The end: Izyum Area
The defense of Izyum started fairly well. I left Barvenkovo completely undefended and entrenched just north of the E-W river with artillery behind the trench line (discussed in another thread). This worked well to free up AO
constraints and delay the German schwerpunkt. However the defense suffered from two near catastrophic errors on my part.
First, I somehow failed to take the second hex (to the west) required to free up the 21st & 23rd armor early in the game. Just overlooked it. By the time I figured it out the Axis had three hedgehogged units there and even though it was surrounded and I had artillery support it took forever to finally capture it. (Forever was about five turns! It sure seemed like forever.) The result of this near catastrophic error was that I was never able to take Lanaya, west of Krasnograd, which releases Alert forces vital to the defense of Izyum. This screwup had widespread ramifications in both East and West. (Fortunately I was able to blame it on a lackey subordinate who was summarily shot by Comrade Stalin for his ineptitude, so it only cost me a year's supply of vodka bribes.)
The second error was feeling overconfident when I finally brought the 21st into the Izyum line. I attempted a "brilliant and bold" counterattack on the advancing meat grinder in the river bend just west of Izyum. Well, it looked good on paper. Let's just say I lost a lot of forces for no real gains at all.
You can see the result of these errors on this end game map. If the designer had decided to extend the scenario one more turn... I would be cut in half. I'm glad I'm not the poor fellow responsible for taking over from me, lol.
On the other hand, taking Balakleya early in the game really paid off big time. It only took a few 5th Army attached assets a few turns to work down from the bridge at 37,32 and one unit to hold the town for most of the game at 50 points/turn. Easy money. I reinforced at about turn 14 and it was never taken back by the Germans. Recommended.
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