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End of July 1941 Moscow, STAVKA

The room was filled with a large map of Western part of the Soviet Union on it were various counters representing the units of the Red Army and the Hitlerite invaders and their allies. The men around the table were shuffling papers as their staff officers handed them the latest information. One by one they began to report on the Fronts to which they were responsible.

Northern Front

Until two weeks back for the newly renamed Northern Front things had been decidedly quiet. Fortification of Leningrad was the highest priority and several new Fortified Regions had been added to the outskirts of the city as well as drafting of local construction workers to aid in digging defenses. The factories had been moved eastward at the start of July and only a minimal industry remained in the city. Several divisions were forming up for the defense of the city. The city of Novgorod was garrisoned and a Fortified Region was set up as well to stiffen its defenses. Pskov had a tank and motorized division in place for some weeks but two weeks ago the leading elements of the invaders showed up. Worse the Fins had attacked and the border line has been breached in several places.

Current plans are to detach the 11th Army from Northwest Front and attach it to Northern Front and then attach to that the forces not currently engaged near the Finnish border or in Leningrad. Mortar, AT and AA battalions are to be raised to reinforce the Fortified Regions while every effort must be made to slow down the invaders from both the north and the south. STAVKA is urgently requested to send in several combat ready divisions.

The stand as of 24/7/41, shown is the projected moves to counter the Finnish agression as well as the inital "Stop Line" to be taken by the forces of the NW Front as they fall back.

[img=http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/3317/northt6.th.jpg]



Northwestern Front

The first few weeks of the invasion found the forces of this front scattered from the Pispek Marshes to east of Smolensk. One Rifle Corps spent several weeks fighting it's way northward from the Smolensk Area and its remaining combat formations are now near Pskov screening the city to the east. One airborne brigade remains and it is planed to maintain this as the front reserve and an urgent request has been sent for transport planes to give it air drop capability. In Riga an NKVD division and a rifle division remain trapped some 100 or more km behind the lines and air lifts bring in supplies. Recon flights are intended to see if it may be possible to cause disturbance to the invaders with one or the other of these formations. The remaining combat strength of the front 4 rifle divisons, 1 tank and 1 motorized division are trying to slow the invaders down before falling back to screen the approaches to Leningrad from the Baltic coast.

Western Front

The hammer of the enemy struck the Western Front hard. The original plan was to conduct a fighting withdrawl to Fortifications in the Smolenks area. Smolensk, Mogalev, Vitabesk and Velike Luki were in turn Fortified. Minsk was taken by direct assault in the the third week of the invasion lasting long enough to allow a large number of formations to escape from a pocket formed in the first week. Vitabesk was taken two weeks ago and last week Mogalev fell. The line of troops trying to hold the flanks along the river lines is thin and seems unlikely stop a determined assault long. The good news is that troops have had a few weeks to rebuild in reserve and should be able to form a second line. Reserve Armies from STAVKA have moved in to reinforce the existing forces and try and stabilize the line to the north between Smolenks and Veliki Luki where currently nothing of significance exists to slow the enemies advance.

The critical situation around Veliki Luki and north of Smolensk is shown. The blue circle is the 10th Army currently the front reserve.

[img=http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/4994/smolenskt6.th.jpg]


Southwestern Front

Kiev and the area around it have been Fortified with the decision made to not commit the newly arriving infantry forces to the fluid battle around Lvov and Tarnopol instead to use them to start digging in defenses on the Bug river. The combined infantry and mechanized force near Lvov and Tarnopol managed to hold the enemy advance to a slow slog for several weeks and the troops were falling back attempting to get out of a dangerous salient that had formed west of Tarnpol and south of Lvov. Last week disaster struck as strong (a full panzer corps) enemy force slipped through the lines to the east of Tarnopol and moved south and joined up with light Hungarian forces isolating several infantry and tank forces. Operation Luna to relieve them will be mounted with all available mobile assets. Luckily the armoured forces now pocketed had had air lifts of fuel the week before and are in a good fuel state. The line will be forced to shift eastwards regardless and it is a virtual certainty that the infantry divisions will be lost in the pocket. Southwestern front is still probably one of the strongest remaining and it scored the first blood of the war, isolating and destroying the 16th Panzer divison in the first weeks of the fighting.

Shown below is the plan for Operation Luna, the relief of the forces traped in Tarnpol and south of Lvov. The main breach is focused on the 3rd Hungarian motorized brigade. Two full Red Army Motorized divisons will hit it to make an opening to the troops trapped. Other movements will occur to reduce the salients in the north, and it would be nice to remove that calvary brigade but the priority has to be the 3rd Hungarian motorized Bde.

[img=http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/7493/swt6.th.jpg]

Southern Front

The decision was made to abandon the areas to the west of the first river line in Romania. The 18th Army will be attached to Southern Front form the frontier with Southwestern Front. Garrisoning Sevastopol is important as well. So far their has been limited fighting as the enemy advances towards the newly formed river defense lines. Reinforcements from newly raised divisions will move westward to reinforce the southern front.

Orel Military District

The forces of the Orel MD reinforced by new arriving STAVKA troops are forming defensive lines near Gomel. The district will assume responsibility to cover the area between the Western and Southwestern Fronts.

Overall Command Situation

Several weeks effort have gone into stabilizing the command structure which was nearly completely wrecked in the first week of the invasion. Fronts are now assigned to specific locations and tasks but still widely dispersed formations and units are common, especially with regards to newly raised forces. The loss of corps HQ units and the transfer to army HQs is proceeding but in itself this causes additional stresses to the logistic network. Support units are being raised to equip all Army HQs with a mortar battalion, 2 corps artillery regiments, an AA battalion, and a construction battalion. All Air HQs will be equipped with a PVO air defense battalion and regiment.

Red Army Airforce

The first weeks of the war cost the air force the bulk of its combat ready aircraft. Virtually all modern aircraft not in the southern or northern fronts were withdrawn to the national air reserve. The remaining planes have been struggling to maintain some air cover over our troops and priority is granted to supporting ground operations with most level bombers being used for night air drops or night bombing missions of the enemies airfields. With the activation of reserve formations the air force is still largely poorly organized but over the weeks more and more order has been achieved. Most front air support is provided by I-16, I-153, and SB bombers. It is intended to leave the bulk of the VVS retraining and re-organizing in the national reserve until September if possible.

Player Notes:

The setting is normal, I am using Fog of War, I have random weather selected.

I am not trying to be game-y over how I play and trading land for time will still require fighting withdrawls as was typical of the soviets. I am not making an effort to be "efficient" or what have you in my creation of support troops. Basically I am playing according to the military realities and simulating a combat situation rather than playing in some sort of sandbox.

I have so far moved a lot of factories eastward. Kharkov's factories are on a 6 week move schedule right now: week 1-5 20% of the fixed factories move, week 1 all non T34 factories moved, week 6 all the T34 factories will be moved. This will cripple my T34 production till they recover but overall it will get the factories back into production faster. Leningrad has been emptied as have all heavy industry and armaments factories west of Kharkov, though some of the Ukrainian ones are moving east over 4 weeks (25% at a time). This uses about half my rail capacity the rest goes into unit transfers.

ORIGINAL: Paul McNeely

Basically I am playing according to the military realities and simulating a combat situation rather than playing in some sort of sandbox.

Reading with interest. Nice intro, by the way...

Ditto

ORIGINAL: Paul McNeely
The setting is normal, I am using Fog of War, I have random weather selected.

Paul - good for you doing an AAR. But I think playing with FoW off for AI would be a better challenge. AI has a hard time with FoW because a human can infer things and guess things from small clues, but the AI can't do that sort of thing. So you might want FoW for yourself but not for the AI side.

And on normal I think you'll have a hard time getting the AI to give you a good game playing as Germany even if it's your very first game - you should trounce it pretty easily playing the Soviet juggernaut.

Ok just updating the first post with pictures and will update again after this next turn. I'll turn the FoW off for the AI ...I'm not sure it is on, though it is on for me. The next one should be entitled "Disaster near Smolensk and Veliki Luki" So, things are about to get very dicy. I enjoy playing the soviet but with a game like this I figure my mistakes will at least cancel out the AI's sillyness though it has not done too much silly so far, outside of leaving the 16th Pz Division isolated and letting me kill it.

Thank Guys, I'll try and do monthly (in game terms) updates unless something exciting happens...such as the above mentioned north of Smolensk issue. The trouble is that I can't figure out how the Pz are still in supply, I was expecting that a pause would hit about now to let the rail heads advance.

7/31/41 STAVKA Situation Room

The doors are thrown open as a pair of aides run into the room and proceed to two of the briefing officers one of whome breaks into a wide grin while the other stares in horror at the map the man hands to him. "Comrades what news?" Dead silence strikes but the General responsible for Southwest Front activities can't help but speak. "Operation Luna was a sucess, the Hungarian's were thrown out and half the forces are poised to break out." He pauses and adjusts the map counters...

[img=http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/733/operationluna.th.jpg]

"The attempt to relieve Tarnopol worked but weak enemy forces have move in behind our troops." He points to the two calvery bde that secure the exit of the trapped units. "Strong enemy attacks on the edge of the marshes also occured but several of our divisions stood firm halting the advance."

It is clear that a movement eastward is now imperative, but every effort to save the trapped troops must be made.

The other officer struggles to find words then simply adjusts the map display to show the latest positions.

[img=http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/4043/disasterstrikes.th.jpg]

"A strong mechanized force is trapped behind enemy lines but we are looking to have them move south as the enemy is not near them they are more free to manuever and as the line of advance has moved on it is hoped they can continue to move, supplied by paradrop and then break through at a weak point." He indicates the 42nd Tank, the 112th Rifle and 185th Motorized division.

"The 1st Motorized was hit with 2 infantry, 3 motorized and a single panzer division. The losses were catastrophic." He points to the woods west of Smolensk. "But the battle slowed the enemy down." At a cost of 50% of the units men, 100% of its artillary, and 75% of it's tanks. He looks around the room, "The question is how long can we keep the Western Front on the Dpnr river before we have to pull back?"

It was clear that even though most were still training a large fraction of the newly raised divisions would be needed to fill the gaps and the ones looming further north.

"Here are the sum of the losses suffered to date, the enemy ones are of course estimates." No one spoke as they looked over the statistics that showed the loss of nearly three-quarters of a million men, over ten thousand artillary pieces and nearly six thousand tanks.

[img=http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3730/losses31741.th.jpg]

8/21/41 STAVKA Situation Room

The last month had not brought significant changes in the fortunes of the Red Army, the Hitlerite invaders advanced with only the occasional unit slowing them down. On the 8th the Motherland came to the aid of the soldier with a rare burst of heavy rain that turned the roads into a sea of mud and this stopped the German advance for the most part in central Russia. The Reserve Front was activated and is composed of the newly raised 24th, 34th and 49th Armies. Additionally the Orel MD as redesignated as the Bryansk Front. The overall situation is grim, as there seems no way to stop the invaders Pz divisions from sweeping all in their path away especially when supported by the Luffwaffe and its ample bombers. STAVKA struggles to find the formations to patch what seems to be a boat that is leaking like a sieve. The briefing today is certainly a sombre one.

Northern Front

Strong Finnish forces have assaulted the line held by the 7th Independent Army and all divisions have been displaced from their pre-war fortifications. It is planned to withdrawl gradually to line of emplaced fortified strong points and hopefully hold the Finnish advance there. Only limited resources are available and the 7th Army can muster only 5 Rifle divisions, a naval infantry brigade and 3 Rgt of NKVD troops. The 23rd Army on the approaches to Leningrad have held the Finns to their inital advance but their forces are: 4 Rifle divisions, 2 naval infantry brigades, 1 rifle brigade, 2 tank Divisions and 2 regiments of NKVD troops. The situation is not ideal but at least the Finnish air force is not a factor so there has a been a gradual strengthing of the VVS formations with the addition of tactical bomber regiments. Hopefully air power will even out the numerical differnce as so far 10 Finnish Infantry divisions, 5 brigades and the large part of a german infantry division have been seen near the front lines. The 7th Ind Army will also be given one of the first Seperate Tank Bn to stiffen its possition.

To the south a line is forming along the Luga River and the Shelon Rivers by the 28th and 48th Armies respectively. After the week of mud a renewed offensive by Army Gruppe Nord devestated the defensive positions of the 48th Army and 44th Mountain Calvery division is nearly isolated additionally the 2nd SAD air base with over 120 planes is threatened. The 48th will work with the 31st Army to secure the area to the east of Lake Ilmen. The 28th Army with its new commander Gen-Mayor Leonid Govorov must secure Novograd and the Luga line. In both cases these formations lack significant combat strength.

The Red Banner Baltic Fleet's Air arm has move east of the Volkhov River and is taking on additional transport air assets. Leningrad continues to fortify itself and the fortified strongpoints are now respectably equipped with extra AT/AA guns, mortars and an additional battalion of MG-Arty strengthening the base fomation.

North Western Front

The 67th Rifle and 22nd NKVD divisions are still trapped in Riga surrounded by a force that so far includes the 11th, 58th, 95th and 183rd Infantrie divisions, the 16th Pz division, the Polizei SS division and the 1st SS Motorized Bde. The city has a good stock of supplies and the two divisions are in good shape and well dug in so it is a question of time but STAVKA hopes they sell themselves dearly.

The 8th and 27th Army's retreated to a line north of lake Peipus and then established a second line behind that but it is clear due to the actions going on to the SE that the holding position will have to be abandoned sooner then hoped. The 27th will continue to screen the approach from the west while the 8th moves south and east to take up positions on the Luga, other divisions will form a second line behind the first. The VVS air divisions will move to positions east of Leningrad and the Front HQ will move further eastward to a more centralized location. This time marks the first time in several weeks that the bulk of the Front has been connected by land lines rather than through unreliable radio or motorcycle messengers. The remaining airborne brigade will move further east and for the first time STAVKA is releasing a TB3BG Regiment to make the formation air assault capable.

The 11th Army is conducting a vigorous defence south of the Luga line buying time for the North and Northwestern Fronts to stabilize a defensive position. The only good news is that the enemy supply lines seems to be extremely long. The 3rd Tank and 163 Rifle (ex Motorized) Divisions and the newly arriving 307th Division will form welcome reinforcements for the hard pressed 11th.

22nd/31st Armies (STAVKA)

The 22nd Army which has so far made a poor showing with its failure at Velikie Luki and the loss of a motorized and tank division continues to dissappoint STAVKA and many consider it only a short time before its commander is retired by order of Comrade Stalin. STAVKA is rushing more reserves to the formation to preven the advance on Ostashkov (red circle on map).

The 31st Army is holding the approaches to Demyansk and it is clear more reinforcements are required.

[img=http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/9779/22ndfails.th.jpg]



Reserve Front

Marshal Semyon Timoshenko takes over the reserve front this week after its inital unispiring blooding in combat. It consists of the 24th, 34th and 49th Armies and a new army the 29th Army will be added this week. The 29th will contain the last mobile formations that STAVKA has 3 full strength Tank and 1 motorized division under the command of General-Leytenant Ivan Maslennikov. Failure or loss of these formations will not be tolerated. The Reserve Front holds a line along the Dnepr and between the cities of Vyazma and Rzhev. So far no air power is attached to the Reserve Front as no Airbases are available, but likely the SW Front will loose a few to give it both air cover and tactical air support.

Behind the Reserve Front STAVKA is forming up more divisions into scratch lines giving them a few weeks to train and dig in before advancing them forward.

Western Front

The Hitlerite invaders had broken the line on the Dnepr in two places just before the rain hit and the Western Front was able to execute it withdrawl to a secondary river line defence while the German advance was bogged down in the mud. Smolensk is still in soviet hands and a slim rail line connects it to the rest of the Soviet union but the end of the rain brought a renewed offensive that smashed the divisions of the 4th, 10th, 13th and 20th Armies backwards over 30 km and Smolensk is now threatened by an envelopment. There seems little to do but withdraw to lines along the Besed, Desna and Ugra rivers and continue to send in massed strikes on the enemy panzer formations. The 3rd Army will be re-assigned to the Bryansk Front which will relieve the adminstrative burden on the Western Front and it will loose some of its air bases to both the Bryansk and Reserve Fronts.

Bryansk Front

Newly formed this front will become responsible for holding the Dnepr river near Gomel and the Besed and Sudost River lines. These guard the flank of the SW front currently battling for its life on the plains west of Kiev.

[img=http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/4377/smolenskt10.th.jpg]

(The blue/pink lines mark the initial positions of the front line before the german offensive)

Southwest Front

Operation Luna was a sucess with 5 divisions escapeing entrapment while two rifle divisions the 41st and 159th seized the city of Stanislav and are fortifying themselves much as was done in Riga. Unfortunately it took 3 weeks to break the troops free. As can be seen on the map the enemy has been shifting his Pz divisions along his line and first drove the defenders of the Goryn River line back then got mired in mud followed by a drive deep into the newly formed lines caused by the pull back towards Kiev that was ordered. In a risky maneuver during the week of mud the 29th Army (an all infantry formation) withdrew to blocking positions west of Kiev. This weakened the centre of the line but was considered a good chance to get a start on the defences of covering the approaches to Kiev. The map shows clearly the stunning advance in what has become known as the cauldron. Smashed, burning tanks litter the fields, over 500 tanks were lost in a single week of combat. But the line moved back safely it is planned to execute another staged withdrawl hinging on fortress at Mogilev-Podolski where the South Front takes over responsibility. The 5th Army will screen the withdrawl towards Kiev while the 6th, 12th and 16th try to hold the German advance to a slow crawl. This will clearly be a tricky maneuver but there is no other choice.

[img=http://img602.imageshack.us/img602/797/cauldront10.th.jpg]

Southern Front

The troops of the Southern Front have been engaging in limited counter attacks and have inflicted minor damage on advancing Romanian divisions plus launched a full scale daylight bombing raid on a Luftwaffe air base. Still there is little they can do but await the order to withdraw to the Bug and Sinyukha river lines when SW Front is ready to make it's break east. The 9th and 18th Armies will be flanked by the Ind. Coastal Army which will secure the flank along the Black sea. A new army will be set up near Sevastapol to coordinate its defence.

VVS

Formations continue to train in the National Reserve and limited numbers of formations are being released to front line units. It is intended to start swapping out some reserve fighters for the more badly damaged ones. Bombing missions in the night harrass the enemies air fields while Pz formations outside of fighter cover are hit both in the day and at night.

Factory Movement

There was a general slow down in transfer of factories in august as the needs to move large numbers of troops took precidence still there remains no threatened industry but Kharkov has not been fully moved and the big factories of the south east Ukraine remain. Vehicles and Armements will have priority in the future. The greatest danger is a strike south from Smolensk by a strong panzer force as that threatens the tank produciton in Kharkov.

Player Notes:

Overall I must say I really got caught by surprise by the move to the east with the 22nd and 31st armies getting caugh seriously off guard. I thought the lack of rail and the terrain would hamper the German advance far more than it has. The Smolensk-Gomel area is a nightmare at the momemt. That screens the SW front and the Kharkov MD so it is vital to hold this area until the SW front is back to Kiev, else I will have to run south east with them, and the SW Front has the bulk of my tank formations. It is worth noting that Operation Luna though sucessful took a lot more time then I thought it would. Moving in ZOC is very slow and displacing even Romanian divisions seems to result in more damage to the attacker (me) then the enemy even when they retreat. Move factories as soon as you can because eventually you will find that you need to shift troops and that is very costly in rail usage, I had 2 weeks of major troop shifts.

Build lots of support units you will need them!

Night air strikes seem to not do much but it is hard to say at this time. I also got my first air transport missions to resupply partisans so getting some U2 transports out soon is good as well.

Enjoy. Sorry for the slow updates but it takes me several hours to play a turn. Also I am desperate for the start of mud...it is the only thing that stops the german advance. Otherwise even hasty attacks just blasts your formations appart for very very little damage to the enemy (1:10 or less often enough). In particular I don't see any significant panzer losses which seems hard to understand, as they have been hitting fairly strong Tank divisions but that may be the 200+ bombers they have flying in support. I am pretty much out of anything other than T34, KV1 and T26-1937 I think. Also don't move your BA-10 Armoured Car factories as they vanish in september.

I feel like I am scraping the bottom of the barrel right about now for divisions. I have divisions forming up but most of them are green and I doubt they will last long in combat. I have been pulling routed units far back to let them rebuild in peace. Also attack where you can because I noticed the units that win get a nice morale boost (and experience is caped at morale).

A lot to absorb here but I particularly appreciate the player notes:

I thought the lack of rail and the terrain would hamper the German advance far more than it has. The Smolensk-Gomel area is a nightmare at the momemt. That screens the SW front and the Kharkov MD so it is vital to hold this area until the SW front is back to Kiev, else I will have to run south east with them, and the SW Front has the bulk of my tank formations.

Move factories as soon as you can because eventually you will find that you need to shift troops and that is very costly in rail usage, I had 2 weeks of major troop shifts.

Also don't move your BA-10 Armoured Car factories as they vanish in december.

Build lots of support units you will need them!

Also attack where you can because I noticed the units that win get a nice morale boost (and experience is caped at morale)

Ok I noticed a couple of things:

The BA10 factories actually vanish in 9/41 so really don't move them!
The Zis-30 seems to have a bug in the start and stop dates.

I say somewhere else that you can attach newly created support units directly from STAVKA to a fortified area but this seems to be not the case anymore. It makes it extremely hard to actually get the units you want to the fortified area since you can't build them but you have to play around with the support unit HQ to do this. If they are (u) in STAVKA they can be assigned but if they get auto assigned earlier then it is harder. This is something that I think could be improved.

Also I am noticing something rather wierd in manual air strike selection. What seems to be happening is that if an airbase has say 2 SBAD's and you manually assign one to say an airbase bombing mission the other one will get 1% of its miles flown. This might be due to deselecting it, it might be due to aborted strikes, I'm not really sure even if it is happening but I've started to take extreme care to use all the bombers from one air base on a single mission to avoid loosing them.

ORIGINAL: Paul McNeely

Ok just updating the first post with pictures and will update again after this next turn. I'll turn the FoW off for the AI ...I'm not sure it is on, though it is on for me. The next one should be entitled "Disaster near Smolensk and Veliki Luki" So, things are about to get very dicy. I enjoy playing the soviet but with a game like this I figure my mistakes will at least cancel out the AI's sillyness though it has not done too much silly so far, outside of leaving the 16th Pz Division isolated and letting me kill it.

Thank Guys, I'll try and do monthly (in game terms) updates unless something exciting happens...such as the above mentioned north of Smolensk issue. The trouble is that I can't figure out how the Pz are still in supply, I was expecting that a pause would hit about now to let the rail heads advance.

I am sure that one of the Testers or Devs posted somewhere that FoW doesn't affect the AI. I was confused by that at the time, given that there is an option for it. Does anybody know the answer?

The BA10 factories actually vanish in 9/41 so really don't move them!
The Zis-30 seems to have a bug in the start and stop dates.

Thanks - this stuff is priceless for when I start a GC.

I just moved everything anyway, and I still had enough rail cap for all my required unit moves...

The pics can be imbedded into the messages; that may be more convenient for the readers.

Redmarkus4: yes there seems to be lots of rail available but trust me it vanishes fast. I've had a few turns where I have had >1000 rail points left over. Some of the big BAK air bases take 10,000 rail to move. Moving an antire Army also is expensive 20,000+. There have been a few turns with no factory movement at all due to troop movement. That all being said most of the time I can use half or so of my rail for factories and I have been able to clean them out as I pull back.

Randallw: yes I think I will start with that I'm just used to using a hosting site. But it will be easier to read if I do it that way.

Update coming later today. One thing I have noted is that factories moving east suffer variable damage and I can't quite figure out what determines if they take 50%-75%-or more. I thought it had to do with rail yards in the recieving city but I'm not sure now...distance may play a part too. Production is also a bit odd since I don't think the AI has adjusted the distribution of supplies and raw materials to cover the new factory locations yet at a guess.

Added in Edit: ok re-read the manual and it seems the movmenent damage of factories is just random but always greater than 50% and factories produce once the damage drops below 50%. It is still odd that I get messages about not enough supplies for air craft production given how little it takes to make them compared to the amount of supplies I produce each turn.

An example of the supply production from 4/9/41, I'm not sure why there are shortages but I suspect that must be do to the 90% production level mentioned in the manual.

__________________________________________
PRODUCTION

Scenario production usage: German 100%, Axis Allies 100%, Soviet 100%

64000 tons of OIL produced in 128 oil centers
64500 tons of OIL consumed by FUEL production

196000 tons of RESOURCES produced in 196 resource centers
148000 tons of RESOURCES consumed by ALL production

148000 tons of SUPPLIES produced in 194 heavy industry centers
53739 tons of SUPPLIES consumed by ALL production
14 HI locations didn't have enough resources

64500 tons of FUEL produced in 149 fuel refineries
64500 tons of OIL consumed by oil production
3 FUEL factory locations didn't have enough oil

1140 VEHICLES produced in 114 vehicle factories
11400 tons of SUPPLIES consumed by vehicle production
0 VEHICLE factory locations didn't have enough supplies

449 AIRCRAFT produced in 496 aircaft factories
9197 tons of SUPPLIES consumed by aircraft production
4 AIRCRAFT factory locations didn't have enough supplies

793 GROUND ELEMENTS produced in 1386 ground element factories
4542 tons of SUPPLIES consumed by ground element production
30 GROUND ELEMENT factory locations didn't have enough supplies

143000 ARMAMENTS produced in 300 armaments factories
28600 tons of SUPPLIES consumed by armaments production
4 ARMAMENTS factory locations didn't have enough supplies

167145 MANPOWER added to national pool(s) from 3335 manpower centers

I have focused on making my 'strategic rail moves' first and that's been an effective way to ensure that rail cap does not get used up.

Never ever move airbases or HQs by rail unless you can truly spare the rail. These are bottom priority. They can get along just fine with their intrinsic movement.

Well the update took longer than expected and was less than I hoped for...I had some delusion I could get 2+ turns done in one day.

11/9/41 STAVKA

It has been a bad few months for the motherland but a horrible time to be a general in the VVS, so far two of them: Gustov Ivonson (CO BAK1 Air Command), and Eugeny Ptukhin (CO SW Air Command) have been retired from their position by a NKVD execution squad, expressing Comrade Stalin's opinion of their performance. Comrade Stalin has also issued a general directive to the staff at STAVKA which can be summed up as "Stop Running Away Or Else." It is clear that things are becoming critical and only the onset of the yearly rainy seaon has any chance of allowing time to prepare defenses.

As well as Comrade Stalin's personal touch with personel management there have been several well earned promotions, most oddly enough concentrating on the officers curently in command of Cavalry Corps. The 5th Army commander Mikhail Potapov is the most recent promotion and is now a General-Leytenent due to the counter attacks his army mounted in the last weeks.

It still seems nearly impossible to stop the Hitlerite invaders advance and a river defense line is rarely held for more than one week.

Reorganization of the Red Army continues with the latest idea to form tank brigades rather than full sized divisions. There is some hope our overloaded ground commanders will be able to deal with these smaller formations better. Tank reserves are currently nearly non-existant. 86 obsolete T26 light tanks, 189 even more obsolte BT2 death traps, 45 T28, 35 T40-M1941, 22 T34-M1940, 1 KV1-M1940, and a lone T34-M1941 remain unallocated. Production is 18 T40-M1941, 38 KV1-M1940 (the Leningrad factor moved to Sverdlovsk has resummed production), and 99 T34-M1941 (the bulk from Kharkov). It will be at least another few months before the light tanks that are supposed to fill out the tank brigades are even in production. Air craft production is over 200 fighter bombers, 140 tactical bombers, 80 level bombers and 100 other misc other planes. There is a demand for artillery and especially for anti-tank artillery both in divisions and for speciallized formations.

The review of the latest news from the front is again a sombre afair. The only good news comes first.

Leningrad (ex Northern) Front

The 7th Independent Army has done a fantastic job holding the Finnish forces at bay. The performance of the divisions has been so exemplary that on the 4/9/1941 the 168th Rifle Div. was given a new name. It is now the 1st Guards Rifle Division. The next week its sister formation the 71st Rifle Div. was named the 2nd Guards Rifle Division. The Fins continue to make slow gains but they are reaching the fortified line south of Janisjar Lake and the 7th Ind. Army has had substantial air reinforcements with 2 Bn of IL-2 and 3 U2VS NBAP Rgts.

The 23rd Army faces a quiet front as it holds it rapidly fortify line from the city of Vyborg to the shore of Lake Lagoda. Other than 3 NBAP Rgts the forces remain constant other than the loss of one Tank division to reformation as a tank bde. Plans to make fall back fortified areas keeps getting put off due to urgent needs elsewhere.

The 55th Army has taken over command of the PM divisions being raised to defend Leningrad itself. The fortified areas that form the outer defenses are this weeking getting a priority for the addion of new anti-tank or anti-air regiments. The enemy is no more than 40 km from the outer defense line. Additionally the rail link to Leningrad itself must be secured.

The 28th Army is tasked with holding Novogrod has performed well for the last two weeks. The first attack on the woods west of Novogrod was met by the 111th Rifle Division, the 3rd Tank Division and the 25th Cavalry division in reserve. The Hitlerite invaders were stoped cold in their tracks. Unfortunately the re-organization of the 3rd Tank Div. to the 45th Tank Bde was ill timed. This week the 111th Rifles and 45 Tank Bde were overwhelmed by a force of 3 infantry and 1 motorized division totalling 65,500 men, and 829 guns against their 17,500 men, 205 guns and 69 AFVs. They were shoved back and face now the 1st Pz. Division.

The 48th Army still tries to assist the 31st with holding the broken ground to the east of Dymansk. As there seems to be an exposed security regiment the plan is to try and get it with a cavalry attack.

Over all the situation is not good. The enemy is at the Luga and all forces are committed to holding this line with a minimal amount of newly arriving divisions preparing a fall back line.


Northwest front

The situation for the Northwest front is grave. It is holding part of the Luga Line and also has divisions west of the Narva river. A difficult decision to make minimal troop movements has been made. The 11th Army will shift its forces around to keep the rail line south of the Luga in Soviet hands while screening the Luga line. The 8th Army hold the Luga line itself with some additional Naval Bde's from the STAVKA northern reserve. The 27th Army is holding west of and along the Narva itself. As panzer divisions exist on each side of the lines there is a risk of forces being cut off but forcing the enemy to fight for evey km he takes is the only option at the moment if he is to be kept from Leningrad before the mud comes. The three armies of the front are making a gamble to win a few extra weeks of defensive preperation for Leningrad itself. The only good news is that the troops along the Luga are well dug in.

The air bases of the front have joined the Baltic Fleet command east of the Volkhov river.




22nd/31st Armies (STAVKA)

The battles here have been fierce and still it seems impossible to stop the enemy infantry from advancing east. There are upwards of 3 infantry corps of the enemy involved in the attack and the local forces keep getting overwhelmed. STAVKA keeps shifting newly arrived forces into this sector to attempt to stabilize the line but likely only an early onset of mud will turn the tide.

Reserve Front

The Reserve Front has been involved in a series of holding actions near the city of Vyazma. In the first the 29th Army pitted 2 Tank and 1 Motorized division against a full Panzer Corps. The result was a loss of over 300 tanks from the 600 starting AFVs for virtually no loss to the enemy. This was devestating blow as these were all near full strength divisions. Since then the fighting has focused on infantry holding actions which have forced the enemies Pz's to fight in wooded terrain against entrenched infantry. This seems to be wearing down his fighting forces. The orders have gone out to the 24th, 34th and 49th Armies to delay the enemy the maximum possible. The 29th which is the mobile reserve force is rebuilding itself.

The current plan is to try and displace his screening infantry regiments to go for the Pz Corps HQ and hit his rear are command and control with a cavalry strike. One problem is the enemy has brought his air bases closer and currently enjoys a decicive advantage in the air with over 150 bombers supporting his attacks. The efforts of the front continue to be one of delaying the enemy from advancing.




Western Front

The Western Front has consolidated its position in the woods east of Smolensk and south of Vyazma. It has had its outer defensive positions reduced by strong enemy attacks. During the withdrawl from the Pronya line to the Bessed the 160th Rifle division was stuck well behind when the rest of the front moved back. The divison was then hit by strong enemy attacks driving it backwards in a fighting retreat of over 70 km in a week until arriving at the Besed River line and the divisional commander giving the order to break and run for the soviet lines (routs). After this astounding feat of perserverence under fire the division was withdrawn to next to Kaluga and has rebuilt itself using the vetrans as a cadre. It is now one of the strongest infantry divisions in the Front and remains in reserve training. The front intends to execute a series of spoiling attacks on exposed security regiments this week otherwise it will continue to dig in.

Bryansk Front

The front pullsed back from the Dnepr and formed along the Besed River east and south of the Western Front but decisive enemy action broke the Western Front line. In a risky decision General-Leytenent F. Remezov ordered the 3rd Army under General-Leytenent V. Kuznetsov to hold on the Besed even though there was a bridgehead across the river rather than withdrawing to the Snov. The 50th Army formed a scratch line along the Sudost river infront of Bryansk to screen the 3rd. The mobile forces of the 37th Army were the reserve for the battle. The enemies mobile forces were able to smash their way through the line and displace the screening cavalry units driving a serious wedge between the 3rd and 50th Armies.

To rectify the situation STAVKA has ordered the 38th Army north from where it has been digging in along the Depnr. The 38th Army will dig in along the Desna river while the forces of the Bryansk Front attempt to execute a delaying action east of Gomel.

Additional air assets have been added to the front over the last week but it is still weak in overall air power.

The 29th Motorized Division and the Das Reich SS Motorized division have penetrated behind out lines and every effort will be made to surround and isolate these forces. If possible attacks will be launced on the 29th Motorized division.




Southwest Front

It has been an active two weeks for the forces of the Southwest Front. The 5th Army launched a series of largely sucessful counter attacks against the enemies Rommanian allies which slowed the rate they could withdraw down significantly. The city of Zhitomir was ceeded without a battle to allow the forces to withdraw eastwards. The 12th army on the south side of the Front withdrew in good order from its positions near Vinnitsa to reform its line centred on Lyslanka and now from the agian the conection to the forces of the Southern Front. The 6th Army, 16th Army and 5th Cavalry Corps have been holding the enemy advance up. The result has been yet more Soviet AFVs being reduced to burning scrap metal. Four Tank divisions have been withdrawn from the line and another 3 will join them this week leaving only five tank divisions in the front with 100 or more tanks in all the armies of the front. The seven divisons will take up position near Kharkov.

This week will see significant re-organization of the forces as Kiev perimeter is set up. The priority is on removing eastward the burnt out tank divisions and setting up a strong anti-armour defence with the infantry and anti-tank brigades availble. The withdrawl of the 29th has allowed the troops to dig in along the rivers feeding into the Dnepr near Kiev and the city has been strongly fortified as have the banks on the other side. So long as the Bryansk Front can hold off the enemy it is planned to make him pay in blood for Kiev.




Southern Front

With the withdrawl of the 12th Army of the Southwest Front, the Southern Front was forced to withdraw from its forward lines that it has so successfully held and move back to the lines along the Bug river. But an unseasonly early rain storm made the progress slow going. This after dealing a savage blow to the 1st Romanian reserve div and a Hungarian motorized bde that crossed the Dnestr. The Cavalry and mechanized forces were left to screen the front as it withdrew. These same forces will now execute a series of spoiling attacks on the advanced enemy units before rejoining the bulk of the front's forces east of the Bug. Local reserves currently training in the eastern Ukraine will be called up to strengthen the Fronts two main armies the 9th and 18th.

The VVS attached to the Black Sea and Southern Air Commands plus the 4BAK attached to the Long Range Air Command scored major suceeses in daylight raids on isolated air bases. The crews report major destruction of enemy air assets in both strikes. ((Ok, they didn't kill that many planes but I can't imagine the bomber crews would not report they destroyed half the Luftwaffe there...still they did a pretty good job.))




VVS

The air force has over the last 13 weeks been experimenting with various options for attacking the enemy. Daylight air raids on isolated enemy bases has been found to be effective and is worthwhile pursuing. Night time air raids on enemy bases is considered an acceptable trade off, damage to enemy planes and facilities is reduced but it seems impossible to imagine that a daylight raid in the face of serious enemy fighter opposition would work. Daylight raids on enemy formations appear to do very little damage compared to when the enemy planes hit our units but they are sucessful enough to make them worth doing. Night air raids will be limited to NBAP tactical bombers as using level bombers for this seems a serious waste given the often poor results and high potential cost in operational losses. The same is also true for using no transport air craft to drop supplies, this should be viewed as a last ditch option as the costs in damaged planes can be extreme.

Modern fighters are starting to replace the obselete air frames that are in current use. The losses of I-153 and I-16 types has been extremely high. Training in the national air reserve continues and hopefully somewhat better quality pilots will be contesting the air with Luftwaffe in the coming months.

Production

Major factory movements are ongoing with every effort being made to leave as little as possible to be overrun. Air frame construction is excellent but tank production is not meeting demands and the Red Armies Tank divisions are starved of armour. More Anti-tank guns are needed as well.

Player Notes:

The T50-1941 factories I moved in June converted to T34-M1942 in september so I got basically no tanks from them but I just spotted that the factory started to grow so that by July 1942 when it shows up it will be near to full size. So I guess that is a side benifit. The Zis-30 is still buggered but I hope that gets into the next patch since it seems a simple fix.

The AI does do a few odd things. The first is that it has not screend the Pispet Marshes well at all. I likely could have slipped 8 cavalry divisions into that region and made holy havok of his back lines. Also I notice the cracks are starting to show up in his lines at long last but he still managed to concentrate 12 Infantry divsions near deymansk.

I'm not sure what is going on tank battle wise. Even that battle with 605 vrs 345 I saw virtually no German armour losses. What may be happening is that the tanks are being damaged though. The 2nd Pz division just showed up an has a strength of 20, while the Pz division infront of moscow have a strengths of 9. So maybe I have been far more sucessful then I am thinking.

Air battles are similarily one sided even when there is only enemy bombers, but I can't complain in one night attack my bombers shot down a couple enemy nightfighters. It is very hard to figure out what is going on in the air battles.

Recon intercepts of my R-5's have actually shot down German fighters. I can't figure this out at all.

I have a large number of reserves but it takes weeks to train a divsion so I try and keep them well back and let them build up and train in peace and quiet. I am desperately short of tanks though. My strongest tank formations have CV 4 or so. I am trying to let the tank Bde train for 3 or 4 weeks before committing them if possible.

I can only embed one image per message it seems so well you are stuck with image hosting and clicking. But next time I will break things up a bit more to allow the embedding thing. I've also figured out how to write on the maps again (you can't be at anything but zoom=100%) so more notes in the future.

GUARDS DIVISIONS YES!!!!!

Enjoy. And a Happy Boxing day and all the best in the new year!

I'm not sure what to do with the Leningrad Front command HQ plus the Air units/Air command. I will probably have to evacuate them soon, though I am not sure if I should not leave the PVO IAD's and my one SAD with the short range bombers in place (currently it is in the fortfied zone just to the south of the Fin no attack line). The 55th Army will take over in Leningrad itself, and at least this time the CO is not a dunderhead. Suggestions welcome.

Thanks Flavious I'll keep that in mind in the future.

I'm still a couple of weeks away from starting my own GC but I have some questions.

Factories, do you have any sort of list of which ones to evacuate, when to evacuate, and where to send them (I guess depending on manpower at the final destination - but is this variable?).

Did you actually commit the I-153 biplanes? My thinking was to keep them way back from the front and upgrade manually as Migs/Yaks became available.

Are you building units? If so how many a turn approx?

Are you building any forts along future 1942 defensive lines?

Thanks in advance. Enjoying the AAR.

I've also noticed that recon planes fight back well against defending fighters.