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You have perhaps 2 more months to attack, then the mud/rain arrives; you might consider that to be the time when you should take a good look at terrain, and redeploy defensively.

Tank brigades can be combined into corps in April, just in time for the panzer rush.  The corps are kinda small, don't expect them to take on a panzer division by themselves.  Their early TOE has no heavy tanks, so a lot of KVs will be unemployed for awhile unless you order up heavy tank regiments ( sadly they feature only 21 tanks ).

15/1/1942 STAVKA

Well the sighs of relief were palatable in the op room as the reports slowly filtered in. Comrade Stalin even smiled, or at least people claim he did. "Deadbolt" hit home this week, trapping the 19th Panzer division behind a wall the enemy can't easily breach. The 17th Panzer division was also cut off though the door is held shut only by the lone 32nd Tank Bde. The 3rd Infantrie (M) is isolated by our advancing forces just south of the 17th Pz.

Near Kiev after being blocked last week the 45th Tank division, our last remaining such formation breaks free over running the 52nd Torino Italian infantry division with the assistance of the 197th Rifle division. The Italians rout hardly a surprise given the formation mustered only 6562 men, and 82 guns compared to our 19,000, 187 guns and 152 tanks including for the first time the American Stuart. The Italians lost 1683 men and 17 guns to our 168 men, 2 guns and 6 tanks. But this left the 45th Tank free and it swept west and south its mechanized patrols converting a huge area to our control, including STAVKA's designed future defence positions and some vital rail junctions. This move plus other attacks in the region which routed the 8th, 13th and 21st Rumanian Infantry divisions, and retreated then routed the 1st Rumanian Armoured dvision leaves the 299th Infantrie divsion not only surounded by nearly 30 km behind the lines.

Other attacks to the south rout the 5th, 7th, 10th, 15th and Frontier Rumanian Infantry divisions clearing at the end a gap which the 11th Cavalry Corps exploits through. It is now in the clear and its presence threatens the supply lines of the 6th Panzer and 14th Infantrie (M) divisions. Combined with other movements a substantial part of the enemies southern force is threatened.

In the north the Volkhov Front's 48th Army is in the position it has wanted to be for weeks now. It's five cavalry and mountain cavalry divisions ware poised to break out. The stubborn resistance of the 161st Infantrie division which took two assaults by the 246th and 368th Rifle divisions to clear out held back the cavalry but his forces are stretching near the breaking point from what our scouts report. The 2nd Shock turns south to try to break through and trap the enemy against the 22nd Army and the 1st Shock, if they can punch a hole in the enemies lines. It is also worth pointing out that the partisans behind his lines seem responsible in part for these victories as they have made a mess of the rail lines behind the troops seriously comprimising the supply network.

The 2nd Shock got a rebuff from the 251st Infantrie division which stands firm before an attack by the 4th Guards, and 32nd Rifle Divisions supported by the 27th Cavalry divsion and 53rd Naval Rifle Bde. This marks the first time an assault with a Guards unit has failed. The Hitlerite commander out foxed us somehow but 9000 men, and 124 guns stood off 27,000 men, and 370 guns. Our losses were high at 2718 men and 25 artillery to their 338 men and 5 guns most of which was due to the initial bombardment. It is unlikely the 251st will survive another attack in position.

Before Smolensk, a mere 30 km or so behind the enemy the 255th and 258th Infantrie are isolated by our advancing troops and the enemy has now a no longer solid front line as our forces have driven decisive wedges between his positions. The 1st Shock army is now poised to lunge northwest to try and link up with the 2nd Shock.

The situation in the south is pervese. The one place were are making significant process is the one place we actually don't need to so much. The terrain is poorly suited to stopping the enemy come the spring and summer. The two fronts are continueing to focus on dealing as much damage as possible to the enemy and keeping their lines solid. Still two stunning break throughs, something which the Shock Armies are still struggling to achieve.

Player Notes:

randallw I'm looking forward to Tank Corps...those new Bde's are horrid. At the moment I'm just trying to also keep "victory disease" under contol and am actively looking to see where I should make my stop line.

You can play around with motor/mech brigades now; they'll be built from the ground up so they should be used to support strong attacks, compared to being a main attack force.

5/2/42 STAVKA

Official War Records Office
Soviet Losses to date:

Men Killed: 907 333
Men Captured: 547 568
Men Disabled: 792 505
Guns Lost: 34 054
AFVs Lost: 12 292

Fighters: 2
Fighter Bombers: 8 403
Tactical Bombers: 1 156
Level Bombers: 2 914
Recon: 558
Transports: 568

Flak Losses: 1 590
Operational Losses: 5 251
Total Aircraft Losses: 13 601

Estimated Axis Losses (from NKVD and KGB sources):

Men Killed: 369 280
Men Captured: 156 576
Men Disabled: 1 179 510
Guns Lost: 15 413
AFVs Lost: 3 009

Fighters: 1 101
Fighter Bombers: 145
Night Fighters: 1
Tactical Bombers: 490
Level Bombers: 1 328
Recon: 297
Transports: 262

Flak Losses: 749
Operational Losses: 1 963
Total Aircraft Losses: 3 624

5/3/1942 STAVKA

It was glorious. The past few months have been something to experience. With the coming of the bitter cold the Hitlerite invaders have been pushed back along the entire front. Our forces came within 20 km of both Smolensk and Velekie Luki satisfying Comrade Stalin. Our offensive ended on the 19th of February when the forces of the 4th Shock army occupied the last of the ground along the east bank of the Besed River. Although in truth there was very little significant combat after the 12th. Here at STAVKA vodka is flowing freely and special trains have been sent to the front line with extra rations for the troops.

No one anticipated achieving all the major strategic aims of this campaign but it was done. Our troops are in many cases advanced beyond the STAVKA fighting lines. This will give us room to fall back and manuever if necessary and judging by the reports it may be. The enemy has preserved at least one Panzer Corps from significant damage over the winter. Still the enemies line of battle is weaker by 19 Infantry divisions and 3 Panzer Divisions. Our forces in the south concentrated on capturing or destroying by combat the Hitlerities Rummanian Lackeys and have been highly sucessful.

The Rumanian's lost the: 1st Guards, 1st, 2nd, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 15th, 21st and 35th Reserve Infantry divisions plus the 1st Cavalry and 1st Mountain brigades. The Hungarians only lost the 102nd Security brigade over run while trying to screen a German Panzer division.

The losses to the German invaders has also been high with the 17th, 18th and 19th Panzer divisions cut off, surrounded and captured. Joining them were the 14th Infantrie (M) plus the 9th, 34th, 50th, 68th, 93rd, 123rd, 134th, 257th, and 260th Infantrie. Add to this a number of smaller companies and battalions. Still our losses in men and material were high as well, each attack would cost the attackers nearly as many men and guns as the invaders lost.

But at least in terms of production the news is nothing but good. Production of all materials is running strong. The new T-70 tank is starting production and it looks to be a vast improvement over the T26 and T60 series. Our tank reserve stands at well over a thousand T34 and KV1 series tanks with another 500 British vehicles to support this. The current TOE of our Tank Bde is so tank lean and our losses of medium and heavy tanks are generally very low. We do need to find an alternative to the tank brigade though. In all attempts to make a break through they simply could not generate the required drive. They lacked the numbers of tanks and mobility to capitalize on the breaches we did make in the enemy line. Hopefully the Tank Theory Group will come up with something workable soon.

The new artillery brigades have had an early trial by fire. A number of lessons have been learned. The first was that they were not experienced enough nor strong enough to engage in artillery duels with the enemy. The second is that they are tremendously vulurable to air attack, so that doctrine now calls for a PVO AA Brigade to be present with any sizable artillery force. Third the Light Gun brigades were initially equipped with 152 mm Hwz this proved a failure as these were surplus weapons and no new ones were being built so the strength of the unit especially after being hit by stuka dive bombers on an attack was insuficient. Both units have now re-equipped with 122 mm Hwz and as this gun in in production they look to be in good shape. Fourth more guns are necessary but these units appear to be valuable and more are authorised for production over the next months.

More Li-2 transports are necessary for proper utilization of our airborne forces. Currently the bulk of our production is being lost for no obvious reason each week which is slowing down replacement of damaged air craft. As soon as practical further TAPs will be formed by converting existing U2 (transport) crews.

In more mundane matters Comrade Stalin has signed his name to the following promotions:
9th Army commander Iosif Khorun is promoted to General-Polkovnik.
10th Airborne Corps commander Fyodor Tolbukhin is promoted to General-Polkovnik, well deserved considering his men unsupported drove a panzer division back 20 km.
Southern Front commander Yakov Cherevichenko is promoted to General-Armii.
2nd Cavalry Corps commander Pavel Belov is promoted to General-Armii yet remains in command of a single corps.

Saddly, the 13th Army commander, Pavel Artemev, has been killed in action and General-Leytenant Pyotr Filatov takes command of 13th Army. Inspection of the site of the surrender of the 18th Panzer division was not apparently the best idea he had, as his party blundered into a minefield no one had thought to mark on the map.

So far Comrade Stalin's good mood has prevented any non-standard modifications to the command structure. Additionally our forces now have the following numbers of Guard units:

17 Guard Rifle Divisions
1 Guard Rifle Brigade
2 Guard Airborne Brigades
2 Guard Mountain Rifle Divisions
1 Guard Cavalry Corps
4 Guard Cavalry Divisions (including those in the Guard Cavalry Corps)
4 Guard Artillery Regiment RVGK
3 Guard Howitzer Regiments
1 Guard BAP (IL-4)


VVS

The enemy though not active on the ground is very active in the air but in this case we are more than happy to engage his un-escorted bomber forces. We will be switching our night bombing attacks to his fighter bases in an attempt to reduce their numbers, but we are perfectly happy to trade older model fighter bombers and U2's for his He-111's and Ju-88's. Our fighter-bomber pilots are also gaining skill and those that have been on the front lines are more skilled then those that have spent the last 6 months in training, hopefully the high command will start replacing their obsolete I-16's with modern Yaks and LaGG's. The transitioning of air bases continues and the number of new bases is increasing.

Leningrad/Northwestern/Volkhov Fronts plus 22nd Army Stavka

The Finn's were quiet all winter and so the Leningrad front basically spent the time training and re-equipping its forces. At the moment the defenses of Leningrad itself are extremely strong and to get there the enemy must pass through the Armies of the Northwestern front so the situation seems stable.

The Northwestern front's fowards two armies are beyond the Luga river and STAVKA divisions and brigades assisted by the 11th Army are digging in along the Luga itself. The 3 crossings in the fronts area of responsibilty will be fortified. For the moment the troops are using the time to dig, refit and train.

General-Armii G. Zhukov's Volhkov Front's troops have done an incredible job of driving back the enemy. The joining of the 48th and 28th Armies of the Volkhov Front was largely symbolic but represents a major effort on the part of the troops. General-Armii G. Zhukov has driven his men hard but has through difficult terrain also driven back the enemy plus badly mauled several of his combat formations. There are reports that at least two infantrie divisions broke and fled the field under assault. The troops now turn to digging in and most importantly filling out and passing on the lessons learned. The cavalry divisions of the front will combine into a corps to give them more striking power.

The 22nd Army has become a combat hardened force as it fought its way west. It will assume responsibility for a large area of the line when the 1st and 2nd Shock Armies pull back in the spring. Hopefully the Army will do a better job then it did last summer.

The 1st Shock Army will become the reserve for the Moscow area handing its ground over to the 34th Army Kalinin Front and the 22nd Army Stavka to retire to a central position between Rhzev and Vyzama. The 2nd Shock Army will move north and become the reserve for the three Northern Fronts.

The current status of the north can be seen in the map below.

Kalinin Front/Moscow Defense Command/Moscow M.D./1st Shock Army STAVKA

The forces of these different establishments have worked with each other to drive back the enemy. They have passed the official STAVKA fighting line of the Dnepr River and have taken up forward fighting positions facing the enemy with Smolensk only 20 km from the front lines. As losses have been high with these troops a period of rest and training has been mandated with divisions pulling back from the line for training and to take on replacements.

Extensive engineering work is going on between Rhzev and Vyzama to fortify key locations. In addition once the snow starts melting and the chance of combat goes down the front line will be significantly re-organized to allow a number of the armies to drop back into reserve positions.

The 1st Shock Army will also move into a reserve stance. STAVKA is looking at the current state of the forces on the front and will begin moving fresh troops to the armies of these fronts to allow replacement of the more badly hurt divisions.

Overall the status is good and efforts proceed to re-establish a solid rail network. The news from the front of a reinforced enemy Panzer Corps taking the field indicates that all our efforts in blunting his combat power have not be completely sucessful. 3 Panzer and one SS Motorized division at strengths typical of the end of last years summer have been reported by our forward cavalry screens. Current STAVKA interpretation is that they are a defensive force to keep our troops from exploiting the hard freeze to advance on Smolensk. This is the only major enemy tank concentration seen so far.

Operation Titan: The End

Operation Titan has been declared an official success. The enemy has been pushed back to the Besed River, and our fighting positions now reach the Dnepr river, the Bryansk Front has returned to positions it was driven from in July. The 50th Army has for the last few weeks fallen out of the line and established defensive works before Bryansk. The 23rd Army STAVKA has done the same along the Snov River line. The 3rd Army will take over the bulk of the Besed line when the spring thaw starts. The fighting the last few weeks has been hard, and a good fraction of the forces of the Bryansk Front have withdrawn to take on replacements and train.

The troops of the 10th Airborne corps deserve special merit and 2 of the 3 brigades have been designated as the 1st and 2nd Guards Airborne Bdes. Alone the forces of the corps drove back the 16th Panzer division 20 km, after withstanding the only enemy counter attack and participating in a critical battle to clear the route for the advancing 40th Army Kharkov M.D. The 9th Airborne corps lost a brigade and will be withdrawn from the line and sent north. The 5th Airborne Corps will be disbanded and the lone exiting Bde there will join the 9th.

The 13th Army Western Front will assist the 3rd Army in holding the Besed Line covering the gap between it and the 10th Army's positions south and east of Smolensk. For this task the 160th Rifle division has been selected. Fully equipped and superbly trained based on the experience of the survivors of its 70 km fighting withdrawal the division is digging in on a key rail junction.

Even though Titan never achieve the breakthru all of us wanted it was a valuable lesson and we are proud of the troops performance in the field.

The 3rd Shock will remain in reserve behind the forward lines of the Bryansk Front while the 4th Shock will move south as the Southwestern Front reserve force come spring thaw. At the moment the Bryansk Front is somewhat overloaded in terms of combat units and efforts are underway to reduce the burden by swapping in Rifle brigades for divisions, especially along the Pipret marsh sectors where little enemy activity is expected.

Southwestern/Southern Fronts

The proposed fighting lines from STAVKA were occupied a few weeks back. The troops of both fronts are ahead of their intended summer fighting positions but as no enemy armoured forces are present it is deemed an acceptable risk. It also gives the forces engaged in engineering work, especially the 19th Army Kharkov M.D. time to work on better field fortifications.

The forces of these two fronts have been active in attacking weakened enemy forces and were responsible for demolishing the Rumanian infantry divisions. In fact is now rare to see a German ally force. Additionally, in the last week they launched assaults on advanced enemy Panzer divisions driving them back and costing the enemy 125 tanks, the majority of them modern Pz. IIIj/L42 vehicles.

The 16th Army Southwestern Front is the Front reserve but is currently holding an advanced position between the 6th and 12th Armies. When the front forces withdraw it will fall back to a reserve position near Cherkassy.

Again the key point will be the join between the fronts, only this time there will be a line of fortifications to withdraw to in the event the enemy breaches the forward lines. Still, this is the most exposed point of our line.

The 5th Army is rotating its troops back out of the line for replacement, refit and retraining. The enemy has been driven back from the outskirts of Kiev itself and the eastern bank fortifications will be strengthened over the next month.

For both fronts STAVKA will be looking to swap out badly hurt divisions for fresh ones just out of training and reduce the command burden the front commanders are suffering from. But with the presence of the 4th Shock Army come spring the risks of an significant enemy break through such as happened last fall are reduced.

Enemy Intentions

It is difficult to predict what the enemy will do. What is clear is that he still possesses considerable fighting strength in some units. We assume he will combine such forces to give him a strong force capable of offensive operations. At the moment we feel this force will be directed against either the Besed river line in an attempt to drive on Orel and Kharkov, which will serve to force the Southwestern front back from Kiev, or on an attack aimed at breaching the forward fighting lines and crossing the Dnepr river near Cherkassy.

These seem the most likely operation the enemy would attempt but we can't exclude an attempt on Leningrad though to us that seems absurd given the terrain and the fortifications facing him should he batter his way to the city.

A further attack on Moscow seems unlikely though we anticipate an effort to drive us back from Smolensk.

It is clear that any defensive position can be breached but we are confident the days of our forces being driven from a position by a paltry enemy effort are over. We should be able now to force the enemy to concentrate strong forces and advance with caution. The Shock Armies in reserve give us options we lacked all last year. Our strengthening air force also will play a role in future battles as it did not last summer and fall.

Our strategy at the moment is to stand of the defensive ready to absorb the enemy attack and then launch a strong counter offensive once the enemies assault falters with the goal of destroying his fighting strength. It will have to be seen if this works.

At the moment STAVKA is looking at support unit distribution, and reserve force allocations to prepare for the expected spring or summer offensives.

Player Notes:

It may look like the "checkerboard defense" it isn't I just pulled units back 1 hex to refit in peace and quiet.

I've got to look into moving up reserves and getting a bit more "regelmasik" with them. I want to get as many brigades as possible into the line. They are starting to look good, morale 51+, experience 45+. The upping of command points in a few weeks will help a lot.

The artillery bdes look to be good investments, the divisions are better but these seem good for adding extra firepower to secondary armies and such.

Keeping the airforce in play costs you planes but you get good experience it seems. My best pilots are in the 70s now and the bulk of my deployed airforce is over 60. That is 10-20 points better than the best of my national reserve pilots.

The weather was: First week in December Blizzard-a week of Snow-then Blizzard until 19/2/42, next week Snow. So the German's go the equivalent of about 4 weeks less blizzard then they would have got under non-random weather. The damage done by the first week of blizzard and any gains I made were wiped out by the week of snow and so the first week of blizzard hitting hard wasn't really until the end of Dec.

I'll add the stuff from the admin reports on promotions and such later.

5/3/42 STAVKA

Official War Records Office
Soviet Losses to date:

Men Killed: 1 005 592
Men Captured: 549 563
Men Disabled: 847 686
Guns Lost: 35 823
AFVs Lost: 12 882

Fighters: 2
Fighter Bombers: 8 791
Tactical Bombers: 1 286
Level Bombers: 2 974
Recon: 605
Transports: 655

Flak Losses: 1 623
Operational Losses: 5 746
Total Aircraft Losses: 14 313

Estimated Axis Losses (from NKVD and KGB sources):

Men Killed: 413 558
Men Captured: 190 490
Men Disabled: 1 401 687
Guns Lost: 18 587
AFVs Lost: 3 499

Fighters: 1 168
Fighter Bombers: 162
Night Fighters: 1
Tactical Bombers: 542
Level Bombers: 1 512
Recon: 315
Transports: 265

Flak Losses: 812
Operational Losses: 2 079
Total Aircraft Losses: 3 965

Before the air force can go head to head I like to position the air units about 20 hexes behind the front line; that's close enough for longer-ranged bombers to launch ground attacks ( at night ), while preventing the BF 109s from escorting bombers to hit your fields.  FW 190s have a slightly longer range than the 109s but by the time they arrive your AF should be burgeoning.

Good to see you are preparing for the spring; the computer has less panzers than it did against me, and attacked me for a few months then went into defensive mode.  It will be interesting to see how far it pushes things and for how long.  If the panzers come back, they'll be in large groupings, like 3+ divisions at a time.

Most of the attacks have been against my forward air bases and they have recon (U2 (recon) or R-5 mainly), U2(trans) and U-2VS for the most part.  A few hits have gone in against my IAD bases but the AI is trading its level bombers to the tune of 70 per week for 100-120 of my essentially obsolete fighter bombers or planes I loose at higher rates when I fly them at night against targets.  I can't imagine this is a sensible trade since even I don't produce much more than 100 level bombers a turn and the German production must be half or a quarter of that.

My main BAD and SAD bases with level bombers I'm keeping back.  The ShaD bases have to be closer to get air support in combat.  I wish a few NBAD bases would show up so I could get my NBAP groups into bases that can gain from their bombing runs.  I'm starting to get hits at least now rather than just "damaged."  Be aware there is a display bug, until you destroy something in a bomber attack you don't see any losses...so a lot of the 0 loss runs probably damaged more units then you realize.

I'm very curious what the AI is cooking up for spring that is a nearly full strength Panzer Corps (2 Pz divisions plus the SS motorized division).  Also the troops are bouncing back fairly quick from the mauling.  You can see the values improve by about 1 pt per week on a lot of divisions but still those boys got hurt since full strength divisions used to be CV 12 and are now down to 4.  He is also getting back from his disabled about a full strength division per week in men.  I'm confident but I hope not over confident what will happen.

The type of air base shouldn't stop certain type of air squadrons from flying during your turn; at least the manual doesn't say so.
 
Be aware that the computer will start to disband SAD bases now ( Feb 1942 ) and create a replacement airbase the same or next turn.

ORIGINAL: randallw

The type of air base shouldn't stop certain type of air squadrons from flying during your turn; at least the manual doesn't say so.

Be aware that the computer will start to disband SAD bases now ( Feb 1942 ) and create a replacement airbase the same or next turn.

Randallw, when that happens all the planes of those bases are sent to the National Reserve?

Good to know. Thanks for the tip.

Yes, they are automatically sent to the reserve.

Sorry no what I meant was that SAD and VVS bases don't get credit towards guard status so I would like some NBAD bases which will get credit for kills. At the moment it is largely giving me IAD and ShAD bases. I'm a bit of a stickler for using the base for the planes it was intended for so ShAD bases have largely ShAP Rgt, etc.

The wierd thing is that it is disbanding non-existent bases...or at least bases I don't know where they are. I have a note book with all bases and plane groups at the base listed and I can't find the last few weeks worth of disbanded air bases. I'm not sure this isn't WAD since I think there are off the map bases included since I've yet to see my number of squadrons change in a noticable fashion even though for example a new ShAP equiped with I-153bis shows up in my national reserve from an airbase I've never seen before. I'm a bit confused about this though.

Yes the planes at the disbanded base are sent to the air reserve, I think however they are stuck in limbo the turn the base is disbanded and only show up in the reserve the next week.

Every time a unit goes to the reserve you have to wait the next turn to see it there.

ahh ok...it has been ages since I did that I forgot about it...it is odd what with the bases that I don't think I have disbanding though.

I'm also puzzeled by the fact very few new bomber groups outside of the IL2 and U2VS ones have shown up ... I think it has made only one Pe 2 Rgt in all this time. But it may be building up a stockpile of them to replace the SB-2. I also spotted in the manual that the AI only converts older planes to new ones if they drop below half available planes so it may take a while for automatic changes to kick in.

9/4/1942 STAVKA

There is a lot of work going on now, even though things have been quiet for the last month outside of the occasional enemy air raid. The Armoured Warfare Commiserate has finally gotten something they like that they are calling a Tank Corps, thankfully it is greater than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately it is slow going organizing the movement of the various brigades necessary to build them but we hope to be finished by the end of the month. As Tank brigades are also necessary to support our infantry not all of our brigades will be converted into Tank Corps.

March came in like a lamb but left like a lion as the English say. The month started with heavy rain, turning the snow to glop, then freezing into a lethal ice over night, and a late season blizzard hit in the last week of the month. Thankfully we had no offensive operations of significance planned otherwise such weather would have destroyed our time tables.

Our divisions are for the most part training and absorbing new recruits. The standard Rifle division is considerable more capable then in the last year but still lags behind the combat capability of the enemies forces which are rebounding from the winter drubbing with unfortunate quickness. The winter has allowed for the training of new staff officers, and our Army's can now field more forces. This has helped tremendously with the administrative burden on our Front Commands. Both the Bryansk and Southwestern Fronts are overburdened but compared to the situation a few months ago they are significantly improved.

The production front is something that is going particularily well. The BA-64 and T-70 have entered production and both are signficiant improvements over their predecessors. The Yak-7B has also begun significant production and in conjunction with the LaGG and Yak-1 should allow for replacement of the aging I-16 and I-153 planes in the upcoming months. American bomber aircraft are accumulating to nearly useful levels and our supply of Hurricane's is very generous so it should be possible to replace units as their losses dictate.

We have started producing 3 Motorized Brigades and will add an additional brigade every 3 weeks. Unfortunately it is clear they will take some considerable amount of time to work up to usable. Still it will be good to have mobile forces again. Production of rocket launcher regiments has been ongoing and 3 of them are now ready and training near Moscow, they will be sent to the 2nd-4th Shock Armies. Further Artillery and Anti-Air brigades will be built. It is hoped to produce enough artillery bde to be able to give one to front line Armies. Though it is clear that more potent force is required these are relatively quick to build and 60 artillery is an asset on the battlefield.

The forces of the 51st Army were active for a large part of the month of march and were able to inflict significant casualties in battles with the enemies Rumanian Lackeys. The net result is that nearly all forces in the 51st Army are now Guards units, including 4 Guards Tank Bdes. What was particularily inspiring for us here in Moscow is reports that our supporting troops are providing covering fire for the advancing battalions. The enemy is taking casaulties during the advance rather than when we over run his fox holes with bayonet and submachine gun.

Looking at the enemy dispositions it seems more and more certain he intends to make a push in the south. Before our fighting line outside Kiev he has amassed 6 Panzer, 2 Infantrie (M) and a strong compliment of regular infantry divisions. He has also somehow convinced the Hungarians to give him major reinforcments, apparently our near destruction of the Rumanian infantry did not disuade the Hungarians...or for that matter the Rumanian's who have somehow scrapped up 8 Infantry, 1 Mountain, 2 Cavalry divisions plus their long suffering 1st Armoured division.

Regardless, the enemy has amassed a potent force facing off against the 5th, 6th, 9th, 12th, 18th and 51st Armies. On other areas of the front he seems to be much reduced in strength, in particular to the north. It is dubious in the extreme the forces he has on his foward positions could breach the Luga line. Still he has in the past switched his forces around with astounding rapidity so it is difficult to make plans at this stage. Considerable engineering work is ongoing though and given the enemies apparent intentions it is planned to add several fortified regions to the current line of battle to strength those areas of the line that lack natural defenses.

On more mundane matters, Comrade Stalin has rewarded the following officers with promotion:
5th Cavalry Corps commander Fyodor Kamkov is promoted to General-Polkovnik. Unfortantly a week later the 5th Cavalry Corps is disbanded.
12th Army commander Pavel Ponedelin is promoted to General-Polkovnik. Clearly a reward for outstanding efforts he has shown in keeping the 12th Army a fighting force irrespective of many enemy attempts to destroy it.
48th Army commander Stepan Akimov is promoted to General-Armii, a meteoritic rise for this officer.
16th Army commander Mikhail Lukin is promoted to General-Polkovnik. The last few counter attacks the 16th made were stunning one side victories for our troops, apparently Comrade Stalin was very impressed.
34th Army commander Mikhail Pronin is promoted to General-Polkovnik.

Unfortunately some have not so impressed Comrade Stalin, and for 5th Airborne Corps commander Ivan Bezugly it is dismissal rather than promotion that his actions have merited, General-Mayor Nikonor Zakhvataev takes command of 5th Airborne Corps. Based on his record the 9th Airborne Corps will be disbanded and the 5th will absord the two brigades from the 9th.

Two of our colegues have lost their lives in the service of the Motherland, 8th Army commander Pyotr Sobennikov died of a hear seizure in winter quarters, the reports of a Finnish agent being responsible are highly suspect but the NKVD is investigating. General-Leytenant Vladimir Shcherbakov takes command of 8th Army.
22nd Army commander Vladimir Vostrukhov has been killed in action while participating in a cavalry sweep to view the front lines and General-Leytenant Yury Novoselsky takes command of 22nd Army. Not to be uncharitable but dieing a heros death is considerably better than the fate most expected of him.

The current stand of our Guards Forces is:

4 Guard Tank Brigades
20 Guard Rifle Divisions
3 Guard Rifle Brigades
2 Guard Airborne Brigades
2 Guard Mountain Rifle Divisions
1 Guard Cavalry Corps
5 Guard Cavalry Divisions (including those in the Guard Cavalry Corps)
5 Guard Artillery Regiment RVGK
4 Guard Howitzer Regiments
1 Guard Motorcycle Regiment
1 Guard BAP (IL-4)

U-2 production is a bit crazy high, and the computer likes to convert the tac bomber units to them even though it's very basic equipment.

The German tank numbers suggest the panzer divisions are running around 70-150 tanks each.  The computer may play things conservatively, at least not throwing attacks at 4 or 5 different parts of the line, once clear weather happens.

U2 production may be high but the losses of the U2(trans) and U2-VS are very high.  I am loosing up to 25% of my transport planes per mission in crashes and the typical night attack costs me 2-5 U2-VS for each attack I make (usually 4 or 5 per turn).  The vast bulk of my transport and tactical bomber losses are from the U2 series of planes.  I am also loosing a lot of Mig-3's just in routine flying...30-40 per week even with no combat.

The losses of U2(trans) are high enough that the computer is only forming 1 TAP with them per week now.  Currently it is forming 2 IL-2 ShAP Rgt, 2 Yak-1 IAP, 1 LaGG-3 IAP, 1 U2(recon) ORAP, 1 U2(Trans) TAP and 2 U2VS NBAP each week.  It has been ages since it has formed a Pe-2 BAP Rgt, and so far all the Li-2VP are sitting in the pool, the same with Pe-2(recon).  I had given the P40-B's to a unit but the computer just upgraded them to the P40-E.  I also manually upgraded 2 I-16 Model 18 to Yak-7A I hope they don't get converted to 7B.  I am trying to get the I-16's off the front line without manual changes but this seems to require combat.  I still have over 100 IAP's flying I-153, I-16 Model 18, and I-16 Model 24.