Another roadblock to Leningrad

[Seminole]

Turn 1
June 22, 1941

Weather at the outset:



Riga not taken and pockets insecure. Inauspicious opening by the Axis.



181st and 183rd Rifle Divisions take position in Riga with 24th Rifle Corps HQ (reporting to 27th Army).

Baltic port at Ventspils not taken or naval interdicted. We pull back there and have two corps HQs to try and rally forces. Ensure units are not on refit to suck up replacements and adjust TOE down except for the unit in the port that may be able to evac next week.
28th TD moves east and sacks the depot at Jelgava before moving back to the west side of the river.

8th Army HQ is relocated to Virtsu with Tolbukhin put in charge.

Open pockets to evac SUs and 11th Army relocates out once pocket is opened and leader KIA, replaced by Sergeev (he's garbage).

Vilnius is liberated by 5th TD.

8th Pzr Div loses a significant number of tanks taking on 84th Mech Div:



German infantry divisions show how its done:



Losses:





Overall unit map at the end of turn 1:

[Seminole]

This pocket opening will delay cleanup of the front line forces while we build our first line.

Screen established in Latvia in favorable terrain. Next turn we’ll cut off units if practicable, or retreat to screen a better line. Goal is to avoid pockets with any rifle divisions, ideally keep any lower tier units available to screen rear areas for breakthroughs..

5th RD and 47th TD maneuver to cut supply lines for the Totenkopf(?) SS MD in Daugavpils.

[Seminole]

Turn 2
June 29, 1941

Weather:



Totenkopf SS MD advances to the shores of Velikaya with 3rd MD on its left flank.
Infantry approach Riga, but don’t attempt to assault the entrenched rifle divisions holding the city.

At the outset of the turn I like to set Reserve status for units 70%+ TOE, Ready status for 56%-69% TOE, and Refit status for <55% TOE units just to get a birds eye view of where my fronts were weak.
I finalize them at the end of the turn to avoid Reserve or Refit for units I don't want to put in those situations.
The filters in the Commander Report make this a fairly simple task without a bajillion clicks.



Reinforcements are brought to help hold the Velikaya and Sorot river lines.
We'll be getting a lot of on map counter in the next two weeks.



AI brought in lots of aircraft and overloaded fields in Estonia. We transfer them back to airfields around Leningrad and will hide them in SR next turn. Only the recon will be utilized at this stage.
AI ends up using the transports for some work. Need to use them myself next time if they’re on the map just to ensure nothing silly happens.



Destroyed units:



Ground losses:



The Courland pocket hasn’t been completely reduced. The port is still open, and a rifle division is shipped to Parnu.
Other units are concentrated near the port and the two Corps HQs are re-assigned to STAVKA.

Troops trapped near Vilnius will be able to break out of their pocket. Still likely doomed, but they will continue to tie up Axis infantry. The Axis have done a poor job of establishing pockets, and it looks like we’ll be able to evac a significant number of the original units.

The screening units in the Baltics move closer while forts are built in and near Novgorod and depots are established at Luga, Dno, and Gdov.

6th PD shifts from Riga to try and advance toward Pskov. Unsupported, their flanks are cut and they are left isolated, adjacent to 180th RD in the swamps.

Another move by the 182nd RD and the 179th RD isolate the motorized units that advanced on the Velikaya. There appears to be at least one more formation in this ‘pocket’, presumably the 1st PD.



Eastern Ladoga ports didn’t get any supplies. Up them from 3 to 4 priority. This game I tried to test something I saw happening in my Grand Campaign. The export port just quit calling supplies. Couldn't afford to experiment there, so I wanted to try here.

[Seminole]

Turn 3
July 6, 1941

Weather:



Eastern Ladoga ports didn’t get any supplies again. Need to submit a bug report, but this week many other sites should be near full, so I’m interested to see if they’re ignored again.
Summary:



Build 3 forts to help secure the Leningrad perimeter.
28th Tank Div is pulled to re-org and will return in 28 weeks as 28th TD.



Another Tank Division in the Courland pocket is destroyed, but 2 rifle divisions, 1 mech division, and a security regiment are flushed from the pocket to Estonia with the two Corps HQ that had been in the Courland pocket.
Axis must isolate the port to prevent this escape.



6th Pzr Div is relieved by an infantry division, with 3/8th Pzr Rgt looping around to isolate 182nd Rifle Div.
1st Pzr Div break down to cover left flank of the Motorized salient.



182nd Rifle Div and 83rd NKVD security regiment link up to cut off the German mechanized salient again.
3rd Motorized Bde snips the last avenue and it looks like all the German mech is without resupply again this week.



Russian infantry under 27th Army cross the Velikaya and descend upon 3/1st Pzr Rgt, forcing a retreat.
They pull back to cover the hills west of Velikaya, and resume positions on the river line in place of the tank divisions that take up spots in the light woods east of the river line.



Ground Losses:



Destroyed Units:



8th, 11th, 22nd, and 27th Army are now each at 21 Command Points, with the corps HQs under them still being heavily utilized.

Militia raised at Leningrad are moved to cover the ground in front of Novgorod and assigned to Luga Army to continue refit.

8th Army assumes command of the units that routed from Courland and they take up positions in Parnu and Tallinn to refit. The security screen is pulled back a little bit, but we don’t expect much movement this direction with the mechanized units isolated and Riga still in Soviet hands.

[Seminole]

Turn 4
July 13, 1941

Low pressure systems and rain threaten the German path.



Summary at the start of the turn, the Germans have reconnected their spearhead and isolated two Soviet formations:



Riga has not been assaulted. 2 divisions inside not yet isolated by sea. German 1st and 11th Inf. Div are left containing the city.
We’ll gladly take the trade off of two German infantry divisions tied up for two Rifle Divisions. Not sure if he thinks these units are isolated.

Germans engage a few NKVD security units, but otherwise avoid fighting. The squeeze through their bridgehead over the Velikaya a few more units.



STAVKA orders another counter attack against the salient. This time successfully engaging 3/1st Pzr Rgt and forcing a retreat.



3 TD and 7 RDs descend upon the 36th MD and force a retreat from which it will not receive resupply.



A regiment of both the 1st and 8th Pzr Div are outside the pocket, but otherwise all the German mech units (and their two Motorized Corps HQs) are cut off of supply in the Velikaya pocket.

3rd Mot Bde moves out of the pocket its in back to friendly lines, and 182nd RD is able to link with the 22nd NKVD Mot Div to also reconnect to supply.
This frees the two units isolated at the outset of the turn.

Destroyed units so far:



Ground losses to date:



34th Army comes on the scene and is railed to Velikie Luki and assigned to NW Front, while 22nd Army moves from Velikie Luki to Dno to help supply.
Command structure is updated to accommodate Mech Corps HQs disbanding last week.

Still supply issues for the Ladoga export ports. They’re not getting any supply even though they are set to level 4. I’ve reduced almost all depots to 3 or less to see what effect this has.
Many depots are also nearly full, so supplies should flow to the remaining. Could be a bug, still haven’t investigated offline.

New FZ built in Kolipino, but the remaining 5 points will be saved for leader change next turn. Will focus on lining out leaders every other turn until the Armies are all competent.

Overall picture at the end of turn 4: