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from bitter experience - I'd say the side trip to Velikie-Luki is actually very important.

you'll quickly practically leave the supply net behind in the Valdai region if you don't have it.

reason for saying this, the key to surviving the first winter reasonably well is a good, interconnected, supply net with a degree of secondary links. That, more than level 2 forts, is what saves you.

practically its often 9 and 16 armies that can fall off the edge of this grid and you end up with too many badly weakened formations as a result. My view is in the winter be ruthless about sending low TOE formations back to a depot to refit - but they need to be able to reach a depot relatively quickly, or you end up with too many of them

Yep, for sure, adding in the back route to Rzhev also a life goal. Doing this in previous two games has given me a pretty secure northern flank before. My real achilles heel before was overstretching to Vorenzh...

T8 AGN

Progress, but 10 miles a week is not going to put us close to historical schedule for sure. Curious to know how heavily he committed to this sector. Its certainly got a large slice of his air power committed too. At least we are causing good attrition and are not completely stalled. We might yet still cut off Leningrad, but not until late in the year I'm sure.

T8 AGC

A definitive split between the green team heading north and the blue team heading east. I suspect they wont meet up the other side of Moscow...

T8 AGS

6 Divisions surrender, a further 9 divisions in the bag in the Kiev pocket plus 2 on the steppes should take a full army off the Orbat. Better than a kick in the teeth as they say. Otherwise sliding along the south of the Dnepr getting ready to cross definitely. Quietly confident he will slip away before that lot can be trapped though.

T9 AGS

Pretty quiet consolidation turn in the south with not too much moving very far while the Kiev pocket is taken down. Circa 120k prisoners taken this week. Looking at the supply net its quite surprising how much is being drawn from the Black sea ports so looking forward to advancing the railhead to Dnepropetrovsk as soon as possible. Just reached Cherkassy this turn.

T9 AGN

Everything supply-wise working as well as might be expected I think up north...

T9 AGC

A few more random things going on in the centre that I need to keep a closer eye on and tweak a little better for sure. Not quite optimal.

T10 North

Bit of an overview of the progress in the first ten turns. Very close to cutting the main Moscow-Leningrad railine but that won't be at all terminal for the Soviets, though certainly doesn't help them. Rzhev holds to the first attack, and in fact the whole line directly in front of Moscow is starting to getting more sticky to assaults with very low CPP so time to take the foot off the accelerator and do things a bit more carefully. Model was recently assigned to 9th Armee so hopefully this helps provide some impetus. We are ahead of history in the centre but certainly behind the curve in front of Leningrad due to the concentrated Red efforts here. Still 90 miles to the lake through terrible terrain, supplies could be better but they are getting through to where they are needed..

T10 South

Well across the lower and upper Dnepr, and getting ready to cross the last stretch in the middle. The Reds and falling back to the Crimea to try to hold the causeways but 11 Armee is in pretty good shape, alternating the spearhead corps to keep building CPP and we should get through ok without bogging down. Tempo of the advance is ahead in the south for sure, with supplies getting through reasonably well. 1 PanzerGruppe might take a short pause soon, but of course we want to keep the pressure on while we are mud-free.

T10 Air

Bit of a turkey-shoot this turn, mostly in the Leningrad sector where the Reds have heavily committed air assets it seems. Feels like AI air assist is tougher on the Soviets at the moment at least. Pretty low survival rate for pilots too with only 16% walking/floating away to fight another day versus about 50% for the Luftwaffe pilots. A lot more Axis losses were operational though so I guess thats a trend.

ORIGINAL: Gunnulf

T10 Air

Bit of a turkey-shoot this turn, mostly in the Leningrad sector where the Reds have heavily committed air assets it seems. Feels like AI air assist is tougher on the Soviets at the moment at least. Pretty low survival rate for pilots too with only 16% walking/floating away to fight another day versus about 50% for the Luftwaffe pilots. A lot more Axis losses were operational though so I guess thats a trend.

Me playing with the Air AI would keep me up at night, not that I am not already losing sleep over the Air war in WITE2. I commend you both for playing with it.

I'm not sure it was a conscious decision to be commended for, it certainly came as a surprise to me I've put all air units on Hold order so I can control where they go which works well enough to have fighter cover so far, I just don't have much control over where reconnaissance or GA, or what GS supports what unit in detail. But its the same for both of us and one less thing to worry (less) about.

You control the GS assignments through which HQ you have the AOG following. RECON works in somewhat the same way where it will setup RECON ADs near the front lines of the HQ the RECON AOG is following. Naval Patrol is also determined by you through the Port selection (which blanks out the Following HQ field).

I have found that putting RECON and FIGHTER AOGs on ADVANCE while the rest are on HOLD works the best.

T11 AGN

Grinding north, still 70miles to go to the lakefront against very slow, but steady progress. We won't beat the weather for sure. I've not had to fight the blizzard in this section without Leningrad having been cut off or falling, but so long as well supplied I guess the terrain should also mostly work in our favour. But there is still a chance to get there I guess...

T11 AGC

Rzhev falls and 2 Panzergruppe pushes through. Meanwhile 9 Armee hits a bit of a wall on the main axis to Moscow but 3 Panzergruppe feels its way around the flank towards Tula. Moscow looks pretty out of reach but we can still make good progress and earn some space ahead of winter.

T11 AGS

The main success story continues to be the south, presumably as he has sent more troops elsewhere of course. Most of 1 Panzergruppe's panzergrenadiers takes a break to recharge their CPP and fueltanks while the infantry take point for a week or two. The railhead not far behind though.

This is the point that the losses and Orbat were taken posted earlier. Game currently waiting on the soviet T14 to return.

T12 AGN

19Pz cuts main the Leningrad-Moscow railway, not terminal in the slightest of course as the railhead could still move supplies up pretty close but I hope to cut it further down near Kallinn soon to put it out of service completely. The west flank voluntarily pulls back 10 miles to the river, the east flank we force back for the same effect. Still a long 60 miles to the lake though.

T12 AGC

9 Armee taking a pause in the centre while the Panzergruppe's push north past Rzhev and almost envelop Tula. We start to build out the rails in the direction of the latter as no roads going in that direct angle and will start to get tough to resupply without it, especially with the spectre of rain and mud on the horizon. 2 fresh panzer divisions will head the Rzhev as they have been on a shoe-string a little with 1 Pzkorps still attached to 4 Panzergruppe. Not that its slowed them down too much really and its given AGN the extra bit of punch to keep driving forward against stiff resistance.
4 Armee has been more focused on pushed east until now but will start to swing north to back up the Tula sector.

T12 AGS

Birds eye view, not too much actual fighting, more pursuit-mode. 2 Armee closes in on Orel with the railhead not far behind in support. 6 Armee heading for Kursk. 17 Armee targets Kharkov. 1 Panzerarmee just a few miles short of Stalino, again with the rails not a million miles behind.