmidt’s XXXIX Panzer Corps was first driven “back” into the farthest eastern-most hex seized by the attackers.

And then attacked there and forced to rout through our lines.

Unlike the last time we routed a panzer formation like this and destroyed a grand total of 13 tanks, these attacks inflicted some serious harm on the German panzer force. A total of 180 tanks were knocked out or damaged, and I think the damaged guys are pretty likely to have been destroyed in the process of routing. Almost 10,000 personnel casualties, from some of the best units in the Wehrmacht, completes the good news for our forces.

In the preceding images, you can see the cavalry and some infantry forces in their training zone behind Moscow.

In the rest of this sector, we set strong defenses in the land bridge region while continuing our slow withdrawal in the Bryansk area. In front of 4th PzG along the Volga, we set up a defense in depth. The army is not currently supported by any infantry at all, meaning that an attempt to dig deeply into our positions might find their guys surrounded and spending the whole mud period out of supply. We confronted 2nd PzG with a fairly solid line of 30-ish defense strengths in level 1 forts. Again, an all-out offensive on the last turn before mud would risk pocketing that could inflict significant attrition losses. And if they manage to pocket a few hexes of our guys next turn, we will have a turn to counter and reopen their pockets.

In the Bryansk Front sector, German 6th Army, reinforced with one corps possibly transferred from 17th Army, continued it push towards Kharkov. Sixth Army’s push to the NE along the Sula River will end up encircling three or four divisions next turn. Otherwise, this is a fairly quiet sector. German rail repair looks to be aiming to complete a north-south linkage, with one FBD moving north from Cherkassy, while another is moving southwards in the vicinity of Mogliev.

In response, we put extra CV into Sumy and Gadyach to prevent any dramatic moves east, while giving a few hexes to the east. In general, here, and throughout southern sector, our strategic goal has been to encourage Axis forces to move north to south instead of to the east. Any supplies and fuel they expend and fatigue they gain marching at 90 degrees from their intended path are gains for us, even if it means we lose a few divisions in the process.

At the southern end of their line, Axis forces continued their push towards the Donbass cities. They didn’t quite get to ZOC-block Stalino. We have intentionally left 15 Armaments factories in Stalino in order to attract German attention. No doubt they would have driven for the Donbass anyway; there are manpower centers and resources there that can’t be moved. Getting across the Don must be a critical strategic objective for them, especially given their great success in rail construction in this region. Their rail repair was blocked for two turns by our defense of Zaporozhye, which fell this turn. Therefore, they were finally able to move their railhead across the Dnepr – meaning they got their rail line farther east than I have ever gotten before mud in the south in games I’ve played as the Axis. They now have significant German infantry forces across the Dnepr as well, with at least two corps of 17th Army present along with most of 11th Army. However, the flanks of their armored push were mostly held by Italians and the 8th SS Cavalry, a unit historically better-known for chasing fleeing Jews in Belarus and fighting Polish partisans than standing up to actual Soviet soldiers. Also, now that 17th Army has arrived on the Dnepr, the only Axis ground units between Denpropetrovsk and 6th Army’s troops north of Cherkassy are Romanians.

So, again, we decided to chastise the Axis for their inattention to their flanks by cutting off their supplies. A couple of attacks were necessary to clear the flanking forces out. Making the second and decisive attack against the 8th SS required bringing some of our fragile airborne brigades out of their rear-area blocking positions. Even if they get beat up next turn, though, it is probably worth it given that all of 1st Panzer Group is not going to get any fuel on turn 17. To deepen their supply woes, we made a few attacks against units within the pocket, further burning supply and knocking down morale.

To the west of Denpropetrovsk, we launched local attacks against the Romanian blocking forces, while some high-quality units of SW Front moved up to the river. We are also looking at an attack out of Crimea, given that only Romanian infantry is present on that front, too. This turn’s counterattack there was a costly failure, though.

Total losses this turn were 141,984 Soviet to 46,184 Axis. Air losses were 651 to 194 (55 German fighters or FBs). Deployed strength is 4,991,182 Axis (3,389,299 Germans, down about 32K from last turn) to 4,562,007 Soviet (up about 53K from last turn). In the air, 6,198 Soviet aircraft (down about 100 from last turn) face 3,161 Axis (2,220 German, up about 270 from last time).

Connect 4 AAR, Turn 17
Turn 17 marks the end of the first clear season of the game. Our opponents appear to be taking a conservative approach to the impending bad weather, withdrawing their armor and motorized formations from the front and slowing the pace of their attacks. This is a good point to revisit the events of June 22nd – October 9th.
The first thing to note is the remarkable progress of Axis rail repair. I did this map with the turn 18 rail drawing over a screen shot I’d taken a couple of turns before, so the unit positions aren’t accurate. But the success the Axis had with logistics is clear. I have never seen so much rail repair beyond the Dnepr, nor, for that matter, such a robust rail net in the Velikie Luki/land bridge region. The trade-off is that there is almost no progress in the north – a few units are working in the vicinity of Pskov, probably coming out of 16th Army – and until the last couple of turns, nothing in the Steppe sector south of Smolensk. In the last few turns, an FBD started working down from Smolensk towards Bryansk, while another worked south from Vitebsk to Mogliev and a third came north from Cherkassy. The Axis are clearly hoping to connect their two nets north to south on the east side of the swamps. Their supply situation is exceptionally good for this point in the war, and this will make our winter offensive less impressive.

The next remarkable thing about this game has been our success in keeping our units alive. As of the beginning of turn 18, the Red Army has lost a total of 109 divisions. Total manpower losses were 2,453,772. This is a little ahead of the historical toll: Red Army losses in the 3rd quarter of 1941 were 2,817,303 according to field reports (this somewhat understates actual losses because many men’s enlistments in the chaotic days of summer 1941 were never reported before they became casualties or records were lost when unit HQ’s were destroyed). Somewhere around 160 Red Army field divisions (Rifle, Motor Rifle, Armor, Cavalry, or Mountain) were destroyed in the actual Barbarossa. However, in games I’ve been involved in, the Axis is almost always able to inflict more casualties than this in their 1941 campaign. At a comparable point in the 2by3 game, Soviet losses were 3.7 million and about 275 divisions. In a two-player game I’m in, the numbers are 3.4 million and about 250 divisions. One consequence of this success has been a shortage of armaments. This is a historical problem: the Red Army has so many men that we are having trouble finding enough guns for everyone. “You, have a rifle, you, have some ammo. Follow him, when he dies, take his rifle.”

The overall Axis plan appears to have foreseen an all-out offensive towards Moscow in the closing phases of the Barbarossa campaign with a secondary commitment of one and a half Panzer Groups to the southern theater. Prior to that, they made a serious commitment to the capture of Odessa on turns 2-4 and then tried for a two-pronged attack across the Dnepr on both sides of Kiev. There was a command change on turn six or so in the southern theater (from Joneleth to Belgavox) that may have come with a shift in emphasis from the south to the center, or perhaps it was always their intent to push us back across the Dnepr and then turn their attention to the center. The northern theater was never a priority for them – as our original northern commander, Dade, said after turn 1. Here is a rough track chart of the movements of the Axis armies during the summer campaign (this map has the correct unit positions for turn 17):

They completed the opening-turn pockets, attempted a super-Lvov unsuccessfully, saw us open those pockets with immediate counter-offensives, and then appeared to effectively abandon the idea of pocketing our units. Their moves from turn 3 on focused on capturing strategic locations. The capture of Odessa proved crucial to their quite effective logistical campaign in the south. Aside from that, grinding progress in the north got them into Pskov. Their late-turn armored drive in the south fell short of the Donbass cities. And the main Panzerball took Vyazma but was unable to cross the Volga in force or drive beyond Vyazma towards the big prize of Moscow.
Some of their reluctance to drive their motorized units through our lines may have sprung from the many times we were able to isolate their spearheads. We were never able to destroy any German armor, of course, but we were able to rout them with significant losses on a couple of occasions and regularly hamper supply. With limited supply, their motorized forces were often short on movement factors and thus unable to attempt pocketing moves even had they wished to try.
A final important element of our successful defense this year was our effective air campaign. Starting by turn 3, we were regularly shooting down more German fighters than they were producing (about 25 fighters plus 5 fighter-bombers per turn). About turn 10, the Luftwaffe withdrew from front-line combat. Most fighter squadrons cycled back through National Reserve and spent a turn or more in rear area bases on rail lines refitting. For the last couple of turns, the German air force returned to the fray with rejuvenated squadrons, but we were once again able to begin to erode its fighter strength. Meanwhile, the biggest punch of the Luftwaffe, their Ju-87 squadrons, never really recovered from the thrashing of August. Looking around the German air bases on turn 17, the largest Ju-87 squadron has 25 aircraft (out of 40), while the others range from 4 to 12. Total deployed dive bombers might reach 100. Their level bomber fleet withdrew from front-line action earlier, replenished its losses, and spent several turns strategic bombing a variety of targets far in the rear, presumably in order to build experience and morale. They have at least some level bomber units on night missions.
With at least air parity over most of the front, we were able to have air support in most of our combats in the last few turns. It is unclear how effective our bombers were, but their presence must have contributed at least some of our successful defensive battles.
The Axis air has been ready throughout the campaign to interdict our forces in great strength. In the first few turns, this resulted in slowing our units and preventing some from escaping pockets. However, once the lines became stabilized, it is hard to see what advantage this has given them to make up for the increased fatigue. We have taken advantage of this tendency on their part by moving units that they have good detection on – from front-line positions – around behind our lines where we have plenty of AAA and defensive fighters in order to provoke a reaction. This is part of our general air strategy of seeking to fatigue German fighters and inflict casualties whenever possible.
Meanwhile, the Red Air Force is quite healthy despite sustained losses in the 500-800 a week range. Our best regiment has an experience of 90, we have 12 squadrons in the 80’s, and more than a page on the commander’s report in the 70’s. We even have a Guards air squadron, the 1GShAP. We have begun to experience some severe fatigue issues as our higher morale permits longer stays in front-line airbases. We still have respectable pools of first-line aircraft, although we have burned through our stockpile of older models (except for the 313 DB-3B’s).
Of note on the list of our best air squadrons is the presence of units still flying older equipment. The 69 IAP-PVO is flying I-16’s and has an experience of 88. 287 IAP is flying I-153’s – biplanes! – with an experience of 81. We made the decision not to spend AP on manual conversions of aircraft models. We set some of our good squadrons to “upgrade only” but mostly let the program decide when to upgrade. It appears to have worked out fairly well. Who knew that those I-153’s still had some usefulness left?

Turn 17 was reasonably quiet. In the north, the German infantry made a couple of unsuccessful attacks, but mostly dug in. We responded by strengthening our own defenses and making a few spoiling attacks where their defenses seemed weak. We made a number of successful air attacks against Finnish targets, building experience in Leningrad Front air units and sharply weakening the Finnish Air Force (which doesn’t have much ability to bounce back).

German motorized troops withdrew from front-line positions in the Moscow region, presumably headed for cities in the rear to avoid the first winter attrition. Kalinin Front and the STAVKA Armies to the North, the future Volkhov Front, took advantage of weak German opposition to press forward across the Volga and recapture a few hexes of the land bridge.

In the Steppes sector in front of Orel and Kursk, Bryansk Front had no hope of re-opening the five-division pocket created last turn by German 6th Army. We resisted the temptation to commit resources to this region and instead sent 26th Army from Southwest Front to seize the right (south) bank of the Dnepr upriver from Dnepropetrovsk to serve as a jumping-off position for our winter offensive.

In the south, First Panzer Group remained in its forward positions southwest of the Donbass cities, and was even reinforced. The Axis apparently are hoping for a good weather turn during mud, or extended snow, in the South Russia zone that will permit them to advance and take the region. We have encouraged them in this delusion by leaving the armaments factories in Stalino. Meanwhile, cavalry divisions withdrawn from the front over the last few turns are refitting in difficult terrain – swamp, rough, forest, city – hoping to avoid notice by German recon planes and expecting to turn into cavalry corps and be thrown against the flanks of the Axis position in central Ukraine. Similarly, airborne and motorized units have been withdrawn from the front to rear area positions more than ten hexes back where they can regain morale and receive replacements most efficiently. Both sides of the extensive Axis salient in this region are held by minor allied forces, mostly Romanians in the Dnepropetrovsk region and the Crimean entry and Italians and Hungarians along the Azov shore. With luck, a mobile force winter offensive supplemented by airborne operations will be able to cut off and destroy a significant part of the German armored force. At a minimum, the possibility will oblige the Axis to withdraw behind the Dnepr, limiting the damage they can do in 1942.

Casualties this turn were 107,750 for us and 37,299 for the Axis. Aircraft casualties were 497 for us and 192 for them, including 29 German fighters and a ton of Finns. Deployed forces were 4,641,072 for us to 5,009,057 Axis (3,394,779 German). We were up about 80k and they up about 18k. Deployed aircraft were 6,464 for us (up 270 from last turn) to 3,291 for them (up 120 from last time – some planes came back from National Reserve).