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Hi, first grand campaign, probably made a few mistakes and I am not save scumming. I would love to get some advice/feedback from you fine grognards.

SITUATION

Date: Mid September 1941 (Turn 14)

AGN: Leningrad and about 100 mile radius is covered in a carpet of Russian units, most of the time 2 to an hex and 3 in the core of their defensive system. I estimate about 100 units here alone. I am within 100 miles of the Leningrad peninsula and the Finns are up to their limit.

AGC: Smolensk is covered by a smaller line than Leningrad, but still 3-4 hex wide with sometimes multiple units per hex. There is about a 1 hex wide line between the Leningrad blob and the Smolensk bloc, but their formation's depth is so great I don't see a puncture working very well.

AGS: The South is sparsely populated and I've just captured Kiev. Odessa still holds on due to me throwing Romanian trash units at them to keep them busy, but I'm shifting a German infantry corps to help there. I've just pocketed about 20-25 divisions in the South and a strategic puncture seems possible, but would likely leave my northern flank exposed to the Smolensk and Leningrad Rusky party.

Soviet casualties: 1.5 million men, 12-15 000 tanks, 6000 aircraft.

My casualties: 150 000 men and negligible amounts of equipment.

I'm at a loss here, looking at the Barbarossa numbers, I should have inflicted 5 million Soviet casualties by December to reach the historical milestone. I am nowhere near that. The Soviets hold strong at around 5 million troops in the field. Am I doomed? Should I just restart and try to do better? I can provide screenshots once I am in the game again.

Vs. AI or human opponent? If ai, which difficulty?

AI, Normal difficulty. As I said this was my first game so I went pretty vanilla, all the options are default, incl historical weather.

As described, your situation looks grim but AI can still be won... in 1942

Some advices:
- try to create pockets. having destroyed 25 units is much too low. Use Inf to break the line and use Pzd/Mot to achieve encirclement. then destroy russian units.
- concentrate your forces. at this stage your Pzd should be in 3 areas, not much
- do a HQBU for a PzG if possible

In 3 turns, it's mud rest and refit your units. And then you have 3 turns before blizzard

Good luck

Correction, I have about 80-100 units destroyed total, the 25 was just last turn's pocket.

I'm just wondering from a strategical perspective if I should drive hard into ukraine/ the south and take out factories, or concentrate all my panzers in one place to say, take out leningrad or the smolensk front. Or any other options you can think of.